Scattering

A concerto for conductor, orchestra, TOSHI interface, and live electronics

 by Joseph Butch Rovan

Scattering is a concerto about the connectedness of things. Its title is drawn from a beautiful poem by William Meredith, “Examples of Created Systems,” about all the perceived systems—of stars, islands, maps, relationships—whose “fair scattering of matter” informs our always imperfect understanding of the world. Who made these systems, Meredith wonders, “who flung them there, in a sowing motion suggesting that random is beautiful?”

That existential question is central to the piece. The idea of sowing or scattering, for example, could suggest the system of gestures a conductor uses to evoke sound. A unique feature of Scattering is the custom instrument I built, to be worn like a watch on the conductor’s left hand, in order to track motion, direction, and acceleration. At key points, the expressive gestures produce a scattering of live electronic sound that, like a Greek chorus, comments on the orchestra or foretells what is to come. In these moments, the conductor has the rare opportunity to perform as a soloist with the ensemble, as in a concerto. I call the instrument TOSHI, in honor of Toshiyuki Shimada, the conductor who commissioned the piece in 2020.

No one could have known how radically 2020 would scatter our understandings of the world, with the arrival of a novel coronavirus producing a global pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd producing a furious global outcry for justice. Both events showed us, in very different ways, the connectedness of humanity across space and time. Scattering alludes to these historic events in two musical subjects derived from their names. “COVID – 19” explodes with the energy of contagion; “George Floyd” expresses sorrow, loss, and longing. Their connectedness can be heard at the end as the themes combine into a double canon—one of music’s oldest created systems. But it is the conductor’s closing breaths that show us the tragedy they share.