DESCRIPTION:
Premiered at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse on July 19th, 2012
(Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foiundation)

Ensemble Linea of Strasbourg
Conductor: Jean-Philippe Wurtz
Flute/Alto Flute/Piccolo : Keiko Murakami
Clarinet/Bass Clarinet: Andrea Nagy
Bassoon: Elise Jacoberger
French Horn: Samuel Stoll
Trumpet: Steve Altoft
Percussion: Olivier Maurel
Piano: Reto Staub
Violin: Maiko Matsuoka
Viola: Jessica Rona
Cello: Johannes Burghoff

Recording Musicians:
Flute/ Alto Flute/Piccolo: Margaret Lancaster
Clarinet/ Bass Clarinet: Caroll McGonnell
Bassoon: Adolfo Almeida Jr.
French Horn: Samuel Stoll
Saxes: Jesiel Pinheiro
Percussion: Javier Diaz
Violin/Viola/Cello/Guitar/Piano: Arthur Kampela

Technical assistants:
Video and Electronic sounds triggering: André Perrota
Electronic sounds: Nevin Reade and Bennett Quarles
Video and Max MSP programming: Stefan Tiedje
Video FX: Christian Dietz and Florian Gotz
Finale and score assistant: Zachary Seely

An «opera for musicians», ten musicians, pre-recorded sounds and video images that are triggered by the players through pedals. The (distorted) video w/ white noise effects acts as an extra musician, producing images/sounds instead of just sounds, but also as an extension, an electronic «limb» - the musician's identity is decentred, «dispersed through technological means.

The central idea is one of identity, and there is no soloists or theatrical situation. The title "...B... " has many (fortuitous) aspects: B might stand for plan B, for being, for the number 13, or something that is not yet A. Simply put, the idea of identity is immediately associated with who we are. The implicit struggle with the perception of ourselves is "squeezed" between the way we look at us and the way the other perceives us, and our subsequent perception of it. My particular reading of the location of the letter B within the western alphabet hints on the idea of substitution, or second option: B is not the first one in line. Therefore our struggle for affirmation and identity. Also inscribed in the very design of the letter you have a vertical line, meaning the shortest way between two points and a 3 or a half 8, which means infinity, since half of it is still unending. I thought that this fortuitous coincidence is tellingly indicating the phenomenological nature of being who strives to connect to it's own identity but is caught inserted in a temporality that is always already foregrounded, thus the constant ontological gap in the I.

To create identity, construct homogenity inside the dispersion of media and actors by rhythm; the «theory of micro-metric modulation» functions as a unifying principle. Time as the common structure of sound and moving image is filtered by the same compositional constraint.

...B..." is the central episode or 'scene' that belongs to a larger group of pieces with theatrical overtones. The idea for these pieces is to challenge the public's perception/reception of (New) Music. At the outset of each piece a kind of a contextual narrative is deployed. This type of Ariadne's thread guides the listener into a situation of 'loaded meanings' or onto an implicit narrative and, as the piece develops, it slowly looses its initial content disorienting the listener/viewer and inserting him/her into the labyrinth of its own perception of (abstract) sonic events.

"For the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky"

This piece is also dedicated to Jean-Philippe Wurtz and the Linea Ensemble of Strasbourg and to Alexa and Etenraku Babakhanian

©Arthur Kampela