This conversation featuring composer/performers Mike Duffy, Colin Holter, Josh Musikantow, Schuyler Tsuda, and Jeremy Wagner and conductor Bob Whalen illuminates the preparations the CMW has undertaken toward a performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s cosmic epic Ylem.
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Obair Pháirce
by Michael Duffy
Joe Peters, oboe; Chris Raddatz, contrabass clarinet; Rebecca Wilson, contrabassoon; Clare Harmon, viola; Baylen Wagner, violoncello
The title Obair Pháirce comes from the Irish Gaelic and translates to “fieldwork.” Over the course of the piece the electronics subject each of the instruments to displacements in time and location. The lingua franca is repetition, often distorted and presented on the micro and macro levels. All of this has a variety of implications as to what it means to be both an American and an American composer.
About Michael: Michael is a composer, improviser, and sonic adventurer.
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Colin Holter interviews Michael Duffy.
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On expanding horizons:
A lot of it was through the jazz I’d been listening to since before high school, even. I mentioned Miles Davis. I had an uncle who was a jazz fan and liked old Blue Note stuff—the Italian side of my family from Philadelphia—organ jazz, Joey DeFrancesco. It’s a straight line, in a way, from Miles Davis to Stockhausen. It certainly wasn’t through classical music. I wasn’t playing Pictures at an Exhibition in high school. >>>>