Concerto Grosso

CONCERTO GROSSO is a 15-minute three-movement piece composed for an 11-instrument ensembleand electronics which is performed by an additional performer. The aim of this piece is to expresses my interpretation of classical Egyptian and contemporary Western musical idioms through the methods of both live orchestration and electronic processing. The relationship between the acoustic instruments and the electronics is meant to sound as if the electronicpart is a live processing of each acoustic instrument in real time, but in reality the processing does not occur live, and has been prepared prior to the performance by a recording of each individual instrumental part which has been made in advance. These recordings are processed and prepared into cues which are then triggered by an individual performer on a synthesizer. CONCERTO GROSSO explores the generation of new timbers, textures and tuning systems out of theacoustic material performed by the instruments through the use of electronic processing. Through the alteration of timbres, the instruments can be altered to sound similar to native Egyptian and other-wordly instruments. The alteration of textures results from the duplication of one instrument into a choir of that instrument, which can either be aligned vertically or offset by small durations to create a brief nebula of sound. Finally, non-western tuning systems such as the Arabic "Maqamat" are generated through the processing of pitch in order to create intervals such as neutral seconds, which are not in the common practice technique of the instruments of the ensemble.