Peter Van Zandt Lane (b. 1985) is an American composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. He claims to explore electronic music to find “a poetic angle to our tech-saturate lives.” Four different ensembles play his four pieces.
/ping/ played by Mod[ular] Ensemble (comprised of sax, trombone, clarinet, bass, piano and percussion) juxtaposes small riffs and sound effects. Brassy and gently percussive, it generates a relatively sedate mood.
Piano Quartet: The Longitude Problem is a three-movement work that celebrates inventor John Harrison’s desire to create a marine chronometer. “Ded reckoning” is a staccato treatment of single moments in time, with intrusions by string repeated chords and piano parlando. “Harrison’s Timekeepers” serves a scherzo, repetitious but colorful by tossing the motifs into different combinations and registers.
“New Cartography” seems an extension of the second movement, but more lyrical. Again, the minimalist principle rules, the same figures constantly repeated in different combinations and levels of dynamics. This is played by the Atlanta Chamber Players.
Equilibrium Ensemble plays Chamber Symphony, a four-movement work that “replaces musical themes with gestures of kinetic motion and mechanical process.” Some of the textures are more transparent than others, as in Movement II, “relaxed, as if speaking” and “Epilogue.”
/chatter/ is a short work played by Subaerial Collective. Strictly minimalist, it consists of discreet tones and sounds in combination. The effect is somewhat jazzy but also noisy in an aleatory, random series of episodes.