Alternating Currents: Electronic Music from The University of Michigan (review)

Alternating Currents, released in 2000, presents a diverse spectrum of new electroacoustic music by University of Michigan (UM) composers Mary Simoni, Erik Santos, Benjamin Broening, Gregory D. Laman, Evan Chambers, James Aikman, and Stephen Rush. All pieces were composed between 1995 and 1999.

The initial composition on the disc, Doxology (1998) by Mary Simoni, refers to the tradition of the English-speaking Roman Catholic Mass. Ms. Simoni, who is Chair of the Department of Performing Arts and Technology at UM and current President of the International Computer Music Association, writes in the liner notes: "Doxology is an unfolding of the history and the future of the doxology. Initially chanted by males in Greek and Latin, the voice of a woman foreshadows changes yet to come in the Roman Catholic tradition." Indeed, Ms. Simoni's composition represents two opposing performance practices: traditional Gregorian chant, performed excellently by Dennis Keller (St. Mary's Parish in Pickney, Michigan) and electronically modified, is juxtaposed against the music of a female liturgist (Kristi English). However, the pop-idiomatic music that "accompanies" the female liturgist resembles a rather cheesy gospel song. The listener may ask if that should really be the "foreshadowed changes" in the Roman Catholic tradition. The formal organization of the piece is in four separated parts, two of which symbolize the "past-present" music tradition and two of which symbolize the "foreshadowed changes." Unfortunately, the four parts of this short piece (417) hardly relate to one another musically.

Erik Santos's composition Mariposa Morena (Dark Butterfly) (1999) is part of his large-scale multimedia production, Cruces de Fuego (Crosses of Fire). Mr. Santos, assistant professor of composition at UM, has been interested in the synthesis of music, poetry, theater, dance, art, and video. Such a synthesis is achieved in his Mariposa Morena:

Deeply rooted in the elemental metaphors of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the earthy surrealism of Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo, my intentions for this production were simple: to create a setting in which magic was possible. Using all the musical and theatrical technology I could find, I wanted to awaken the possibility for all participants to build a bridge between their dreams and reality and nourish each other with their own individual revelations.

The music, "world music" in the best sense of the term, does indeed convey the composer's intentions. Although all vocal parts were performed by Mr. Santos himself, the instruments, such as piano, ney flute, claves, taiko drum, Arabian flute, and others, were sampled and modified to support the Neruda poem on butterflies. Based on these vocal and instrumental parts, the composer has created "magic" sound colors that seem perfectly coordinated and formally well organized.

Via Negativa: Cloud of Forgetting (1995), by UM graduate Benjamin Broening, now assistant professor of composition at the University of Richmond in Virginia, is based on the 14th-century Christian mystical book, The Cloud of Unknowing. It is about approaching the unapproachable and knowing the unknowable. The composer "was struck by current secular versions of this idea, in which Truth and Happiness are attained through a renunciation of the external world. While the present piece is not a call to reanimate early Christian values, it does represent a personal endeavor to combat comfort's seductions and to preserve contemplation as a value in [his] own life." Whereas the beginning of Mr. Broening's piece is abstract in its synthesized sounds, its dramaturgy is well prepared and leads to a bagpipe melody toward the end. Although one may only identify the composer's literary references and thoughts after reading his explanations, it is a very pleasing piece of music.

Gregory D. Laman's One Divided (1996) is a composition for an acoustic instrument (Bb trumpet) with live electronics, without using...