Tag: Cornelius Dufallo

Contemporary Classical

House of Solitude: Reflections on a Four Year Collaboration

House of Solitude at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Photo by Jill Steinberg.
House of Solitude at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Photo by Jill Steinberg.

This coming February, composer Paola Prestini and I will present the world premiere of House of Solitude, an installation concerto, at Krannert Center in Champaign-Urbana. We have been working together on the piece since 2010 (Paola as composer and me as performer); this premiere seemed like a good moment to share with the community a short article about how the piece came together.

Our collaboration began in 2010, when I asked Paola to contribute a piece to my Journaling series (an ongoing series of concerts focusing on contemporary music for violin and electronics). At the time, Paola was finishing up some work at the Sundance Institute Film Music program, and she had assembled a collection of short field recordings that she was calling “the Sundance stems.” These included a recording of a man singing, various sounds of nature, and horses running. Using these samples as a point of departure, Paola created a wonderfully lyrical and expressive piece for violin, pre recorded tracks, and a motion sensing violin bow called the K-Bow. Invented by Keith MacMillan, the K-Bow is a blue-tooth enhanced violin bow that enables the performer to use physical motions to manipulate sounds in real time. It was brand new technology for Paola and me, and we had fun figuring out how we were going to use it in the piece.

That initial segment, which ended up as the last section of the completed piece, was presented at the Stone in August 2010, as part of Journaling. In the audience that evening were to visual artists, both friends of Paola: Carmen Kordas and Erika Harrsch. Both Carmen and Erika expressed interest in creating video to go with Paola’s music. Around this time, Paola had been considering developing it into a larger, two-part piece called Labyrinth, so she decided to ask each of the artists to contribute video : Carmen to the first part, and Erika to the second. She decided to make the first section a concerto for violin and electronics (House of Solitude), and the second section a concerto for cello and electronics (Room No. 35).

The next stage of evolution happened in March of 2011, when we presented 20 minutes of the piece at Cal State Fullerton. In preparation for that show, we went into the recording studio and really fleshed out the backing tracks, syncing the music to the first 20 minutes of Carmen’s gorgeous video. Paola added more field recordings to the sonic environment: the sound of an EKG machine, more nature sounds, my own voice, and some recordings of everyday objects. She began to call the piece an “installation concerto,” branding a new hybrid genre that combined aspects of installation art with aspects of the classical concerto. Over the next two seasons we presented this version of the piece in New York (River to River Festival), Washington, DC (The Atlas Performing Arts Center), Zimbabwe (Harare International Festival of the Arts), and Maine (Bay Chamber Concerts). By the end of this run of performances, Paola and Carmen had added 10 minutes of music and video (making the duration 30 minutes), and I refined my improvisations and honed my use of the K-Bow.

When she first started the piece, Paola had recently read Octavio Paz’s famous work, The Labyrinth of Solitude. Her title for the two concertos, Labyrinth, was a allusion to the existential labyrinth of which Paz writes. Together, Paola and I contemplated how the “labyrinth” of an individual’s inner world manifests itself externally in acts of creativity and ways of relating to others. We were beginning to think of the piece as a concerto for violin and “multiple selves,” a concept that Paola and I agreed was deeply connected to the image of an inner labyrinth. I enjoyed how the idea of multiple selves resonated with the object relations branch of psychoanalytic theory, an area I was beginning to explore. For me, the piece became not only an exploration of the idea of multiple selves, but also a musical depiction of the struggle to bring together disparate internalized figures and fragments of the self into a cohesive whole. The drama became the search for clarity through the realization of personal truth.

This coming performance at Krannert Center on February 1 will be the world premiere of the complete piece. For this show we will be joined by some illustrious new collaborators, including director Michael McQuilken, videographer Brad Peterson, lighting designer Yi Zhao, sound designer Dave Cook, EDREAM, and Michael Winger. The second part of the entire work, Room No. 35, will be presented, featuring Maya Beiser on LED cello (conceived by Erika Harrsch and Maya Beiser, created by Erika Harrsch), and video by Erika Harrsch. Room No. 35 is based on the writing of Anais Nin, and approaches the concept of multiple selves from a different angle.

