Rene Mogensen, award-winning Danish/American composer and saxophonist, is active in
 performing and creating new music and jazz around the US as well as in Europe. He works
 across many musical areas, combining electroacoustic sound art with jazz and chamber 
music, and investigates improvisation as well as a broad range of approaches to notation. 
Ren6 was a visiting composer at the Danish Institute for Electroacoustic Music in January, 
and was the composer in residence at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, CA, 
in October where his work Spring Decomposition for wind trio and electronic part was 
premiered. This winter his piece Three Songs Without Words was performed in concerts by the
 Rosario Ensemble in Argentina. His electroacoustic work Autumn Apparition was presented in 
the 5th Computer Music Festival in Seoul, Korea, and was featured in the public radio program 
"Lydmuren" in Denmark last year. During the summers t996 and 1997, Mogensen was composer 
and performer in residence in Pisa, Italy, where several of his works were premiered in 
concerts as part of the Strada FAcendo performing arts festival. He has created scores for 
modern dance, including the hour long piece Waves produced by the Klixbiill Dance Co. of NY, 
which was premiered in NYC and toured in Denmark and Poland. Mogensen is the recipient of 
awards for his music works from Meet the Composer, the John Anson Kittredge Fund, the Yvar 
Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, The Danish Music Council, the Eubie Blake Fund, and others. 
His music is recorded with his group on the Wassard label in NY, as well as on Hwa Eum 
Records in Korea, and he appears as soloist and composer on several releases on Capstone 
Records, and he appears as a saxophonist on releases by AV-Art Records in Denmark, and other 
labels. He holds an MA in music from New York University, and a BA from the University of 
Rochester, NY.

Autumn Apparition

The piece Autumn Apparition was built by manipulating a collection of short samples of 
sounds from tenor and soprano saxophones. The sound samples, played by Rene, were recorded 
directly into ProTools 4.0 on a PowerMAC, and this program was then used by Rene to 
construct the sound piece which has a duration of 8 mins and 26 secs. Several processes were 
applied to the samples, in various combinations with ProTools, including transpositions with 
or without duration adjustments, retrogrades, and compressions and expansions of durations,
as well as reverb and delay effects. The recording and manipulations of sound samples was 
done by Rene in the studio at the Danish Institute for Electroacoustic Music, with the 
assistance of their engineer, in Aarhus, Denmark, in November, 1997.

The piece was planned before the studio sessions, with graphic sketches of gestures and of the 
form, as well as sketches of ideas for the sound processing needed to achieve the desired gestures.
 At many points in the piece, a large number of samples were combined in vertical simulteneities, 
achieving very complex spectrums at some points in the piece. There is a broad array of timberal 
and textural variety achieved from the use of various aspects of the sound capabilities of the 
saxophones used, including microtonal language, key sounds with and without breath, various 
breath-intensive sounds, as well as traditional sound and pitch production techniques and 
multiphonics.

There are some very linear elements in the piece which depend very much on the spatial aspects 
of the stereo recording for clarity. Counterpoint occurs between a "vertical" pitch space and a 
"horizontal" stereo space, both progressing in time. The pulse complex of the piece grows from 
these contrapuntal textures. Rhythmi6 intricacy and richness is achieved without reference to 
a consistent meter, although pulses emerge at various levels, both thorough contrasts in timber, 
in pitch, and in stereo space. The sources of all sounds used - the soprano and tenor saxophones - 
when manipulated with the computer, allows a sound orchestration that is greatly expanded from 
the original sources.

The formal aspects of the piece are interesting in that these aspects are born from the necessity 
demanded by the gestures which form the piece. The initial graphic sketch is an attempt at 
visualizing these gestures on paper, before time was available to work in the studio. The drama 
of the progression in time of Autumn Apparition is intrinsic in the contrasts in timberal materials 
chosen. The sounds are rich in visual associations, which may be very different in various listeners, 
but the "story line," contained in the construction of the piece does embody a basic expression which 
the audience can perceive in a common manner.