Natacha Diels automatic writing mumbles of the late hour (2022)
Passing the time,
Perpetual motion,
Extremes on some spectrum.
Beautiful noise, involuntary elegance
Automatic writing mumbles for the late hour
(title inspired by Robert Ashley)
I took the material we recorded together and transformed it to suit the composition I had imagined— regularity interrupted by strained attempts at creating a solid form, regularly petering out to nothing before returning with renewed energy, culminating in a gradual move towards absurd funk.
Miya Masaoka Mapping a Joyful Path (2022)
This work was completed in Matsuyama, Japan at a family reunion, where Masaoka reports that a “sense of ancestral land and identity were strongly felt.” A composer who works with “systems of difference tones and sine waves,” her juxtaposition of electronics with solo violin also contains a surprising amount of joyful energy. In Masaoka’s words, “I created a score that indicates an energetic pathway to a joyful journey, as a mapping to our happy place.”
Jen Baker Fire in the Dark (2021)
Inspired by Olivia de Prato’s idea that we could envision unique ways of collaborating, with a longer timeline built in to facilitate our parental duties, I began with a meditation to honor the sun on the Winter Solstice of 2020. Deep into the pandemic, it felt especially reassuring that the sun came out to shine on a cold December day in New York City, and I recorded my first material for Fire in the Dark while in this meditation. Using the warmth of sun on my face, the brightness hitting my closed eyes, I recorded a spoken/sung improvisation, in acknowledgment of our collective moment in time, as well as creating this kernel of bedrock for Fire in the Dark, named for this initial experience. Just as I finished the improvisation, the sun went behind thick clouds, where it remained for the rest of the day. Later, Olivia and I found ways of adapting the vocal material into violin sounds, through occasional in-person and virtual meet-ups, and ping-ponging recorded versions back and forth.
Katherine Young Mycorrhiza I (2021)
Mycorrhizae are symbiotic subterranean networks between fungi and plants that utilize anarchic fungal architectural processes known as mycelium—biological processes of (inter)connection and collaboration (in all its multifarious complexities) that inspired the creative practice behind this piece and make their way differently into each piece in the series.
Part of an in-progress series of pieces for solo performers, ensemble, electronics, dance, and video, Mycorrhiza I: With Olivia (Stolen Moments) developed in deep and extended collaboration with violinist Olivia De Prato. Initiated by De Prato for her I, A.M.—Artist Mother project, Mycorrhiza I grapples with the difficulties caregivers can have in finding the unstructured time and expansive mental space required for creativity. During the pandemic—with schools closed and families isolated at home—these precious moments of time to do nothing . . . alone became even more difficult to find. For these reasons, I wanted the process of making the piece—as well as the experience of performing the piece—to be a structure through which Olivia and I could make this time for ourselves. We each recorded such stolen or carefully carved moments—moments when we weren’t trying to be productive, when we weren’t working or caring for anyone else. We then used the recordings of these walks, private moments behind locked doors, and moments of meditation as raw materials for building both the instrumental vocabulary and electronics for the piece.
Mycelium—processes of connection between mycorrhizae (subterranean networks of fungi and plants)—inspired the creative practice behind Katherine Young’s Mycorrhiza I. Andreas Häuslbetz / Alamy stock photo
Samantha Fernando Balconies (2022)
Scored in five parts, either multi-tracked or with an ensemble and commissioned by Olivia De Prato . . . , this work addresses changing perspectives, and was inspired by Agnes Martin’s Balconies (1962), in which parallel horizontal lines are drawn in ink on paper. Struck by the way her focus kept shifting between the overall painting and individual lines, Fernando took the artwork as symbolic of the constantly shifting human perspective based on experiences, moods, or desires.
Olivia De Prato Pezzettino (2024)
I was inspired by Leo Lionni’s Pezzetino, a children’s book that I have been reading to my son since he was a baby. This piece is my attempt at portraying the emotions expressed in that book. Pezzettino (‘little piece’ in Italian) is so small that he thinks he must surely be the missing piece of somebody else. Off he goes on a quest to discover where and to whom he belongs, only to realize at last that he is whole. “I am myself, he shouted full of joy. His friends didn’t quite understand what he meant, but Pezzetino seemed happy, and so they were happy too.”
Ha-Yang Kim may you dream of rainbows in magical lands (2021)
This piece was written for Olivia and her son to play and make sounds together, inspired by the deep, beautiful bond between mother and child. I wanted to include Olivia’s son in the creation of the piece, to bring the ambient sounds of found objects such as lego toys and glass bottles into the atmosphere of a dreamy sound world of layered violin tones floating in textural sonic environments. The piece is composed in Kraig Grady Centaur just intonation on the fundamental 174 Hz. Using multiple layers of single violin tones to create shifting chords that float ‘pulselessly’, the piece evokes a slow dreamy sound-world, moving amongst imaginary textural landscapes created by improvisational play with found objects by Olivia’s young son. This piece is dedicated to my young daughter who inspired me with her own dreams of magical lands filled with rainbows.
Zosha Di Castri The Dream Feed (2020)
Jointly created at a distance between Vienna and New York by Zosha Di Castri and Olivia De Prato during the pandemic, this work was a means of reflecting on their experiences as artist-mothers. The process began with Di Castri composing an electronic track over which she asked De Prato to record an improvisation. Olivia sent back two tracks, which Zosha edited together around the electronics. The final step involved Zosha improvising at the piano in response to Olivia’s music, all edited together into the collaborative composition presented here. The music is in turn intimate, expressive, and cathartic, connecting us across the separation of that particular moment. The electronics are at once abstract and referential to the experience of motherhood, including sounds of sonograms, nods to the passing of time, and the whimpers of sleeping babies. It is our hope that this piece, whether presented in recorded format or live, will start new conversations in our milieu and will question the still present ‘taboo’, that women believe they must choose between family and career. We hope this music stands as proof that though having a child alters one’s life irreversibly it can also be a profoundly creative experience, encouraging new ways of thinking and doing.
