Written for the brilliant players of the ECO ENSEMBLE with David Milnes, Conductor, FLOW DEBRIS FALLS (2010/2012) is a three movement concerto for piano, player piano, computer,large ensemble, and live electronics. Flow Debris Falls is something like a B-movie, a genre that flies under the radar of the Hollywood system, referential to the model but ultimately non-conforming, personal, and creative. FLOW DEBRIS FALLS leverages the cliches associated with the history of concertos by quoting and resetting overworn figures and placing them within the context of a mechanistic and computational age. The piece is subversive, unbridled, with the inclusion of an algorithmic improvising player piano alongside the soloist forcing the darker underbelly of the work to be heard. It would please me if David Lynch liked the title.

As in much of my work up to 2014, the piece is concerned with the manifstation of the unlikely -- an attempt to alter the perception and emotion of the listener by presenting the ears with the impossible, the forbidden, at times the Grotesque. As with all strange and independent creations, the ludic aspect is only one thread in a patchwork quilt. I focused on raw imagination, shaped with a fine-toothed mill of technical discipline, to produce organized sound that is an honest reflction of my experiences in life and art -- experiences that are simultaneiously hilarious, tragic, unseemly and sometimes beautiful. 

During the performance, the computer (max/msp) tracks the soloist, analyzing pitches, tempos, timings, dynamics and pedaling using Don Buchla's Piano Bar sensor to capture MIDI data. Using the live performance data, the computer builds an electronic score in real-time. The newly generated material is performed by the player piano and an orchestra of electronic sounds.The first version of FLOW DEBRIS FALLS was called FLOW and was premiered by the Argento Chamber Ensemble and Michel Galante in New York City. That version of the piece involved a digital piano and not a player piano. The 2012 version was a rewrite of the software and music to allow for the second player piano.Both versions of FLOW-DEBRIS-FALLS use significant program components from the 2008 Nat-Sel environment.  

The great musicians that recorded this work are major players and many continue to have important impacts on contemporary music. They include: Stacy Pelinka, Laurie Camphouse, Diane Grubbe, flutes; Kyle Bruckmann, oboe; Jeff Anderle, Peter Josheff, Bill Kalinkos, clarinets; Adam Luftman, trumpet; Hall Goff, trombine, Alicia Telford, horn; Hrabba Atladottir, Kurt Rhode, Jennifer Curtis, violins; Ellen Ruth rose, viola; Leighton Fong, cellos; Richard Worn, Bass.

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