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Green Alter Egos: an insectopera

"Green Alter Egos" is a virtual opera combining film, meditational electroacoustic music and poetry. It portrays anthropomorphized insects from the natural scenery of New York, recorded during silent quarantined times. It blends fiction with reality and through the voices of Fonema Consort’s members expresses the vulnerability of its little green characters.

Fonema Consort - virtual, 2021

A Rayas y Cuadros

Based on drawings by NYC-based artist Theresa Chong, the artist herself created an accompanying art video titled Drawings in Motion to be screened along the piece. Originally composed for mandolin, this version for guitar is dedicated to Samuel Rowe.

Samuel Rowe, solo guitar - Chicago, 2015

Music for the Hedgehog in the Fog

Based on the animated 1975 film Hedgehog in the Fog by Russian director Yuri Norstein, this piece for 11 instruments explores sound analogies to the visual and psychological experience of blurred objects in the forest and their transition from indistinguishable to recognizable as they come near sight.

Ensemble Dal Niente - Darmstadt, 2012

Music for the Heron and the Crane

Music for the Heron and the Crane is based on the animated film The Heron and the Crane by Russian filmmaker Yuri Norstein. Its scattered, fragmented design derives from the visual alternation of the characters in the film, which causes a constant shifting of focus from one character to the other. There is an evident attempt at exploring the shaping of musical characters in each of the 29 fragments in the piece. Therefore, an effort must be made to bring out these identities without necessarily connecting them with each other, as would be the case in a cause-and-effect unfolding of events.

Performed by Mabel Kwan (harpsichord and piano) and Jesse Langen (guitar). Constellation Chicago August 23, 2015 Recorded by David Zuchowski

Three Burials - Movement I

This movement replaces the the funeral march from Silvestre Revueltas’ masterpiece scored for the film Redes (The Strand). It takes a psychological approach to the mourning emotions represented in this scene, and at times some of the textures suggest text painting, such as the descending plucks when the coffin is buried. The piece ends with a quote in the cello from the theme of Revueltas’ funeral march.

Performed by Dalia Chin (flute), Chris Wild (cello), Mark Buchner (Bass), Mabel Kwan (piano), Jesse Langen (guitar) and David Cubek (conductor).

Constellation Chicago - August 23, 2015

Three Burials - Movement II

This movement provides music to the dream scene in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. The new score explores dense rusty textures in the bass register, including a bowed electric guitar, and an additional bowed acoustic guitar by the conductor, while the piano is also bowed. The cello and bass play semi composed passages, with guiding written fragments suggesting the course of the improvised music.

Performed by Dalia Chin (flute), Chris Wild (cello), Mark Buchner (Bass), Mabel Kwan (piano), Jesse Langen (guitar) and David Cubek (conductor).

Constellation Chicago - August 23, 2015

Three Burials - Movement III

This is a sibling movement of the first one, just as the source film from Sergi Eisenstein’s ¡Qué Viva Mexico! was the inspiration for the funeral scene in Redes. Here, however, the flute is mostly alone. The quartet only intervenes to quote a passage from my 2012 Music for the Hedgehog in the Fog. The chosen quote originally also quoted a chord progression from Ravel’s Ma mere l’oye, which in this movement is replaced by Pavanne pour une infante défunte.

Performed by Dalia Chin (flute), Chris Wild (cello), Mark Buchner (Bass), Mabel Kwan (piano), Jesse Langen (guitar) and David Cubek (conductor).

Constellation Chicago - August 23, 2015