UDYANA

Commissioned by soundSCAPE new music festival, 'Udyana' is a reflection on a trip I made to Swat Valley, Pakistan, while it was still under Taliban Control. The true beauty of the landscape conflicted with the sense of threat; at times one sensation would overpower the other, or else both were simultaneously experienced in a strange paradox. The piece aims to capture and present some of these moods.

The musical material mostly consists broken chord-type figures and glissando-type gestures, which develop fairly freely and organically to serve the dramatic shape. The harmony is derived from spectrally analysing the piano's bottom C, including it's full decay phase, generating a pitch set which evolves and grows smaller throughout the piece.

Live audio and video recordings of my piano trio, 'Udyana', at soundSCAPE festival 2016 in Maccagno, Italy.

Performers:

Flute - Christina Raczka
Cello - Felix Fan
Piano - Thomas Rosenkranz