Darkened Chambers

I finally got the recording of my piece from the SCI (Society of Composers Inc.) concert last semester.   “Darkened Chambers” is scored for prepared piano, 2 french horns, 2 clarinets, and narrator.  In this piece I wanted to create the feeling of a space bigger than it really is, so I placed the clarinets to the sides of the audience, which caused them not to pick up very well on the recording.  And I placed the french horns on either side of the stage in the wings, most of the time they pick up on the recording pretty well.  The piano was center stage and the narrator was behind the piano.  And the best part is the piece is intended to be played with all the lights in the theater off…ideal conditions would be pitch black but that wasn’t possible because nobody had the music memorized.

So what I did was turn off all the lights in the theater and I sent the music in a .pdf file to everybody and we used our laptops to see the music during performance.  I took the text from “House of Leaves”

That’s essentially what the program notes and performance conditions were…basically I just wanted to write a fairly trippy piece just to prove I could.  All in all I would say mission accomplished.  I had my first live performance at college last semester with this piece and while it was completely more stressful than it really needed to be in the end it was fun and a very good experience.

Lots of thanks to Evelyn, Ashley, Blair, Ryan, and Alyssa for working with me and learning the piece.  Its a little bizarre, but give it a listen anyways, I think you’ll enjoy it.

Darkened Chambers