dowsing//divining
Flannery Cunningham

dowsing//divining is a chamber work for viola, cello, mezzo-soprano, and electronics in which sounds leave visual echoes that are then fed back into new sonic processes. Throughout the piece, the performers’ pitches are tracked and periodically sent to a Chladni plate: a sheet of metal resonated by a large speaker. Grains of sand on top of the plate move in response to the resonance of the speaker’s sound, gradually shifting to create geometric patterns based on the plate's vibration at particular frequencies. Video of these changing patterns is projected for all to see, drives electronic processing on the players’ microphone inputs, and is read as further notation by all three performers. At its core, dowsing//divining is sonic exploration of transformation and persistence in which every sound affects the rest and notation is created in the moment of performance.

Flannery’s Artist Statement

I am a composer driven first and foremost by sound, especially by sound that evokes spaces or somehow constitutes a community. Though many of my pieces have an initial conceptual element, I aim for the richness of my listeners’ (and my own) aural experience to be my ultimate metric of the success of a work. I also hope to make that experience an immersive one that sticks with my listeners long after they have left the performance space.

I love writing for the voice and often write my own texts. Live electronics also form an important part of my practice; I am interested in electronics that modify or augment the sound of performers while highlighting their human musicality. In addition to chamber and vocal works, I write dramatic forms such as opera and collaborate on music for theater and dance.

Originally from St. Cloud, Minnesota, I have worked in Ireland, the UK, New York, and Philadelphia and am now based in Weehawken, NJ. I admire and am influenced by a diverse range of music including 13th and 14th-century motets and chanson, Irish and Scottish bodies of song such as sean-nós and waulking songs, Sacred Harp singing, and contemporary music of many kinds. In general, I’m interested in the very old and very new.

At the end of the day, I aim to write music that surprises and delights.

Artist Bios

Flannery Cunningham
Flannery Cunningham is a composer and musicologist fascinated by vocal expression, text, and auditory perception. She aims to write music that surprises and delights. Called “silken” by the Washington Post, her work has been performed at festivals such as Aspen, June in Buffalo, Toronto Creative Music Lab, SPLICE Institute and Festival, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE and by performers such as International Contemporary Ensemble, TAK, New York New Music Ensemble, and Music from Copland House. Current projects include commissions from PRISM Quartet, Musiqa Houston, and Princeton University’s Glee Club. Flannery is attracted the very old and very new; she has presented at the International Medieval Congress and performed at the International Computer Music Conference. In addition to acoustic ensembles she writes for players and singers (sometimes including herself) with interactive electronics, always striving to foreground the musicality of human performers. Flannery holds degrees from Princeton University, University College Cork, and Stony Brook University, and she is currently a PhD candidate in composition and musicology at the University of Pennsylvania. www.flannerycunningham.com