Chronos (2025)
for Vibraphone and Electronics

Chronos explores the elasticity of temporal perception through the interplay of live vibraphone and spatialized electronics. The piece invites the listener to experience duration not as a fixed measure, but as a subjective phenomenon shaped by attention, memory, and sonic context.

Chronos is a meditation on how time is felt. When the music is more sparse, time appears to decelerate; when patterns become more intricate or dense, time seems to accelerate. This malleability is enhanced by the electronic component, which consists of delayed, transformed, and spatialized echoes of the vibraphone’s earlier material. These electronic reflections serve as sonic and musical memories. Listeners are encouraged to move between different sonic focal points. The spatialized electronics are designed to transform the space, allowing each listener to choose their own center of focus and their own perceived speed of time’s passage.

Premiered by Aiyun Huang at the Banff Center for the Arts July 2055