The Creative Process of Sculpting the Air by Jesper Nordin: Conceiving and Performing a Concerto for Conductor with Live Electronics

Abstract

Exformation Trilogy is a mixed music triptych that the Swedish composer Jesper Nordin plans to complete by 2017 using his Gestrument application. Sculpting the Air—the first piece of this cycle—is conceived as a concerto for conductor with live electronics. The composer’s work addresses the issue of the frequent lack of relationship between musicians and real-time electronic processing. In this piece, he employs two motion sensors, allowing the conductor to trigger sound files or to process instrumental sounds gesturally. We attended almost every work session during the production of the piece at Institute for Research and Communication in Acoustics/Music, and therefore collected a substantial amount of ethnographic data, in order to focus both on the creative process of the piece and the musical practice of the conductor in such a technological environment. This paper deals with the evolution of the setup and the composer’s writing strategies—including the notation of musical gestures, the compromises between technological and human constraints, and the conductor’s learning and performance of the piece.