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).
Nathan Nokes is a composer, and multimedia artist whose work explores communication, and the relationships between the natural and the human made.
Works of his have been performed by ensembles such as Tuscan Symphony Orchestra, Switch~ Ensemble, Tak Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Wet Ink, Transient Canvas, and Invoke Quartet. His string quartet and electronics work Alone Together received the 2020 Matera Intermedia Festival award in mix media. His works have been featured in the SEAMUS, American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot, International Saxophone Symposium, Oh My Ears Festival, Fusebox Festival, New Voices Festival, Cohen New Works Festival, Electric LaTex, and Festival of Contemporary Art Music. His fellowships, and residencies include the Kent Kennan Graduate Fellowship, I-Park Foundation, Nief-Norf Technology Fellowship, Hartt Talent Scholarship, and The Walden School.
He received a DMA in composition from the University of Texas at Austin, a MM in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and BM in Composition from Washington State University.
credits
KENKEN GORDER, C TRUMPET
JORDAN WALSH, RECORDING ENGINEER | ELISE ETHERTON, MIXING/MASTERING
WILL YAGER, PRODUCER
www.kenkengorder.com
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