“Texture” is a series of electrified chamber music works that involve a digital algorithm, which produces micro rhythmic detail out of an “organic,” humanly made, instrumental, sustained sonic body. There is an enormous contrast in pace between the two collaborating entities: the instrumentalists realize a score based on repetition and variation at an extreme slow tempo, while the algorithm operates at an inhumanly fast speed. The essence of the series is that which emerges as a result: a sonic texture that holds an ambiguous position between micro rhythm and timbre – a texture that could not have been created by instrumentalists alone, nor by an algorithm alone. At the series’ base lies a python algorithm – written using Brian House’s BRAID – which basically switches the incoming audio signals from the instrumentalists on and off following a programmed set of rhythm data.

All elements of the series (so far, A, B, C) pursue a slightly different interest in the kind of rhythm that they investigate – the rhythmic spectrum ranging from utmost fast, timbre-like rhythm to out-of-phase rhythm, to beats vaguely referencing African American derived electronic dance music styles.

“Texture A” specifically unfolds a gradual process from fast to slow over the course of its 22-minute duration. While it first produces a timbre that may be distant to many ears, it gradually reveals, by slowing down, the rhythmic fragments that it is made of.

Texture A was premiered by Virginia Arancio, Jordan Dykstra, Elise Jacoberger, Simone Keller, and Ernesto Molinari at Musikfestival at Dampfzentrale Bern in 2018.

Texture B was premiered by Myra Hinrichs, Carrie Frey, Helen Newby and their Chartreuse Ensemble, at Brown University Providence in 2019.

Texture C was premiered by Verdant Vibes in a live streamed online performance out of Providence, RI, in 2021.