MIDDLE GROUND

FOR VIOLIN AND LIVE PROCESSING (2016)

or

FOR MARIMBA AND LIVE PROCESSING

20 minutes

Program Notes

Cast in three movements – Too Far, Too close, and Bridging the Gap – Middle Ground searches for a common space between opposites. The first movement, Too Far, emerges quietly from the highest range of the violin. Barely audile, fingers at the instrument’s edge, the music hovers in a cloud of ethereal tones before slowly descending. In an abrupt shift, the second movement, Too Close, lives in the violin’s lowest range. Distorted, rhythmic bursts hammer away at chopped up scales and jagged arpeggios. Eventually waves of sound surge upwards, only to plummet back down, pulled by a relentless, unyielding gravity. The final movement, Bridging the Gap, seems almost without hope. Exhausted by the previous movement’s struggle, the music searches for a new path forward. Two lines, one descending and the other ascending, gradually, methodically move towards each other, steadily intensifying as they approach middle ground.

Middle Ground was commissioned by Kat Kroll, Barbara Sapienza, and Nancy Karp + Dancers and premiered February 10, 2016 by Kate Stenberg at the ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA.

Electronics may be downloaded here.

 

For more information about the Middle Ground EP, visit here.

Memory/Place, Nancy Karp and Dancers, ODC Theater, San Francisco, February 10, 2017. Middle Ground begins at 15:30. Kate Stenberg, violin.

for Violin and Electronics www.roberthonstein.com

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Performances

October 15, 2023 Olin Art Center, Bates College, Lewiston, ME. Lynn Vartan.

October 6-7, 2023 Wells-Rapp Center for Mallet Percussion Research, Kutztown, PA. Lynn Vartan.

September 20, 2023 Middle Ground, Chia-Yi University, Taiwan. Lynn Vartan.

July 17, 2019 So Percussion Summer Institute, Princeton, NJ. David Degge. (marimba version)

October 26, 2018 University of Tennessee, Knoxville. UT Contemporary Music Ensemble.

June 14, 2018 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Lilit Hartunian.

March 11, 2018 University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE. Louis Raymond-Kolker.

March 3, 2018 MFA, Boston, MA. Lilit Hartunian.

February 10-17, 2017 ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA. Kate Stenberg.