Neptune Flyby, by Samuel Pellman

Neptune Flyby

a composition of digital sounds
in stereo,
with video imagery

duration - 11'15"
Click on the picture to the right to download a sample (a 6.3 MB Quicktime movie) of the video version of this work.

Or, click this link to hear an audio clip (duration: 1'08"): mp3 File (1 MB)

PROGRAM NOTES

Neptune Fly-by  was inspired by the August 1989 encounter of the Voyager 2 spacecraft with the planet Neptune. The piece is constructed of five phrases, each of which consists of bands of sustained pitches that gradually modulate in timbre, vibrato depth, and spatial placement. These pitch bands are occasionally embellished by clouds of bell-like tones that are also modulated in timbre, depth of effects processing, and spatial placement. The images for the video portion of this work were selected from those taken by Voyager 2 and by the Hubble Space Telescope.

TECHNICAL NOTES

This piece was composed in the Studio for Contemporary Music at Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, on a MIDI system that included two Yamaha TX802 sound synthesizers (programmed with FM instruments designed by the composer), two Yamaha DMP11 digital mixers, a Lexicon PCM70 digital effects processor, and a Macintosh SE30 running the Opcode Vision sequencer program. The mix down deck was a Panasonic SV3700 DAT recorder.

The video portion of the work was assembled by the composer on a Macintosh 8500 equipped with a Miro video digitizer. The principal programs employed for this were Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere.

Biographical information about the composer can be found here.
Neptune Fly-by, is published by the Continental Music Press.
copyright 1992, 1997 Samuel Pellman. All Rights Reserved.

To obtain performance materials or for further information, contact:

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