Pre/postlude: Free Flow

Program Note

Pre/postlude: Free Flow was conceived of as both a prelude and a postlude to Dammed, a larger work-in-progress that explores the impact of dams in Colorado.  The piece is a bubbling, surging multimedia soundscape created using  field recordings and videos that I took at the Yampa River, which runs  through northwestern Colorado and is one of the last free-flowing rivers  in the United States. It also features electronically transformed  snippets of acoustic music performed by bassoonist Madison Triplett. For  the live performance, audience members were invited to lie on the floor  at the front of the theater.

This  piece is an homage to the beauty and power of undammed rivers and the  crucial role that they play in sustaining ecosystems, and a hope for  what the thousands of rivers in this country that have been needlessly  choked can return to.