Appalasia

for erhu and electro-acoustic music (2014)

(duration ca. 8:16)

performance notes:

Appalasia was composed for Tsun-Hui Hung, who traveled from Taiwan to the small Appalachian town where I teach for purpose of earning her masters degree in composition. It gets its title from a mash-up of the words "Appalachia" and "Asia" and it's inspiration from the musical language and sounds of both cultures. The slow opening movement was my first foray into purely "live" computer music, meaning there are no prerecorded samples, sound files, or MIDI sequences; only processing of the soloist's performance using custom-designed Kyma programming. Various samples are introduced in the second movement to create a broader and more Appalachian sound palate. A Max patch that relies more on audio files in the first movement is now available.

Link to score: Appalasia.pdf

Link to Max patch for accompaniment: Appalasia_MaxFolder.zip

for a (mostly) fixed-media performance.

    • requires that you download Max to your computer;

    • includes editable Max patch (in case you would want to make some personalized changes)

    • includes separate audio files

    • includes PDF of the score

Recordings of live concert performances by Tsun-Hui Hung:

Premiere@EABD

Ball State University

Ohio University