The Sad Park (2006) 30'
Commissioner: Kronos Quartet, through the generosity of Mrs. Ralph I. Dorfman with additional support from the Barbican, London (UK), and the National Endowment for the Arts
First Performer: Kronos Quartet, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, 11 September 2006
Instrumentation: string quartet + amp + audio playback + electronics
Special Features:
Program note:
Part 1: Two evil planes broke in little pieces and fire came.
Part 2: There was a big boom and then there was teeny fiery coming out.
Part 3: I just heard that on the news that the buildings are crashing down.
Part 4: And all the persons that were in the airplane died.
The recordings used in this piece are of children, ages 3 and 4, and were made by Loyan Beausoleil, a pre-kindergarten teacher at University Plaza Nursery School in Lower Manhattan, between September 2001 and January 2002. (My son Lev was in Ms. Beausoleil’s class during this period.) Her ongoing work with these children is chronicled at http:www.youngestwitnesses.com
When I heard these recordings I was struck by the raw tunefulness of the children’s speech. These specific segments were chosen for their musicality as well as for their content. I worked with sound designer Luke DuBois on the post-production of these tapes. In Parts 1 and 3, the sound clips are gradually slowed down to reveal the hidden acoustical properties of the speech. Parts 2 and 4 use an electronic music technique called granular synthesis, in which tiny ''grains'' of sound from the original source are captured and compacted together.
—Michael Gordon
The Sad Park was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, through the generosity of Mrs. Ralph I. Dorfman, with additional support from the Barbican, London (UK), and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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