Atropine for brass trio & electronics

Justina’s new composition Atropine for trumpet, horn, trombone & electronics was premiered by Collegium Novum Zürich on the 26th of March in Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain during Electrocution festival, Brest, France. Watch streamed performance:

Atropine was be performed again by Jens Bracher, Tomas Gallart, Stephen Menotti in the concert Wie Kling Europa heure? on the 25th of June, 2022 in Zürich.

Atropine (2022) for trumpet, horn, trombone & electronics. 9’30”

Program Note

Atropine occurs naturally in a number of hallucinogenic plants of the nightshade family, including Datura, Hyoscyamus & Atropa belladonna from which it was first isolated in XIX century. Today atropine is used on eyes, heart, to increase secretion and treat poisonings but preparations from plants in the nightshade family for use in witchcraft are much older. In the composition Atropine a text from the manuscript Flora Parisiensis (Pierre Bulliard, 1777) is read for the electronics part. Whispering voice excites the resonators whose spectrum comes from analyzed harmonies that result from intervals of simultaneous singing and playing the trombone. Both speaking and singing voice is notated in the score, which examines illusions of subjective tones. Omnipresent are techniques of unstable sounds, like split-tones or pedal-tones. Drones accompany the trio that play with compressor amplifying quiet noisy sounds and limiting the loud ones. Each instrument symbolically represents a named flower whose title is given for different parts. Atropine is a continuation of the composer’s reflection on altered state of consciousness started with the miniature Datura (2021) for solo trombone.
The Max/Msp patch controls compression, spatialization and plays sounds triggered by the pedal.

Atropine (2022) performances:

2024.01.09

International Ensemble Modern Academy students: Jinhyoung Kim (trumpet), Noah Perkins (trombone) Robyn Blair (horn) and , Moritz Fischer (electronics) at Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt, Germany.

2022.06.24

Collegium Novum Zürich: Jens Bracher, Tomas Gallart, Stephen Menotti in the concert Wie Kling Europa heure?, Zürich, Switzerland.

2022.03.26

Collegium Novum Zürich: Jens Bracher, Tomas Gallart, Stephen Menotti, Electrocution festival, Brest, France.