Cloud Intimacy
for chamber ensemble and electronics
(2016)
- Duration 10'
- Instrumentation clarinet in B-flat/clarinet in E-flat/bass clarinet, alto sax/baritone sax, electric guitar, piano, percussion (dbl. electronics), viola
- Commission Commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble for Aspekte Salzburg and Mostly Mozart
- Premiere June, 2016; Aspekte Festival in Salzburg; International Contemporary Ensemble, Ross Karre, conductor
- Publisher PSNY
Performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble. Campbell MacDonald, clarinet; Ryan Muncy, saxophone; Maiya Papach, viola; Daniel Lippel, guitar; Jacob Greenberg, pianoNathan Davis, percussion. Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall, New York, NY.
Program Notes
We often live richer and more engaged online lives than real ones, and the distinction between them has blurred. Social networks allow us to meet and expand our circles and feel included while easily ignoring friends right next to us. Other apps give us the power to simply slide right or left on someone’s photo to decide weather we like the person or not. Dating has become an outdated word for teenagers. Unbounded and uncommitted intimacy are new and legitimized ways of feeling. Online, everyone has a chance to construct a perfect social profile separate from the imperfections of reality to console their mind and boost their confidence.
Cloud Intimacy brings together the constant buzz of this frantic digital reality (endless notification sounds from messages and updates, the theatrics of “swiping”) with the supposed intimacy and familiarity of ambient cafe sounds, as well as faint echoes from Wagner’s liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, that ultimate expression of unattainable love through mortality that feels so disconnected to the instant gratifications of our time. It’s a musical commentary on absurd internet social phenomena and the reality of deeply felt loneliness and isolation.
– Wang Lu