Mud

septet (flute, clarinet, saxophone, violin, ‘cello, percussion, piano), video, and electronics
premiered by [Switch~ Ensemble]

Mud is pretty magical stuff. It can transform just about anything into itself. Given enough time, it can support new life growing out of it again.

For this piece, I traced the migrations of dirt: metabolized in compost, filtered underwater by oysters, and airborne on trees and branches. I made field recordings underground, underwater, and on land. I analyzed and extracted pitches, textures, and rhythms to shape the musical material. I collaborated with scientist James Weiss who creates video footage of microbial life in these sorts of everyday mud sources.

To start a conversation with mud, I planted a small garden and fed it with my compost. I learned that plants respond well to sound, so I “toned” my garden, playing frequencies into the earth and recording responses. The ground murmured back with insect life, and the plants chirped with ultrasonic voices. In the piece, performers enter this conversation by improvising with audio and video from this process, expanding the dialogue between mud, plants, and sound.