Dispatches From the Bang on a Can Summer Festival 2022: Part 4

From ASMR to structured chaos: Samantha Wolf on “Collideoscope” and “lorem ipsum”
By David Ainsworth

“I’m going to tell you a story, a story I haven’t told anyone before.”

Those were the first words of “Collideoscope,” a piece written by composer and Bang on a Can Fellow Samantha Wolf. The piece was written for flute headjoint, which is essentially the flute’s mouthpiece, plus electronics.

As eerie hums filled C.A.V.U., a Skyspace completed by the artist James Turrell in MASS MoCA, Wolf introduced the piece. She explained that the piece was based on ASMR, a tingling sensation that some people experience when exposed to some forms of stimuli, such as whispering, tapping, and slow movements. Linda Dallimore, a flutist and composer who studied with Wolf at Yale, wrote the text based on her experiences with ASMR.

“She recounted this experience to me, I made a few slight changes to the text, and then basically transcribed it rhythmically,” said Wolf in a later interview. 

With that, flutist and Bang on a Can Performance Fellow Jessica Scott began to tell us that story.

Soon, silence filled the air, until Scott began whispering with new words while playing the flute headjoint at the same time. Due to the space of the C.A.V.U., the sound was not always intelligible. “One day, when I was a young child, the lawnmower broke,” she whispered and played.

Crackling began to emerge from a computer seated right beside Scott. It sounded like raindrops from a passing shower. More whispering. More vocalizations on the flute.

Suddenly, the blue dome changed to orange.

And then, BANG! A sound filled the air in the C.A.V.U. It was a sudden departure from the quiet aura that surrounded the structure. However, it was brief. In fact, it wasn’t even supposed to happen. Still, Wolf liked it.

“I think that that interruption from the space was really beautiful,” she recalled.

Soon, the crackling, showery sound returned, along with Scott’s flute playing.

After several minutes, the flute stopped. The crackling soon ended as well. All was once again quiet at the C.A.V.U. Until, of course, the applause began.

Wolf explained later that the piece was actually designed not to have pitches. If a pitch came out, though, that was fine. Whatever happened, happened.

“If there’s a pitch that comes out when you get really loud or when you move your hand a certain way, that’s a really nice happy accident,” she said.

Wolf also added that the computer sounds in the piece were imitations of ASMR.

“Collideoscope” was one of two pieces by Wolf that were performed as part of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival recitals on Wednesday. The other composition, “lorem ipsum (a very structured chaos),” is based on a mural made outside of the museum.

Featuring Thórgunnur Anna Örnólfsdóttir (voice), Caroline Jesalva (violin), and Nick Photinos (cello), the piece highlighted multiple sounds, ranging from whispering and hissing from all the musicians to short, hauntingly beautiful tones by Örnólfsdóttir. Jesalva and Photinos played plucking, pizzicato sounds. Communication between the instruments was strong throughout.

Wolf wrote “lorem ipsum” during her time at the Bang on a Can festival. It was influenced by a mural called “Assembly (Lorem Ipsum)” by Mary Lum, an artist who lives in North Adams, Massachusetts, where the festival is held. The text on the mural, which includes “lorem ipsum,” the U.S. Constitution, and others, inspired Wolf to compose the piece by interpreting it in a rhythmic way.

“lorem ipsum” also had an ending that, well, is not a full ending. 

“I didn’t really end it,” she said. She explained that she had a time limit of 3 to 5 minutes for the composition, a challenging constraint. However, she said that she plans to develop it more, increasing the length and revamping the arrangements.

For Wolf, it was also a learning experience about what she can compose in the future. 

“Singing is less my thing, but speech and phonetic sound might be more the universe for me,” said Wolf. “So, I’m thinking after today that that’s something I’m going to explore a lot more.”

David Ainsworth is a musician and journalist based in Oregon. He has a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from Portland State University and a Master of Science in Journalism from the University of Oregon.

Gifts: On the Togetherness of New Music
By Paige Gullifer

The gallery floor is where most of the audience like to sit.  

