Rama Gottfried

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Rama Gottfried (b. 1977) Rama Gottfried (b. 1977) holds degrees in composition from the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the University of Vermont; currently studying composition and acoustics at the Universität der Künste and Technische Universität in Berlin. His primary teachers have included Walter Zimmerman, Nils Vigeland, Justin Dello Joio, Reiko Fueting, Joel Chadabe and Ernest Stires. Since 2002, he has been composer in residence with New York based Ensemble Pamplemousse(http://www.ensemblepamplemousse.org) exploring instrumental and electro-acoustic techniques, conceptual curation, and installation performance.

Upcoming concerts:
The first half of "Trinoc" will be performed by Seth Josel, Gerhard Scherer and Martin Prosegga:
Sunday December 16, 2007, Hans Eisler Studio Saal, Berlin (Charlottenstr. 55).

Program notes:
The name Trinoc refers to the trinoc head of a modern microscope. The light path travels through the slide, and then through the objective lens where the image is magnified and directed into the trinoc which reflects the light into the eyepieces, and/or out a phototube to a camera. The theme of the microscope has reoccurred frequently in my recent work, due to my interest in the poetic forms of natural structures and the artificial scientific methods which allow us to see, and hear them. Continuing the ideas begun in earlier microscope pieces, BX51 and E80i (Olympus and Nikon models respectively), Trinoc sets up opposing layers of internal activity which fuse through the integration of performance.

Formally, like looking at a slide of biological tissue, the measures have a general similarity - but are continually reorganized. Over a gamut of reforming measure sequences, a macrorhythm of larger scale envelopes is superimposed, made of events and non-events (inverted versions of the event envelopes, leading to a moment of silence instead of an attack). The difference and sum tones of the saxophone multiphonics create the pitch material for the other instruments. Each system has the same cycle of 18 multiphonics (which are literally a chronological excerption of the tenor saxophone close position diads from Daniel Kientzy's, Les Sons Multiples Aux Saxophones). The guitar line is made up of 16 notes played (all but one) on the "wrong side" of the fret, these are microtones found between the finger and the nut, with the bridge side of the string muted almost the entire time. In both the guitar and saxophone parts, the fingering is treated spatially while the articulating element (the embouchure and the plucking hand of the guitar) is notated in metric coordination with the rest of the ensemble. The accordion is treated as a unified instrument, then perforated by the air valve.

for more information email: rama.gottfried@gmail.com