James O'Callaghan: Overbound • Cameron Crozman, Cello скачать в хорошем качестве

James O'Callaghan: Overbound • Cameron Crozman, Cello

James O'Callaghan (CA): Overbound (2022) Concerto for cello, octophonic electronics and orchestra Cameron Crozman | Cello https://www.cameroncrozman.com/ Esprit Orchestra | Alex Pauk, C.M, Conductor World Premiere Performance, recorded live January 25th, 2023 at Koerner Hall, Toronto. Composer's Note: While composing Overbound, I consistently referred to it as my ‘Cello concerto’ to friends and colleagues, even though I had already chosen a title early in the process. I have a certain allergy to traditional naming conventions and media — after all, I am a 21st-century electroacoustic composer! And the piece and its situation are far from conventional: the orchestra is accompanied by a ring of eight loudspeakers, the cellist is amplified and treated electronically, and the work is full of theatre. Nonetheless, tasked with my first work for soloist plus orchestra, I found it irresistible to stare tradition in its face — what else do you call that if not a ‘concerto’? Especially when offered the opportunity to collaborate with the virtuoso cellist Cameron Crozman, who has such an impressive command of the Romantic repertoire in particular! The piece’s official title was chosen for its multiplicity of meanings. To ‘overbound’ could mean to set a limit or boundary that extends too far. Already with a concerto, we have enormous territory: the orchestra allows us to expand outward and imagine an external universe; and the soloist draws us inward to examine the inner-universe of the individual. I wanted to see how much I could exceed these seemingly-infinite poles: the loudspeakers surrounding the audience expand the spatial dimension of the orchestra and brings in sounds from outside and imaginary worlds; while the soloist is given a pair of headphones that offer them an inner aural world sometimes inaccessible to the audience — but the work bleeds between these faintly-drawn borderlines, and we ultimately remain within the shared space of the concert hall. To be ‘overbound’ could mean to be overly-constrained; to be faced with one’s limitations. However vast the province of the orchestra or the virtuosity of a single musician, there is only so much we can do. Early in our conversations about the piece, Esprit’s director Alex Pauk encouraged me to explore these conditions “to the fullest extent” — and what I find so beautifully human is when we push at our limits: to ‘overbound’ could be also to ‘leap over.’ In art we have the marvellous condition of suspending disbelief. For a moment in time, if we take the leap together, we seem to be hanging in mid-air and anything appears possible. While sketching the work, I had an interesting conversation with my composer colleague Santa Bušs about Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Its story questions the relationship between individual and society, as its dubious protagonist departs from his home and responsibilities on a doomed quest of self-discovery. The work is nonetheless fantastically heroic, emblematized by its sweeping score by Edvard Grieg. Overbound seeds some of its harmonic materials from Grieg’s score: I wanted to see what it could mean to imagine this music satirically, as it warps and fragments. At the same time, I was confronted by its irresistible beauty, in the same way that I could not avoid the term ‘cello concerto.’ In our efforts to exceed the grasp of history, or to discover our own paths as individuals apart from society, we are at some point confronted with the wisdom and comfort of our communities and traditions. In Overbound I wanted to capture the dramatic tension between these two forces, and use it as my spring to take a leap. - James O'Callaghan