Samples and sound objects, composition and structured improvisation by Alec Hall, composer (PhD, Columbia University)
Alec Hall will discuss some of his recent work (since 2016) in the context of field recordings and sound objects, mediated by the composer, and then placed in structured forms with room for improvisation. His piece #notallbots, for large ensemble, soprano and live electronics, uses massive Twitter data retrieval as the libretto, plus samplings from internet interfaces to create a kind of digital junkspace. His saxophone quarted, based on field recordings from the Alberta Oil Sands, is a carefully composed score with loose edges, as it were, relying on improvisation to move around certain passages. Same with his opera, The House of Influence, which is written in a kind of combinatorial text and notated score.