Hodechtri, for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano, Percussion and Electronics

©2006 by Peter Swinnen Live performed by Champ d'Action, cond. J. Bossier Recently I discovered which fascinating musical transformations you get if you change the font bitmap of a text and run it through an image synthesizer. For this piece, a sextet for flute, violin, clarinet, cello, piano and percussion, I'm elaborating on this idea and developing some specific manipulations of musical gestures, built on the different idiomatic playing techniques of the instruments. Furthermore I'm exploring the vast sound possibilities when two or more instruments influence each others sound through means of electronic manipulations. In the past I've worked many times with the concept of 'extended instruments', where electronics multiply the expressive possibilities of an acoustic instrument, fully controlled by the instrumental player. Here I want to push it further. Sounds will be created by electronically merging several instruments, whereas each individual instrumentalist controls another parameter of the sound, not by a MIDI-controller or so, but through his very own acoustical sound, tracked in real-time by the computer. In short, a computer-based 'extended combined instrument'. Which, of course, will not only be capable of sculpting the time, but also the acoustical space. Peter Swinnen Brussels, 26-05-2006