Mikel Kuehn - Works

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (2022), for periphonic Ambisonic system (FOA):

A recording occurs on my 2022 album, Entanglements:

https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/entanglements

 Program Note

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (2022, soprano and ambisonic fixed media) is based on Wallace Stevens’ 1917 elusive poem of the same name. In its 13 haiku-like stanzas, Stevens paints contrasting images, scenes, or “sensations” of the blackbird set in a larger theme of “humans vs. nature.” Contemporary with the writing of this poem was the rise of Cubism and Stevens is perhaps offering a poetic version of the Cubists’ technique of presenting multiple simultaneous viewpoints of the subject. In contemplating the poem’s shifting perspectives and elements of narrator, blackbird and the theme of “human vs. nature,” I’ve modeled the sonic palette on three components: recorded environmental material, sounds made from the processing of the female voice, and purely synthetic timbres.

Performance/Technical Notes
This work contains a live soprano part and an ambisonic fixed media sound file (1st order, B-format). The soprano part includes a traditional musical score with a minimally notated electroacoustic part and time codes. During performance the soprano can simply sing with stereo playback or, for a more integrated performance environment, with a microphone (sound reinforcement), a little reverb, and a multichannel speaker configuration (the latter is the preferred method). If using sound reinforcement for the soprano and multichannel playback (ie., quad, octophonic, 5.1, etc.), care should be taken to isolate the spatial position of the vocal signal to the stage and close to the performer (i.e., not on speakers that are distant from the soprano).

Please contact the composer for a transcoded version in stereo, quad, 8-channels, etc. or a Max Patch with a customizable decoder.