Over the last year, I have been privileged to work with the composer and my teacher, Robert Carl, performing and recording his seventh symphony, “Infinity Avenue.” The work is set to be released on his latest album with Neuma Records, Infinity Avenue, on April 26.
“... there are the two “Infinity Avenues” – the culmination of a series that Carl has been working on for a decade. Both use a unique Max patch that organizes his complete harmonic matrix into precise tunings. The first is a structured improvisation for open instrumentation with laptop. As the players listen to one another and respond to the electronics, they create sonic fields that are like slow-moving weather patterns, sometimes serene, sometimes stormy. The second is in fixed notation (except for an orchestral improvisation in the last two minutes). This is Carl’s Seventh Symphony, and it moves through sections that are structured by classical forms like canon, variations, and passacaglia, yet also with a “still point” in the middle, which stops and lingers over the sound of three female voices.
Robert Carl, recently retired from a distinguished career teaching at the Hartt School, University of Hartford, has stated that his music is “a robust argument with tradition.” And if he has a fantasy of its effect on an audience, it’s that they will levitate to the ceiling, and “have to be pulled back down to earth like balloons.” Infinity Avenue will put that to the test.”
