PROGRAM LISTING


Resonance Frames (2003)
        	Music by Michael Gandolfi - Film by Pamela Larson




I. Photon Waves

II. Willow

III. Zig Zag

IV. U.F.O. / V. Spin / VI. Desert Dash










PROGRAM NOTES



     Resonance Frames was commissioned by Harvard University’s 2003 First Nights, 
course.  First Nights, authored and led by Professor Thomas Kelly, explores several 
landmark pieces of music from the 1600’s to the present, the premieres of which 
raised provocative cultural and social issues relative to art and its role in society.  
As a final project, the class witnesses and critically assesses the creation, rehearsal 
and world premiere of a musical composition commissioned by First Nights.   


     For this occasion I chose to work with six non-narrative, abstract films by 
Boston-based film-maker Pamela Larson.  The creative process resembled the 
setting of poetry to music; each artistic discipline contributed equally to the 
finished product.  Pamela Larson and I worked together to strengthen the 
overall form of the work by modifying the lengths and sequences of several of 
the films, which often provided me with strong musical ideas.  For example, 
Zig Zag was originally an amusing seventeen-second film.  I suggested that we 
repeat it twice to add length.  In so doing, undesirable discontinuities in 
the light of the film were created.  We then reversed the middle iteration, which 
solved the light problem but caused an abrupt change in the direction of motion 
in the film.  This serendipitous result enhanced the humor of the original film and 
immediately suggested to me an appropriate musical response.  


     The titles of each movement, descriptive of the visual and aural elements 
found within each respective movement, were created after the work was 
completed.  It is desired that the music and film be performed and screened in a 
concert setting to best join the physicality of live musical performance with the 
raw, natural quality of the Super-8 films.


                                 



Michael Gandolfi














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