Premiere of “San Marco” for trumpet and electronics

San Marco *PREMIERE*
Sunday, April 1, 8:00pm
Performed by Ezra Weller, trumpet and electronics
Pierce Hall at New England Conservatory
241 St. Botolph St, Boston MA.
Free admission.

Renoir, Piazza San Marco Venice
A painting of San Marco by Auguste Renoir

This piece combines live trumpet with digital processing and playback of pre-recorded samples controlled by the performer. This premiere performance is being featured on a recital of electro-acoustic music by students of composer John Mallia.

My goal with San Marco is to create a fluid, ambient atmosphere evoking the sound-world and spirit of the sacred instrumental music of the late Renaissance/early Baroque, especially Monteverdi (who I sample in the piece). The famous cathedral in Venice, Basilica of St. Mark’s (Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco), was a center for this music and the inspiration for my title, San Marco.

The piece features truncated, looped, and processed samples of late Renaissance music for voice and cornetto, a wind instrument with a sound not unlike a trumpet (although its construction is very different). The cornetto was highly regarded in the 16th and early 17th centuries for its similarity to the human voice, and has a delicate sound I find incredibly beautiful. The modern trumpet plays along with and around the samples, alternately imitating, dominating, and being dominated by the sound of the cornetto.

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