A good number of musical influences shaped the writing of this piece.
\nOne of them was the idea of the oratorio\u2014like what Handel did with the Messiah. He was dealing with past and future glory, Brightness\u2026 deals with past and present falls\u2014 from grace. While Handel was intrigued by the weight and beauty of the scripture, I am a little more interested in the messengers\u2014angels and their psychology or presumed lack thereof…<\/p>\n
My fascination with angels coincides with my fascination with androids. I am quite convinced they are one and the same persons, with humans as perhaps a more complex version of the twain, but not exempt from the same existential dilemmas which are witnessed in Milton (Paradise Lost), Shelley (Frankenstein) and BladeRunner (Ridley Scott\/ Philip K. Dick)…
\nThis Angel\/Android dimension is explored in Brightness… and one aspect of this expressed through binary code. I had the idea that these binary sequences could be transmitted as signature haunting choral sequences….<\/p>\n
Brightness… is triparte and each movement has it\u2019s own special needs:<\/p>\n
Downward Jasper was inspired by a Bertolt Brecht\/ Hanns Eisler collaboration, An den Kleinen Radioapparat (To the little transistor radio)\u2014 lovely haunting lyrics and melody creating a scenario in which a fleeing dissident (or worse) implores his little transistor radio not to conk out on him\u2014so it can keep him in touch with his enemies (the Nazis) and chart their every move, their every victory…
\nOther influences were Liszt\u2019s Nuages Gris and Unstern (Dark Star): sinistre, disastro, moody, dramatic and presaging particular doom\u2014as does this piece.<\/p>\n
In Leviathian, a group of schoolchildren are transfigured by radiation from a frozen dinosaur exhibit. Their human DNA unravels into prehistory, soon they are chirping and cooing in elemental bird languages\u2014a hybrid chorus to recreate primordial settings…<\/p>\n
And in Concerto for An Angel, His Computing Consciousness, Two Lovers and a Cello in A Supermarket, every part is written\u2014except for the Cello.<\/p>\n
Brightness Falls: Three Movements \u00a92004, 2013 onome ekeh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A good number of musical influences shaped the writing of this piece. One of them was the idea of the oratorio\u2014like what Handel did with the Messiah. He was dealing with past and future glory, Brightness\u2026 deals with past and present falls\u2014 from grace. While Handel was intrigued by the weight and beauty of the scripture, I am a little more interested in the messengers\u2014angels and their psychology or presumed lack thereof… My fascination with angels coincides with my fascination with androids. I am quite convinced they are one and the same persons, with humans as perhaps a more complex version of the twain, but not exempt from the same existential dilemmas which are witnessed in Milton (Paradise Lost), Shelley (Frankenstein) and BladeRunner (Ridley Scott\/ Philip K. Dick)… This Angel\/Android dimension is explored in Brightness… and one aspect of this expressed through binary code. I had the idea that these binary sequences could be transmitted as signature haunting choral sequences…. Brightness… is triparte and each movement has it\u2019s own special needs: Downward Jasper was inspired by a Bertolt Brecht\/ Hanns Eisler collaboration, An den Kleinen Radioapparat (To the little transistor radio)\u2014 lovely haunting lyrics and melody creating a scenario in which a fleeing dissident (or worse) implores his little transistor radio not to conk out on him\u2014so it can keep him in touch with his enemies (the Nazis) and chart their every move, their every victory… Other influences were Liszt\u2019s Nuages Gris and Unstern (Dark Star): sinistre, disastro, moody, dramatic and presaging particular doom\u2014as does this piece. In Leviathian, a group of schoolchildren are transfigured by radiation from a frozen dinosaur exhibit. Their human DNA unravels into prehistory, soon they are chirping and cooing in elemental bird languages\u2014a hybrid chorus to recreate primordial settings… And in Concerto for An Angel, His Computing Consciousness, Two Lovers and a Cello in A Supermarket, every part is written\u2014except for the Cello. Brightness Falls: Three Movements \u00a92004, 2013 onome ekeh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16],"tags":[34,17],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreword","category-theater","tag-brightness-falls","tag-drama"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}