folds of silk (2025)
folds of silk is an étude that explores diverse compositional strategies for working with tempo. Rather than adhering to a single, unified pulse, each instrument—along with the tape and the lighting composition—follows its own independent temporal structure. These structures are shaped by a vast amount accelerandi and ritardandi of varying lengths and intensities, resulting in an almost constant absence of a stable tempo.
During the development of the piece, a custom software tool was created to enable complex polytemporal relationships. At times, the individual instrumental layers drift apart, only to converge or cross again after differing numbers of measures. Through this process, Folds of Silk seeks to generate sonic figures that emerge in the space between the instrumental voices —figures that resist reduction to a linear timeline. Instead, their temporal foundation is rooted in continuous acceleration and deceleration: in processes of becoming and fading, of appearing and dissolving.
