Written for Splinter Reeds and part of a larger project. The live ensemble plays along with fixed media. The audio for each piece is a collage compiled from different recordings of the same song—focusing on moments where the lyrics have colors in them. Colours’ visual use of language Is influenced by artists like Ed Ruscha, Glen Ligon, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer. The music embraces the concept of palimpsest on many levels. The audio collages play with memory and earworms in a minimalist theme and variations, akin to Steve Reich’s work involving pre-recorded audio (Different Trains, It’s Gonna Rain, etc.). The live musicians and singers layer meaning on top of this collaged audio minimalism, focusing the process-driven dispersion of meaning into a coherent dramatic arc. There is also a large influence of experimental film on Colours. In particular, Philip Greenaway’s 70s films Vertical Features Remake and Windows—which adhere to and humorously critique the tenets of structural film and conceptual art.
Piece Format: Instrumental
Ace of Cups
Originally composed and premiered with four 18-note Sankyo musical movements playing Amazing Grace in the key of G major.
Two of Pentacles
Two of Pentacles is a solo performance for Lou Harrison National Resonator guitar and 7 of my 20 Eikosany chimes. I play the JI guitar, and the chimes will be played through robotic triggers. The 7 notes are the pitches that overlap between the Lou Harrison’s guitar tuning at the Eikosany chimes I built last year. For this juggling of systems and for this period in my own career and life, Two of Pentacles is a very appropriate symbol.
Two of Pentacles was created with support from a City of Los Angeles Master Artist Project Grant.
Four of Wands
Four of Wands album
Premiered by myself, Erin Barnes, Cory Beers, and Andrew Lessman on December 17, 2022 at Automata LA.
Four of Wands began as a sketch for a concept I’m developing for my upcoming COLA IMAP performance in June, 2023. The piece creates a contemplative space through a series of gradually changing chords on 20 just-intonation chimes. These chords manifest through shifting polyrhythms connected to the frequency of each chime. I originally titled it 4 for 20, but Four of Wands felt much more in line with what I was aiming for at the time.
This piece continues my 8 years of making just-tuned chimes, as well as my gradual descent into the wooly world of Erv Wilson microtonality. The chimes are tuned to a 1•3•5•7•9•11 Eikosany, and each musician plays 5 of them.
2025 press for Four of Wands
MetalJazz: “You may discover that this music puts you literally in tune with nature because of the simple numerical principles, which, when the numbers are combined, produce rich harmonies. When looked at that way, being a cipher no longer feels empty. A number can be manipulated, but its essence cannot be broken — it will continue even when it seems to be erased or alone. Faraway numbers are always resonating with it.
Eikosany Study
Eikosany Study at UCSD’s Experimental Theater
Performed by Palimpsest Ensemble (cond. Steven Schick) on April 20, 2022
A harmony study of a 1-3-5-7-9-11 Eikosany composed for the Palimpsest Ensemble.
Incomplete Open Hexany
Written for the Now Hear Ensemble, Incomplete Open Hexany is a harmony study of a 6-note JI scale.
It was premiered on April 6, 2022 at the Riverside Art Museum
5 for 40
As part of the development process for a collaboration with Alexander Gedeon and DaEun Jung, I made a 13 minute video/sound piece for Music for Your Inbox called Candoro.
In this video, the soundscape around the Candoro Marble Company in Knoxville, TN is treated with JI magical realism, echoing the surreal navigations of our three bodies around the physical space of the building’s Beaux-Arts architecture.
The video was shot during our time at the Loghaven Artist Residency last September.
Performers:
Daniel Corral, Alexander Gedeon, and DaEun JungMount San Antonio 1944
Mount San Antonio 1944
Video premiere by PARTCH Ensemble
Commissioned by PARTCH Ensemble and premiered in 2021.
The text for this piece was found in the Sierra Club’s summit register archive at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. A summit register is a log book sometimes found at the tops of mountain trails, and this text came from a summit register on Mt. San Antonio in 1944. Mount San Antonio (AKA Mt. Baldy) is the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains, originally called Joat by the Tongva people and called “San Antonio Peak” in the Sierra Club archives. Dale F. Stewart, who wrote this entry, reveals that he was at Caltech in 1944. At the time, Caltech was very involved in the USA’s war efforts in both Europe and the Pacific. US troops landed at Normandy only three weeks before Stewart’s writing, and the US military detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki just over one year later (several key Manhattan Project personnel were from Caltech). This military affiliation helps explain Stewart’s quick identification of the Lockheed P38. Meanwhile, JPL co-founder Jack Parsons would leave his post there by the end of the year – due in part to his deep devotion to occultist (and mountaineer) Aleister Crowley and budding friendship with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. All of this is to say that there was probably a lot on Dale F. Stewart’s mind in June, 1944 as he surveyed the vistas from Mount San Antonio.