Violinist Yaz Lancaster knelt at the centre of the semicircle of people, acknowledging the land before coaxing forth the beginning of Anne Leilehua Lanzinotti’s ko’u inoa.

The roof, an imitation of a galaxy, was an endless cluster of lightbulbs. They stretched the length of the gallery, an open space that gave each musician the space to choose their own performance location. Lancaster, in the gallery’s corner, invited us into the quietude of their space.

A delicate interplay of vocalisations and string arpeggiations, ko’u inoa was originally composed for viola -- ‘I asked the composer if she’d make a violin version for me,’ Lancaster explained. 

Days later, in the same space, flautist Jessica Scott began her performance of Andy Scott’s My Mountain Top with a smile: ‘It was introduced to me by my teacher, Paul Edmund-Davies.’ Having collaborated with Andy Scott to produce the alto flute and electronics version of the work, Edmund-Davies’ recommendation was personal.

These performances, part of Bang on a Can’s Summer Festival, reveal the intimate network of collaborators who come together to bring a piece of music to life.

In the words of co-founder David Lang, the joy of Bang on Can is its living, breathing element -- ‘it’s live culture made right in front of you, by people who are alive.’ 

Standing before the audience at the Composer Fellows’ premieres, Lang pointed at the audience. ‘You are the first people anywhere to hear this music.’ He was referring specifically to a world premiere the audience was about to hear, but the larger point was a direct acknowledgment of the audience’s crucial role. 

It’s exactly what sets Bang on a Can apart, and what brings its artists together. 

This sense of community is particularly explicit in Lang’s work Gift. Written for musician Leslie Shank and her husband, Joseph Hagedorn, the work for viola and guitar was exactly what it claims to be -- a gift. In the early stages of his career, Lang was commissioned by Shank for a work that would premiere at her Carnegie Hall debut. 

Years later, Gift was written: a thank you for what would come to be a pivotal moment in Lang’s career. He jokingly offers that his children are probably indebted to Shank for the very shoes on their feet.

The festival marked the first time Lang had heard the piece. Bang on a Can Fellows Joseph Ehrenpreis (guitar) and Kennedy Dixon (viola), approached the weaving canon with sensitivity, their individual lines in perpetual chase until their bittersweet ending.

In the same concert, flautist Scott performed Collideoscope, the work of Composer Fellow Samantha Wolf. Utilising the almost percussive effects of the flute’s headjoint, Scott took on the role of not only performer, but storyteller.

Collideoscope was originally written for flautist Linda Dallimore, who Wolf met at the Yale School of Music. The work is an exploration of Dallimore's experiences with ASMR, a tingling sensation that occurs in response to whispering and ambient noises. Dallimore and Wolf wrote the text together, and Scott, when preparing the piece, admitted she could feel the same ASMR response.

In the circular space of James Turrell’s C.A.V. U, some clicks and stutters were reverberant, others buried. Depending on where you were sitting, the acoustic generated a different aural experience; the audience were as much part of the piece as the composer and performer. 

Composer Fellow Udi Perlman’s Compliments was yet another example of this symbiosis. 

For its premiere, Christopher Herz (violin), Cort Roberts (horn) and Adam Holmes (vibraphone) were joined by David Lang, who Perlman asked to participate as a compliment-bestowing narrator. 

A dialogue of sound and voice and a gallery of smiles, the work’s sense of generosity was determined as much by the audience as it was the performers. Perlman’s writing, imbued with an almost ironic jauntiness, toyed with the idea of complimentary sincerity. 

Between moments of animated colour, Lang’s interjections were given with a point and a smile, to both his fellow ensemble and the audience. The ensemble’s attuned cohesion was only enhanced by their knowing glances at one another.

Lang, with an exceptional degree of schmooze, delivered the line ‘My dog loves you.’ 

The audience, sprawled across the gallery floor, laughed. 

Paige Gullifer is a writer and saxophonist based in Sydney, Australia. Paige is currently completing her Bachelor of Music Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and is an active writer around Sydney, having been published by organisations such as Limelight and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.