circleplay (2013)
for clarinet and digital delay
Duration: 11 minutes
Circleplay is a three-movement work for solo clarinet and live electronics that transforms the performer into a duet partner with themselves. Through the use of real-time digital effects—delay, pitch shifting, sound freezing—the clarinetist becomes entangled in conversation with echoes of their own playing, creating a surreal and shifting musical dialogue. Each movement (Circleplay I, II, and III) explores this looping interaction, raising questions about freedom, memory, and identity: does the performer respond to their past gestures or assert a new voice against them?
The title suggests something both playful and cyclical—like a game where one races in circles, chasing and being chased. In this musical hide-and-seek, the clarinetist is both pursuer and pursued, caught in a haunting and expressive loop. Circleplay is not just an exploration of sound, but of self—fragmented, refracted, and reimagined in real time.