Jessica Shand G performs Transmutations at the MIT Media Lab
an eclectic mix of flute and electronics
Photo courtesy of Jimmy Day
Transmutations
Jessica Shand
Cecilia Lopez on electronics
MIT Media Lab
August 13, 2024
On August 13, 2024 on the sixth floor of Building E14, Media Lab master’s student Jessica Shand G premiered Transmutations, her master’s thesis performance that explores the intersection of flute and electronics. The performance featured Cecilia Lopez, an electronics guest artist. Coming from a background in flute instrumentation and mathematics, Shand is interested in using musical technologies that push the boundaries of sounds through methods such as warping and layering.
After Shand played a short prologue for Transmutations, she gave a brief introduction about the piece. Her motivation for the project was to capture “all the different sounds I can create with flute using electronics.” Before the performance started, Shand encouraged the audience to listen with an open and imaginative mind, as she suggested them to think of things from images of animals to thoughts to feelings.
Transmutations began with the flute playing so quietly that it elicited an echo-like effect. The alternating octaves of the flute and synthesizer played a sound that was akin to pulsating waves and an air of uncertainty. The synthesizer was impressive for generating diverse sounds that evoked diverse images, from the lone animal call in the wilderness to galactic spaceships in a video game. As a whole, the two vastly different instruments complemented each other despite their striking differences.
What made the performance memorable was Shand’s creative playing of the flute to generate sounds that aren’t associated with the instrument. In orchestral music, the flute is known for playing passages that are on the gentler and graceful side. In Transmutations, however, Shand breaks down these assumptions by employing difficult lip techniques that demonstrate the flute’s versatility. In one instance, she plays a sudden, piercing outburst that sounds like a bird’s high-pitched shriek. In another, she plays a repetitive sound that is uncannily similar to the plucking of a string instrument. In short, Shand’s experimental approach towards flute playing helped produce a wide range of onomatopoeias that the audience otherwise would not have considered beforehand.
In the latter half of Transmutations, the sounds started to enter a more improvisational and chaotic state. Although there seems to be some call and response between Shand and Lopez, it was challenging to hear the individual sounds come together as one overarching theme. But the inherent entropy may be the point of the performance: the world is made of a collection of sounds, and a lot of them aren’t necessarily meant to sound melodious.
After the passage of dissonance, the cacophony came to a sudden end, transitioning from jumbled noises to the single note of A. The monotone was reminiscent of the prologue in the piece that also began with a single note, except in D. Closing the piece by returning to the prologue’s minimalistic nature was pleasant because the fermata had a zen-like quality. The tiny bells further contributed to this meditative atmosphere because their bright timbre made the concept of time and cycles feel more tangible amidst the empty space. Transmutations concluded with Shand singing musical intervals, but they are oddly dissonant—two sounds a note apart instead of the traditional major third.
The performance ended with a warm round of applause from the audience; afterwards, Shand had a Q&A session with the audience about the work behind Transmutations. The live music performance was based on the selection of three etudes from Shand’s collection of 12 etudes. As the name Transmutations suggests, what connected these 12 etudes together was the theme of “progressively mutating sounds into something else.” Shand chose these three etudes in order to have each etude convey a different sound from one another: nature, explosions, and meta flute.
The event wrapped up with Shand leaving the audience with some inspiring words about the importance of instrumental music, especially for those who aren’t comfortable listening to this genre. She suggested that people should simply think about how these sounds “make them feel and what sorts of thoughts these sounds conjure for them.” If there was one main takeaway listeners got from Transmutations, it was immersing themselves in the rich soundscapes and letting their minds drift off to another world.