Equus and Resonances

Piece Descriptions:

This work comprises incidental music for a stage production of Equus by Peter Shaffer running from 1994-95 in Bogota, featuring prominent actors, dancers and production team. For the first time computer music took a role on a stage play in Colombia. Peter Shaffer's plot on Equus suited a great blend for narrative, dancer's choreography, music and lighting, all braided around the plot. Main character Alan Strang's theology involving horses and Martin Dysart's dichotomy were inflections for tensions and releases throughout the work. These served as points of departure for composition and several choreographies on the stage. Motion and space were important, given that sound and dancer's body displacement forged this perceived sensation.

To some, summit -or rather golden rule- on the play is framed around Jill Mason and Allen's run for the stables where all they get is a failed orgasm because "godhead horses" were watching them. But through Dysart's findings, in reality Allen is fascinated with one of the horses named Nugget and whom he secretly took for midnight rides, bareback and naked.

Synthesis of computer music was rendered -not in real-time- using Csound and Common Music on a Macintosh II computer. Several of the signal processing techniques included phase vocoder, FOF, convolution of spectra, as well as FM and substractive synthesis. Rendering of a one minute single channel of audio took several hours with this hardware. "This music is not intended as a document of this historical stage production but as a standalone composition with some points on mind: the sound of breathtaking, voice sounds, fusion of metallic sounds, movement and expression". "Form is through composed and therefore pieces are always changing and listeners should not expect repetition".