Nico
Muhly,

Alex Zachary and Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen asked me to write an enormous amount of music for their Ancient Greek-language proudction of Iphegenia at Aulis, which they produced in association with the Columbia University Classics Department in 2005. While some of the music was vocal, three of the instrumental pieces (recorded by me playing recorder, keyboard, celeste, and toy harp, with Nadia Sirota, viola) turned out to be long drones. The production was beautiful and outrageous: a sort of Chinese glamorama metronomic pubic hair sort of thing ““ the music tried to float above it and make the family drama cohere to the design.

[audio:Scene 4 Viola 3.mp3]
Scene 4 (not a drone but close enough): marimba, pianos, violas, organs

[audio:Scene 5 Viola Excerpt.mp3]
Scene 5: organs, violas, ripping paper

[audio:8. Scene 8.mp3]
Scene 8: procesed organs

This is for you, Margaret & Emily: