September 6, 8, 12, 13, 7:00 pm (doors), 7:30 (performance)

Over four nights at Blank Forms, Marcus Pal will present a series of realizations of Harmonic Exclusion, an iterative work that the composer has been carefully developing since 2018. These performances will mark the first time this work has been presented publicly, and Pal’s solo New York debut more broadly. Emerging from years of experimentation with just intonation piano tunings of their own design, Exclusion is a study of the perceptual effects and intangible qualities of harmonic sound. Trading on the psychological reverberations of modulation, the work carefully builds upon the “after-images” of tones and the resulting subtle shifts between liminal psychic spaces in the listener.

Although just intonation has lingered as a staple of Western composition since the mid-twentieth century—outsized examples include their mentors La Monte Young’s The Well-Tuned Piano (1974-present) and Catherine Christer Hennix’s keyboard work—Pal’s approach scouts new possibilities and limitations to intervallic tuning. The tonal setting of Exclusion is non-octave-repeating, allowing for an immense arsenal of chords, modes, and affective environs, which Pal burrows into through a semi-improvised yet rigorous array of compositional strategies. Glimmers of Olivier Messaien’s distinctive approach to harmonic color and jazz-fusion shredder Allan Holdsworth’s unorthodox “chord-melody” voicings percolate.