Talkback I (2009)

To purchase the score and performance materials, please get in touch.

Instrumentation: clarinet, and real time digital signal processing

Duration: 8 minutes

World Premiere: February 17, 2010, Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY

Other Performances:
March 9 2010, Christopher Bush (clarinet) and Guy Barash (live electronics), The Stone, NYC
May 21 2010, Christopher Bush (clarinet) and Guy Barash (live electronics), The Tank, NYC
June 2010, Christopher Bush (clarinet) and Guy Barash (live electronics), The Tank, NYC
September 18, 2011, Christopher Bush (clarinet) and Guy Barash (live electronics), Greenwich House, NYC
November 7, 2015, Thomas Piercy (clarinet) and Guy Barash (live electronics), Broom Tree Theatre, Astoria, NY

Composer Note:
Talkback I for clarinet and computer is the first in a series of compositions for solo instruments and real-time digital signal processing. It was hailed by the Queens Chronicle as being “at once divine, serene and haunting.”

With Talkback, I explore extended techniques, enhanced timbre, and other sonic features that are characteristic of the instrument by magnifying and amplifying otherwise subtle nuances and bringing them to the foreground.

Talkback, just like in online media, is a response to something more substantial: western tradition, the canon. It is smaller but often as significant as it is a sincere manifestation of the zeitgeist. Real-time interaction between the clarinet and the computer is a form of dialog. Very similar to forms of communicating on the Internet—posting, tweeting, blogging, etc.—it is filtered, yet very real.

Clarinet, Thomas Piercy