Fall 2025 Cinema for the Ears, Concert 1 - Program Notes
This concert was held in Ford-Crawford Hall on November 3, 2025 at 5 pm. All pieces use a quadraphonic sound system.
Walker White: Trombone Gestures
Trombone Gestures is a process piece for quadraphonic sound, composed exclusively from trombone recordings.
Brady Wolff: Pumpkin Guts
Pumpkin Guts deconstructs the sounds of pumpkin carving, examining Halloween through its fine details. The tactile sounds of the knife against the rind are further distorted in order to immerse the listener, almost as if you are inside the pumpkin.
Rowan Lemaster: Where to Start
Where to Start is a piece that explores the sounds that are not normally heard in a typical acoustic performance. I decided to use the sounds of someone cleaning their instrument, testing their reeds, blowing out water, etc. as these “atypical” sound sources. These sounds are usually associated with the act of practicing for a performance. Just like the musical sounds that are created while practicing are not necessarily intended for audiences, these other “practice sounds” are also never intended for an audience. The title of this piece is intended to reflect the question a musician might ask themselves when they sit down to practice. “Where should I start today?” Regardless of where the person decides to start, these types of sounds are almost always heard coming out of a practice room.
Eli Hocking: *kwel-
*kwel- is a root meaning “to revolve, spin, or move around” in Proto-Indo-European (the common ancestor of 50% of spoken languages today, including anything from English to Persian to Hindi). A quadraphonic speaker setup made me immediately think of rotation, spinning, and most of all: spirals. *kwel- as a root has descended into many different words in PIE-borne languages — in English alone, the words circle, cult, pulley, cycle, rickshaw, palindrome, as well as hundreds of other words have come from this root. My goal with this piece was to evoke as many different words coming from *kwel- as I could, all using the concept of spinning. I hope you enjoy all of the sounds rotating around you! Think of yourself as the focal point of the sounds, as if they are pointed at you (well, they are). What things in your life seem to spin and spiral around you? Do you associate this with things that feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Are you in control of the spinning?
Ziming Ren: Flux
All the sounds in Flux originate from real, recorded materials. I wanted to capture the feeling of flowing water while keeping its authenticity, yet making it more colorful and alive. In the first half, the piece moves through small streams, bottles touching water, and faint traces of animals near the surface. Gradually, it drifts into a dreamlike world, where the sounds of water transform — from rivers to oceans, from droplets to waves — merging into a continuous space. Throughout the piece, I explore how simple, recognizable sounds can be reshaped to suggest something imaginary. For instance, I used my own speaking voice and transformed it into the call of a whale I imagined. And this piece is a meditation on movement, transformation, and the fragile boundary between the real and the imagined.
Jiayu Wu: Please, go.
The piece is inspired by Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007), set in wartime Shanghai. The film follows a young woman who joins a secret plot to seduce and assassinate a political figure. As she moves deeper into the deception, her emotions begin to shift, and her final decision becomes a quiet act of resistance. The music reflects on the tension between desire and danger, and the fragility of human emotion in times of political turmoil.
Jane: And I told her she was beautiful
When there is no inherent meaning, you’re left to find it. In this case, it’s her. The distorted, dissonant percussion moving through space mirrors my own deep discomfort knowing our relationship isn’t the same as it had been the last five years. It’s all mangled recordings of found objects in my room. The things that surround me and remind me of her. The warmth I felt just knowing she was there is gone, so I’m left to find a way to be comfortable with myself. It’s healthy in some kind of way, and we’re still best friends, but there’s a piece missing that leaves me feeling empty. I hope to find contentment. I love her, and I always will.
Tianqi Zhang: I see the Moon
I see the Moon is an electroacoustic reflection on silent love and unseen companionship. It begins with a simple thought: the most painful thing in the world is to see the bright moon shining for everyone — but never for me. But to see the moon each night, to live beneath its gentle light, is already a quiet kind of happiness.
The piece weaves together recordings of my own voice, transformed through a granulator, and the gentle sound of prayer beads bought at Yuelu Mountain.
Malcolm T. Doaks: Love in the Highest
I composed Love in the Highest during a moment when I was just getting acquainted with studying the Bible. Within the Gospel According to Matthew, Jesus provides a new understanding of the moral laws in order to guide people back to its original purpose. I recorded my recitation of one of the verses in this book which I understand to be the “commandment of all commandments” and centered my piece around this. For me, this commandment is actually really hard to follow, as I am very particular about who I love, trust, and confide in, but to hold on to that is to ignore just how small I am in this world that He carries and how small I am compared to His will. Through this composition, I have created a period of meditation with the intention to convict myself to no longer rely on my own understanding, feelings, and inhibitions, and to expose myself to life abundantly by trusting Him. It starts with the focus on God through a submerging soundscape, then a focus on love through a fragmented quotation of a very old Christian tune, then a transition to a recitation of the commandment in full.