On Growth and Form

Drawing on the chaotic energy of fractal processes, On Growth and Form is a sort of ritual dance of life, the by-product of a recursive explosion of musical events.

The musical development of On Growth and Form is akino the growth of a living organism, hence the reference to Darcy Thompson’s classic text. First, the great mystery — sound appears from silence, life appears from matter. A sort of musical ’cellular fission’ occurs, drawing the ’organism’ step by step up to higher levels of existence. The pace increases dramatically as vital elements accrue until at the climax, self-aware, stands a living soul.

Thompson was one of the first biologists to document the many ways in which Fibonacci relationships govern the growth rates and formal structures of living organisms. The recursive process employed in this piece is based on such a relationship between phrases, which finds its way eventually into the smallest details, such as the musical ’spirals’ that take over in tnce of life, the by-product of a recursive explosion of musical events.

The musical development of On Growth and Form is akin tce of life, the by-product of a recursive explosion of musical events.

The musical development of On Growth and Form is akin he middle section. On Growth and Form was commissioned by the Canadian Electronic Ensemble in 1988