Neuston
Neuston played by Mark Dresser’s UCSD Bass Quartet
Recorded at Conrad Prebys Music Center
Split screen video is Myra Hinrichs playing Hodad at Trestles BeachLink to video on YouTube site
Neuston was written for Mark Dresser’s UCSD bass quartet, who premiered it on April 9. It is mean to be played simultaneously with Hodad.
Hodad
Online video premiere in March 2021 via Music for your Inbox!
Written for violinist Myra Hinrichs.
Hodad is meant to be played at a beach. The player watches ocean waves as the roll toward the shore, shaping the music to follow the natural rhythms of the sea on that day at that place.
The intonation extends my exploration of stellate hexanies tuned to the Schumann frequency 7.83 Hz.
2021 Press for Hodad
Sequenza 21: “Hodad is a metaphor for the relative spheres of influence – the violin in the concert hall and the surf outdoors. One is full of quiet introspection, the other has unlimited energy, but in this piece both can be examined by the listener in the same context.”
Neuston played by Mark Dresser’s UCSD Bass Quartet
Recorded at Conrad Prebys Music Center
Split screen video is Myra Hinrichs playing Hodad at Trestles BeachLink to video on YouTube site
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
A collaboration with performer/director Alexander Gedeon, Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage combines live music and theatrical performance to reframe the cultural significance of the “worst album in rock and roll history.”
“Having Fun with Elvis on Stage” is a 1973 album collaged entirely from Elvis speaking on stage between songs at live concerts – no music. AllMusic’s Mark Deming declared “hearing it is like witnessing a car wreck, leaving onlookers too horrified and too baffled to turn away.” Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage reimagines this vilified recording as the libretto for a sort of ghost opera, combining pop art nostalgia with new technology and classical instruments to create a memetic hologram of the endless purgatory of celebrity afterlife.
My live musical score is performed along with the original LP as if they were the pit orchestra for opera or musical theater – sometimes harmonizing with the words, painting emotions in the spaces between, or reacting theatrically. Meanwhile, Gedeon’s “Elvis” persona becomes a vehicle to explore all things banal and absurd in pop idolatry, as well as the performative aspects of ‘stage presence.’
2020 press for Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
Sequenza 21: “…carried off with exemplary production values and extraordinary performances, making the case that new music concerts can be experienced online at a high level.”
LA Times Cultural Pick: “Theater artist Alexander Gedeon and composer Daniel Corral deconstruct the myth of pop stardom in this musical fable with live accompaniment by the Now Hear Ensemble.”
LA Weekly: Arts Calendar Highlight
Canon in A Minor
I was asked by pianist Lorenzo Marasso to write a short piano piece in response to Bach’s Invention #13 in Am. I composed a strict canon at the octave, with the two voices one 16th note apart from each other.
Lorenzo premiered Canon in A Minor along with pieces by 14 other composers on July 26, 2020, live-streaming on YouTube and Facebook.
Summits
Summits is a song cycle using texts I have collected over the last decade while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains. Each song is based on entries I have documented in various summit registers (notebooks often found at the top of mountain trails). These personal chronicles from regional pinnacles portray the wisdom, humility, and humor that can only be found on a mountain peak.
Summits is written for voice, string quartet, and guitar/accordion, and I am happy to be joined by singer Joanna Wallfisch and the Koan Quartet in bringing it to life.
Summits premiered at the Soundwaves Concert Series on March 20, 2019 in celebration of their 50th event!
Circle Limit III
Circle Limit III album
Released July 2, 2021 on MicroFest Records
Commissioned by the Los Angeles Electric 8 and premiered at Walt Disney Concert Hall as part of Noon to Midnight 2017.
2017 press for Circle Limit III
Mark Swed, LA Times: ” … a stunning wall of sound as aural complement to Gehry’s steel.”
Sequenza 21: “…Circle Limit III, by Daniel Corral, gracefully flowed outward in a warm ambient wash. The piece was never static… with the sound rising, falling and slowly shimmering in the bright afternoon sunshine. The harmonies were lush and comforting and worked to subvert the frenetic sounds of traffic out in the street. Circle Limit III was perfectly chosen for the sidewalk and fully captured the imagination of the crowd – listening and looking down Grand Avenue became a strangely calming and unexpectedly peaceful experience.”
KPFK: Concert premiere promo
Circle Limit III @ Walt Disney Concert Hall
Refractions
Refractions album
Released May 5, 2017 on Populist Records
Refractions expands on my ten years of exploring the sonic and sculptural possibilities of music boxes. Composed for string quartet, electric guitar, and electronically processed music box, Refractions combines ethereal ambient electronics with contemplative acoustic timbres. Featuring performances from prog rock/metal guitarist Jeremy Kerner, the Isaura String Quartet, and Daniel Corral on music box and laptop, the music is a spacious continuum of composed structures, improvisation, and overlapping textures.
2017 press for Refractions
Christian Carey: “this slowly evolving piece of music is spellbinding in its execution. Rather than foregrounding the incremental shifts of material, the listener is encouraged to bask in a wash of sounds, varied and lovely timbres that are deployed with enough independence to seem to have minds of their own.”
