Laurie Radford, _fuse_!
premiere: Feb. 28, 2013 Roulette, NYC
Commissioned with the support of the Alberta Arts Council
Laurie Radford composes music for diverse combinations of instruments,
electroacoustic media, and performers in interaction with computer-controlled signal processing of sound and image. His music has been performed and broadcast throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia at events including Futura, Biennale Musique en scène, Miami New Music Festival, Musica Viva, Rien à voir, MusiMars, Musicacoustica, San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Festival Encuentros, Nornadas de Música Elektroakustika, Semaine Internationale de Cuenca, Discoveries, Mantis Festival, Cutting Edge, and SAN Expo. He has received commissions and performances from ensembles and soloists including Le Nouvel Ensemble Modern, L’Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Esprit Orchestra, Aventa Ensemble, Ensemble Résonance, code d’accès, GroundSwell, Pro Coro Canada, New Music Concerts, Trio Fibonacci, Trio Phoenix, Ensemble Transmission, Earplay, Duo Kovalis, Totem contemporain, the Penderecki, Bozzini and Molinari String Quartets, and the Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Montréal Symphony Orchestras. Radford’s music is available on empreintes DIGITALes, McGill Records, PeP Recordings,
Clef Records, Eclectra Records, Centrediscs and Fidelio Audiophile Recordings. He is an associate of the CMC and a member of the CLC, CEC, CNMN and Sound and Music UK. Radford has taught music technology, instrumental composition, and electroacoustic music and media arts at McGill University, Concordia University, Bishop’s University, University of Alberta, City University (London, UK), and is presently an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary.
_fuse_!
Exploration of the word ‘fuse’ leads to concepts of initiation and explosion, of overload and malfunction, to fusion and the blending of disparate elements. This winding, multi-perspectival search for the ramifications of a word, its sound, its contextual impact serves as a model for Fuse and the three fundamental approaches to musical material, energy, and instrumental combinations that are employed formally. Combust sections initiate, propel and thrust the music forward with intensity. Melt sections fuse the instruments and materials into a forward-flowing current that gives way to Overload sections where extremes of execution and density lead to moments of suspension and a breaking of the implied momentum of the work. Live audio signal processing of the instruments contributes an additional timbral element to the work, by extending individual instruments and the ensemble as a whole, as well as serving as a virtual ensemble that arises from and comments upon the sounds and gestures of the instrumentals. The audio system also animates the performance space via an 8-channel diffusion of the processed instrumental performance as well as captured and transformed fragments of the ensemble. _fuse_! was commissioned and premiered by the Aventa Ensemble with generous funding provided by Alberta Foundation for the Arts.