Program Notes for Movement 1

by Tod Machover


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Movement 1:


The Performance starts with a whirling flurry of sounds and images collected from the audience. After this big bang, the music develops quietly as a kind of collage based on Marvin Minsky's ideas about the mind and music, and the audience's reactions to them, recorded from the lobby "Speaking Trees." The musical backbone is Machover's reworking of Bach's Six-part Ricercare from the Musical Offering, which returns at key moments of the Brain Opera. Fragments of music chosen by the audience are also intertwined, combining stream-of-consciousness listening, musical continuity based on harmony and texture, and surprising hybrids (like Bach/Beethoven/Bob Dylan or Stravinsky/Ellington/Beatles). With a complex polyphony of Minsky and audience voices, Movement 1 builds to a climax. As the "pseudo-Bach" reaches a C-Major cadence, audience singing voice recordings (from the "Singing Trees") are used to saturate the listening texture, bringing the music - featuring the voice of soprano Anne Azema - to a point of calm concentration and absolute stillness.
"Minsky Intro" (Movement 1): Near the beginning of the Brain Opera, this section introduces Marvin Minsky's ideas about music and the mind. Text taken from interviews with Minsky. Music is reworking of Bach's "6-part Ricercare" from the "Musical Offering," which serves as the backbone to Movement 1 and recurs in Movement 3 as well. During Brain Opera performances, Minsky text is selected, layered, mixed and transformed by using the "Sensor Chair" and "Gesture Wall" hyperinstruments.



"Favorite Music" Collage (Movement 1): Using my transcription of the Bach "Ricercare" as base, fragments of music chosen by the audience are woven - part automatically, part by manipulating the "Digital Baton" hyperinstrument - into a sonic collage, combining stream-of-consciousness listening, musical continuity based on harmony and texture, and surprising hybrids (like Bach/Beethoven/Bob Dylan or Stravinsky/Ellington/Beatles).


"Word Association Climax" to "Sonic Blitz" (Movement 1): Centered around voice recordings of audience members reacting to Minsky comments and playing a "word association" game, Movement 1 builds to a climax. As the "pseudo-Bach" reaches a C-Major cadence, audience singing voice recordings (from the interactive lobby "Singing Tree") are used to saturate the listening texture and bring the music to a point of calm concentration, featuring the voice of soprano Anne Azema.

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