violin and percussion
Ecstatic Music was written for Mira Benjamin and Ben Duinker in connection with a recording project of our many collaborations as well as for the 2012 Nu:Nord conference on contemporary music. The work was revised in the Spring of 2013 for a second performance.
This piece attempts to portray the performers in a state of ecstasy, channelling the music from an unknown source. This type of sublime experience may be impossible to embed in the notation and is more connected to the theatricality of a performance (memorization on the part of the performers is key), but never the less this is what I’ve attempted. A physical theatricality has been embedded in the notes on the page along with an obsessive treatment of the musical materials.