Program Notes

“I am Calm” is one movement from a larger music-architecture installation piece originally mounted at the Chateau d' Fontainebleau in France in August 2012.  I consider this movement to be work of “musique concrete” in that it is comprised of dozens of individually recorded sound objects, that are then assembled into a single, fixed, form.  The musical materials involve piano chords improvised in different registers by composer Ethan Braun, piano harmonics which I played, and a short text (below) read by architect Andrew Owen Frame.  In creating the larger musical montage, I layered different piano chords on top of one another to create compound harmonies, and then I placed individual piano harmonics, one by one, throughout the piece.  The piece is (intentionally) seemingly static, but there is actually a constant and subtle process of evolution occurring, which is revealed in the final moments when a glimpse of material from the opening is recapitulated.

— Daniel Temkin