NeoCons & Libertines was commissioned by MATA for the 8th Annual MATA Festival held at St. Peter's Church in New York City from September 23rd thru October 2nd. Dubbed "The Monster Composer's Rally", the 2005 season invited 8 composers exploring improvisation or aleatoric practices in their work to write a piece in 8 days for the newly formed MATA Micro-Orchestra.
Writing for this ensemble presented a unique environment in that here were 8 versatile and accomplished soloists, all well-versed in both improvised and fully-scored performance techniques. I decided to merge improvisation and music technology by writing several short gestures for an ensemble of voice, piano/percussion, alto sax, tenor sax, cello and contrabass. I then sampled these gestures from members of the Micro-Orchestra and built a loop-based groove that could either be performed live from computer or played back from CD. The performers use these same gestures as a starting point for improvisation, taking turns both as soloist and as groups within the overall ensemble. The intentionally limited use of notated content ensures a different interpretation with each subsequent performance. Only the computer or CD based material remains the same.
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