Paracusia III. descry
Paracusia is an ongoing multi-piece collaboration for saxophone(s) and live electronics. The performer represents a character that is trapped within a reverberation room. Over the course of the works, the performer navigates the audience through their experience as they slowly lose their ability to interact with their outside world. Each piece represents a different step along their journey, exposing the unique sonic landscape of the different instruments within the saxophone family and their connection with the integrated electronics.
Paracusia is defined as auditory hallucinations involving the perception of sounds arising from outside the mind, most commonly of voices. Individuals who have experienced a traumatic event are often affected by triggers every day, and their interactions with people and reactions to various stimuli are dictated by these external pressures. The actions and reactions within the music, presented by the performer onstage and the responding electronic elements, represent this interaction between a person and the external triggers they experience. In this piece, the performer represents a character that is trapped inside a reverberant room for an undetermined length of time. Through use of spatialized speakers emitting pre-recorded and live-processed sounds, the performer reacts to the psychoacoustic processes of experiencing auditory illusions as the character they portray gradually begins to struggle against the multitude of voices spiraling around them.
Paracusia III. descry depicts the character's internal conflict between the emergent voices they hear swarming through their mind and their own voice and identity as an individual.
Paracusia III. descry was premiered by Justin Massey at the Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University.
