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PROGRAM NOTE back to Program Notes Last modified 13 March 2025 POSITINGS When one “posits” something (so says the Oxford English Dictionary), one places it in a position, assumes it as a fact, as a basis for argument, or – more intriguing – as a way of affirming an existence. In this work, I have gathered together a small but flexible and powerful yet timbrally coherent quintet of instruments. They posit five musical spaces, each of which, in turn, arises out a single, central gesture made by one member of the quintet. So, for each of these five musical miniatures, there is a kind of genetic seed, and also an aggregation around it of other related materials. There is a second resource, however, a force unto itself: a computer musician whose role it is to capture and to sonically muse on the instrumentalist’s materials. Positings proceeds as a sequence of instrumental miniatures that are connected by a constantly evolving thread of algorithmically processed instrumental sound. The computer is silent during the quintet’s five statements, but then proceeds to extend, modify, indeed to transform their contents. At first the response is clearly an echoing of what the live instrumentalists have just done, but as the performance continues, the cross-referencing of instrumental positings and computer transformations becomes more intricate, including not only memories of what has happened but anticipations of what has not yet occurred. During the sometimes extended computer interludes, the instrumentalists reverse the process: they take the transformations worked by the computer musician as new “positings” to which they respond, not in contrast but as allies. Positings was commissioned by Southwest Chamber Music and is dedicated to it. My musical assistant in this project has been Paul Hembree.
- Roger Reynolds,
Cambridge, December 2012
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