Reflections
Year: 2023 op.42b
Duration: 9 minutes
Publisher:
AMEL•MUSIC
Instrumentation
Viola and electronics
Program Note
I used to live in a room full of mirrors
All I could see was me
Well I took my spirit
And I crashed my mirrors
Now the whole world is here for me to see
— Jimi Hendrix, "Room Full of Mirrors"
Reflections is a work for solo string instrument and computer. The computer behaves like a mirror: it continuously records the player and then plays those recordings back at specific points throughout the piece. The reflections are not random — they happen in scripted places and are projected through four speakers around the audience, so that the live instrument and its recorded selves occupy different points in space. The player ends up in dialogue with versions of themselves from a few seconds, or a few minutes, earlier.
The electronics are realised in Pure Data. The player wears a headphone click track and uses a close mic or pickup; the patch handles the recording, the playback, and the spatialisation automatically.
This version for viola (2023) is my own arrangement of the original Reflections for violin (2014, written for and dedicated to Yael Barolsky). The viola's darker, more inward voice changes the character of the dialogue: the reflections come back warmer, less brilliant, and the room of mirrors feels closer. The work awaits its first performance on viola.
