"On
the Transient Nature of Magic"
for Bass Clarinet,
Bassoon, Piano and Electronics
Score, Parts and Electronics available from
Voice House Publishing
$200.00
Program Notes:
"On the Transient Nature of Magic", (2004) commissioned by
Trio Neos, concerns power and hidden knowledge. Specifically it is inspired
by the ability attributed to the poison of certain Amazonian frogs to draw the
initiate into the spirit world of the other jungle creatures. In this work the
jungle creatures speak the same language as the musical instruments and vice
versa. The idea of Magic represents power to know and change events resulting
from hidden knowledge. The hidden knowledge here comprises the reinterpretation
and recontextualization of familiar sounds into an underworld. Structurally
the work explores the continuous translation of thoughts back and forth between
conscious and unconscious. We are mostly unaware of this, except at those rare
moments on the cusp of sleep where we find ourselves reflecting, via words,
on the past or future one moment, and the next moment have crossed over into
the equivalent dreamworld of pictures. This pictorial equivalent, though identical
in essence to the upper thought level of speech, is never literal. It is nothing
at all like the contents of the words that it mirrors: the flickering gray words
above connect to a writhing orgy of colors and creatures below.
Biography
Joseph Waters is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Director of Electro-Acoustic
and Media Composition at San Diego State University. He studied composition
at Yale University, the Universities of Oregon and Minnesota, and Stockholms
Musikpedagogiska Institut. His primary teachers were Jacob Druckman, Bernard
Rands, Roger Reynolds, Dominick Argento, and Martin Bresnick. He is a member
of the first generation of American classical composers who grew up playing
in rock bands. Throughout his career he has been intrigued by the confluence
and tensions which entangle and bind the music of Europe and Africa. Much of
his work involves interactions between electronic and acoustic instruments.
He has been involved in inter-disciplinary and collaborative works since the
early 1980's. His works are performed widely, both in the U.S.A. and abroad.
He has received numerous awards in composition, including National Endowment
for the Arts/Rockefeller Foundation, Regional Arts and Culture Council (OR)
and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants. www.josephwaters.com