Daniel Corral

composer

Title: Summits

  • Summits

    Summits

    • Summits live at Sound Waves

      Live at the Santa Monica Public Library on March 20, 2019.

    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!

  • Count In

    Count In

    • Count In demo

    Count In is a meditation on the role of individual voices in an imminent post-human environment, based around a recording of Poly-Styrene (from the 70s punk band X-Ray Spex) defiantly shouting the numbers “1-2-3-4.”

    Count In combines phasing techniques and just intonation (with a tuning system inspired by La Monte Young’s Well Tuned Piano) and the result is a mixture of Steve Reich, X-Ray Spex, James Tenney, and Sesame Street Pinball Number Counts. The layered iterations of Styrene’s voice are reinforced by the visual presence of corresponding numbers, which slowly change color akin to a James Turrell Skyspace.

    • Counting Presence

      Published in Soap Ear Journal Issue 10

      The following is a reflection on the 2019 piece Count In by composer Daniel Corral. In this essay Corral lays out his creative process alongside formal elements of the piece, while considering experiences of stability, change, and presence.