A is for Azimuth and Arnica [ ca. 8’00” - 28’00” ] 2007. Solo for found objects and found texts.

First interpretation: Hands on Blocks, Bowls, Pots, and Drums.

[We’ll release video of the second Froh interpretation—using light sticks on glasses, small objects, and towel-dampened toms—in early 2010.]

A is for Azimuth and Arnica is a collection of six activities, written for San Francisco-based percussionist Chris Froh, with a second efition prepared for Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg. A musician can prepare the activities, either in parts or as a collection; either for extemporaneous reading with improvisation, or with detailed advance planning. The activities’ sequential order, and the order of specific events, rhythms, and counterpoints within each activity, is to be determined by the performer. The score presents the performer with a network of specific pathways that connect activities and events to one another using an invariant set of rhythmic ideas.

Like other familiar performance-determinate work, and like some traditional improvisation practices, “A is for …” sets out to make a unique and unrepeatable context for playing and listening, dependent on the particulars of a scene. Unlike classical compositions, it has no persistence of form. But “A is for…” is also meant to produce persistent identities, infinitely. In the variety of possibilities within each activity, not only the form, but the work’s immediate surface—its local, behavioral identity—is also in question, excepting its rhythm. And yet every one of this composition’s infinite path-driven transformations is immersed in the same world. Each accomplishes a different shape within a nearly-pulseless and rhythmically invariant world.

***

A IS FOR AZIMUTH AND ARNICA: CD slated for release in 2010 by Albany Records

Art direction: Alex Inczech. Images: Ben Carson.
Featuring percussionists Chris Froh, Ian Antonio, and Russell Greenberg

Sound engineering by Eric Parson (A is for Azimuth and Arnica), and William Coulter (Mediations, Tenors).

Please have a listen to excerpts below. [Reviewers, the full disk is password protected, available here.]

Order info for the CD is forthcoming! Stay tuned, or contact me to pre-order. 

[View the full CD jacket  (draft)]

Chris Froh

TRACK 1 / First Interpretation. Glass and porcelain bowls, wood blocks, floor toms. Recorded September 10, 2009 at “Studio” 114 at the UC Santa Cruz Music Center. See video above.

TRACK 2 / Second Interpretation. Sticks on small objects, glasses, wood blocks, towell-dampened floor toms. Recorded September 10, 2009 at “Studio” 114 at the UC Santa Cruz Music Center.

[ca. 1’00” excerpt]

[ca. 1’00” excerpt]

Ian Antonio

Miscellaneous porcelain, cardboard, floor toms, and bongo. Recorded August 2009 at SUNY Stony Brook, New York [ca. 17’45”].

 [ca. 0’47” excerpt]

[ca. 1’05” excerpt]

Russell Greenberg

Miscellaneous glasses, paper and cardboard, small tom and small bongo. Recorded August 2009 at SUNY Stony Brook, NY [ca. 22’30”].

[ca. 0’52” excerpt]

[ca. 1’02” excerpt]

Mediations, Tenors — 2008

Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg

Marimba with metal objects, vibraphone with wooden objects. Recorded April 2009, at the “April in Santa Cruz” festival of new music. [ca. 11’30”]

***

Click on an image to view details of the inside front page (left) and back cover (right).