'Our Memories in Scrolls' for trumpet and electronics is a work that explores how collective memories are preserved. While writing this I was fascinated with the contrast between two meanings of the world ‘scroll,’ one ancient and one modern. As a noun, scroll refers to a millennia old method of storing long form writing. It was slow, limited, and only transcribed by a small elite. As a verb, scroll takes on a contemporary meaning – the action of moving pixels on a screen to reveal images or text, such as social media. In this case it is fast, filled with seemingly unending content, and is available to almost everyone. Both are forms of storing and retrieving collective memories. One through the preservation of cultural, religious, or politically significant text, and the other through the storage of life events, opinions, and shared experiences.
The first part of the work explores the idea of storing ideas in a scroll. I was inspired by the curving shape of the tubes on a trumpet and decided to treat them as a facsimile of a curved scroll. The musical gestures focus on the notes that can be produced by specific air pathways of the trumpet tubes and valves. The possible notes that can be produced by pathways are waiting to be unrolled from the instrument like text stored in a scroll.
The second part of the work explores the act of scrolling through ideas on social media. Descending gestures cascade one after the other as if one were trying to scroll to the bottom of a webpage which was constantly refreshing and adding content. Rhythm is derived from the possible combinations of trumpet valves. Valves, like a digital bit, can be in one of two states, open or closed, on or off. I transferred this idea into a rhythmic pattern of sustained notes (on), and rests (off).
Our Memories in Scrolls was commissioned by Kenken Gorder for the album 'NüToots' on DensitySOUND and is paid for in part by Density512.
Nathan Nokes is a composer, sound artist, whose works explores human communication, interconnectedness in modern society, as well as examining the relationships between the natural and the man-made. Working in acoustic, and electroacoustic mediums as well as interdisciplinary mediums, he has written for concert stage, dance, installation-performance works and multimedia installations. As a performer he explores the use of electronics in improvisation, including the use of live sampling, digital processing as well as analog synthesis.
Works of his have been performed and recorded by members of ensembles such as Tak Ensemble, Switch~ Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Wet Ink, Ulysses European Ensemble, Mivos Quartet,, and Invoke Quartet. His string quartet and electronics work Alone Together received the 2020 Matera Intermedia Festival award in mixed media. His music and sound installations have been featured in concert series such as International Saxophone Symposium (VA), Oh My Ears Festival (AZ), Fusebox Festival (TX), New Voices Festival at COA (DC), Foot in the Door (CT), Cohen New Works Festival (TX), Electric LaTex (LA), and Festival of Contemporary Art Music (WA). His fellowships, scholarships, and residencies include the Kent Kennan Graduate Fellowship (TX), I-Park Foundation (CT), Nief-Norf Technology Fellowship (TN), Hartt Talent Scholarship (CT), and The Walden School (NH).
Nokes is a founding member, and the technical director of the new music collective Less Than 10. He received a D.M.A. in composition from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.M. in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and BM. in Composition from Washington State University.
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