Sueños
Olibel Music
Armando Bayolo Sueños
1. Proceso de harina
2. Interludio halucinante
3. Proceso camionero
all movements performed without pause
Performance Note
The horn should be amplified by means of a contact microphone directly on the bell. The signal from the microphone should be run through a computer utilizing any standard market effects/synthesizer program to generate up to 15 channels of loops. Additionally, the application of ambient reverb to the live sound throughout the work’s duration is highly recommended.
Endurance in performance is a difficult aspect of Sueños. Should it be necessary, some time (no more than the equivalent of a measure or two) can be taken in between each new loop, once the previous loop has been triggered.
Duration: ca. 12 minutes
Program Note
Sueños, a little piece for solo horn and live loops, is inspired by a community mural commissioned by the Arizona-based Safos Dance Theater. I was asked to take on two elements in the mural: the tortilla makers and the truck. I decided to treat each of these elements separately, divided by a brief, "hallucinatory" interlude which exploits the natural lyricism of the horn. In turn, I took each of these elements as symbolic of the Latino immigrant experience in the United States, an experience which, as a Puerto Rican expatriate, I have experienced firsthand but which, admittedly, is incredibly different from the experience of Mexican, Central and South American immigrants and expats.
"Proceso de harina," or "flour process," is cast as a slow huarapo, and aims to capture the joy visible in the depicted women's faces, which also show, to me, a great deal of care, with the weight of the world upon their shoulders. The "Interludio halucinante" ("hallucinatory interlude") aims to, perhaps, depict this weight of the world, as well as the hopes for a better life which the U.S.A. has represented for so many of us in the Americas. Finally, "Proceso camionero" ("truck process") takes the truck in the mural as a symbol of the dignity granted by work, even through abject poverty brought on by invisibility and indifference from the general population. It begins as a march but gradually transforms itself back into the huarapo, closing Sueños in an air of hopefulness and joy.
Sueños was commissioned by Armando Castellano and composed in the autumn of 2014 in Murphysboro, Illinois.
Sueños
for
horn and looper
1. Proceso de harina
(q. = 80)
Armando Bayolo
(all loops continue throughout)
2. Interludio halucinante
Cut off all loops! (attacca)
The last a' (concert e') in measure 31 may be ommitted to facilitate transition to the lower octave upon the repetition of the two measure unit.
Loop 1 continues
loops 1 and 2 continue through the end of the movement
Proceso camionero
All loops continue until the end of the piece!
October,
Murphysboro/Carbondale,