TOC (2022-2023), for two flutes | J.L. Curiel Ávila

J.L. CURIEL ÁVILA for two

Bio

Jorge Luis Curiel Ávila (b. 2001) began his first steps in music staring playing drums at the age of six. In 2010 he moved from Mexico City to the state of Aguascalientes, were he improved as a professional drummer from thirteen to fifteen years-old, having the opportunity to perform at the Festival Internacional Cervantino 2015, with the folkclore mexican youth ensemble “Cenzontles” and Mr. Jorge Campos Espino’s traditional mexican dance company “Termal” . In 2016 he began his formal classical music and piano studies. Some time later he would drop out from music school for finishing high-school and a associate’s degree in Communications and Media. During the COVID-19 pandemic he resumes his musical studies in classical-singing with soprano Etel Lara and piano with Javier Eduave, while he started to learn and create extracurricularly music composition.

In 2022 he started a composition workshop at Núcleo Integral de Composición (NICO), were he discovered a broad range of vanguards and composers of contemporary music, from Tristan Murail, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, Gabriela Ortiz, Julián Carrillo, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Anna Thórvalsdottir, between others, under the teaching of mexican composer Miguel Ángel Rivera Benard.

Nowadays he’s studying a bachelor’s degree in Composition and Music Theory at Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Música (CIEM) in Mexico City, having as teachers recognized active music composers, performers and music educators, such as Andrea Chamizo Alberro, David Aislami Fernández-Gaínza, Guadalupe Sotres and Erik Huizar, among others. At the same time he’s a freelance music teacher for begginers and intermediates, generally for children and teenagers, imparting fundamentals of music theory, piano, classical-singing and music production.

For more information, visit jlcurielavila.com

Program notes

“TOC” is an abreviation from the word obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in spanish translation. Clinically, this mental disorder has the prescence of a bunch of obsessive and repetitive ideas generated by the human mind that triggers a number of physical and psychological reactions, such as: depression, anxiety, panic attacks, constant doubts and distress.

The piece composed for two flutes addresses a metaphor of thought neuron cells sending information randomly without control, represented by the timbre of the instruments due to they high-pitch ressonance. It also includes some dialogue passages during the performance, in which both flutists turn momentarily into actors reciting literal words from OCD thoughts, giving the performance a theatrical character.

This composition began to be written in October 2022 and it was finished in May 2023.

General indications

This piece has to be, preferably, performed in small rooms or spaces (ceilling covered), such as micro-theatre format or venues with no more than 200 spectators, including light-reflectors appointing the performers in cenital direction, turned on unically when one of them or both are playing. The audience room must be completly dark. In case of performing in large rooms and free-air spaces (concert halls, amphitheatres, etc.), the performers have to be properly amplified with a condenser microphone each one, or with other ones that can capture clearly and correctly both instrument and voice at the same time. Optionally, illumination equipment can be placed to fulfill the theatrical purpose if the venue doesn’t counts with them.

Notation

Artificial harmonics: 2 octaves, octave or fifth, depending in what was written in the score.

Frulatto: in 1/32.

Whistle tone: abbreviated W.T.

Boxed text: provisional no staff. The performer stops playing for recite dialogues. It includes an indication for theatrical expressions.

Crossed beam: indicates a loud stomp.

Tremolo: in 1/32.

Composer’s note

In my music I try to reflect human being’s mind in its deepest and darkest side, also subjetivity, neuroscience and social topics. This piece in particular opened me an unknown path into new ways for compose music that allowed me to express specifically what I wanted to transmit, experimenting with low and high-pitch ressonances, separately or together. I also always want my pieces to be performed in theaters or small concert venues, turning the performers into actors, getting out from traditional academic-music stage formats.

TOC is not only a performance about to people with accelerated thoughts having panic attacks. It’s a little part of my story that I wanted to share with you, as a performer, composer, music student or music nerd that loves analysing scores.

Enjoy playing or reading this one!

-George

I: Attack (p. 1)

II: FX of fluvoxamine (p. 7)

III: As it goes, it returns (p. 13)

Recitativo-Withdevotion

Oh !Whyismindplayngwithme?

ThisissofuckinginusualDidIleftthestoveopened? Orismybrantryingtobetray?

Recitativo

ThisisnotinusualThat'sthewayyouwerebornThere'snowayback! Brainisawayssendingshitsignastiletyoudead