Sirens

Instrumentation: Emergency vehicle sirens recorded on the streets of Boston, in their natural habitat.

Duration:  6 minutes

Year of Composition: 2001

Premiere: 2001

Notes:

Program Notes: Essentially Musique Concréte, samples were taken from sirens of emergency vehicles as they passed by the window of my Boston apartment over the course of several months. I used these sound samples as different “instruments”, and created a piece of music by manipulating these sounds to give the piece shape.  Traditional elements of the piece include motives and gestures, as well as ostinati and melodies.  Formally the piece is an arch form, emulating the shape of a siren's ascending and descending oscillation.