Ronald Bruce Smith’s “Constellation for orchestra and live electronics,” produced in collaboration between Berkeley Symphony and UC Berkeley’s Center for Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT).
The World Premiere was given by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Kent Nagano on November 10, 2000; it was revised in 2003.
Most people think what could I do, I think what shouldn't I do. What I should do perhaps is involved with the fact that I'm Jewish and what is known as Jewish paranoia. I don't feel comfortable enough to feel that everything is on my side and that it's going to work just the way I want it.
--Morton Feldman
The large-scale form for ME mirrors the classic seven yogic steps as follows:
1. Preconscious ME, Open Vowel Space
2. ME Builds the Language Wall
3. ME Sings His Narcissistic Canon
4. ME Sings His Greatest Song
5. ME Speaks to the Crowd.
6. ME Speaks to His Prompter
7. ME Is Cast Into the Future and Dies
Edmund Campion, music
John Campion, text and concept