Instru­men­ta­tion: 2 sax, trbn, perc, elec gtr, pno
Dura­tion: 7'00
Commissioned by Ensemble Klang
mp3 listen to Schizo Psycho
Per­form­ers: Ensemble Klang
Pro­gramme Note

Schizo Psycho is based entirely on material from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho. A 40-second clip of the movie plays repeatedly, with the ensemble providing different “personalities” on each repetition. All material is taken from the original score, but it is transformed in some way to create very different musical textures. Thus, I use some of the characteristic symptoms of the schizophrenia spectrum disorders as guiding principles in the arrangement of the musical material, creating both a play on words and a musical structure for the composition.

Tags: , , , , ,

Greg Oh and friends premièred Halo Ballet in Toronto on the X AVANT festival in Oct 2010, but the video recording of the piece mysteriously disappeared. Now it’s been found, posted below.