First performance, L'Envers, Montreal, QC, February 23, 2012:
L'Ensemble Portmantô
Mark Bradley, clarinet
Mira Benjamin, violin
Josh Peters, violin
Melissa Claisse, viola
Andrea Stewart, cello
8 minutes
Program Note
My friend Mark Bradley, the artistic director of Portmantô, asked me to write a quintet for clarinet and strings for the ensemble. They had previously performed my piece AutoSonata, but had done it in a way where the audience got to participate and learn how to do a part of the piece. I really dug that, and knew they could handle it, so decided to take the level of interactivity up a few notches with this one. Basically, each player has four lines, and members of the audience tell each player when to switch. The chord progression repeats, so that audience members can try different a combination of lines on each pass. This way, every performance is different, but it's all under control and through-composed. Cool, right? I'm definitely going to do this again.
Check out the poster for the first performance here.
