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UNT NOVA Ensemble: pas de loup by Ryan Fellhauer

532 views · Published 4 March 2015 · 8:49 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: University of North Texas College Concerts · 2015 · Music

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Nova Ensemble
Elizabeth McNutt, Director
Joseph Lyszczarz, Conductor

pas de loup (2014) by Ryan Fellhauer (b. 1991), UNT Composition Alumn

Performers: 
Amy Thiemann, flute
Jolene Masone, contrabassoon
Toshiro Chun, trumpet
Leah Greenfield, violin
Dan Totan, cello
Heran Yang, double bass 
Shelby Blezinger and Jacob Harpster, percussion
David Falterman, piano

"The French phrase 'pas de loup,' the step of the wolf, creates a unique linguistic situation that stealthily traps its meaning by going around the words themselves. The word 'pas"'is to be interpreted by both of its meanings, a single step, or the negative 'not.' The interpreted meaning of the phrase is: a lingering danger that is created in the absence of something treacherous, our consciousness of space and signals that allow us to know of an impending danger. So, this step, the footprint of the wolf, fresh in the mud, reveals to us that this animal is not where we are standing, but around us. We become trapped in its absence; any step we make becomes increasingly terrifying. In the phrase itself, we are the wandering, becoming trapped by the real wolf, this double meaning of 'pas.'

"Upon learning the workings of this phrase, I was thinking about my own relationship to technology. I realized quickly that my laptop is not actually just a part of my work or a facilitator of communication, but an actual organ displaced from my body, legitimately a part of my identity. Increasingly, I understood the problem of this to be difficult: just as if you were to put this text an inch away from your face, it would become a blurry, meaningless image; I was too close to be able to really understand myself. In a similar way, if you were to use a built-in-camera and zoom into its recording of myself close enough, the image becomes pixellated and completely distorted. So, to try to really understand my relationship with technology, I would have to encircle both myself and the computer, to become a wolf-in-absence to be able to see anything.

"The work is an attempt at this same kind of de-centering of different musical technologies from their performers. The notation allows the instruments themselves to become trapped away from the performer, forcing them to learn techniques that are circling around the standard (and nonstandard, too) practice of the instrument. As the distance of the instrument and performer increases, a clearer picture of the material is given, but as they become closer and closer, the material becomes pixellated. Instrumentalists define their own identity by their instrument—I wanted to open up the space between the two, in order to find a new sense of the relationship, in the same way I am trying to understand myself and technology."
—Ryan Fellhauer

Recorded Live April 7th, 2014
Voertman Hall
College of Music
University of North Texas
Video by UNT Recording Services

https://music.unt.edu/composition/index.html
https://music.unt.edu/academics/conducting-ensembles/ensembles/nova.html
https://recording.music.unt.edu/

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