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On September 15, Kalvos & Damian put out a call for pieces composed in reflection of the September 11th tragedies in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, to be broadcast on K&D. The pieces continued to arrive for some time (on the six month anniversary, the call for music was closed), and this gallery is created so that everyone can hear them at any time. Retrospective contributions composed before September 11th are found here, and compositions received after March 11, 2002 are found here.
"The ones who feel the heavy hand of fear
deserve the yoke of slavery;
freedom needs virtue and boldness"
--Andreas Kalvos
If you have any trouble with links, please contact us. The audio is playable on standard MP3 players (streamed at 128K/44KHz) and Real players (streamed at 20K/G2), but in our constant haste & revisions, we may have broken some links.
Anyone who has realized these five things can be in the world without misery.
Five Things on Eve Beglarian's site
". . . and all too many that day realized that they were living their last day upon this earth."
There will ultimately be an acompanying video. I will also be making acoustic versions . . .
Community 091101 for 1-12 choirs
Community 091101 for 1-12 harmoniums
Anyone interested in receiving performing materials for the two versions listed above can contact me through the website.
"Higher Falls"....(Iguazu)
Fall for.....
Fall to...
Fall over...
Fall througt....
Fall in with.......
Flowers falls?
Flower
we
Flow
wert
Flo
wers
F
L
o
W
...... ...................... E
r
s
F
A
L
L
I
N
G
Note: Kalvos was looking over the waveform from Higher Falls after he had some initial soundfile conversion anomalies. Claudio explained about the strange .02 Hz waveform: "\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\-------------------yes......that was the results from a sample from little sound from the jungle....(a bug....or cricket?)..... that sound( about 0.5 sec original duration) was expanded x 9 (2 times)............with a wave expansor program...(the process was mor than 1 hour) and then I applied pitch time streech low 12 semitones (2 times)....and a extremely reverb effect.........(cakewalk 9) ...finally I cleaned 3 noises intercalates.(crrracks!!!)...(not to much)....... the result was a surprise for me too!!!!!!" And then Claudio went on to suggest, "if there're space in gallery, along with the files of the piece, would be go the image of the rare wave also ... (that's wave is rare in truth!!!!)" And so here it is:
Claudio Calmens
calmens@netverk.com.ar
calle 29 1009
1900 La Plata
Argentina
This piece is based on the events of Sept 11th on the Attach of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the USA. It starts out a sunny day in new York City and then the first plane hits initiating the following tragic Events of the day with audio clips from the actual events (taken from the Internet).
Technical Note: this piece was created using numerous algorithmic Music programs on Atari Computers (including "Music Mouse" by Laurie Spiegel) along with live playing of the instruments and recorded to WAVE using Sound Forge on a PC and then converted to MP3. The actual music was composed the day after the incident (9-12-01) and the audio clips added later. Working in completing the piece was an emotional experience as if I was reliving the events as they happened.
It's a simple tune, but from the heart.
I was unable to write anything but this piece in the weeks after September 11. The recording here is from the premiere performance on November 1, 2001 by the University of Texas at San Antonio Orchestra, a student ensemble, with Eugene Dowdy conducting.
Imagine the surprise of the highjackers when they awoke "on the other side" not in Paradise, but in a rather vile region of Hades, even by Hellish standards. Strong emotions are best expressed through music.
Tech Notes: Music composed using Yo Kubota's Mandelbrot Music software - Unusual Pelog scale used. http://www.fin.ne.jp/~yokubota/ Processed further using Ross Bencina's AudioMulch software - http://www.audiomulch.com/
Phil Jackson - http://www.fractal-vibes.com/
The following was written to Eve Beglarian:
It's been a month, and my paralysis finally let me loose a few days ago. But what began as one horror now transforms into another as I watch the nation's leaders revel in another war -- disappointed that the Cold War is over, they have found a new one (which has been 'pre-announced' as to be as long as the Cold War was). They seem to have lost the capability for re-invention or re-imagining, so piling horror upon horror seems to be the only response they know. We will make more exiles that will look like those racing away from the Towers. And so we begin the transformation of our rage into our outrage.
