'Confluence' creates new sounds with orchestral instruments, EarthQuaker pedals

The "EarthQuaker Symphony" program Saturday night at E.J. Thomas Hall will be all about creating a confluence of different sounds and bringing together seemingly different worlds.

The world premiere of the commissioned work "Confluence," the centerpiece of the program, is a collaboration between the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Akron company EarthQuaker Devices to create a new musical work fusing electronic effects pedals with traditional acoustic instruments. The resulting "Confluence," a Concerto for Orchestra and EarthQuaker Devices, will be performed live by the orchestra and co-composers Jon Sonnenberg and Jake Gunnar Walsh, who will be guest performers.

Six members of the orchestra will play solos through EarthQuaker's handmade effects pedals as Sonnenberg, at a mixing station center stage, processes the sound electronically by manipulating pedals as the DJ for "Confluence." Orchestral instruments to be featured with live pedal effects include violin, cello, clarinet, horn, piccolo and timpani.

Walsh, a composer and musician based in Ithaca, New York, also will be featured on oboe with effects pedals as well as on a brand new instrument: the "confluence harp." Sonnenberg invented the latter just for this new concerto because he needed an instrument that creates extra notes, or microtonal sounds with tones between those you'd hear from adjacent notes on the piano.

The new instrument features aluminum chimes suspended on piano wire that are struck with mallets. The way the new instrument is designed, the chimes both ring the strings and the strings ring the chimes.

"Confluence," which means merging, became the perfect name for the two-year collaboration between the orchestra and EarthQuaker Devices to create new sound worlds.

The project also became a merging between the co-composers who are from different musical backgrounds. Sonnenberg, who lives in Medina, is an electrical engineer, musician and composer who's an EarthQuaker favorite, having helped founder Jamie Stillman create the Afterneath pedal. Walsh, whom the symphony brought in, is a master of orchestral writing and the oboe who also has experience with electronica and extended effects, Music Director Christopher Wilkins said by phone Feb. 23.

"He's young and hip and I just knew that he would immediately get what we were going for, and he did," Wilkins said.

The co-composers started out with material from Sonnenberg's electronic and synthesizer-based works for video games and films, which Walsh notated for orchestral musicians, and they ended up co-composing more orchestral parts together.

In another confluence of worlds, the musical premiere is expected to bring together fans of both the orchestra and the Akron-made EarthQuaker Devices, a local success story founded by guitarist/drummer Stillman in 2004 whose company sales are global.

"Not many Akron Symphony patrons will know what an effects pedal is, and not too many people who play around a lot with these effects pedals will have been to the Akron Symphony ever in their lives," said conductor Wilkins. "That's what I Iove about this. We're pushing at the boundaries — both the organizations are."

Wilkins stressed that the orchestra's collaboration with EarthQuaker is all about mixing up the musical terrain and changing the landscape, like earthquakes do.

"It's just a wonderfully Akron project. It's innovation," he said. "It's rock 'n' roll, sort of. We're tapping into Akron's roots in a lot of ways, and it's very much a community-based project. It's two organizations coming together from completely different sides of the tracks.

"They have a lot of fans and we have a lot of fans. But I promise you there's almost no overlap between those two, so I think that's pretty cool," Wilkins said.

The audience will hear the orchestra acoustically and the effects pedals through the amplification system. Those effects will include vibrato, distortions, pitch and timbral modulations, echoes and reverbs.

Five of the six movements in "Confluence," in fact, are named after EarthQuaker effects pedals. They are "The Depths," "Afterneath," "Dunes," "Aqueduct" and "Astral Destiny." The final movement, "Terrae Motus," is Latin for EarthQuaker.

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The two organizations already had strong connections. Julie Robbins, EarthQuaker CEO and Stillman's wife, sits on the symphony board of directors. And orchestra cellist Erica Snowden-Rodriguez's partner, Samantha Wandtke, works at EarthQuaker, where she's known as the in-house "pedal doodler" for her drawings that she inserts into pedal packaging.

"EarthQuaker Devices is proud to present this groundbreaking collaboration with the Akron Symphony Orchestra. The ASO is such an important cultural institution for Akron, and we are thrilled by the creativity this performance will demonstrate," Robbins said in a statement.

As the collaboration with the Akron Symphony has evolved, EarthQuaker folks have been creating a video documentary on the creation of "Confluence." The musicians had the score beforehand, but no one heard the new piece live until the first rehearsal for "Confluence" Wednesday.

As the composers worked together on the piece, they created a world where the ensemble mimics the pedal effects and the pedals emulate the sounds of the orchestra itself.

In each short movement, a different pedal effect is displayed one at a time. For the final movement, they all come together.

"It is a very colorful experience of all that coming together. It's somewhat cathartic in the way that they designed it, a certain euphoria underneath this idea of confluence," Wilkins said.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

Details

Concert: EarthQuaker Symphony

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: E.J. Thomas Hall, 198 Hill St., University of Akron

Program: Haydn's "Earthquake" from "The Seven Last Words of Christ," Beethoven's "The Creatures of Prometheus: Overture" and "The Ruins of Athens: Turkish March," Sonnenberg/Walsh's "Confluence," Dawson's "Negro Folk Symphony"

Onstage: Akron Symphony Orchestra, conductor Christopher Wilkins, co-composers/performers Jon Sonnenberg and Jake Gunnar Walsh

Cost: $15-$60

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Symphony, EarthQuaker invent new sounds with effects pedals, instruments