The Encounter

op. 100, 2022/23

For trombone and tape
Duration: 14 min.

Commissioned by Mikael Rudolfsson
CD recording in WDR-Studio, January 2023 for the Label NEOS
Trombone and Tape: Mikael Rudolfsson
Tape editing: Konstantia Gourzi

Composer’s Notes

The Encounter was commissioned by the trombonist Mikael Rudolfsson, to whom the piece is dedicated.
In this composition, I wanted to musically illustrate the encounter with an unexpected fictitious and unknown something or someone that arouses wonder, fear, and curiosity. What is the reaction when something much bigger than oneself, something not clearly recognizable, appears? These different emotions are first expressed in sound by the soloist reflecting the search for dialog.

The sounds of the tape, played by Mikael Rudolfsson, consist of certain glissandi and intervals that were edited according to my intention. It was important to me to create a sound that would seem as if an undefined “object” was approaching the viewer (the soloist) from a distance. The tape runs continuously from the beginning to the end of the piece, with the soloist reacting to the sound of the tape at certain points.

The composition consists of nine parts. From the first to the seventh part, the soloist plays sounds that describe his surprised emotional world: rhythmic breathing noises, rushed vowels and consonants are articulated into the instrument.

The “action-reaction” between the two sound levels becomes denser, more flowing, and more intense in the eighth and ninth sections. At the end of the ninth part, the soloist experiences the “object” moving away, symbolized by a fading melody. It continues to float away as he finds his way back to inner balance: the frightening noises of the beginning have been transformed and resolved by a rhythmic, melodic agogic.