I have been trying to speak through my musical voice (my only true voice) and day after day finding no sounds; then a simple moment of seeding the future happened: We have a white ash tree that grows among the anonymous locust near the house. The autumn wind came up. A single samara from the ash-among-the-locust spun in the window and down onto my keyboard, where it lodged, its single wing pointing upward, its head burrowing downward to find what was under g and h and t and y. A single seed from the white ash, wood of baseball bats -- it's the season now -- and of the Abenaki legend: "In the beginning, there were only plants and animals on the Earth. The Great Spirit, satisfied but bored, also wanted humans to live there, and he sculpted them from a large straight ash, or mkazawi maahlakws. It was thus that the People of the East were born, and their origin explains the Abenaki people's special relationship with the ash."
So The Key of Locust spun out of me in only a few days. The paralysis is over, replaced by knowledge that winter is about to arrive here in Vermont, a long period of dormancy -- but not death. I can only hope for renewal.
The score to The Key of Locust is available from the composer's score page or directly in PDF from this link.
on saturday september 15th i received an email from a friend saying "it might be a good time for one of your walks." i figured he was right and that if i finished the writing by wednesday night there would be enough time to make copies for saturday the 22nd. we made a little statement which was distributed through the email grapevine and on saturday evening at 7:30 pm about 200 people showed up at the north end of union square. everybody was wonderful, helpful and consoling, we even picked up a new york city motorcycle cop on our way who stopped traffic for us at every intersection on 5th avenue down to washington square.
i have been reluctant to name it, other than 'september 22nd vigil' and would call the six sections by their function and location in the walk:
a description of the vigil with photos can be found on eve beglarian's website: http://www.evbvd.com/newsnotes/911/010924a.html
On this site, Phil's Vigil is in a simplified stereo version. Folks who want to present the piece can get the tapes from him at boombox@mindspring.com
I was sitting in my Manhattan apartment on September 11 watching television when the news started to unravel about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. I stepped outside and could see the smoke coming off the towers.
I have gone through many different emotions since then and can't talk about the way I now feel very well. Nonetheless, the most important thing Americans can do at this point is to invoke our great tradition of rugged individualism and try hard to think for ourselves about what's going on.
Although I have always admired Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., I don't believe that nonviolence is a solution for all situations. People motivated by hate evolve into monsters who may still be human beings, but a reminder to us all of how remarkably flawed our race is.
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were the two front teeth of a broad Manhattan smile. Whoever the terrorists were, they snuck up on us and knocked those teeth out. Ya, it hurts. Ya, we can't ever smile the same way again. But in the long run, those teeth can be replaced and we ought to feel lucky we weren't injured more profoundly.
Louis Kobra was born in 1967 in Citrus Heights, California. He studied piano and composition from Yuri Vladimir Olyinyk, and various other teachers. He spent the 1990s wondering the planet, living in Holland and Germany. Arriving back in New York in the 1990s, he plays local clubs and piano bars.
Dedicated to the Widows and Orphans of the Fire Department
S.O.S.W.T.C. follows previous releases Tronik Involutions (1996) and Inscapes from Exile (1998) as a solo electronic album, but departs in a new direction. The use of concrete and indefinite pitch percussion samples are the core of the sound design, along with pitched and sliding tones. The sound components are controlled via the touch sensitivity of the keyboard so that the improvisation literally 'sculpts' the sound, allowing tri-dimensional control of melody, harmony and color. Lauten has explored concrete in her earlier Piano Works (1983) and Concerto for Piano and Orchestral Memory (1984), using 'noise' loops -- pinball machines, cares in the rain -- as background. In S.O.S.W.T.C., the technology is used to remodel concrete into instrumental color.
The general timing of S.O.S.W.T.C. follows the short-long morse code sequence of a S.O.S., i.e., three short, three long, three short. The succession of the 16 sections establishes a subliminal twin symmetry, with a disrupted S.O.S. (two short instead of three) at the beginning and the end.
The performance is direct, spontaneous, in tune with real life. One might identify impressions of floating in space, of descending like a leaf slowly falling from a tree; a sense of vulnerability, of a growling, ominous presence, of chaos, or merely of something wrong underneath the surface. If the piece was composed in reaction to teh events surrounding the World Trade Center building collapse, it is neither morbid nor elegiac. It is simply, in a Buddhist sense, a comment on reality without judgment, ameditation of the collective consciousness of the time. The experience -- physical, emotional, spiritual -- becomes awareness, and the awareness becomes music.
More information on Lauten's history and recordings is available in at the cyber-archive, http://www.elodielauten.net/.
