Secret Corners was composed for the Red Line Sax Quartet for MATA Interval 3.2 "poweRed Line".
As the curator of MATA Interval 3.2, Sekhon produced a concert of
five new works for sax. quartet and electronics. This work was premiered alongside four new works for Sax.
Quartet + Electronics by Andy Akiho, Andrew Colella, Matt Barber, and Robert Pierzak.
During Secret Corners, the saxophone
quartet is placed at four points around the audience which are complementary to the four points created by a quadraphonic
speaker array.At times, the electronics act as four additional performers as the piece explores subsets
of the octet while shifting between solo moments and tutti (octet) sections.The spatialization of the
performers and speakers form a “ring” around the audience and the movement of sound through space follows a number
of patterns such as randomly generated points, clockwise motion and counterclockwise motion.In addition,
the processing of the individual saxophones changes locations through the course of performance as the performers are paired
with varying speaker placements throughout the piece; the processed saxophone is routed to the stereo pair facing them, the
single speaker across from them and to the right, the stereo pair the individual bisects or an individual sound moving to
several points in a short period of time.In addition, the acoustic saxophone parts are composed to reflect
and enhance the spatial aspects of the electronics and the acoustic parts alone follow the same patterns described above.There are a number of oscillator banks which are being controlled by frequency and amplitude data from each saxophone.This data is used to either mimic the saxophones by playing them back through oscillators or create contrapuntal lines
by utilizing the data to generate new material.The electronics for this piece are executed from Pure Data;
the same program in which they were designed.
