Androgyne, Mon Amour Barry D. Truax

Androgyne, Mon Amour incorporates a setting of six poems by Tennessee Williams from his book of the same title, as read by Douglas Huffman. The poems are intensely lyrical, intimate and erotic in a celebration of gay love that is acted out, both musically and dramatically, by the live performer interacting in a variety of conventional and unconventional ways with the instrument which is personified as his lover. Both the vocal part and various sound material from the bass are digitally processed through resonators that model the characteristics of the open strings of the instrument, thereby linking them sonically and musically, as if each is speaking through the other. The work was commissioned by and is dedicated to the virtuoso American double bassist Robert Black.

  • Year of composition: 1996
  • Genre: Electroacoustics
  • Format: Mixed work
  • Instrumentation: amplified male double bass player and 2 digital soundtracks
  • Software used: PODX system for sound synthesis and composition
  • Duration of the submitted work: 16:00
  • Publisher: Cambridge Street Publishing
  • Premiere: November 1997, Sacramento, University of California, New American Music Festival
  • Disc publication: Androgyne, Mon Amour is available on the Cambridge Street Records CD Twin Souls, CSR-CD 0102, and as a video CSR-DVD 0101, performed by Robert Black

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