Product Description
Zap! (2005, 45 minutes)
for Van de Graaff Generator, Lyricon, voices, guitar, cello, bass, percussion, piano, robotic xylophone and electronics.
The sound of electricity at its rawest and most majestic - sparks, booms, lightning bolts, sizzling corona and low hums from giant motors - intermingle with the sounds of cello, bass, guitar, piano, clarinets, percussion and voice. Christine Southworth created Zap! in 2004 to explore these possibilities, using the Boston Museum of Science's Theater of Electricity as her venue and instrument. Its centerpiece - MIT Professor Robert Van de Graaff's eponymous Generator, was born in 1931 as one of the world's largest atom smashers. It is still the largest of its kind in the world, standing forty-feet tall and producing up to 1.5 million volts of electricity. Zap!, a composition in seven parts, takes the sounds of this machine, two large Tesla Coils, and a Jacob's Ladder, merged with rock rhythms and sweet melodies performed by Robert Black, David Cossin, Felix Fan, Philippa Thompson, Eddie Whalen, & Evan Ziporyn. The resulting music is ... electrifying!Premiered February 4, 2005 at Boston Museum of Science by Ensemble Robot, Jeff Lieberman (guitar), Blake Newman (bass), Sachi Sato (keyboard), Mei-mi Lin (keyboard), Akili Haynes (percussion, voice), Erik Nugent (Lyricon, voice), Rebecca Zook (cello), Christine Southworth (voice, Van de Graaff controls), Leila Hasan (Van de Graaff controls), Giles Hall (robot controls).
About the Composer
Christine Southworth (b. 1978) is a composer and video artist based in Lexington, Massachusetts, dedicated to creating music born from a cross-pollination of sonic ideas. Inspired by intersections of technology and art, nature and machines, and musics from cultures around the world, her music employs sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generators to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seismic data from volcanoes. Website: www.kotekan.com
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.