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Phoenix
Phoenix was realized at the Northwestern University Electronic Music Studio in 1985 primarily on Moog and other custom sound modules. It had its genesis as a filler for a videotape of the dance work Sundays choreographed by Lynn Anne Blom. to music by Liz Story. The about a third of the dance was originally silent and not suitable for videotape. The outer portions of Phoenix were composed to accompany the dance and fill the silences. They were mostly electronic, but included heavily manipulated fragments of the Story.
The central portion of the new work was derived from a wind ensemble work Julian by Jay Kawarsky. Its use came through a fortuitous accident. While I was composing Phoenix, I was asked to make a dub of a reel-to-reel tape of Julian onto cassette. I the tape had been left head out (rather than the standard end out), and I therefore played it backwards at first. While it is a fine work forwards (I later conducted it at the New Music Chicago Spring Festival), I wondered at the amazing sounds it produced backwards. With Kawarsky’s permission of course, I decided to use the backwards version, again with heavy manipulation, as the soundbed for the centre of Phoenix. The title therefore represents the rebirth of the two previous works in a wholly new guise.
For a complete mp3 file of the work click here.
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