Electroacoustic Music with Video

All At Risk attempts to share some of the feelings I had when recently reading email messages from a news correspondent friend who had been sent to Iraq to cover ongoing events there. The email was sent to his family who, in-turn, shared it with me. I have left out the much more graphic moments as I feel the excess gore, pain and suffering would detract from the basic message of this piece. The stress and overall sense of helplessness I felt when reading his email, along with a better sense of the amount of danger that those in Iraq face on a minute-by-minute basis, is what motivated the creation of this work. I wish to express my appreciation to ABC News correspondent Brian Rooney and his family for sharing his email, and to John Ritz for his help with video editing.

Continuum performer, Mark Smart
Live mixing, Scott A. Wyatt
Tesla Coil control hardware and software design, Steve Ward
Technical assistance and Tesla Coil expertise, Terry Blake and Jeff Larson Continuum design, Lippold Haken

This piece begins with the brief comment from NY City's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's reading of the Eulogy to Nikola Tesla on January 10, 1943. Risky Business is a blend of studio realized electroacoustic music, live continuum performance, and live audio generated from the Tesla Coils both receiving a combination of audio and MIDI signals - combining the talents of the team.

Within Time Mark (commissioned by percussionist Kathleen Kastner), are specific considerations including a continuum of timbre - thus providing for an integration of electroacoustic and live sounds without the loss of individuality, and spatial disposition - wherein the location from which sounds emanate within the host performance space is also a parameter for composition. Originally realized in 1983 with concrete and modular voltage-controlled synthesis techniques (including much analog tape editing), the electroacoustic portion of the composition was reworked to reduce the inherent analog tape hiss and was then digitally re-recorded in 2000.

[Time Mark is published by Media Press, Inc.  Accompaniment tracks and score are available at mediapressmusic.com]

Recorded on Music from SEAMUS volume 2. SEAMUS Records EAM-9401. includes Scott A. Wyatt: Time Mark. Glenn Schaft,    percussion.