Event Title
Can't Take You Anywhere
Performer / Ensemble
Stephen Marotto (Violoncello)
Date of Publication
3-26-2021
Document Type
Composition
Abstract / Program Notes
Can’t Take You Anywhere is written for (amplified) cello and triggered fixed media. It is inspired traveling around with a particularly noisy crackle box. Its light sensors responded in particularly cantankerous ways when we were riding elevators in my building. Often engaged by curious elevator passengers, I found myself having to explain the goings on as if I were an embarrassed pet owner. The cello and electronics embody different moments, patternings, and realizations found throughout this process.
Biography
Ralph Lewis is a doctoral candidate in music composition at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is passionate about exploring, supporting, and understanding new musical expression. Active as a composer, music theorist, and educator, his work is often centered on creating welcoming, inclusive spaces and engaging less discussed music and technology. In 2019, he received one of ten Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Research Grant awarded throughout the US to support his music theory dissertation research about Aaron Cassidy’s Second String Quartet at the University of Huddersfield. Lewis’s compositions have been performed at festivals and conferences including SCI National Student Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, SEAMUS, College Music Society, Radiophrenia Glasgow, Boston Microtonal Society, the International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR), and the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival. Previously, he received an M.F.A. in Electronic Music and Recording Media and an M.A. in Music Composition from Mills College, a B.M. in Music Composition from Oberlin Conservatory, and a B.A. in Classical Civilization from Oberlin College. A native of Norwalk, Connecticut, Stephen has received a Bachelors degree with honors from the University of Connecticut, and Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Boston University. Stephen’s formative teachers include Michael Reynolds, Kangho Lee, Marc Johnson, and Rhonda Rider. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Stephen plays regularly with groups such as Sound Icon, Callithumpian Consort, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and also performs on various new music concert series in the Boston area and beyond. Stephen has attended music festivals at the Banff Centre, Cortona Sessions for New Music and SoundSCAPE festival in Italy, and the and the Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. Stephen has a wide range of musical interest that include contemporary chamber music, improvisatory music, and electroacoustic music. As a soloist, Stephen has commissioned several new works for the instrument, and is concerned with expanding and augmenting the tonal pallet of his instrument both with and without technology. Stephen can be heard as a featured artist on Mode Records. In his spare time, Stephen is an avid hiker and outdoorsman.
Keywords
Cello, Triggered Fixed Media
Description
Duration: 6:30. Instrumentation: Cello and Triggered Fixed Media. Date of Composition: 2019.
Can't Take You Anywhere
Can’t Take You Anywhere is written for (amplified) cello and triggered fixed media. It is inspired traveling around with a particularly noisy crackle box. Its light sensors responded in particularly cantankerous ways when we were riding elevators in my building. Often engaged by curious elevator passengers, I found myself having to explain the goings on as if I were an embarrassed pet owner. The cello and electronics embody different moments, patternings, and realizations found throughout this process.