ICMC/25/d2/1100 Concert n06/03 Brompton and Braeswood
Brompton and Braeswood
- In the 8-channel layout of this multispeaker array, the ambisonics are lush
- That said, I didn't connect with this one as much as I could have ... why?
- 14:05 some flittering binaries, poisson bubbles, major second sine cluster bursts counterpart the
#Composer
- TIMOTHY ROY composes music steeped in imagery and allusion, which seeks to elicit a sense of time, place, and feeling. With an output that encompasses instrumental and vocal works, electronic sound, and the intersection of these two realms, Tim endeavors to explore a broad range of mediums and contexts in which his work might be experienced. His music has been presented at such venues and events as the National Theater of Taipei, Music Biennale Zagreb, the DiMenna Center, ZKM Karlsruhe, Moores Opera House, San Francisco Tape Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Ars Electronica Festival, Sonorities Festival Belfast, Los Angeles County Arboretum, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Recent awards and honors include the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (First Prize, 2022), ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Award (First Prize, 2023; Finalist, 2018), SoundChain International Composition Competition (Second Prize, 2024), Giga-Hertz Production Prize (Honorable Mention, 2022), and Prix CIME from the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (Distinction, 2023). In 2024, he received an Honorable Mention in the McKnight Composer Fellowship awards from American Composers Forum. His music has been commissioned by the American Harp Society, Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, Musiqa Houston, and ASCAP/SEAMUS, and further supported by the I-Park Foundation and Minnesota’s Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. His music is published by Edition Peters, Albany Records, New Focus Recordings, and GIA Publications. Tim resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he is choirmaster and organist at the Church of Saint Peter Roman Catholic Community. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, as well as degrees from University of Missouri-Kansas City (MM) and Southern Methodist University (BM).
#Description
- Brompton & Braeswood is an acousmatic piece inspired by my personal experience living through Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The title derives from the street intersection where my wife and I were living at the time, along Brays Bayou in Houston.
- Central to my piece is a library of field recordings I captured at that intersection and along the bayou in the days immediately prior to Harvey making landfall. Some of these recordings were made with a Soundfield SPS-200 microphone; others were made with a matched pair of DPA miniature omni microphones clipped to the brim of a baseball cap, which allowed me to capture a quasi-binaural stereo image. In composing “Brompton & Braeswood,” I sought to present a series of vignettes of contrasting mood and representation. The piece’s opening presents the imagery and emotion of a violent storm. The storm is initially heard directly, then — after a door slams shut — from the perspective of someone taking shelter. The remainder of the piece depicts the gentle but unrelenting, oppressive rainfall that accompanied the hurricane, and there is a marked shift in the music which draws the listener inward toward a place of introspection. At the time Harvey struck Houston, I had just arrived home from the hospital to recover from a major surgery, following a long period of illness. “Brompton & Braeswood” draws on my contemporaneous thoughts and feelings: those of intense worry and gloom, but also of optimism that my health would improve. Aside from field recordings, other sound materials include noisy tones synthesized in c74/msp, pitched wood, and #Piano and #Guitar samples. Sound was spatialized using Sound/Recording/Ambisonic/5th Order 5th-order ambisonic encoding. The piece explores electroacoustic techniques of amplitude envelope following, filtering, and synthesis using bandpass-filtered white noise, and combines aesthetics and approaches from acousmatic, environmental soundscape, and ambient genres. “Brompton & Braeswood” was commissioned by New Music on the Bayou and premiered during their 2023 festival edition in Monroe, Louisiana. The work was awarded Second Prize in the 2024 SoundChain International Composition Competition.