Daniel Corral

composer

Piece Year: 2016

  • Refractions

    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.

    • Refractions (live at Automata)

      From the album release show on May 6, 2017
      Featuring the Koan String Quartet
      The Isaura String Quartet couldn’t do it due to scheduling conflicts.

    • 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

  • One Line

    One Line

    One Line was composed with a scale described in Lou Harrison’s Music Primer, and continues my work featuring multimedia representations of microtonal systems. Many of my similar pieces use complex tuning structures, but One Line is instead quite streamlined, restricted to only 8 notes.

    • One Line

    • Livestream Launchpad performance, 4/26/21

      A livestream performance of Comma, One Line, and Diamond Pulses

    • Vicki Ray playing One Line

      At Zipper Hall, Los Angeles as part of the Piano Spheres series, April 3, 2018

  • Comma

    Comma

    • Comma live at REDCAT on Aug. 5, 2016

    Comma is a 17-minute solo multimedia performance that combines streamlined rhythms and harmonies with colorful live feed light projections to generate an abstract narrative that is playful and linear, but also steeped in the additive processes of musical minimalism and alternate tuning systems.

    Comma premiered August 4-6, 2016 at REDCAT’s New Original Works Festival 2016, featuring 30 ft. projections and 4.1 surround sound.

    • 2016 press for Comma

      New Classic LA: “Comma’s multiple paths of engagement and balanced blend of cooperative elements worked to hold audience attention consistently, slowing time against a steady stream of activity. Enthusiasm for the concluded piece reverberated palpably, as a sense of music’s abiding power to enchant and challenge was affirmed once again.” 

      24700: “The compelling score is inspired by the additive process of minimalist music as grids of light turn on in response to the musician’s movements. “ 

      Los Angeles Downtown News: “A minimalist musical composition using colorful, illuminated buttons on a soundboard. The dark silhouettes of his hands against the backdrop of the light show provide the visual component.”

    • Comma live at the MATA Festival 2019

      New York premiere at The Kitchen, New York, NY, USA

    • Livestream Launchpad performance, 4/26/21

      A livestream performance of Comma, One Line, and Diamond Pulses

  • Space-Time

    Space-Time

    • Space-Time, live at Automata

      Premiere on May 7, 2016 by Accordant Commons

    Based on text from Christine Wertheim’s book +|’me’S-pace, Space-Time uses a tuning system derived from La Monte Young’s Well-Tuned Piano.

    It was commissioned by Accordant Commons and premiered at Automata, Los Angeles on May 7, 2016 as part of MicroFest.

    • 2016 press for Space-Time

      New Classic LA: “The mood set for meditation and rhythmic swaying and shifting, the singers clapped and recited and sang and slurred and whooped. The words philosophize about reading and comprehending, and shift tiny elements to change entire meanings, … atomizing the language and investigating the relationships of its components… The result reframes consonance and dissonance, making the audience rethink on the fly what they think is pleasant and what clashes. What is usually instinctive to our ears here required conscious thought, fitting the space journey of +|’me’S-pace. The beat was constant but the meter shifts, making the steady time feel like it was swaying in the wind. Between the sonority and the flux of time, it is all the listener can do to hang on and enjoy the ride. “