Jiyeh
Jonathan Berger
About this work:
Jiyeh is a small coastal town in Lebanon built upon the ancient city of Porphyreon, reputed to be the site where a giant fish delivered Jonah to the shore. On July 14th 2006 a coastal power station in Jiyeh was attacked in an Israeli air strike causing over 20,000 tons of oil to spill into the Mediterranean Sea. Although there has been relatively little information regarding the ecological impact of this massive spill a series of sattelite photos show the dispersion pattern of the oil. These patterns appear as Baroque-like ornaments that distort the contour of the Lebanese coast line.
I was in Jerusalem in July 2006 and read a fleeting and innocuous news report regarding an oil spill on the Lebanese coast apparently caused by an air or ship based missile attack on an aging power plant in Jiyeh. Little information was forthcoming although the estimates of the amount of oil spilled were alarming. In September I asked Jeff Koseff if he had any information about the spill. He replied that, to his knowledge, there were only sattelite photographs and that those were yet to be carefully analyzed. The eight-channel electroacoustic work is the first of a set of two pieces - the second a three movement concerto for solo violin, percussion and string orchestra.
The electroacoustic work uses data from the sattelite photographs to set parameters for synthesis and processing of sounds, as well as creating source audio material using a raster scan direct synthesis method bing developed by my PhD student Woon Seung Yeo. The music represents the evolution of the ornate oil patterns visible in the sattelite images to evoke auditory display of this disaster.
The concerto uses measurements and contour plots from the sattelite images to generate sections of the work, in particular the first movement, in which the spread of the oil is represented in three distinct sections, and in the third movement in which the development of the contour is mapped and translated into the increasingly ornate violin solo.
Jonathan Berger is a composer and researcher at CCRMA. His compositions include chamber, symphonic and vocal music as well as works incorporating digital synthesis and processing. His research includes developing methods and tools for effective auditory display of complex data. Berger's recent recording of chamber music for strings will be released this Spring by Naxos recordings on their American Masters series.
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Duration: 00:00:00
Ensemble type: Electronic Instruments and Sound Sources
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