After the performance of the original 10 minute section at Journaling. From left to right: Dongmyung Ahn, Amy Kauffman, Jeff Ziegler, Cornelius Dufallo, Paola Prestini, Alanna Maharajh Stone, Corey Dargel.
After the performance of the original 10 minute section at Journaling. From left to right:
Dongmyung Ahn, Amy Kauffman, Jeff Ziegler, Cornelius Dufallo, Paola Prestini, Alanna Maharajh Stone, Corey Dargel.

Labyrinth brings together two “installation concertos,” two different performers who use technology, two technological innovations (the K-Bow and the LED cello), two visual artists, and two different stories that both deal with the concept of the divided self, into one evening length multimedia piece.

by Cornelius Dufallo
Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Opera

Life Is Hectic; Missy Mazzoli Keeps Me Interested.

[Ed. note: Please welcome one of our newest S21 shipmates, violinist/ composer Cornelius Dufallo. The New York Times‘ Steve Smith writes “As a violinist and a composer in the string quartet Ethel and the collective ensemble Ne(x)tworks, Cornelius Dufallo has made substantial contributions to New York’s burgeoning new-music scene.” I couldn’t agree more, and look forward to his contributions to come. So take it away, Neil!]

Missy Mazzoli

Life in ETHEL is frantic these days. In the midst of meetings, emails, conference calls, and intense rehearsals, I sometimes (sadly) lose touch with the sense of wonder that originally drew me to a life in contemporary music. Missy Mazzoli is one composer whose music always brings me back to a fundamental excitement about what I do. I have been working with Missy on her solo violin piece, Dissolve, O my Heart, which I will be performing at Bargemusic on October 5th (8PM) as part of my ongoing Journaling series.

Originally written for Jennifer Koh, the piece is essentially Missy’s emotional reaction to J. S. Bach’s D minor Chaconne (one of the great masterworks of the solo violin literature). She starts the piece with the same iconic d minor triad, in which, she explains,  the listener immediately “acknowledges the inevitable failure of the assignment.” Missy is referring to the impossibility of achieving the structural perfection of Bach’s work, and how, from her perspective, the only way to create her  own piece was to embrace it as a “failed Chaconne.” It’s a gorgeous failure, if you ask me. The version that I will be performing in October includes live electronics (three different kinds of digital delay), which Missy and I have been developing together.

Abigail Fischer in "Songs from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt" (photo by Lindsay Beyerstein)

One of Missy’s massive new projects is to create three operas, each one about “a fascinating female character from the 20th or 21st century.” Part one of this trilogy, Song From The Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, is sure to be spellbinding. The libretto, co-written by Royce Vavrek and Missy, is based on the journals of Isabelle Eberhardt, and depicts more than a dozen scenes from Eberhardt’s life. The opera begins at the moment of Eberhardt’s death, and continues as a series of flashbacks.

Eberhardt, who was a Swiss writer and explorer of the early 20th century, has been alternately idolized and shunned as a symbol of female liberation. Missy points to Eberhardt’s relentless search for personal freedom and independence, her complicated love life, and her gender ambiguity (as a cross-dressing female artist) as themes that continue to be relevant to women today. Another interesting through-line of the opera is how Eberhardt navigates the conflict between Eastern and Western cultures. Eberhardt moved to North Africa and converted to Islam when she was a young woman. “She fought in street battles in Algiers against the French,” Missy explains, “but she was also working for the French as a journalist, so she was caught between these two worlds.”

The opera, directed by Gia Forakis, has already been workshopped at Galapagos in Brooklyn, New York City Opera’s VOX, and Bard College, and will be premiered at The Kitchen on February 24, 25, and March 1-3. Performers include singer Abigail Fischer and NOW ensemble; with films by Stephen Taylor.

Missy has some other exciting projects coming up, including two new pieces – one for the Albany Symphony, and one for cellist Maya Beiser. Her all-star band Victoire (Olivia De Prato, violin; Eileen Mack, clarinet; Lorna Krier, keayboards; Elenore Oppenheim, bass; and Missy on keyboards), whose CD Cathedral City was one of NPR’s top ten classical albums of 2010, will be performing at the Bell House in Gowanus on October 17. Not to be missed!

This post was also published in Urban Modes

by Cornelius Dufallo