Sona - Production & Contact Info

Sona (1948)
Not Rated
Short | 44 min | Short

Sona (1948)

Not Rated

Short | 44 min | Short

SONA is a multi-disciplinary event conceived as an auditory reflection on the Houston environment where the composer, Kurt Stallman, lives--an environment that includes the bellowing horns and deep rumblings of freight trains passing ...See moreSONA is a multi-disciplinary event conceived as an auditory reflection on the Houston environment where the composer, Kurt Stallman, lives--an environment that includes the bellowing horns and deep rumblings of freight trains passing through the city, the rhythms of falling rain, and the wind gusts of passing storms. In 2005, Stallmann connected these elements into a continuous event using a string quartet, computer-generated and processed sounds, recordings taken from the environment, and video made collaboratively with filmmaker Alfred Guzzetti.The music of SONA derives from the sounds of trains. Spectral analyses of the horns provide the chords that form the harmonic structure underlying the work as a whole. Transcriptions of the repetitive rhythmic fragments produced by passing trains characterize individual movements. As SONA unfolds, the musicians are constantly regrouped as soloists, as a duo, and as full quartet. Much of their music is digitally processed in real time and, like the other electronic sounds, dispersed spatially by way of a multi-channel audio system surrounding the audience. In the three video segments, the sounds reveal the raw 'train' elements while the images show railway cars, markings, tracks, wires, bridges and rivers, sometimes moving with dizzying rapidity, sometimes with dreamlike slowness, and sometimes with a stuttering rhythm too fast for the eye alone. Written by Anonymous See less