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NW 80776CD
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"Mari Kimura's career is a measure of how violin virtuosity has changed over the last few centuries, and particularly in the last fifty years. By the middle of the 20th century, violinists and composers began to feel that the violin's traditional technical arsenal required updating, lest the instrument continue to sound like the 16th-century technology it is, trapped in a quickly changing, increasingly high-tech modern world. One approach, mirrored closely in the world of woodwind instruments, has been to find the violin's 'extreme' technique, which would yield ways to twist the violin's familiar timbre into something new. Expanding on a technique intended to bring an extra measure of presence to high notes that are not naturally resonant, she began experimenting with notes on the G string, and found that she was able to wrest sounds as much as an octave lower than violin's lowest natural note, the G string's open G. She spent several years perfecting the technique, which she calls subharmonics. Kimura has taken an active role in the development of the repertoire of works that combine traditional instruments with electronic sounds, working with electronic scores of all kinds, including recorded tracks within which the violin line is tightly nestled, as well as interactive works, in which the live performance triggers events in the electronic score. For Harmonic Constellations, Kimura has collected half a dozen works for violin and electronics, by a group of American composers each of whom has a distinctive compositional style, and who take different approaches to the challenge of composing for the violin and electronics. Of particular note is the premiere recording of the title track, a major new composition from Michael Harrison, which is scored for violin with 13 pre-recorded tracks and computer generated sine tones. The work is comprised of nine constellations of complex just intonation harmonies that gradually shift and evolve over time."
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MUTABLE 17542
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Subtitled: Works For Violin Subharmonics And Interactive Computer. "Mari Kimura is a creative violinist carrying on the tradition of renovation and transformation of her instrument by composing for herself, using the media that is available in her lifetime. This album includes two kinds of works: solo violin works using 'subharmonics,' an extended bowing technique she developed, and works for violin and interactive computer. In April 1994, at a solo recital in New York City, Kimura introduced subharmonics as a musical element to extend the range of the violin by a full octave below the open G string without changing the tuning. Playing subharmonics takes precise control of bow pressure and speed, reliably and repeatedly on demand, which is extremely hard, especially in real time performance situations. Her introduction of subharmonics was widely praised by Edward Rothstein, the chief critic of The New York Times who described it as a 'revolutionary technique' for the violin. Kimura took these obscure sounds and developed them further. She created compositions using subharmonics not for the sake of novelty but to use them as a new element for the musical language for the violin. This album contains many of her early works using subharmonics controlling different subharmonic intervals, such as subharmonic octave, third and second. Since the early 1990's, Kimura has also been a violinist/composer specializing in interactive computer music composition and performance. She created many works for the violin using an interactive computer music program MaxMSP. On this album she includes some of her older works for violin and MaxMSP, as well as more recent compositions."
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