Sequenza 21: “The cool ambient tranquility of Refractions is a much needed antidote to the raucous confusion that infests our daily lives; this music works to elegantly recharge us in a moment of restorative calm.”
National Sawdust Log Journal: “A sublime study in anxious stasis and fleeting repose for string quartet, electric guitar, music box, and digital treatments…”
Textura: “The music blossoms in the most peaceful of manners… the piece… presents an ever-mutating weave of softly glimmering electronics and fluttering acoustic timbres, and as it advances the impression forms of a spacious, ambient-styled composition that’s rooted in both pre-formed structures and improvisation.”
MetalJazz: “Open-aired, shivery…”
Avant Music News: Pick of the week
The Rest is Noise: Nightafternight playlist of “New and recent releases of interest”
24700: “Refractions is a 45-minute electro-acoustic chamber piece that expands on Corral’s 10 years of exploring the sonic and sculptural possibilities of music boxes”
Talk Classical: “Experimental yet attractive new music”
Chicago Reader: Today’s Playlist
Best of 2017 Lists: Bandcamp Daily, Avant Music News (Honorable Mention)National Sawdust, a fool in the forest, Asociacion Intonarumori, Steve Hoffman
Progress
Progress live at MorYork, November 21, 2014
Commissioned by Story Water and premiered on November 21, 2014 at MorYork.
Codec H Quartet
Codec H Quartet
Accordion quartet arrangement of Codec H, an earlier solo accordion piece.
Premiered in September, 2013 at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles, in collaboration with writer Mandy Kahn.
Dislike
DISLIKE is a 21st century operatic documentation of a unique repository for the darker emotions swirling around the Internet. The sinister side of online anonymity and open-forum communication is examined by deconstructing 24-hours worth of comments on the most “disliked” video on YouTube. Taken as a singular libretto, the result is a surreal text full of anger, naivety, homophobia, desperation, and mischief. Meanwhile, eight accordions create a lush, post-ambient sonic environment inspired by a time-stretched interpretation of that video’s song. The resulting dichotomy depicts the Jungian shadow of the digital collective unconscious.
Dislike was premiered at REDCAT’s 2013 NOW Festival after a workshop at the Electric Lodge’s High Voltage Series! It featured Free Reed Conspiracy and The Peoples Microphony Camerata.
Read my article on LA Stage Times about Dislike
Dislike (live at Human Resources LA)
Performed by Dog Star Ochestra on June 17, 2017
2013 press for Dislike
Living Out Loud Los Angeles: “This was truly a treat for all, from our soft spoken dreamers to our extroverted realists, we all went home with a true image of how ugly we can be and how much help we all owe each other.”
Musings by a Dancing Poetess: “By the end of the piece, I hated YouTube; I hated the Internet, and I would have given anything to make it stop. But, my experience of discomfort was what created the power in the Corral’s social commentary.”
Local Looking Glass: “Its music was Baby’s chords played in discordant waves of sound a la Koyaanisqatsi.”
LA Weekly: “Composer Daniel Corral, whose work probes the weirdness of 21st-century living, has written a libretto called Dislike, about the most disliked YouTube video of all time.”
LA Stage Times: “Full of anger, naivete, homophobia, desperation, and mischief, these comments portray a Burroughsian narrative seemingly cut straight from the cloth of the collective unconscious.”
Three Squares in the Shape of A Pärt
Three Squares in the Shape of A. Part
Live performance by Richard Valitutto at the Hammer Museum
Part 1: Clockwise Part 2: Counter-Clockwise Part 3: Static
LA Canon
2013 press for LA Canon
The Constance Gradual: “Sing, cymbals, like a lullaby; put justly, it is our best defense.”
Animatic
Animatic, live at Yakima Seasons Music Festival
Premiere by the Yakima Chamber Orchestra
A 4 min. orchestral piece written for the Seasons Music Festival in Yakima, WA. Premiered on 10/16/09 by the Yakima Chamber Orchestra
With Structure
With Structure, live at the Yakima Seasons Music Festival
Played by the Kairos String Quartet on October 15, 2009.
A string quartet using only natural harmonics, written for the Kairos String Quartet as a part of the Yakima Seasons Music Festival.
Diasporic Music #1: Home
Diasporic Music #1: Home (violin arrangement)
Performed by Emily Call at The Blue Whale on Nov. 8, 2015
Diasporic Music #1: Home, live at the wulf.
Performed by Andrew McIntosh in 2008
Mandala Fanfare
Mandala Fanfare (MIDI demo)
Commissioned by Machine Project for the 2008 Santa Monica Glow Festival
Performed on the night of July 19, 2008 at sunset, midnight, and sunrise by an orchestra riding the Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel
Nowhere: 3 Frames for Orchestra
Nowhere: 3 Frames for Orchestra, live at Calarts ROD
Performed by the Calarts Orchestra on Nov. 06, 2006
