Born 1964 in Bogotá. First music theory studies at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, composition studies and Master degree in arts at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Conducting courses with Karl Österreicher and Dominique Rouits. Studies on electroacoustics and computer music in Vienna and at IRCAM in Paris.
Rulfo/ecos I is part of a a cycle of 5 pieces for violin, viola, violoncello and live-electronics after the work of mexican writer Juan Rulfo (1917-1986). His work, consisting of a novel and 17 short stories, depicts rural Mexico at the time of the Mexican Revolution as a world marked by hopelessness and solitude. His poetic language, rough, unadorned and of deep musicality is language of myth, language of remembrance.
The pieces were initially intended as studies on melodic writing. In the case of Rulfo/ecos I descending sequences based on very high natural harmonics are captured and overlapped by the electronics and transformed in slowly changing harmonic fields. The movement up/down in Rulfo’s novel “Pedro Páramo”, can be seen as motivic element related to a change of state, crossing a border and approaching an endpoint. This point is in Rulfo’s fictional space always the death.
For the control of live-electronics two persons are needed: one for the mix and one for the computer. The electronics consists of four patches for the software Max/MSP and will be provided on request by the composer:
- 4 patches on MAX/msp;
- Computer with 8-channel sound interface and software Max/MSP;
- Midi controller (8 fader);
- Mixing desk: 15 in / 7 Out 7;
- loudspeakers, 2 on the ground, 5 on stands;
- 5 microphones on stands;
- 3 contact microphones ;
Regarding the sound synthesis, 8 oscillators are used which, once the input of the ~fiddle cello has been analyzed, re-synthesizes it;
The sound is then used to make the spectrum denser by modifying its harmonic nature during composition. The same sound, present during the whole performance, modifies the acoustic perception through the resonances generated inside the room.
The electronic part is written/notated by means of numbers present in the score (37) which indicate technical configurations in the patch of max. The performer will press the corresponding button, activating the presets.
The sound, used from the synthesis, is recorded in the points where the triangles are present. 38 throughout the piece!
The composition is divided into 6 sections ( a – F ). At a first listening Ecos I is very regular and coherent with itself. The electronics is limited in a way to extend what is the sound dimension of the cello inside the concert hall, exploring its resonances inside the space.
With a very similar behaviour, both parts, instrumental and electronic, behave like two essential elements within the sonic enviorment, but during the performance they assume singular characters, sometimes dominating one over the other.
The charm of this composition should not be investigated from a technical point of view, but from an aesthetic/dramaturgical one. Toro-Pérez tells in music the difficulties and atrocities of a country that wants to get up again, of a country with a very long story to tell, that due to corruption and war, still does not find its identity.
Each section brings with it a different character, a different story to tell. The focus is based on the dialectic relationship between instrument/electronics, where, as in a story told, there is room for imagination and singular interpretation.
