Unísono

Performed by Mitch Stahlmann, Donggnuk Kim, and Roco Córdova at Mills College in Oakland, California on December 2018. Later performed by Nicole Mitchell, Jean Cook and Roco Córdova at the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., December 2019.

Unísono is the outcome of my studies into the possibilities of integrating practices like improvisation and transcription along with timbral techniques of composition. Initially the work started as a vocal improvisation. Variations on this primary source were done subsequently. Once this material reached a satisfactory form, It was transcribed graphically. Afterwards, this visual map became the structure upon which to translate the form and process of the initial sounds into an ensemble setting. The outcome is a work that preserves the form and the linear process of its original source, while adopting graphics, spatial notation and indeterminacy as vehicles to explore chance and improvisation within a closed system. Sonically, the piece oscillates between moments where sound fuses and breaks apart, traversing through the microscopic movements within these two sonic states.