On Junitaki Falls

On Junitaki Falls is a composition for live instrument and two artificial intelligent performers controlled by a central computer system that also operates as the score. Although Junitaki Falls exists as a geological feature in Japan, the reference to it as the title of this piece is inspired by Haruki Murakami's book 'A Wild Sheep Chase'. In this book a smaller story exists within the larger novel, with its presence felt throughout the book. In the piece, a smaller song exists within the larger composition, and like the novel it alters the whole music through its constant presence, even if we never hear it as itself. This smaller song exists as fragments of manuscript from Roger Jannotta's transcription of Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet solo of God Bless the Child composed by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr. in 1939. Already this is the start of a complex matryoshka ('Russian') doll of layered interpretation. Add to this the process each individual performer of this work must complete in order to grow their score: months of feeding the AI system with progressively abstract layers of interpretation. The end result is much like the cascading mini falls that make up the whole of Junitaki's geological feature.