Duane Pitre/ Pilotram Ensemble
Organized Pitches Occurring In Time

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Organized Pitches Occurring in Time consists of two 25 minute pieces of music, both spawned from the same conceptual composition/score by Duane Pitre, titled Ensemble Drones. With their form reminiscent of works by La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music and their tonality touching on the floating works of Terry Riley, The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th and a Pump Organ Base & The Ensemble Chord in C with a Major 7th and a Guitar Base are aural tapestries based on a minimal tonal palette with their instrumentation consisting of guitars, alto saxophones, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, tone generator, and pump organ. The Ensemble Drones composition varies from the traditional sort as it is rule-based with the score consisting of a set tonic, set pitch classes, playing methods, technique restrictions, and spontaneous conduction. The score is a structure for the performing ensemble to improvise on—order spawning chaos producing order that is different on each occasion of a performance or recording. Ensemble Drones is discipline and freedom, both within each other, the first major focus of the work. Variance is the second major focus of the composition; with instrumentation, ensemble performers, tonic, pitch classes, and the physical space varying from performance to performance, the results can never be the same. After Duane Pitre's departure from San Diego's The Camera Obscura in summer 2000, he started the project known as Pilotram. In September 2004 Pitre moved to Brooklyn, New York, and Pilotram started performing at NYC venues such as The Ontological-Hysteric Theater (NOISE! 2005), The Knitting Factory, Galapagos, Lit, and ABCNoRio. There, Pitre began in-depth studies of music and sound including: the physics of sound, the involvement of mathematics in tuning and temperament, the ancient tuning system of Just Intonation and other microtonal tuning systems, as well as the minimalist composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich.