About this work:
Ritual of the Dawn (1984, rev. 1998), a chamber work for six players, was originally written at the MacDowell Colony, and extensively revised and premiered in its new version by the Syracuse Society of New Music in 1998. Its philosophical idea is the distillation of a ritualistic ceremony depicting the dawn of the new millennium, inspired by my research into ancient Nahuatl (pre Columbian Central American) poetry. The unique feature of Ritual of the Dawn is its atmosphere, which is both rhythmically pulsed and evocative. Although tightly-written in the sense that it will sound the same at each performance, it is also extraordinarily free in its notational procedures, which often include bits of phrases in boxes, the performer to choose the specific order at each performance. It is the last major work of mine using modern or traditional notation. The evocative yet rhythmically-pulsative nature of Ritual of the Dawn is largely produced through the rhythmic technique of several performers playing pulsed material simultaneously but not coordinating beats in any way -- as if several tape recorders were playing at the same time but not in sync. The harmonic structure is chosen carefully to accommodate this technique. This means that each sonority must be neutral enough to withstand infinite variations of the order of the short melodic phrases that are randomly played together by the ensemble, but at the same time be imaginative enough to evoke the special atmosphere of the work. At important structural points in the work, such as the beginning and ending of sections, the conductor does provide hand cues to coordinate the ensemble. This is part of an Innova recording featuring Barton McLean's music called "Soundworlds."
My website (where you can find my email as well)
http://www.fairpoint.net/~rainfor1/McLean_MAXMSP/Main_page.html
Phone: 518 658 3595
YouTube playlist (with 32 videos and counting)
https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3ACAB7BAD86CE7B4
Also check out my entry in Wikipedia
Although I, Barton McLean, hold the copyright, I nontheless hereby gladly authorize anyone to make copies and perform the work for noncommercial and/or educational purposes providing that my name is reasonably displayed as the composer. I do not under any circumstances authorize selecting portions of the work to appear intact in another person's composition, or to appear under any other composer's name, without my written signed authorization.
Regarding the audio file accompanying this work: I, Barton McLean own the copyright to the composition itself. Being aware that this work has been released on a commercial CD, and that the CD company might possess the copyright to that particular sound recording of the composition, I nonetheless claim copyright to this specific sound recording posted here, because it is not the exact recording released on CD. Rather, it is another mix down and revision of that work which may approximate the commercial CD in most respects but nevertheless is a distinct sound recording of which I claim the copyright.