Alarm Will Sound | "Hexactinellida" by Chelsea Komschlies performed by Alarm Will Sound @alarmwillsound | Uploaded September 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
Chelsea Komschlies, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Video by Chelsea Komschlies
Underwater footage by NOAA.gov, public domain

Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 27, 2019

Notes by the composer:
Hexactinellida: a class of ancient, unusual sea sponges whose skeletons are composed of a complex lattice of six-pointed spicules made of silica, earning them the name "glass sponges." Lacking an epidermis like other sponges, hexactinellids are wrapped in a covering of multinucleate cytoplasm which can send electrical impulses through their glass skeletons better than any fiber optics humans have created. In contrast to this lightning-fast reaction time in their extreme longevity; one currently living specimen is estimated to be 15,000 years old.

The music evokes glass sponges' structure: hard, densely-packed, buzzing lattices lit up by pulses of electricity; their texture, crunchy and spiky rather than smooth and crystalline; and their bodily shapes, which simultaneously resemble ultra-futuristic algorithmic architecture and Dr. Seussian plants.

Alarm Will Sound:
Alan Pierson, conductor and Artistic Director
Erin Lesser, flute
Christa Robinson, oboe
Bill Kalinkos, clarinet
Elisabeth Stimpert, clarinet
Michael Harley, bassoon
Laura Weiner, horn
Tim Leopold, flugelhorn
Michael Clayville, trombone
Matt Smallcomb, percussion
Chris Thompson, percussion
John Orfe, piano
Alan Pierson, piano
Courtney Orlando, violin
Stefan Freund, cello
Miles Brown, bass
Daniel Neumann, audio engineering

Executive Director, Gavin Chuck
General Manager, Annie Toth
Production Manager, Jason Varvaro
Assistant Director of Artistic Planning, Peter Ferry
Librarian, Chihiro Shibayama

Special thanks to Patti Kilroy (violin), Beth Myers (viola), Yuri Yamashita (percussion), and Nathan Koci (horn).