Explorations: Warren Burt

Next week on the show we’ll be doing Explorations and featuring the music of composer Warren Burt.

Who is Warren Burt?  He’s an ex-pat American living in Australia who writes music, works with film and video, and is a community arts activist.  He works with both traditional instrument composition and electro-acoustic composition.  A more detailed biography can be found here.

We’ll be hearing is piece Harmonic Canon Modulations.  It is an extended electro-acoustic work for a copy of Harry Partch’s Harmonic Canon and a recording of the Canon that is  run through a computer and heavily modified to the point of being nearly unrecognizable in pitch and timbre.  Instead, the gestures written for the Harmonic Canon (which is tuned to open 5ths and blues 7ths) is what translates as the canon, delayed about ten seconds after the original playing.

What results is an interesting piece of music that also creates a great listening experience.  One can (and should) listen to the work four times – once to get a feel for the piece, once each to focus on the Harmonic Canon and the digital effect, and once again to hear the synthesis with more detailed understanding.

Hopefully you can tune in next week (July 1) at 7pm to hear the piece.  If you miss it, it’ll be up here after the broadcast.