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NW 80781CD
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"Chris Brown (b. 1953) composes music for traditional instruments, acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, improvisers, and computer networks. With Six Primes (2014), for retuned piano in 13-limit just intonation -- drawing on the Rhythmicana ideas of Henry Cowell, the pure keyboard focus of Conlon Nancarrow, the affection for just intonation of Lou Harrison, and the unadulterated clarity of mathematical process of James Tenney -- Brown is staunchly positioned, aesthetically, as a West Coast American experimentalist. 'Six Primes is composed using the first six prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13 to govern both its tuning and temporal structure, including harmony, rhythmic subdivisions, and form. I wrote this music to explore the limits of using the same integer ratios to simultaneously provide melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic materials. The piano must be retuned in just intonation using the tuning system factor of 2, three ratios with highest prime of 3, and two ratios each with highest primes of 5, 7, 11, and 13. This creates a great diversity of interval relationships: whereas 12-tone equal temperament has just twelve distinct intervals, this tuning has 75. I employed this algorithmic control over form in part to evoke the egalitarianism of twelve-tone music, and to divert from monocentric tendencies of modal musics. Within that form, however, I allowed myself to compose freely, using a diversity of melodic, harmonic, and polyphonic ideas. Lou Harrison's endlessly branching melodies, Cowell's polyrhythms and tone clusters, Cage's equanimity and Stockhausen's deterministic force, the complex minimalism of Morton Feldman, and the harmonious buzz of Ellen Fullman . . . all provided influence and inspiration. I discovered that playing asymmetrical rhythms in odd numbered subdivisions of a strong pulse can evoke a bebop-like swing. And although I never thought about it during the composing process, I think I hear in its mixture of styles an influence of Ives.' -- Chris Brown. "
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NW 80723CD
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Subtitled: 3 Pieces For Percussion And Live Electronics. Performed by William Winant (percussion); Chris Brown (piano and electronics). "Chris Brown's (b. 1953) music has evolved within the intersections of many different traditions and styles. Following early training as a classical pianist, he was influenced by studies of Indonesian, Indian, Afro-American, and Cuban musics, and then took off on branches provided by the American Experimentalists in inventing and building a personal electronic instrumentation. Collaboration and improvisation have been primary in the development of his music for various traditional instruments and interactive electronics. An "iconicity" is the analogy between the form of a sign and its meaning. All three of these pieces are through-composed using simple processes applied to both the sounds of the instruments and their real-time electronic transformations. The players must synchronize exactly with the rhythms produced by these transformations, and together the acoustic and electronic layers of sound create closely interwoven textures that evolve gradually into more complex forms. The acoustic sounds and the patterned variations of their recurrence affect the listener's experience of time, and provide a metaphor for its transcendence. Stupas (2007): A stupa is a Southeast Asian monumental architectural form, which in Buddhism is also viewed as a symbol of enlightened mind and a path to its realization. The form of a stupa, a square base with circular domes rising above it, is used to structure this piece. Gangsa (2010): Gangsa are bronze flat-gongs from the mountainous regions of the northern Philippines played in ensembles in which each player plays one gong of a different pitch. Subtitled Invention #8, this piece is one of a series that focuses on polyrhythmic interaction of performers with electronics. Iceberg (1985): The electronic sounds are all live transformations of the percussion, and the performer plays in time with the automated switching of effects, starting simply, and then playing more complex and syncopated patterns against it."
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TZ 8014
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"Chris Brown is a San Francisco based composer who stands firmly in the tradition of West Coast innovators like Terry Riley and James Tenney. Rogue Wave, his first CD in almost a decade, is one of his best -- a startling retrospective spanning over twenty years of activity. Six dynamic pieces featuring a wide range of sound sources and compositional styles, from angelic choirs of electronically altered pianos, to hardcore hiphop transmissions and polyphonic noise symphonies. This important new release places Brown at the forefront of new electronic composition, and finally sheds long overdue light on an important innovator whose work has been unjustly marginalized for years."
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