2020 SPLICE Institute (review)

This festival took place 21–27 June 2020 online via Facebook Live. For more information visit: https://splicemusic.org. Panel discussions and featured performances are available for the viewing public at: www.facebook.com/spliceorg/live.

This year's SPLICE Institute, conducted online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was generously supported by Western Michigan University, allowing for accepted participants to attend for free. This version featured guest composer Nina C. Young, who gave a workshop on mcfor the Max 8 programming environment. There were other workshops that also related to this year's theme: Coding Extensions. Issues covered this year included introductory concepts in Max and SuperCollider; using gen∼, poly∼, and JavaScript in Max; IRCAM's OpenMusic; and improvising with electronics. Along with SPLICE's core group of faculty, six new panelists were present: composer-harpist Becky Brown, composer-musicologist Flannery Cunningham, composereducator Brittany Green, bassoonist Dana Jessen, composer José Martinez, and composer Bahar Royaee. Similar to previous Institutes, this year's workshops highlighted a range of practical concerns about producing electronic music. Again, similar to previous installments, the Institute was organized into categories such as composition, performance, documentation, and collaboration, along with concerts. Panel discussions and featured performances were available for public viewing on Facebook Live (www.facebook.com/spliceorg/live).

On 23 June, the opening concert of the institute was streamed live from Keith Kirchoff's home. Kirchoff is a pianist and SPLICE cofounder who has premiered over 100 new works, specializing in electroacoustic solo piano performance. The first piece performed was Scott L. Miller's Katabasis #2. Kirchoff arranged Miller's work, which was originally scored for four unspecified instruments, for piano. For this performance, Kirchoff chose to play the piano strings with EBows and transducers.

Next, without pause, was Sam Wells's Leander's Swimfor piano and electronics. Wells, also a cofounder of SPLICE, performs regularly with Kirchoff on trumpet and electronics as well. Wells's composition was inspired by Cy Twombly's 1984 painting Hero and Leandro. During this performance, Kirchoff chose to include a charcoal drawing by Sally Moore, which was unscrolled for the online viewers during his performance. The work overall results in a delicate mixture of tonally inflected gestures heard in the piano, along with subtle digital processing. Wells's work demonstrates an emergent sonic quality, reminiscent of the pianism one encounters in works such as Claude Debussy's La Cathédrale Engloutie(1910).

Evan Williams's Pralayafollowed Wells's work without pause. This work explores themes relating to destructive characteristics of humanity. "Prayala" is the Hindu term describing the world's life–death cycle. This is an audiovisual piece, presenting a range of video material in support of that concept. The "Introduction" features footage of J. Robert Oppenheimer's interview in which he expressed his views of the atomic bomb. The piano's contribution accompanies this footage and its soundtrack. Other footage used included the bombing of Hiroshima during World War II. The second movement, "Naimittika," also depicts destruction. Here, a Hindu raga melody can be heard developing throughout. Next, in the "Passacaglia for the Dissolution of All Things," the video again uses scenes from Hiroshima. In "Hymn to the World without End," Williams composed a chaconne based on Gustav Mahler's Urlicht, alongside images of Earth's aurora borealis.

The mountain landscape seen in Prayala(in the video at the end of the work) is used as a background, transitioning to John Luther Adams's Red Arc/Blue Veil. That work is scored for piano, mallet percussion, and processed sounds. Matt Sharrock accompanied Kirchoff on percussion. Regarding the programming for Adams's work, Kirchoff mentions, " Red Arc/Blue Veilhas always felt like a mountain to me, rising from the depths to the highest peaks, and back down to earth. This felt immediately relevant to the final imagery of Pralaya(a mountain image which I use as a backdrop for the Adams), and perfectly bridges to the final piece, which similarly focuses on the rise and fall of peaks." The final piece on the program was Chen Hui Jen's Onto the Silent Peaks. This work...