1.

Name(s) of artist (s)

James Harley

2. Short CV(s) of artist (s)

James Harley is a Canadian composer and researcher, and is presently Associate
Professor in the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph. He obtained
his doctorate at McGill University in 1994, and prior to that spent six years living and
studying in Europe. During that time, he attended the seminar in aesthetics directed by
Iannis Xenakis at the Université de Paris from 1985-87, and worked with the UPIC
graphic computer music system at Xenakis’s research centre, CEMAMu. While living in
Paris, Harley was awarded two prizes in the 1986 CBC Young Composers Competition.
His book, Xenakis: His Life in Music, came out in 2004, and he has written numerous
articles on Xenakis and other aspects of contemporary music for publications such as
Computer Music Journal, Contemporary Music Review, Musical Times, Musicworks, and
Tempo. Harley has remained active as a composer, recent projects including commissions
for the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener, New Music Concerts in Toronto, and the Transit
Festival in Belgium.

3. Title of piece
Wild Fruits 2: Like a ragged flock, like pulverized jade

4. Duration of piece
10 minutes

5. Instruments required
Alto flute (amplified)

6. List of equipment required and of equipment brought by the artist(s). Specify

clearly equipment that is supplied by the artist(s)
Amplification for the flutist; 2-channel sound system for amplified flute and
stereo playback of recorded electroacoustic material. Reverberation for the flute
part would be desireable. The electroacoustic material could be presented in an
8-channel version.

7. Score and / or recording or representative recording excerpt as available.

Flute part is completely improvised. There is a “guiding” text for the performer,
included below. It is intended to inform, not to proscribe. Any creative reference
to it would be at the complete discretion of the performer.

Wild Fruits 2: Like a ragged flock, like pulverized jade

James Harley
Texts: Annie Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
p. 134
The creek’s up. … The water itself [is] an opaque pale green, like
pulverized jade, still high and very fast, lightless, like no earthly
water.
p. 233
This Tinker Creek! … it host[s] a blinding profusion of curved and
pitched surfaces, flecks of shadow and tatters of sky. These are the
waters of beauty and mystery, issuing from a gap in the granite
world…
p. 182
Now we rejoice. …I wait … for those moments I cannot predict,
when a wave begins to surge under the water, and ripples
strengthen and pulse high across the creek and back again in a
texture that throbs. It is like the surfacing of an impulse, … ‘Surely
the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.’
p. 99
The birds have started singing in the valley. Birdsong catches in
the mountains’ rim and pools in the valley; it threads through
forests, it slides down creeks.
p. 214
In September the birds were quiet… In October the great
restlessness came, … the restlessness of birds before migration…
The birds were excited, stammering new songs all day long. … I
watched at the creek. A new wind lifted the hair on my arms. The
cold light was coming and going between oversized, careening
clouds; patches of blue, like a ragged flock of protean birds, shifted
and stretched, flapping and racing from one end of the sky to the
other…

8. Any additional information pertaining to the piece such as program notes,

performance requirements, description.
Program Notes:
Wild Fruits 2 is part of a cycle of multi-channel electroacoustic works based on
recordings of environmental sounds. The music is inspired by, and sometimes utilizes,
text from Wild Fruits by Henry David Thoreau and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie
Dillard. In Wild Fruits 2, the recorded sounds are taken primarily from field recordings of
birds, water, and wind.