Psappha (Dov Goldberg - clarinet & Paul Janes - piano) Recorded Live at St. Ann's Church in Manchester on 28th November 2007 Cloud Chamber is
a short piece for clarinet and piano inspired by the scientific
aparatus of the same name. A cloud chamber is a closed enviroment
containing a supercooled supersaturated water vapour and it is used for
detecting particles of ionising radiation. So when a particle interacts
with the vapour, it ionises it causing the resulting ions to act as
condensation nuclei around which a mist will form. The high energies of
these particles mean that a trail is left behind because of the number
of ions produced along the path of the charged particle. The track have
very distinctive shapes and this makes it possible to tell the
difference between the track of, for example, alpha and beta particles.
In my composition, the instruments trace the tracks left by an
imaginary particle on a lonely and solitary journey through a cloud
chamber. Cloud Chamber was
composed in 2006 and revised in 2007. It is dedicated to Nicholas Cox
who gave the first performance with Jonathan Scott on 5 March 2006 at
the RNCM woodwind festival. In September 2007, Cloud Chamber received its American premiere (David Campbell, Illinois State University). Emily Howard
About the composer Emily Howard is Composer in Residence for Liverpool City
Council and teaches composition at the RNCM Junior School and at the
University of Leeds. She is completing a PhD with John Casken at The
University of Manchester supoported by a Victor Sayer Award. Recent
commissions and performances include The Summoning of Mephiso for Psappha and Lachrimae Antiquae Novae as part of the LSO Discovery Panufnik Young Composers Scheme. Magnetite, commissioned by Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 for the RLPO opens their Capital of Culture Season.