"Smoke" was created in a spontaneous fit, two days after the September 11th tragedy. I witnessed the terrible event from my rooftop in Brooklyn. When the buildings fell and smoke filled the skyline, thousands of pieces of white paper--documents from the World Trade Center--fluttered into Brooklyn and twinkled above us like stars. One never sees stars in New York City.
In tenebrus lux. (written September 24-25th 2001)
In tenebrus lux is Latin for "In darkness light." We, as a human race, have resilient souls and must hold our inner light high in order to battle the extreme darkness that has recently been thrust upon us. This piece has a dark, but optimistic view. In sound, I believe it demonstrates the tumultuousness of our human tragedy and the agitation / anxiety that we all unfortunately feel. However, In tenebrus lux does display a sonic tranquility and hopefullness that we will all witness again very soon.
Technical Notes: Tama Rockstar Drums recorded direct through quad-effects onto 1 track. The multitracking / editing was done on a PC running Vegas Audio 2.0 and Sound Forge 5.0. MIDI programming was accomplished by an Atari 1040 STF using Notator 3.1. The mighty Kurzweil K2500X keyboard was obviously a valuable tool. Finally, a Macintosh Quadra 950 was used for creating the vocals.
basically in a sad mood, but life goes on. we will overcome our sadness at last. an ambient impression.
My heart goes out to all those who are suffering, grieving their lost loved ones in the wake of September 11th's tragic crime against humanity. Truly we all grieve, not just for those most directly affected, but for our country, our lost innocence, and sense of security. The terrorists dealt a blow to our hearts and we all feel the pain. As an artist, my response is to express my emotions in the form of music and to share it with all of you. I invite you to listen to "A walk through the valley... September 11, 2001"
Let us pray for peace..
http://www.greenangelmusic.com
My heart is with all of you and I join you in prayers and rituals to send positive energy - compassion out to the world and to yourselves.
You can help by listening and generating good energy as well as giving blood and money.
Listening for healing where ever you are is positive.
Give to others as much as possible your positive thoughts. Hold people in compassion if their thoughts go towards retribution or retaliation. Visualize light around them.
Those who have suffered the violent death need our prayers. Breathe and send light. Join them in their transitions.
If you are in a group then the Heart Chant is available for unity in this activity.
Stand together in a circle
Place your right hand over your own heart.
Place your left hand on the back of your partner (back of the heart)
Sing/chant/intone AH on any pitch that will resonate your heart.
Sense the energy of your own heart and that of your partner.
Think that the heart energies are joining and traveling out into the universe as a healing for the end of violence.
With love,
PO
"First, a sharp crack and then what sounded, oddly, like a waterfall, thousands of panes of glass shattering as the north side of the tower buckled. Then a slow, building rumble like rolling thunder that will not stop as the tower cascades toward the ground." --World Trade Center survivor
Ordinarily we think of "the" void as empty space, space that contains nothing, where nothing exists. Or perhaps we think of it as a feeling of emptiness, lonliness, alienation. Since the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we have heard frequent references to "a" void as a pocket of space and air where survivors sometimes find temporary refuge beneath the crushing rubble of a fallen building.
From our detached perspective, a view of stunning, unbelievable images disseminate in real-time over global media, we rarely hear the terrifying avalanche of falling debris, the torturous scraping of metal, and the crush of glass and massive beams. These sounds have a visceral, punishing quality that television can never convey.
In memory of the victims of the terrorist attack, this sound installation places the listener directly within this space, to inhabit this notion of a void that sustains the lives of those trapped beneath the destruction. This is a non-space where one can contemplate the enormity of the event, the weight of its destruction, and the implication of its impact on humanity.
VOID is part of a series of interactive sound installations that explore the forces of sound to transport the mind to real and imaginary spaces.
Randall Packer site at http://www.zakros.com/, with the project at http://www.zakros.com/projects/virtual-spaces/Void.html
The qualities of this horrible attack against anything that is our culture and against humanity itself will leave their traces. It will not be like before. In this sense, whatever I'll compose will bear a trace of this experience.
A very strange coincidence, I found out about what was happening when I came to WDR at 16:00 on tuesday (10:00 am NY time), to discuss the production of my composition "Turm" ( = "tower"). This will certainly not turn out as it was planned....
Read this without my music. You may add 1 minute silence as my contribution.
The sounds of sorrow echo through the canyons of New York.
