body split and hand remained untouched with the exception of itself

for piano + chimes

body split and hand remained untouched with the exception of itself was composed during a residency period at VIsby International Centre for Composers (Visby, SE) in 2018 and was premiered at Opera North on 29 January, 2019. Taking as its inspiration the bounding and leaping patterns of infrasound’s interaction with different atmospheric layers, body split…  utilizes different levels of activity at different time-scalings. As the 25’ piano part twitches precariously between high and low frequency ranges, it bends in and out of the ‘rhythmic markers’ set by the chimes due to ‘ducting’ and ‘zones of silence,’ two concepts taken from the behavior of infrasound in the atmosphere causing these vibrations to—in a sense—disappear. The piece consists of five sections, mirroring the five main atmospheric layers (including the Exosphere), yet the inclusion of CAConrad’s poetic framing hints at further relationships between the self and the scales of climate ex/change.