Sundered Sublime
In 2019 and 2020 I was studying at the University of Iowa, and while working toward my Ph.D. I was urged to take an electronic media composition course. Up to that point, my use of electronics was limited to somewhat basic usage of one or two DAWs (Garageband, Logic Pro). I was hesitant, and admittedly not very interested. But adhering to both advice as well as the requisite academic stipulations of the degree, I did as advised. I am very, very glad I did.
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Directing the course, Dr. Sivan Cohen Elias refused to let me coast through or phone in my participation in the course. While providing critique on one of the course's assignments she challenged me to take electronics more seriously, and said that there was still time for me make it something of value to both my education and general craft.
During my time with Dr. Cohen Elias I came to appreciate, even love electronics for the way they offered possibility to my imagination. While I would have (and still do have) much to learn, if I could imagine it then I learn how to realize it. Later, while taking another course, I had an idea for a piece in which a Renaissance-styled motet disintegrated and transformed, producing various surreal soundscapes. This piece was initially created as a contribution to a collaborative project, but has since been somewhat revised. Presenting, Sundered Sublime.
This piece used two primary materials: a recording of a brief, Renaissance-styled vocal duo I had created for a counterpoint course, and recording of a bowed suspended cymbal. The majority of the sounds in this piece were then created by manipulating these two samples with a single instrument: the Granulator II by Robert Henke. This is a Max for Live device patched by Henke, which he has described as “a synthesizer based on the principles of quasi-synchronous granular synthesis. It creates a constant stream of crossfading sections of the source sample— the grains—, and the size, pitch, position, and volume of each grain can be modulated in many ways to create a great variety of interesting sounds.” I am still very much in love with this instrument, both for the range of possibility it affords me as well as the way it has expanded the scope of my imagination.
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Thematically, Sundered Sublime is coherent with my occupation with and concern for the contemporary experience of Christianity. The text of the vocal component is Ubi Caritias, which has been traditionally used as an antiphon for the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday (though it has since been reassigned to accompany its offertory). The first lines of text read, in English: "Where there is charity and love, God is there. The love of Christ has gathered us together. ...Let us love one another sincerely from the heart."
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Rather than upon God or the purely spiritual and supernatural, Sundered Sublime is intended as a reflection upon the presence of things like charity and love in the midst of Christian communities and parishioners as individuals. As the motet disintegrates, spins out into the more abstract soundscapes, the listener is invited to consider whether what lies at the heart of such communities is purely benevolent– and whether darker things are intermingled, frustrating and distorting what should otherwise be a space of love and compassion.