Max Vinetz - "Interwoven Interstices" (2023), for improvising sextet [Score Follow] 

"Interwoven Interstices", for improvising sextet
Premiered at Princeton Sound Kitchen, 2/6/2024
tenor saxophone: Travis Laplante
trumpet: Nate Wooley
percussion: Russell Greenberg
violin: Yuniya Edi Kwon
cello: Lester St. Louis
electric guitar: Wendy Eisenberg
www.maxvinetz....
/ interwoven-interstices
/ maxvinetz
Program note:
At its core, interwoven interstices is a study of the instrumental technique of “decoupling.” For an instrument, decoupling involves separating roles that are traditionally used in conjunction with one another. For instance, a cello traditionally produces sound by bowing a string with the right hand and fingering a pitch with the left hand. A saxophone traditionally produces sound with a combination of air production/embouchure and fingering keys on the instrument. Decoupling, as a process, treats these parameters independently, individually. An example would include a cello playing a fast repetitive figure, and changing the right hand technique independent of the left hand technique. While the left hand continues to finger pitches quickly, the right hand may explore a variety of bow positions and bow pressures, exploring methods of sound production that are independent of the left hand’s activity. The right hand could even lift the bow altogether, leaving behind a quiet, delicate fluttering texture in which the cellist’s left hand is the sole sound-producing force.
Utilizing decoupling as both an instrumental technique and a musical process, interwoven interstices generates its material by exploring decoupling techniques from the saxophone and asks the rest of the ensemble to translate its techniques into their own manner of playing. Sometimes, this asking is quite literal. Other times, I have provided notation in which I have reimagined the saxophone’s decoupling in terms of another instrument’s playing.
On the subject of composing for improvisers, I often take issue with composers claiming complete authorship over the sound that virtuoso improvising performers have spent decades cultivating. It is my belief that despite the instructions that we composers provide (through text, notation, graphics, etc), it is ultimately the performers who give the piece everything. Their performance is not a representation of the score: it is the piece. With this in mind, I would like to thank Travis, Nate, Wendy, Russell, Edi, and Lester for bringing their creative energy to this work and giving it a heartbeat that simply couldn’t exist on the page alone.