JoAnne Harris (b. 1984) is an American composer, arranger, conductor, and educator based in Upstate New York. She credits “her father’s very diverse record collection” for giving her the broad musical tastes that are now reflected in her career. She has written and orchestrated music for film, television, several types of theater, and the concert stage. Her concert music has earned her awards (Dallas Winds fanfare competition) and commissions (Massachusetts Tri-State Community Band, Hartwick College, …And We Were Heard), as well as performances around the country. For more on her particulars, visit her IMDB page and her website. You can also hear her talk at length about her career on The Other 50% podcast and The Band Room podcast.
Harris wrote Dimension in 2021 as a modular, flexible piece suited for any size or shape of ensemble in the COVID pandemic, anywhere from an overdubbed duet to the largest live ensemble. It begins with a soloist (which could be any one of 13 different instruments, each of which has a different solo line), and unfolds with an ensemble accompaniment. But that is only the tip of the iceberg that is this piece: Harris collaborated with mathematician Stuart Harwood and animator Katie Han to create a unique multi-media experience that unfolds in real time and is different in every performance. In short, each possible instrumental soloist generates a different type of fractal that is then animated based on what the ensemble plays. Harris has more to say on the subject (from her score for the piece, links added by me):
about the VISUAL
Each of the 13 melodies are designed after a different fractal found in nature. The fractal generation uses frequency data from the music being played. While the music is analyzed in the same way every time, differences in playing styles and ambient noise create a different fractal each time the piece is played. The animation follows principles of Perlin noise. Perlin noise is an algorithm that procedurally generates a sequence that imitates the controlled random appearance of textures in nature. We are using it to mimic fractal dimensional math; rather than directly mapping to the volume in the room, Perlin noise gravitates towards organic and additive growth and is often used to mimic nature in computer graphics and creative coding.
about DIMENSION
My friend Stuart Harwood keeps a bot on Twitter: @fractaladaybot. For years, I’ve enjoyed scrolling by his artistic output of computer-generated fractals. Over dinner in Jersey City (where we were neighbors), we wondered what would happen if we wrote MIDI into the code. I laughed as Stuart assessed our early tests to be “not quite noise, but not quite music either”. We decided to work in the other direction to see if music could influence code, while focusing on self repeating structures – a foundational element of fractals, coding, and my penchant for minimalism.
Dimension is a product of our ongoing exploration between the world of fractal dimension (a place in computation that lies between 2D and 3D) and music. I’m mesmerized by the idea that even when you enact a perfect scaling of a figure, you’ll most often land somewhere unevenly between 1 and 2: the implication that unevenness and outliers are necessary in creating something beautiful comforts me.
Much like a fractal in nature, the piece is designed to reflect an idea of perfect imperfection. Katie Han’s gift for real time animation lends even more magic to this space we’ve created to explore.
Here it is in a live recording with Andy Pease (me) and the Hartwick College Wind Ensemble, with pianist Julia Butts as the soloist:
The visual you see is available to play with at Harris’s website.
Dimension was commissioned by consortium organized through …And We Were Heard, including the following organizations:
Nora Tycast, Spring Lake Park High School • Dr. Peter Haberman, Concordia College • Dr. Tim Mahr, St. Olaf College • Reid Wixson, Minneapolis Southwest High School • Paul Kile, Edina High School • Dr. Charles Weise, Minnesota Junior Winds • Steve Lyons and Ed Grivna • Erin Holmes and Bradley Mariska, Farmington High School • Brian Lukkasson, The Blake School • Dr. Brian Coffill, Randolph-Macon College • Matthew Oyen, St. Paul Central High School • Doug Martin and Joe Antonucci, Langley High School, Virginia. • Dr. Brandon Houghtalen, Abilene Christian University • Dr. Melanie Brooks, Winona State University • Ben Hoehn and Eric Christenson, Shakopee High School • Dr. Andrew Pease, Hartwick College
Bonus video: a deep dive into one of the most famous fractals, the Mandelbrot set: