Work
A Vocalise for Einstein
electroacoustic
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About
This piece is based on Einstein's famous saying about religion and science:
"Religion without science is blind
Science without religion is lame."
...and uses a granulation synthesis technique with the voice of the American soprano Neva Pilgrim, as the principal sound source. As part of this technique, words are stretched in time to produce long moving sound arches each of which has many levels of perception. In addition, the spoken voice is highly coloured, an effect which is similar to that produced by the well-known phase vocoder.
The composition of A Vocalise for Einstein was begun at the Computer Music Facility of the Centre for the Arts, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in August 1990 and the work was completed in the Composition Studios of the School of Music, University of Auckland in February 1991. The granulation synthesis technique was developed by Barry Truax.