00Opinions (2002)

Instrumentation
Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Percussion, Electric Bass, Live Low-Tech Electronics, Piano/Sampler (One-Player), and Pre-Recorded CD

Duration
12'

Commission
Commissioned by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies

Notes

00Opinions is a light-hearted piece commissioned by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies in Claremont California for a conference entitled “Making The Milleniuum.” The conference was to bring together scholars, economists, artists, and philosophers from around the world to discuss issues relating to the future. The one stipulation for the commission was that the text of the piece must deal with issues relating to the future. My distinguished audience was therefore known, and my task no less daunting then to make a piece that peers into the next century and encapsulates my view of future music. After searching for texts from almost every conceivable source, I decided, instead, to leave it to others. I posed a single question to a variety of people, a cast of thousands, and then constructed a narrative, or multiple narrative streams, from that material. My initial question was “What will life be like in the year 3000?” but I then narrowed it down, at the suggestion of Eric Moe, to “What will music be like in the year 3000, and can you hum a few bars of it?” Instead of guessing what the musical sounds and structures of the future were to be, I relied, for the most part, on sounds from the past and present, with just a little bit of future music added in. Not too many people took me up on the humming part of the question, however I did get many potent replies to the main question (for those of you not familiar with my work, I do write serious music as well).

Reviews
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Availability
Plurabelle Music Publishing (Distributed by Subito Music Corp.)

World Premiere
April 26, 2000, California EAR Unit, Claremont McKenna College

Notable Performances

May 24, 2000, California EAR Unit, Bing Theater, Los Angeles
Aug 4, 2000, California E.A.R. Unit, Grand Performances Summer Series, Los Angeles
November 13, 2005, Chamber Music in Historic Sites Series, Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (in conjunction with an exhibit of costumes from the Star Wars films), Los Angeles, California EAR Unit
March 2006, Duquesne University Contemporary Ensemble, David Stock, U3 Festival, Pittsburgh
April 16, 2009, Longitude New Music Ensemble, Longy School of Music, Boston