Between the Leaves

Between the Leaves began when an output error turned John Cage reciting a series of small stories into a dense tapestry of noise; a fitting tribute, perhaps, for a piece created in the centenary of Cage's birth. The work presents a foreground of clicking gestures – every one following the same trajectory, yet every one unique, with subtle differences in timbre, velocity, and so on – layered and sequenced to provide a balance between monotonous repetition and detailed counterpoint. Behind this foreground layer is a soundscape struggling to be heard, sometimes masked by the mechanical foreground, sometimes spilling forward with a burst, cry, or distant wail. Formally speaking, the piece slows to a halt at about the two-thirds mark, and then turns back on itself: the click trajectory changes direction, and we move back through the piece in reverse, gaining speed as we go, to finish where we began.