The Founding

Program Note

The Founding (2024), for tuba/euphonium ensemble, was composed for Dr. Brett Copeland and the University of Northern Iowa's UNITuba Ensemble. The piece was composed for the ensemble's 50th Anniversary concert in the Spring of 2025. The work makes use of sonification and magic squares as the primary tools for generating materials and formal structure. The work starts with the sonification of the year 1974 (when the UNITuba Ensemble was founded) before journeying (sonifying) through names of ensemble directors and other text.

The Founding is a continuation of the composer’s work into computer-assisted algorithmic composition and the use of simultaneous compositional methodologies within a work. The piece makes use of several approaches to isorhythm, rhythm fractioning (Schillinger), set theory, serial processes (rotation), and sonification. The piece was composed with the aid of the software Supercollider and Max.

Performance Information

• Premiere: UNITuba 50th Anniversary Concert, Brett Copeland, Director, Cedar Falls, Iowa, 5.1.2025

Recording