Photo by Katrina Wolfe (selected and edited from video)

The Wind That Rolls Upon the Water was a 90-minute work set in 7-limit just intonation that used direct observations of natural elements to inspire the sound, costumes, and movement. The semi-improvisatory piece was written on-location at the base of Mount Shuksan near the Lower Curtis Glacier and on the North Olympic Coast, and featured a 2-hour field recording that Joey captured during a meditation at high tide on Rialto Beach. All of Katrina's costumes for this piece were meticulously made by hand, and were designed by her to correspond with the five sections of the piece (The Wind, The Clouds, The Glacier, The Cavern, The Sea). As a result, her intricate, sculptural, and sensitive movement flowed seamlessly as a visual representation of the sound, the natural harmonics, the moods, and elements of each section.

The work was the fourth project in an ongoing series of pieces using a similar structure and instrumentation that began in 2019, each of which incorporated shifting amounts of both trained musicians and friends which had never been musically trained (but were taught their instruments for the piece). For this particular composition, a significant influence on the selection of the performers was tied to a majority having a regular meditation practice, primarily in the Theravada tradition (Burmese, Thai), but not exclusively.

Within this series, the exploration was to be able to take the foundation of an idea for a project and make subtle changes to it over time, rather than creating entirely new works. This, in some ways, mirrors the human experience, where we change subtly over time, often not realizing it until we are faced with the surreal juxtapositions that life provides us in the various forms of suffering we've all grown to know and love. A powerful definition of this can be found in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta:

“...birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is unpleasant is suffering; separation from what is pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering..."

Performed by Annapurna Dharma Communion
December 2nd, 2022
Chapel Performance Space, Seattle

Jackie An - violin
Michael Shannon – cello, voice
Katrina Wolfe – movement, costumes, choreography
Manasvi Patel – 7-limit shruti box, bamboo chimes, copper chimes, bells
Sam Vanderlinda – 7-limit shruti box, steel tongue drum, bells, tibetan bowls
Joey Largent – cello, voice, field recording, composition
Russell Christenson – 7-limit harmonium, bells

Katrina and Kawtee in rehearsal; photo by Joey Largent

Basaltic Void Dervishes was a 3-hour durational performance at Chapel Performance Space in Seattle, Washington on December 4th, 2021. The work was performed live using ten malleted, closely mic'd cymbals in a semi-improvisatory format (using memory and some pre-determined cymbal combinations) combined with an unending field recording of cave dripping from Falls Creek Cave. Movement artists and mother/daughter duo Katrina and Kawtee Wolfe performed their delicately shifting improvisatory movement for the entire 3-hours in collaboration. The work was performed in near darkness, with no light other than five candles lit around the dancers. The audience sat on a large installation of rugs and floor pillows (with chairs in the back for those who needed them) and was free to come and go at any time during the performance.

The work was originally intended to be an explorational sketch written to explore the sonic movements of glacial systems from Mount Shuksan in the North Cascades in Washington State. For now, it remains a stand alone project. The Nooksack Glacier just intonation tuning is derived from a hybrid of Raga Darbari and the dorian mode (with a flat 6th degree), a modal system that I have worked with for several long-form pieces over many years. The system primarily includes septimal intervals for half steps, pythagorean intervals for the remaining notes, and a sharp septimal fourth included in the scale (the only interval to be mathematically acquired using the 5:4 [major third] interval; the rest rely on 7:4 and 3:2 relationships).

The piece premiered as a live streaming on October 24th, 2021 and was performed in 7-limit just intonation by San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet as part of Arts Letters & Numbers CMO 2021 Workshop + Residency, directed by Michael Harrison. A deep and special thanks goes to Kathryn, Charlton, Sam, and Ben of Del Sol for working with me on this, and to Michael for all his help in guiding me through its development.

Photo by Kawtee Wolfe - Fort Worden State Park

Dreams of the Forty Whales of the Harmonic Reed System was a 90-minute composition for three shruti boxes and one harmonium retuned into 17-limit just intonation performed by Glacial Time Communion. The piece was scored non-traditionally with hand-crafted graphic scores of paint and sumi ink on paper. The scores consist of lines of color on the horizontal axis that corresspond with colors on the shruti box valves. On the vertical axis is time. This allowed the piece to be accessible to anyone who could learn to play shruti box. The composition was paired with movement by Katrina Wolfe, which both visually highlights the shifting shapes of the natural harmonics and allows time to pass at a different rate. The piece was performed three times.

The first performance was inside of Battery John Brannon in Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, Washington on October 2nd, 2021, featuring Danielle Quenell (7-limit shruti box), Taehyung Kim (17-limit shruti box), Sasha Leon (7-limit shruti box), Joey Largent (7-limit harmonium), and Katrina Wolfe (movement).

The second performance was at Chapel Performance Space in Seattle on August 14th, 2021, featuring Danielle Quenell (7-limit shruti box), Taehyung Kim (17-limit shruti box), Kaliane Van (7-limit shruti box), Joey Largent (7-limit harmonium), and Katrina Wolfe (movement).

The third performance was at Artlab Thuja in Chimacum, Washington on April 19th, 2024, featuring Sam Vanderlinda (7-limit shruti box), Kawtee Wolfe (17-limit shruti box), David Noble (7-limit shruti box), Joey Largent (7-limit harmonium), and Katrina Wolfe (movement).