1. No Response - very early morning
2. Mirage - early morning
3. Pixillated - morning
4. The Lark Full Cloud - noon
5. Third Sight - afternoon
6. Sky of Flames - early evening
7. River of Pearls - evening
8. The Pale Child - midnight
©1990 Mad As Birds Music |
 Lawrence Halprin, Clock Tower, 1993. Entrance to Grand Hope Park. |
The Lark Full Cloud was commissioned by the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles in 1989, and was realized the same year in the composer's private digital music studio. The eight short pieces, interleaved with 16 other short works by two other composers, will be played one piece on the hour, 24 hours a day, from a permanently-installed sound system in the new Grand Hope Park in downtown Los Angeles.
A real-time performance application called Ensemble, running on the NeXT Computer, was used to simultaneously synthesize many of the sounds, control a Yamaha TX81Z and Lexicon PCM70 through MIDI, and generate algorithmic material. In addition, Lisp software written by the composer, the Scorefile package, was used to transform composed material into NeXT Music Kit Scorefiles. The wind and river sounds were recorded in the Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, Wyoming, U.S.A.
Technical Requirements for Performance
All pieces are for stereo digital audio tape only, except The Lark Full Cloud, which also requires an amplified violinist and a digital delay capable of 2 independent delays from a single input. The version heard here uses a synthesized violin part (also accomplished on the NeXT computer).
Lexicon PCM70 Multiband Delay program
for amplified violin in Lark Full Cloud
0 100 +3 0 0 20% 20%
1 0 Full Full Off Off Off Off
2 0 400 664
3 0 170 170
4 0 15k 15k
5 0 50L 50R
6 Off Off Off Off Off Off