strata

strata (2025)

Prepared harp solo

Duration : c. 5′

Premiered July 26, 2025, Darmstädter Ferienkurse.

strata is the result of five days of close collaboration with harpist Ian Lim. We attached, inserted, rubbed, and scraped everyday objects of various shapes and materials on the harp, exploring a variety of sounds.

Many of the sounds were fascinating. Yet, what inspired me the most was the instrument’s fundamental mechanism. The harp has a large soundbox, and when its strings are plucked, each string has its own independent duration of resonance. As the strings are exposed, the performer can control a broad range of dynamics. I selected several sounds with distinct qualities and arranged them in a somewhat raw manner, letting them gradually accumulate and grow into a vast sonic presence. To allow each sound to unfold naturally, I avoided metrical constraints, instead choosing proportional spacing for freer temporal flow. Like a snowball rolling and gathering mass, the sound acquires tremendous force, and it is at this point that the harpist’s voice enters.

Voice has been crucial in my work. Vocalize for double bass and piano (2022) was my first instrumental piece with a vocal passage consisting only of vowels, performed by the double bass player alongside the instrument’s harmonics. The context in which voice is used in strata is similar in that the performer speaks without words. In this piece, not only the performer’s and the harp’s bodies but also the sounds they produce are brought much closer. The dimensionality created through layered accumulation gains vitality with the performer’s breath, and it propels toward an explosive climax. The simple tool I chose to blur the difference between sounds produced by the instrument and those by the voice serves to illuminate the nuance of this transformation.

The concept of the piece reminded me of layers of earth forming over time, slowly built through successive natural processes. strata is dedicated to Ian Lim, with sincere gratitude to Gunnhildur Einarsdóttir and Sarah Nemtsov.

Photo credit: IMD / Kristof Lemp, @pictor.ian