Sitka for piano and seasonal electronics (2015) - 12'

PROGRAM NOTE: Sitka is a twelve-minute work for piano and seasonally variable electronics that explores the relationship between music, technology, and nature. Since Steinway piano soundboards are made exclusively from Sitka spruce, the trees and the forests in which they grow served as the conceptual material for many of the piece’s musical components. Environmental elements including forest density, weather, and the Sitka tree’s shape informed the composition’s structure, density, frequency spectrum, rhythmic activity, and live electronics. The composition’s form models the United States Geological Survey species range map for Sitka spruce trees, which grow throughout Alaska, Canada, and the United States. Curiously, when the map is rotated ninety degrees it becomes a fitting graphical depiction translatable into musical form. The piece’s growth and rhythmic density mirror this graphic, as does the rhythmic language, with more active rhythms appearing at times when tree growth is den