Molly Herron Portfolio
I'm a composer whose work is inspired by parallels between the very old and the very new. I use a modern "vocabulary" that reflects Early music methods and means.
Canon No. 3
for three viols
duration: 3’
The word “canon” means rule or law. A typical rule for a canon is something like “the second player enters with the same melody four beats after the first”.
Like most Renaissance canons, Canon No. 3 is not scored beyond a simple notation of the melody. Unlike most Renaissance canons, it is a piece that can only be created in a production based environment.
In Canon No. 3 the canonized melody occurs at different speeds. The rule for this canon is that each iteration of the melody must share a one note unison with a different iteration of the same melody.
The melodies heard in the recording were recorded individually by Loren Ludwig, Zoe Weiss, and Kivie Cahn-Lipman, with verbal direction from the composer. The resulting audio was then linked and assembled into a finalized composition by Molly Herron using ProTools.
The video accompanying this track was designed and created by Maiko Kikuchi.
This piece is part of an album called Through Lines: New Music for Viola da Gamba Consort out on New Amsterdam Records. Listen to full album here
Key listening moments: 1:20 (the slowest version of the melody enters), 2:40 (col legno battuto begins).
Program Note
In October of 2018 the United Nations released a report which predicts that we have 12 years to reverse our trend of carbon emissions, keep the planet below a 1.5°C temperature rise, and prevent the initiation of a chain reaction of catastrophes that will change our planet irrevocably.
What to do when something is too big? When it is unfathomable and unfeelable? I think for us humans the answer is that we create ceremony. We draw lines, invent processes, and walk ourselves through steps.
This is the opening of my ceremony. My ceremony says: My actions do matter. It is important to say goodbye even if it is painful. Each life lost is its own holocaust. Each goodbye is a remembrance.
My ceremony also asks: after the end, what next?
The piece begins with an agitated, insistent major/minor triad which misaligns by 0:40 (p. 3) and spins off into panicked motives.
At 1:10 (p. 6) a French overture enters briefly.
At 2:00 (p. 11) piano and gongs create an uneasy texture with a ghostly echo of the French overature.
Material related to the overture begins at 3:20 (p. 18), and at 4:00, the overture returns, but falls into chaos again.
At 4:15 (p. 22) the overture returns in pizzicato, but accelerates to the point of disarray and the major/minor chord returns.
Orchesography (2022)
for bitKlavier (the “prepared” digital piano invented by Dan Trueman)
total duration: 8’
1. An open Step outwards (p. 1)
2. Sink and Rise in moving (p.3)
3. The Presence of the Body (p.7)
performed by Cristina Altamura
About the work
Long ago I came across a digitized version of a manuscript called “Orchesography. or, the Art of Dancing,” by John Weaver, published in 1706. Orchesography is a word for dance notation and according to the manuscript, “the whole Art” of dancing “is explain’d; with compleat Tables of all Steps us’d in Dancing, and Rules for the Motions of the Arms.” I found the language in the manuscript both precise and poetically evocative of specific ways that a body can move. Music is usually connected to motion for me, and as I read through the manuscript, musical ideas started popping. When Dan Truman (inventor of bitKlavier) asked me to write for bitKlavier, I felt that it was the perfect format for these ideas because of the ways that bitKlavier expands the range of techniques available on the piano. Each movement: An open Step outwards, Sink and Rise in moving, and The Presence of the Body, takes its title from Weaver’s text and aims to give a sense of embodied motion and sensation.
bitKlavier’s Spring tuning preparation.
Key moments:
0:00 an offset wedge motive with no preparation.
0:26 notes above C6 are altered by bitKlavier’s Synchronic preparation.
1:05 (pg. 2) the wedge expands.
2:30 recently played notes are expanded in reverse by the Nostalgic preparation.
Key moments:
0:00 (p. 3) the Synchronic preparation subtly carries the Sicilian rhythm through to blend with each following chord.
1:30 (p. 6) the chromatic runs coalesce into an upward drive to an energetic finish.
Key moments:
0:00 (p. 7) the repetitive chordal material interacts with bitKlavier’s Spring tuning preparation to create a wobbly sense of pitch that is constantly adjusting toward just intonation.
1:30 (p. 8) gently insistent chords interrupt the wobbling pattern the precedes them.