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Portfolio
1. KÚMBENNIEÍS SAFINIM FÚRTIS
This composition is a stand-alone, interactive computer instrument as well as a score for string quartet or ensemble made up of any number of any kind of instrument or voice. It is part of a larger body of work revolving around my research of the music, language, and culture of the ancient Samnites of Italy.
Further information can be found here and here.
2. Chromatophonic Triptych (excerpts)
This composition is for woodwind quintet and live audio/visual processing, and was part of my Master's Thesis. In short, the piece uses a physics formula I wrote to translate light waves into sound waves for the purpose of composing music with the emission spectra of certain chemical elements. The same formula is then used in a MAX/MSP/JITTER application of my own design to translate those sound waves back into light waves to create real-time sound paintings alongside the live score. It was premiered by The City of Tomorrow on August 4, 2021 at Vermont College of Fine Arts. The video is taken from the live stream, the audio was professionally recorded, and I have done all the mixing and mastering.
Further information and the complete recording can be found here.
3. One of Eighty-Nine [Prologue] (excerpt)
This composition for violoncello, fixed media, and live electronics was premiered live using JackTrip software to stream audio with very low latency (around 10ms) on January 14, 2021. It depicts part (hence the titular [Prologue]) of the biography of a South Sudanese woman as she fled war in her home country and made her way to the United States. The audio was recorded with JackTrip while the video was taken from the live stream over Skype. I was performing in real time from Rhode Island while the 'cellist Nancy Jo Snider was live in Washington, DC.
Further information and the complete recording can be found here.
4. Tender Cargo (excerpt)
Tender Cargo explores how bodies hold and carry trauma across time and geography, drawing on artist Taleen Batalian’s legacy as the granddaughter of four grandparents from Western Armenia, and their experiences as survivors of the genocide there. As part of the team bringing this installation and performance together, I used a modular synthesizer and MAX/MSP application of my own design to create the sound score utilizing a processed voice (taken from an interview Taleen recorded with her late father) and live duduk. I have mixed the quadrophonic audio down to stereo for the video.
Further information can be found here.
5. Detfriúí 𑇐 Dadíkatted 𑇐 Antúniúd
This composition for vocals and electronics is based on an Oscan inscription made by a young Samnite woman around 100 BCE, found on a clay roof tile at Pietrabbondante. This woman's name was DETFRI, and while the clay tile she was rolling out was still wet, she stamped her sandals into its surface and carved these words:
Detfri of Hn. Sattiis
Marked with a footprint
Detfri's words 'marked with a footprint' (SEGANATTED 𑇐 PLAVTAD) are used as the lyrics of this piece. The title translates to 'dedicated to Detfri by/from Antonio.' Compositionally, the piece begins with long tones (the interval of a perfect fifth) sung using the technique of overtone singing. These drones are looped to provide a harmonic base for the melody, and eventually passed through a low-pass gate which is 'struck' to provide rhythmic elements.
This piece also explores my 'Pythagorean Hypothesis:' historical evidence for a certain Samnite individual being called a 'Pythagorean,' thus providing the evidence for cultural/philosophical/musical-theoretical connection or influence from the ancient Greeks living in southern Italy (c.f. The Harmonics of Aristoxenus, who inhabited Taras, modern day Taranto in Puglia, Italy; Pythagoras also lived in Kroton, modern day Crotone in Calabria, Italy). It utilizes the Pythagorean 3-4-5 triangle as the basis for its rhythmic structure. As I piece together an extremely fragmentary Samnite musical tradition, my hypotheses inform some of my own music composition (hence the 'mirrored' music notation found in the score of this piece, following their writing from right-to-left).
A modular synthesizer system of my own design is implemented to record, loop, and process the vocals, as well as compute the 'Pythagorean' rhythms.
Detfriúí 𑇐 Dadíkatted 𑇐 Antúniúd has been performed at The Museum of Loss and Renewal in Collemacchia, Molise, Italy; American University, in Washington, DC; Vermont College of Fine Arts, in Montpelier, VT; Art Center Padula, in Padula, Campania, Italy; Quest Montessori School in Narragansett, RI; and at Dawnlands Gallery in Westerly, RI.
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