http:\/\/v.youku.com\/v_show\/id_XMzE2NDAwNTc4NA==.html?spm=a2hzp.8253869.0.0<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
A note on the first guitar sonata:<\/p>\n
The Guitar sonata (2009-2011) was written for Sam Cave\u2014 a composer’s dream performer, both open and committed (he is a composer in his own right).\u00a0 He asked me to compose whatever I wanted, and this proved both liberating and terrifying.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI latched onto “imprisonment” as my central concept, although it shifted over the long writing-period, so that finally the work explores the very strict structuring of two opposing materials.\u00a0 Material One consists of clouds of harmonics, Material Two of normal \u201cfretted\u201d chords.\u00a0 This balance between two contrasting materials alone prompted the designation of sonata.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThe work uses a microtonal tuning of the strings to access certain “spectral” harmonies that imitate the pitches of the harmonic series (particularly the 11th and 13th harmonics).\u00a0 The A-string is tuned to B 2\/3 flat, while the B string is tuned to C 1\/4 sharp.\u00a0 The “fundamental” of the work–in at least an illusory sense–is the low E (the lowest string of the guitar).\u00a0 I save this note right for the final section, when all the pent-up energies of the work are released and evaporate; the progress towards this note is admittedly elliptical, and so the image of a unicursal but serpentine labyrinth, more than a prison, would help to sum up this work.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The second sonata was inspired by my trip in 2010 to Kazbegi mountain in the Republic of Georgia.\u00a0 I was there with R\u016bta\u00a0Vitkauskait\u0117 and other members of KLIUD\u017dIAU\u00a0to perform her opera ID<\/em>\u00a0at the Tbilisi International Theatre Festival.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>At the end of our days in Tbilisi we took a minibus to the far North of the country in search of the Gergeti Trinity Church situated on a mountain plateau in the midst of the Caucasus mountains, and in the shadow of the third highest mountain in Georgia.\u00a0 It was the feeling of enormous space and calmness that I felt on the plateau–oddly, it was the driest acoustic I have ever experienced, perhaps because the mountains around us were in fact so distant from us that there could be no reverberation off them when we called out– that I subsequently tried to capture in the second sonata.\u00a0 It took me two years to find the concept, notation and harmonic sound world that could begin to evoke that unforgettable moment of my life.<\/p>\nA poem accompanies the sonata:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kazbegi<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
around us rise<\/p>\n
the towering rocks<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
earth-brown at noon<\/p>\n
blue-grey at dusk<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
in the moonlight,<\/p>\n
silver shadow<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the crags are still:<\/p>\n
we are quiet, we wait.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My two guitar sonatas were both written for and dedicated to Sam Cave.\u00a0 Thanks to Sam, these two pieces have become my most often performed compositions!\u00a0 Sam is preparing a professional recording of both sonatas, which I eagerly await.\u00a0 In the meantime, I post here the videos of Sam’s earlier performances (from his visit to…<\/span>Continue Reading “Guitar Sonatas 1&2”<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[288,235,383,291,350,386],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-guitar","tag-links-video","tag-may-music-festival","tag-sam-cave","tag-solo","tag-tianjin-conservatory-of-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgehollowaycomposer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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