Sureña (2006) by Pablo Furman
for violin and laptop

The musical material and the titles of the movements refer to blurred or illusory images from South America. The electronic part is made up in its entirety of events played by the violinist and treated through various processes, then synchronized to the score. Completed in October of 2005, the composition is dedicated to violinist Pat Strange who commissioned it.

Cadenza y danza in moto perpetuo introduces a fiery violin and electronic ostinati. The latter are built from samples of corresponding violin phrases and processed through granulation with four resonators tuned to pitch material in the score. Rhythmn and tempi are determined exclusively by grain length and rate across the sample. Syncopations result from the random scanning of samples' peaks and valleys. Percussive events are pizzicatos and knocks on the violin transformed into gross exaggerations of such typical string techniques.

El Colibrí mágico (magic hummingbird). Electronic pizzicatos and tremolos perform a fluttering responsorial display with the violin.

Companario de San Miguel, interlude for plucked bells and gongs. Processed pizzicatos and bowed harmonics improvise their meditative vision of a fictional carillon.

Nubes de Magallanes — nocturno patagónico. Named after the famous explorer who chronicled them in the early XVI century, these galaxies are visible only from the Southern hemisphere. The lonely vastness of the cold desert of Patagonia sparkles under the nightly glitter of the 'Clouds of Magellan' transfixed here by the violin.

La milonga rota (broken milonga). A reverie of dancers with their feet in the air attempting to perform the intricacies of a difficult and sensual dance. The music is not what they expect. The rhythmn is deconstructed and repeatedly interrupted by live and processed violin bursts. Granulation and spectral filtering of the violin make up the electronic part.