For three months, Wood Street Galleries in Pittsburgh hosted a Longplayer listening post. The opening night, 1 October 2010, saw the world premiere of Shortplayer #1, the first of a new series of compositions by Jem Finer.
Shortplayer #1 is an hour-long composition for 7 brass and reed players based on the compositional pricipals of Longplayer.
The method of Longplayer’s composition can be regarded as an algorithm whose variables may be changed to create any number of new compositions. In this sense, Longplayer is itself just one of these possible compositions, its title referring directly to its own extreme duration. Conversely, there exist a number of possible compositions in which Longplayer’s variables are adjusted so that a composition might last only a very short time – an hour, for instance. Shortplayer is the generic name for these possible short-durational compositions, which can be arranged for any group or combination of instruments and/or voices.
At Wood Street Galleries, the Shortplayer ensemble consisted of:
Roger Day (tuba)
Roger Dannenberg (trumpet)
Jem Finer (trumpet)
Mark Fromm (baritone sax)
Brandon Masterman (soprano sax)
Ben Opie (alto sax)
Lou Stellute (tenor sax)
David Bernabo (musical director)
Thanks to Justin Hopper (without whom Longplayer may never have gone to Pittsburgh), Murray Horne and everyone at Wood Street Galleries.
An interview can be found here and an article from Pittsburgh New Music Net here.