Heather Stebbins

For piano, effects pedals, and processing

(Performance version a: 15')

(Performance version b: 45')

Commissioned by Ning Yu

Supported by the George Washington University University Facilitating Fund

All Things That Disappear is a collaborative exploration of sound's intangible and malleable nature using piano, effects pedals, and digital processing techniques. Originating from improvisation sessions with pianist Ning Yu, the work takes shape through a series of visual and textual prompts provided by artist Michele Carlson.

First performance National Sawdust, March 28 2024

Recording album length version In June/October 2024, Oktaven Audio

Second Performance slated for the Third Practice Electroacoustic

baritone, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and fixed media electronics

2023, 8'

Premiered Oct 2023, Tenri Cultural Institute

Program Notes: Little Seas (2023, Loadbang version) is a bit of a sonic Matryoshka doll. I composed my first work for loadbang, QUIVER, in 2014; this piece is one of my few purely acoustic works. The final section of QUIVER involves a fragile yet lush harmonic trill in the bass clarinet, which has always been one of my favorite musical moments. In 2021, I began to explore hardware synthesizers and developed a practice of generating new material with found sounds and musical samples by way of granular synthesis. I tend to dig within past projects to find my source material, and chose to explore the recording of QUIVER's bass clarinet harmonic trill. I improvised with the sample, using various techniques to modulate and manipulate the recording. The result, Little Seas, is a track on my 2022 album, New Forms, Old Selves. When my friends in loadbang approached me to write a piece for them with electronics, I decided it would be interesting to add acoustic material to the Little Seas recording. The result is a semi-improvisatory piece whereby I provide musical cells for the players to expand upon and react to with the Little Seas recording as a foundation. I am in awe of the musicality and creativity of all of the members of loadbang and am grateful to create this piece in collaboration with them.

For two pianists, two percussionists, and live electronics [modular synthesizer, Ableton Live, Push] 2023, 20'

Commissioned by Yarn/Wire for Currents

Premiered May 2023, Roulette, Brooklyn NY

Split Disc Album with Composer Chris Chandler

2023, New Focus Recordings

Recorded by Switch~ Ensemble, Carlos Cordeiro

Supported by the George Washington University Facilitating Fund

"The highlight of the album is Stebbins’ three-movement Among Arrows (2021) for flute/bass flute, contrabass clarinet, cello, and electronics. The first and longest movement exploits harmonics, overtones, microtones, and fused timbres to set out a vertical structure of evolving complexity that builds to a very slow crescendo over crackling, rain-on-a-tin-roof electronics. - Daniel Barbiero, Avant Music News

Album of works for Modular Synthesizers, Ableton Live

Released January 2023, Superpang

https://heatherstebbins.bandcamp.com/album/at-the-end-of-the-sky

"With the opening track, in a little over a minute, Heather Stebbins transports us into an ethereal, skyward cathedral on At the end of the sky. Her vocal experimentations throughout these six pieces veer from enchanting to mind-blowing. Twisting her voice into spiraling, monolithic shapes and all-encompassing atmospheres send our imaginations wandering far and wide. The spatial presence of this music is enveloping and relentless. It warms from the outside in, infiltrating us with illuminating aural brilliance. Buoyed by sharp oscillations and castigated electronics, cracks begin to show and open a rich vein from the heavens. Saw-shaped crackles and fizzing debris fall back to Earth, leaving us wondering what the hell just happened. Incredible." - Foxy Digitalis

Album of works for Modular Synthesizers, Ableton Live

Released May, 2022 Zeromoon

https://zeromoon.bandcamp.com/album/new-forms-old-selves

The music on new forms, old selves, is the result of my continued exploration of synthesis techniques and experimenting with more immediate creative practices than what notated music generally affords. All of the tracks on this album include samples from either past works, some of which are over a decade old, or works that played vital roles in the formation of my musical identity. I cut, weaved, and transfigured these samples into new forms during semi-improvisatory sessions with my gear. This is not the first time I have combed through my musical past for source material; I treat these reflective exercises as a way to take stock of how my musical language has evolved and as a way to approach new techniques. Many thanks to all of the musicians and artists who are embedded in these samples through either direct recording or ideas and influence.

flutes, clarinets, violin, cello, fixed media electronics

2021, 20'

Commissioned by the Switch~ Ensemble; Supported by the George Washington University Facilitating Fund

Program Notes: Among Arrows , for quartet and fixed media, explores the juxtaposition of sounds that are malleable and sounds that are prone to break. The piece is comprised of two main movements with a brief parentheses in between. Many thanks to Rachel Beetz for generating flute samples that are used within the fixed media component. Just as many thanks to the Switch~ ensemble performers who made this work possible.

