Below is a transcript of my conversation with CMU Trombone Professor Cole Bartels and CMU composition student Alec Love
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty.
Dr. Cole Bartles, trombone professor in CMU School of Music is releasing a new CD this week, “Technological Eclipse.” He sat down with me and was joined by composition student Alec Love who wrote the title track. I learned about the formation and transformation of his ensemble…
Cole Bartels:
That's a great question. Yeah, when the group started going in fall of 2021, we were all in grad school together at the University of Wisconsin, and we started playing pretty traditional acoustic trombone quartet repertoire, but as individuals, we all were really interested in new music and playing with electronics and things of that sort. So, we started looking for pre-existing repertoire for four trombones and electronics, and there were a few things. but no existing groups that really did this as kind of their specialty. So, we pretty quickly pivoted in that direction of commissioning and writing a lot of our own music for trombones and electronics. And we all really fell in love with this project.
DN:
Your original composition, “She Eats Her Breakfast”, who is the she in question? I've got a guess in the way it's set up, but why don't you tell us?
CB:
The title is actually “Stella Eats Her Breakfast”, and Stella is one of my 2 cats. And if you listen to the piece, you'll hear all of these assorted cat sounds, including a recording of her really up close kind of, you know, munching on her kibble and her, the little tag on her collar, you know, clinking against the bowl and meowing and purring, and…
Alec Love:
Very sound design heavy!
CB:
Yeah, and it's a little bit of a meme piece, if you will. I just took this really simple thing, my cat eating her breakfast and blew it way out of proportion with these outrageous drum beats and these sort of Bruckner style chords and all of this sort of stuff. And at the end, the tune that I've kind of been riffing on through all these like granular and minimalist processes finally reveals itself. And maybe I'll keep it a secret so that the listeners can go and enjoy it for themselves.
DN:
I am glad that it is one of the cats! Otherwise, we're going to have a discussion perhaps about your table manners. But that aside, we will allow it because Stella gets a pass here! So, this new recording, “Technological Eclipse,” from New Focus Records is coming out on August the 14th. The title piece, written by our guest today, Alec Love. And as we start to talk about the composition itself, tell me a little bit about how you came into collaborating.
AL:
So, I was a student at Central Michigan University when it was initially commissioned. And Dr. Bartles reached out to me after having watched a (a) film scoring competition thing that I had gotten finalists in. I was a finalist, like top 15 in about 800 or so compositions that submitted to that competition. And so, CMU, they gave me a shout out as a result of that. And so, after Dr. Bartles listened to it, he reached out to me and asked me if I could compose a piece for him. And so, we had a discussion on the physics of the trombone, what things are possible. We wanted it to be kind of familiar, but pushing some boundaries in a way.
DN:
Is it your instrument by design or one that you became more familiar with in the association?
AL:
I became more familiar with it after having kind of composed the piece. One of the main questions that I asked him in that talk was, what are you missing in your program? What's something that you're kind of needing in this tour that you're having? Because at the time it was a different tour back in 2023, 2024. What he was missing, what he told me was a piece that was going to knock people's socks off. And so, I was very happy to oblige. Then we kind of moved forward with it and A couple months later, we had the final result and I was very happy with it.
DN:
“Technological Eclipse,” New Focus Recordings releases this on August the 14th. And I want to thank both you, Alec, and you, Cole, for taking the time to give us the overview and some specific insights into the project. Congratulations on it, and we certainly do appreciate the time.
CB:
Thank you.
AL:
Thank you for having us.
