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Compositions —

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Wiki Mozart

2007 • 12 minutes • Oboe, violin, viola, cello and sampled sounds

Wikipedia.org defines a "wiki" as a "Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content." It touches on an almost endless number of topic areas, full of information sent in by its users, of interest to them and from their point of view. The sense of knowledge and history created by collaborative authoring challenges the notion of 'expertise' belonging to an elite group of specialists and places the representation of the world into its 'users' hands.

Wiki Mozart is an attempt to present a Mozart 'event' in a similar spirit. The material for the piece is drawn from sampled and already-composed music found on Internet sites - there is no original music of mine. Instead I acted as an editor, choosing material that reflected the broad representation of Mozart found on the internet, ranging from historical recordings, MIDI score and arrangements, concert recordings, documentaries, movie excerpts to live performance excerpts and readings from Wikipedia. The live oboe quartet is presented as part of a dialogue with the recorded material, together creating an 'entry' on Mozart as he is known at the beginning of the 21st century.

Tying the piece together is a recurring statement featuring the voice of Gertrude Stein (of 'a rose is a rose is a rose' fame) taken from her 'The Making of Americans' and remarking on the significance of individuals and their achievements.

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