Melia Watras

JUAN PAMPIN: NADA
for viola and live electronics (2006)

World Premiere: Melia Watras, viola; October 23, 2006, Meany Theater, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Program Notes:
"No hay, al principio, nada. Nada."
—Juan José Saer, Nadie nada nunca

Nada is an homage to Argentine writer Juan José Saer (1937-2005). The piece attempts to capture the time of Saer's writing, to materialize it, to make time advance in a liminal way. The use of electronic media helps this purpose, transforming the instrument's sound to turn it strangely ethereal. Those spectral transformations occur just beyond our perceptual thresholds, producing a symbiosis between the acoustic and electronic material. The articulation between silence and sound, stasis and movement, are the support for the dramatic form of Nada, having the spectral territory of the viola as the stage of its performance. Nada was commissioned for Melia Watras by the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund.

—Juan Pampin