Blond (2006), for tape.
For Prof. Clarence Barlow 60th birthday concert.
How does one say happy birthday in a musical piece to a leading composer in the electroacoustic scene? When Prof. Clarence Barlow asked me to write a tape miniature for his 60th birthday, adding a cultural component to a structured composition seemed like a tongue-in-cheek way to include an extra dimension for the occasion. This gave rise to the idea of relying on collective memory as a framework.
Blond is my first piece based on Internet archive recordings as its focal raw material: it is rooted in the “Happy Birthday” song as performed by Marilyn Monroe, during JFK’s birthday party on May 19, 1962.
The piece is divided into four sections. Whilst the first three introduce the components of the sentence “happy birthday to you”, the last section which is the longest, scrambles the three sections. This progression leads to a climax when the entire phrase is decoded.
A wink to the child within the birthday boy…