Jay Alan Yim
Jam Karet (1993/4)
two vibraphones prepared with tin foil on top of several of the resonators
4 minutes
The overall form of Jam Karet is a that of a set of interlocked refrains and ostinati of various types. The title is an Indonesian expression which in literal translation means “elastic time”, and is obviously suggestive in terms of musical process. Its point of departure is a one-measure extract from a piece by Brian Ferneyhough, to whom it is dedicated in honor of his fiftieth birthday. (The whole idea came to me in a weird flash where I imagined subjecting a Ferneyhough quotation to a developmental process as if a secretly spectralist Donatoni had briefly adopted a minimalist aesthetic with a Takemitsu-esque touch, while still keeping the irrationally subvidided subdivisions. As it turned out, when Brian heard the piece, he didn’t recognize the appropriation, and he liked the piece.) The work was begun in 1993, set aside, and then completed by the summer of 1994; it was first performed at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik that year by Yuko Suzuki and Kuniko Kato. The American premiere was given by Terry Longshore and David Shively during the Emerging Voices Festival in February 1995 in San Diego, California. The Asian premiere was given by Kuniko Kato and the Paulownia Percussion Ensemble in Tokyo in April 1996.
-Jay Alan Yim