About this work:
The title seeks to capture the crystalline beauty of sound encapsulated within an austere and grandiose landscape, inspired while reading John Muir's evocations of wonder as discovered the primeval glaciers of British Columbia. Ice Canyons is performed live, utilizing my "Composers' Playpen" software, along with my own live performance on a MIDI keyboard and laptop. One brief example of the power of the software will suffice; at the very end, the work dissolves in what I call "collapsed rhythm," where the 10-second melodic line collapses into a few second heap of notes piled on top of one another, causing an ever-changing metamorphosis of what originally was a horizontal melody into a vertical cluster. A unifying element is the ground bass heard throughout, finally collapsing at the end as a glacier might do at its final resting place as it plunges into the ocean. This work is available on the Innova label, along with others by Barton McLean in an album called "Soundworlds."
Using same setup as “Magic at Xanadu.” Using a newer version (6.0) of the “Composer Playpen,” in which presets are more independent from one another. This work is somewhat easier to perform than its predecessor, involving mainly going from one preset to another. Unifying element is a ground bass. Recorded on Innova in 2011 on McLean’s “Soundworlds” album as part of a NYFA grant. Premiered in live performance at Georgia College & State Univ in Milliodgeville, GA in March, 2009, and subsequently at Mt. Union College and St. Johns/St Benedict University, both in April, 2009.
Ice Canyons is available in a live YouTube video performance at:
http://youtu.be/rrv3yn4q0m0
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.