Blankness

John MacCallum

General Info

Year: 2008
Duration: c. 12:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Manuscript
Cost: Score and Parts - Download Here   |   Score Only - $0.00

Instrumentation

Vibraphone
Viola
Electronics

Program Notes

Faced with the impossibility of concatenating, they utter sentences that are interrupted, exhausted, come to a standstill. Even phrases they cannot formulate. A repetitive rhythm, a monotonous melody emerge and dominate the broken logical sequences, changing them into recurring, obsessive litanies. Finally, when that frugal musicality becomes exhausted in its turn, or simply does not succeed in becoming established on account of the pressure of silence, the melancholy person appears to stop cognizing as well as uttering, sinking into the blankness of asymbolia or the excess of unorderable cognitive chaos.

Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia.

blankness (ii) was written for and premiered at the 2008 MANCA festival in Nice, France as part of a collaboration between UC Berkeley, CNMAT, the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Nice, and CIRM.

Recent Performances

https://soundcloud.com/johnmaccallum/blankness

To submit a performance please join the TEK Percussion Database

Works for Percussion by this Composer

…almost like hail… - Multiple Percussion; Electronics
Aberration - Percussion Trio; Electronics
Blankness - Vibraphone; Viola; Electronics