Girilal Baars (1967-)

Balloon Sonatino

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  • Work category: Soloist and ensemble
  • First performed: 2008
  • Duration: 2 min

Description of work

A stereo peice that is an etude for electronics and balloon.

Links

http://girilal.org/balloon.html
https://soundcloud.com/girilal-ea/balloon-sonatino


Work comment

Balloon Sonatino traces the bouncy and bountiful life and times of an Errant Balloon and it's handler, the Mouth and Hands. It begins with futile repetitions, wisely proceeds to investigate freer approaches, soars above the constraints of rhythm, but ends up defeated and deflated nonetheless.

Balloon Sonatino is composed solely from the perspective of being a vehicle for a balloon solo. In that sense it is a typical étude de l'objet and it is was composed to highlight a few different sounds that can be produced by human with a balloon (not a piece of balloon, not a using balloon material in some other context, just a simple well-functioning balloon). It begins with an inflated balloon, ends with a deflated balloon. Compositionally, I wanted to place the balloon in a context of sounds that really would take it out of it's normal balloon vistas.

In 2014 jef chipewa curated a concert of miniature EA pieces. The enire programme, "À la recherche de la miniature" has since been performed in Mexico, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Canada. In late 2017 it will also be turned into an interactive installation.