This song was written as an expression of my feelings regarding the innocent people who were lost and injured on September 11, 2001. I had internalized the feelings for several days, and finally had to do something to get it out.
It is dedicated to the brave firefighters, police officers, EMTs, clergy and other workers who unselfishly and at grave risk helped and comforted others.
More at http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/49/starbirth.html
Created from heavily processed samples. Completed September 13, 2001. A response to inclinations toward violence. A sound sketch of relentless pacifism.
This piece, in three sections without pause, utilizes the banjo in conjunction with the piano to offer an uplifiting, empathetic look at eastern thought from a western perspective. Shutting the door for a moment behind the often fractured, frenetic, and fragmented western life style (Section I), eastern meditation techniques are used to first calm the mind, then create a more congruous internal environment, better suited for harmonious cohabiting a planet with other humans (Section II). The result is a step towards better awareness, broader acceptance, more healthful and appropriate thought and action, and a joyful optimism (Section III). In a small and light-hearted way, parallels expand to a multitude of planes, from the thought patterns of an individual, to the actions of clashing civilizations.
The Dawn After. Genre: Classical Experimental; Program :Tangent. (Almost Fractal composer); Seed Number: 9111 for Sept. 11th 2001
The tune was composed with the intention of show de impressions when you wake up and your first feeling is to enjoy the dawn and suddenly you remember something horrible that happened yesterday. Living in Colombia is plenty of this mornings. I hope people from all around the world don't wake up never with this feeling. The horn is mimicking the sun rise; the flute and trumpet, the horror; the bassoon and oboe the morning beauty and the strings the smoke and darkness at the tragedy scenario.
Original MIDI composition by Edgardo Solano. Mixed and orchestrated by Tim Conrardy at Blue Mountain Studios, Santa Clara, CA.
One of the miracles of the world does not exist anymore. Part of our dream has been taken away from us. I can not believe this is happening. My city has suffered enourmous loss. I have tried to deal with this tragedy and emtyness we all feel the only way I know how- writing music. Thank you for taking your time to listen to my music. I hope it might help you to understand and deal with this unbelievable tragedy.
For almost a day, I did not think I want to be creative ever again. And, a day later I find myself writing music trying to deal with the WTC bombing. The piece was used today for the end of a conference on the 10th anniversary of Internet in Poland, broadcasted live and recorded for TV and I was told it was a very special close.
WEDGE was created during the period following the destruction of the World Trade Center when downtown Manhattan was filled with the sounds of heavy machinery and trucks engaged in the rescue and recovery effort. The material was generated through the use of functional iteration synthesis techniques derived from the work of Agostino Discipio and certain routines from Trevor Wishart's "Wedge" program. I am currently working on a visual counterpart to WEDGE.
Miroirs
A collection of twelve pieces I made between July and September 2001. Number 7 was the first piece to be composed, followed by number 1. All the rest went out clearly once I identified and set up the connections between the pieces and the motivation behind them. The title, Miroirs (Mirrors) came naturally after piece n.1, which actually uses pitch mirroring in the sequencer. But the mirroring is wider, most of this music is composed "after" someone else, or with the memories and feelings of other music I specially know and like. Most of the pieces exploit the "joking" side of my personality, as they are a kind of wordplay in themselves, besides of the jokes in the titles. I worked hard for two months but the results are still not up to my expectations, either because I'm not really a professional composer and because I have only a limited amount of resources in audio hardware and especially in available time, so most of these pieces have been set up "in a hurry" and will be probably revised later. A little help went from operating on pre-existing materials, some very old of mine, some from existing MIDI files from other composers. I added a 13 th piece on Sep.12, 2001, but let it without any title.
From my apartment near the East Village, I could see nothing but the smoke from the tops of the towers once both planes had crashed. The smoke and dust lingered for days after that in lower Manhattan. As I recall these events now, I realize how difficult it would be to write something "in memoriam" for the victims. The distinction between good and evil, despite its mysteries, keeps us wondering how the same religious symbols in two different cultures can be interpreted in two completely different ways. "Afterlife" explores the clash between two numbers, three and four, as their identities change from three against four, to four against three.
Other info available at my website, http://www.angelfire.com/music2/greggwager
Here are some of my thoughts on the piece:
October 1, 2001
In Memoriam, September 11, 2001
I wrote these sketches during the days of watching the horror of the attacks of September 11: the collapse of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon, the plane crash in Pennsylvania.
