Artworks / Posthorn

Posthorn is a live performance piece by Ben Neill and Bill Jones for Neill's self-designed mutantrumpet/ interactive computer system. The work is titled after and based on the “Posthorn solo”, from the third movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, composed in 1898.

The Mahler piece was chosen as source material to emphasize the expressive aspects of Neill and Jones' approach. The original piece evokes a pastoral landscape, and the imagery in Posthorn is all taken from nature, then modulated by the dynamics of live musical performance.

In Posthorn three computer programs respond to Neill's playing, a live MIDI sequencer, a live audio sampling program that enables Neill to grab samples in real time and modify them with DSP, and Modul8, an interactive video software which is controlled from the MIDI information generated by the mutantrumpet.

While the basic shape of Posthorn is fixed according to the melodic structure of the Mahler piece, its details are improvised, depending on how the melodic material is unfolded and the dynamics of each performance. Neill’s decisions are influenced by feedback from the system, guiding the work into unforeseen areas each time it is performed.