Album of works for Modular Synthesizers, Ableton Live

Released December, 2021 Zeromoon

https://zeromoon.bandcamp.com/album/olney

Notes: My musical output in the last decade or so has been largely comprised of notated music for instruments and electronics. That process involves a lot of planning, revisions, and introspection. The music on this album is a complete shift - very little planning went into developing these tracks. Instead, the process was more about doing and following my musical intuition. Early in 2021 I began exploring semi and fully modular synthesis. I approached learning these new techniques and gear methodically; about 4 or 5 times a week, after kids went to bed, I would start up my gear and try to make something. I always recorded these sessions, and while most nights the result wasn't anything worth keeping I would occasionally stumble upon a patch that generated musical results that I could work with. As weeks went on the ratio of frustration:usable material shifted and I felt more in control of the gear and how I wanted to use it musically. Though I'm now primarily a composer, my background is as a performer, and working with synthesis in this way has been like finding this liminal space between composition and performance that I really connect with. I also thrive in the immediacy of the sonic experience: unlike with notated music, being able to hear and react to my output in real time helps drive my process forward. I also palpably feel the impermanence of working with synthesis; the patch I generate will likely not be able to be recreated in the exact way, so I have to experience it deeply in the moment. I've always felt like when I compose, I am discovering rather than creating. This sentiment was especially strong in this album.

clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, and fixed media electronics

16', 2020

Commissioned by Sound Icon/The Goethe Institut, Boston

In celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020, the Goethe-Institut Boston commissioned me to compose a work based on his Septet in E-flat major, op. 20. The work was to be premiered by ensembles Sound Icon and Winsor Music alongside Beethoven’s septet in November 2020 but had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

Still Intersections (After) uses the same instrumentation and number of movements as the Beethoven septet, but connection to that work essentially end there.

bass clarinet, marimba, fixed media electronics

9'30, 2018

Commissioned by Transient Canvas

Upon reflection, I realized that many of the pieces I wrote in the two years leading up to LACUNA (2019) were subconscious manifestations of my reactions to the daily horrors I read and watched in the news. The pieces that came out of that period were generally loud and aggressive. When I set out to compose a piece for Transient Canvas, I decided to purposefully avoid dynamic and textural extremes, instead focusing on sustained, meditative sounds in both the acoustic and electronic elements. Even with these intentions, there are a few moments of violent sounds, though they always resolve into placid textures.

contrabass clarinet, live electronics

8', 2018

Commissioned by Carlos Cordeiro

To act ‘under the rose’, or sub rosa, is to act in secret. Recently I’ve felt like my compositional process happens sub rosa - when I can find spare moments, I compose in solitude, keeping my  progress away from the eyes and ears of others. I do this not because I want to, but because of self-doubt and anxiety. In the past I thrived off of collaborating with performers and showing my work to fellow composers, but post-graduation life makes it harder to engage with music in that way (at least for me). In this piece, I tried to imitate this compositional shyness while also progressing through it by working closely with Carlos to learn more about the contrabass clarinet.

percussion, live electronics

8', 2017

Commissioned by Adam Vidiksis

things that follow models the anxiety and weight brought upon by intense and severe experiences, and the lightness that often follows once the stress subsides. The piece was commissioned by and gratefully written for Adam Vidiksis.

saxophones, piano, percussion, fixed media electronics

17', 2017

Commissioned by Vertixe Sonora Ensemble

Recorded by the Switch~ Ensemble

I composed URSA MAJOR during the summer of 2017 over the course of a few weeks. This was a very unique experience, as composing generally takes me much more time.  I wrote the fixed media playback portion prior to the acoustic part element, and then used that as a background on which to imagine the instrumental lines. I handwrote the acoustic part/score while on Cape Cod, and I forced myself to put down my eraser and not second-guess my intuition. 

Composer Helena Tulve taught me was to not be afraid to recycle material. In UM, I re-contextualized certain sounds, phrases, and ideas that I had been toying with for a few years prior(I have a piece called Ursa Minor for piano and two performers that is a little microcosm of MAJOR). 

flute, clarinet, saxophone, percussion, viola, cello, double bass, fixed media electronics

11', 2016

Commissioned by the Nebula Ensemble

At the Wind’s Hand was composed as I was in the midst of caring for my infant son. It is a whisper and a yell, joy and exhaustion. ATWH was written graciously for Nebula Ensemble.

string quartet

10', 2015

Performed by the JACK Quartet

after the thaw explores the juxtaposition of music that is brittle and discrete and music that is flowing and ever-moving. A portion of the material comes from my 2013 string quartet, inside the thaw. 

flutes, clarinets, piano, percussion, violin, cello, quadraphonic fixed media electronics

15', 2015

Commissioned by the Third Practice Electroacoustic Festival and Ensemble Ü

https://soundcloud.com/hlstebbins/and-drift

Imagine an expansive, still, and almost timeless landscape. and drift unearths the murmurs, tiny chaos, and sparks of life that underlie this stillness. The work is the culmination of my time spent in the breathtaking and expansive Estonian bogs. and drift was commissioned by the Third Practice Electroacoustic Festival and written for Ensemble U:. I am very thankful for my time working with the musicians of Ensemble U:, and for the help of biologist and sound recordist Veljo Runnel, without whom many of the electronic sounds would not be possible.

baritone, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone

14', 2014

Commissioned by the Loadbang Ensemble

I traveled to Iceland in May of 2014, and like most first-time visitors of the country, was completely taken aback by the diversity and sublimity of the landscapes. One of the most strange and evocative landscapes exists in Þingvellir national park, where continental drift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates cause great cracks and rifts in the ground. Although the region is sometimes hit with earthquakes that cause immediate changes to the landscape, much of the fractured ground is due to the incredibly gradual shifting of the plates as they pull away from one another. I had images and thoughts of this incredibly slow and powerful force in mind while composing QUIVER. Although the piece is far from a strict translation of the idea into sound, I imagined many of the musical gestures to be influenced by a slow and powerful outside force that causes instability and unpredictability. My upmost gratitude goes to the incredible musicians of loadbang for their work on this piece and their commitment to contemporary music. 

vibraphone, fixed media electronics

8', 2008

Written for Matthew Duvall