I didn't have a piece in mind, or consciously set out to write one. But the sketches seemed to belong together, afterwards, and to fit the solo cello. It is my way of holding each other in our loss.
It reflects my sadness, our collective sadness
the loss of loved ones
looking for survivors, not finding...
Hoping it isn't true, disbelief...
it is true...
The slow motion collapse of the towers (mm. 46-49), the only direct musical reference to the events that I am aware of
with that collapse, all of our losses
our national sense of invulnerability gone
humility
interdependence
prayer
with love,
Meira Warshauer
Columbia, SC
meira@musician.org
Meira Warshauer, composer
Robert Jesselson, cellist (University of South Carolina faculty)
Jeff Francis, mastering engineer
Music available from Kol Meira Publications; Here is Meira Warshauer's Home Page
Recorded September 14, 2001; Duration: 5m42s; Instrumentation: 15 tracks synthesizer (Korg Triton Rack)
The Tagline: Pretty intense, not for kids... severe ...
The Story: This piece is about many things, many things coming together. It is about the World Trade Center attack, about the Holocaust, about nostalgia, about "the future", finding new musical languages, about this, that, and other things. It may be about different things for you.
Recording Details/Construction details: 15 tracks of improvised material, all recorded in successive takes (one track after the other). Gear used: Korg Triton Rack. Unedited, un-reverbed, un-anything. Enjoy... stay with it. Two other interesting notes: 1) A fast click track in 17/4 meter was used during recording, but it's muted on the final copy. Click track was there for inspiration. 2) The choice of instruments was rather vague and random. I didn't really care what they were. I had faith that I could make do with whatever sounds I had.
See www.Ljova.com for more tracks, biography, and contact information.
Recorded October 6, 2001; Duration: 10m27s; Instrumentation: viola (solo)
The Tagline: Lost, found, and then lost again. :)
The Story: I bought a new microphone, a very expensive one. The day after I got everything set up, I recorded two improvisations with my viola, #11 entitled "Always Playing" (which includes me talking into the new microphone) and #12 "A Bohemian Rhapsody for One". Both improvs were recorded within the same hour, and of course they are radically different -- "Always Playing" is a conservative three-movement "suite", while "Bohemian Rhapsody" is all over the place, and includes segments of me whistling along with my viola (in a quasi-recetative manner), and humming (in a fashion quasi Paolo Conte) an excerpt from Mahler's 2nd Symphony. As with all improvised material, it's somewhat anti-effective to speak about "what inspired this and that", so I'll just gladly acknowledge that I am privegeled to listen to varied and weird music all the time.
Form-wise, I think the improv came out as: Lost, found, then lost again. By that I mean that initially the recurring motto (in C# minor) appears lost in a sea of other motifs... about 6 or 7 minutes into the improv., another motto (in D major) is found and takes the improv to great heights... and then gets confused again as we shift into whistling, screaming, and hillbilly music. Have I said enough? :)
Recording Details: Home recording using a viola by Alexander Tulchinsky, a Neumann TLM-103 Microphone, and Logic Audio Platinum (software).
See www.Ljova.com for more tracks, biography, and contact information.
"Outside" for string orchestra -- in memoriam victims of terrorism
Composed September 24, 2001; Premiered September 27, 2001; Performers: Sebastian Chamber Players; Duration: 3m; Instrumentation: String Orchestra
The Tagline: in memoriam victims of terrorism
The Story: This piece was commissioned and premiered by the Sebastian Chamber Players, a young and talented ensemble in New York City. They had originally wanted me to write something upbeat and cheery, but, due to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, this wasn't great timing.
Recording Details: Live recording of the premiere, using 1 microphone and a Sony MiniDisc recorder...
See www.Ljova.com for more tracks, biography, and contact information.
Recorded October 29, 2001; Duration: 4m32s; Instrumentation: Korg Triton Rack (synthesizer)
The Tagline: icy, detached piece for strings and electronics
The Story: This piece has nothing to do with the America in the 60s, the hippie movement, etc. It is merely a sort of reflection on, say, a picture of a young boy or girl who is a flower ... slowly growing, opening and closing in slow motion...
Recording Details: Home recording, using the Korg Triton-Rack, and Logic Audio Platinum (software).
See www.Ljova.com for more tracks, biography, and contact information.