Music

Mixed quartet + two amplified percussionists

Reading MantlePetrology

202413′

Performance

Watch on YouTube ↗

Performance excerpt · IDEAS: Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts & Sciences · 24 May 2024

Additional media

Video

Scrolling score

YouTube ↗

Photomicrographic images by Emily J. Chin with overlaid musical notation

About

The score for Reading Mantle Petrology is based on photomicrographic images of mantle stones captured by Emily J. Chin, Associate Professor in Geosciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. These microscopic photographs reveal the intricate details and textures of thin rock sections from the Earth’s mantle. Presented as a scrolling score, traditional musical notation is overlaid on Chin’s images, creating a continuously moving visual landscape across the screen.

Loadbang performs these images, interpreting the petrology and transforming it into sound. The ensemble is joined by two percussionists, Mitchell Carlstrom and Stephen de Filippo, who use piezo contact microphones to amplify the grinding and scraping sounds of stones.

In this way, both the visual and physical properties of rock are sonically reimagined, blurring the boundaries between the microscopic and the musical.

Geological structure becomes notation, notation becomes performance, and the physical properties of rock become musical material.

Gallery

Photomicrographic image of a thin rock section from the Earth’s mantle used in the scrolling score for Reading Mantle Petrology.
Mantle photomicrograph by Emily J. Chin, used as source material for the scrolling score.
Loadbang performing Reading Mantle Petrology at the Qualcomm Institute.
Reading Mantle Petrology at IDEAS, Qualcomm Institute, 24 May 2024.
Loadbang performing from the scrolling score for Reading Mantle Petrology.
Loadbang performing from the scrolling score.
Adrian Sandi performing bass clarinet in Reading Mantle Petrology.
Adrian Sandi, bass clarinet.
Andy Kozar performing trumpet in Reading Mantle Petrology.
Andy Kozar, trumpet.
Ty Bouque performing baritone voice in Reading Mantle Petrology.
Ty Bouque, baritone voice.
William Lang performing trombone in Reading Mantle Petrology.
William Lang, trombone.
Mitchell Carlstrom performing amplified stones in Reading Mantle Petrology.
Mitchell Carlstrom performing with amplified stones.
Stephen de Filippo performing amplified stones in Reading Mantle Petrology.
Stephen de Filippo performing with amplified stones.
Stones and contact microphones used in Reading Mantle Petrology.
Stones amplified using piezo contact microphones.
Performance documentation from Reading Mantle Petrology.
Performance documentation from IDEAS, 24 May 2024.
Loadbang and percussionists performing Reading Mantle Petrology.
Loadbang with Mitchell Carlstrom and Stephen de Filippo.
The scrolling score projected during Reading Mantle Petrology.
The scrolling score projected during the performance.
Close performance view of Reading Mantle Petrology.
Reading Mantle Petrology at Atkinson Hall.
Audience view of Reading Mantle Petrology at the Qualcomm Institute.
Audience view at the Qualcomm Institute.
Final performance photograph from Reading Mantle Petrology.
Performance documentation, 24 May 2024.

Score

Performance programme

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Performances

Loadbang + Mitchell Carlstrom & Stephen de Filippo

IDEAS: Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts & Sciences · Atkinson Hall · Qualcomm Institute · University of California, San Diego

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