For a more complete set of listenings click HERE
For more videos of performances including the below pieces click HERE
HERE is a set of improvisations that my brother and I recorded the last time we in our mom’s house, after her death.
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Õs Grândė Fædeur dî Rïdiendo – (curdlephone and electronics) with Juna Toksöz Winston 1:00:00″
Theatrical lecture-recital written and composed by Juna Toksöz Winston and Curtis Rumrill
Juna Toksöz Winston drives across the landscape tuned into radio static, hunting the ephemeral traces of a long-abandoned cult of sonic worshippers whose pirate transmissions are the fabric of legends. Decades after their storied feats of eco-terrorism, Li-ists have drifted from the front pages of newspapers to the footnotes of academic dissertations, having become the reluctant subject of study for a small community of scholars invested in their eschatological lamentations.
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The Fur Rabbits of Toft Farms – (haegeum, cello) composed for Soo Yeon Lyuh and Ashley Bathgate 17’30”
A litter of rabbit kits learn the songs of the farm on which they live while gradually coming to terms with what it means to be raised as a fur rabbit on a rabbit farm.
In 1726 Mary Toft began giving birth to rabbits, or so the story goes. Toft, who claimed to have become supernaturally obsessed with rabbits during her pregnancy, repeatedly offered to give birth to the creatures in whole or pieces. She did so in the presence of anyone who doubted her, much to the fascination of the British Royal Family, who sent representatives. Many a fine physician lost their reputation when Toft’s hoax was revealed.
Ever since then we at Toft Farms™ have proudly delivered the finest in rabbit meats, furs and byproducts. Toft Farms™: “rabbits the Toft way.”
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Today I Made Not a Sound — (chromelodeon and heckelphone) performed by the ghosts of Daniil Kharms length indeterminate
This work is deliberately unperformable, or, more accurately, the definitive performance of the piece is the act of reading the score and notes, and imagining the piece.
The score is available here, if you would like to imagine its performance.
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Songs of an Unnamed Kingdom – 2019 (cl, tbn, sop, sop, sop, mezzo, perc, vln, vc) performed by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and Eco Ensemble 15’00”
Songs of an Unnamed Kingdom is the retelling of an Irish folk song often named Polly Vaughn (though there are many variants). In the original Young Jimmy shoots and kills Polly Vaughn, then claims he mistook her for a swan. He is tried for her murder, but during the trial Polly Vaughn’s ghost appears to explain that her killing was not Young Jimmy’s fault, as she herself had made the fatal mistake of looking like a swan.
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The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers – (sop, sop sop, mezzo) composed for Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble 45’00”
The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers is the story of a mother and her children, animals of indeterminate species. At the opening of the piece a blight of mold comes that wipes out her their only source of food for the winter, the Ilex, or winterberry as it is commonly known. Unable to produce milk, and starving together as they hibernate in their burrow, the mother, our protagonist, eventually makes the decision, conscious or not, to eat her children. She emerges from the ordeal a survivor, and speaking a new language acquired while in the throes of a starving sleep and amidst blood dreams. The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers is a story of apocalypse, suffering, starvation, motherhood, murder, survival, and ultimately of a salvation of sorts. The work, a concert-length musical drama in eight parts, was commissioned by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, and composed based on text written by Webberly Ebberly Finnich.
Excerpts are posted below.
To listen to the complete work, visit http://curtisrumrill.com/wiltmold/
Excerpt 1, Part II, Which describes an unpleasant dream, and other things: Start (page 20) – Rehearsal D (page 23)
Excerpt 2, Part III, A plea for the impossible: Rehearsal D (page 33) – end (page 36)
Excerpt 3, Part IV, The part about the eating: Rehearsal C (page 49) – Rehearsal G (page 54)
Excerpt 4, Part V, Hymn and soliloquy: Start (page 60) – Rehearsal L (page 62)
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The Long Hibernation – (sax, perc, sop, pno, vln) performed by Ensemble Dal Niente 15’00”
The Long Hibernation is the story of an animal of indeterminate species that dies in her sleep. She is then lamented through a folk-song in an imaginary dialect of English (presumably the fictional folk-dialect of her species).
Excerpt: Rehearsal R (page 14) – Rehearsal Z (page 22)
Complete Work:
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Sex Poem for Lightbulb by Beetle – (sop, fl, gtr, perc i, perc ii) for soundSCAPE Festival, Liz Pearce, soprano10’00”
Sex Poem for Lightbulb for Beetle at its most fundamental is, as the title suggests, a work of erotic fiction. In it a beetle bashes herself to death against a lightbulb, driven by sexual desire. It is simultaneously a work of fiction to be taken at face value as a story, and a metaphor for sexual longing and coupling when one party is a god to another’s bugness.
Excerpt: Rehearsal D (page 6) – Rehearsal N (page 16)
Complete Work:
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In this Styrofoam Room – (fl, ob, cl, sop, vln, vc) performed by Kamratōn 8’00”
In this Styrofoam Room is the story of a bug, living in a trash heap, continually watching her unfertilized eggs wither and die, and begging for a lover to come along.
Audio: