Orchestration

for flute, clarinet, violin, ‘cello, and electronics

Duration

20 minutes

Commissioned by/Premiere

Premiered by Hub New Music on May 20th, 2025 at Rocket City New Music.

This commission, written for Roomful of Teeth, has been made possible by the
Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Mellon Foundation. It is dedicated to Roomful of Teeth.

Barnes Dances was commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, Hub New Music, Rocket City New Music, and CAP UCLA, and is dedicated to Hub.

Score

This score is in exclusivity until May 2026.

Notes

I’ve often worked with electronic sounds, and yet previously I had avoided incorporating recognizable real-world sounds in my compositions. Perhaps due to a subconscious fear of sounding dated or a belief that concert music should remain abstract, I gravitated toward ambiguous or drone-like electronics.

This changed during a vacation in Iceland when I encountered the distinctive sounds of Reykjavík’s crosswalks. Designed to aid the blind, these signals had an unusual rhythmic cadence: a repeating cycle of 5 notes that created a strange, uneven lilt. Transfixed by this sound, I captured it with the portable recording device I always carry.

I became fascinated by how each city uniquely orchestrates its crosswalk sounds. This seemingly mundane and functional aspect of urban life revealed itself as potential artistic material. My exploration expanded to include crosswalk recordings from Jersey City, Brooklyn, Paris, and Florence.

This research culminated in Barnes Dances, five interconnected pieces for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and electronic sounds. The title references a “Barnes Dance” intersection, named after the traffic commissioner Henry A. Barnes—an intersection where all vehicles stop simultaneously, allowing pedestrians to cross in any direction, including diagonally. The concept proved so popular that people reportedly said “Barnes has made the people so happy they’re dancing in the streets.”

The first dance opens with a brief introduction from Newark Avenue in Jersey City before transporting us to Reykjavík’s 5/8 lilt. Each ensemble member employs unique techniques to mimic the crosswalk’s percussive sound: the flute’s “tongue-pizz,” the cello’s pizzicato, and the violin’s bounced ricochet ornaments the lilting dance.

The second dance returns to Jersey City, where the crosswalks, in a characteristically American way, speak directly to pedestrians. I fed recordings of standard crosswalk phrases (“wait,” “walk”) into an AI learning algorithm to generate new words in the same voice, imagining a malfunctioning crosswalk that develops its own consciousness.

The third dance draws from Brooklyn recordings, featuring a malfunctioning crosswalk that resembles a jackhammer. The ensemble creates rhythmic, unpitched noises while the flute and clarinet’s wailing multiphonics echo the chaos of Brooklyn traffic.

The fourth dance, in Paris, explores the smooth-spoken voices of crosswalks (“Rue Lafayette rouge, piéton”) in canon with another street’s signals. This rare melodic crosswalk sound inspires a flowing, chromatic dialogue between flute and clarinet. An alarm clock sound from Florence intersects with spoken directions like “green, red, dark, clear” in French.

The final dance weaves together sounds from all previous movements, creating a true “Barnes Dance” where listeners can mentally “cross” whichever street they choose—diagonally from Iceland to Brooklyn!

Barnes Dances was commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, Hub New Music, Rocket City New Music, and CAP UCLA, and is dedicated to Hub. Mike, Gleb, Meg, and Jesse: thank you!