Orbital Mechanics

for solo performer and live electronics

Performed by Andy Thierauf, percussion

2024 Faculty Recital​ – Water Music
Thursday, December 5th - 6:30PM
Wells-Rapp Center for Mallet Percussion Research
Kutztown University

About

In the late ‘60s, James Tenney began writing what he called Postal Pieces, scores written on postcards which he sent to fellow composers and performers. The final postal piece was for percussionist John Bergamo titled Having Never Written a Note for Percussion. The score is simply a whole note with fermata with the instructions (very long) and a crescendo and decrescendo. Other works in the collection include Swell Piece, a text score for any instruments, Beast, written on graph paper for double bass, and A Rose is a Rose is a Round, a vocal piece written in two concentric circular staves.
In the spirit of these Postal Pieces, the Arcana New Music Ensemble commissioned nine postal pieces from Philadelphia-based composers. The result was a range of works from traditionally notated pieces to entirely graphic works, among these are Natacha Diels’s watermusic, James Diaz’s total internal reflections, and Adam Vidiksis’s Orbital Mechanics.

An entirely graphic score, Vidiksis’s Orbital Mechanics, requires the performer to realize hand-drawn orbital figures musically. In this performance, the idea of orbiting inspired a series of feedback loops using transducers, bass drums, pendulum-like microphones, and a prepared piano.