Up Close

Michael playing the flute

Up Close is written for flute, clarinet, cello, piano and percussion, utilizing close-up microphones and live interaction with lights.

By intensely amplifying very quiet sounds and minute details of the act of playing an instrument, the listeners are enabled to zoom into the intimate relationship between instrumental sounds and their physical articulation. The audience receives a unique insight into the virtuosic act of contemporary music making, and the amplification will offer Rosenberger a rich palette of otherwise unheard sounds that she will incorporate into her composition.

Having a microphone attached so closely to the source of sound production will reveal every instance of a sound’s evolution and highlight spectral properties or other acoustic phenomena impossible to perceive otherwise.

Rebecca the percussionist with clip on microphone
TJ the cellist performing

the [Switch~ Ensemble] is:
Zach Sheets, flute
Madison Greenstone, clarinets
Megan Arns, percussion
Wei-Han Wu, piano
Tyler J. Borden, cello

Jason Thorpe Buchanan, sound diffusion

 

Up Close has received support from the New Music USA (2018), the Guggenheim Fellowship (2019), and Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung

 

All photos taken by Jason Buchanan
The photos show guest musician Michael Matsuno, flute and Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, percussion

Madison the clarinetist with me rehearsing
the [Switch~ Ensemble] performing Up Close @SinusTon Festival, Magdeburg, Germany, 2021