The Omnitonalis installation is a circular structure divided into “rooms”, with a smaller circle in the center. Each room has electronics and live musicians providing a harmonic gradient throughout the sonic experience. The music played in each room is the same piece of music but expressed in different keys, or in this case different modes (Phase 1). The installation allows the listener multiple ways of experiencing the music. Moving from room to room the listener experiences a gradual shift in sound — brightening and darkening depending on the path one travels. From the center, the listener experiences the sum of all rooms at once, a sound-bath expressing the totality of any given moment. Lastly, the listeners are able to directly affect the live musicians, serving as “triggers” to specific parameters and events through variables like proximity to the musicians and number of listeners per room. In effect, the audience plays an immediate role in how the composition is shaped.

Omnitonalis offers the audience an alternative way of experiencing live concert music by enhancing the experiential dimension of physical space.

The event is free to the public, and is sponsored by ArtsKC as part of their 2023-2024 Inspiration Grants.

In the canon of classical music, there is a traceable evolution of tonality (the organization and harmony of a given major or minor key) starting in the 17th century to its current ubiquity in our present day where it is used in jazz, movie soundtracks, and nearly every pop song ever written. Splintering in the 20th century, tonality had crystallized into more adventurous and evocative sonorities like bitonality (two keys simultaneously), polytonality (two or more keys simultaneously), and eventually atonality (not adhering to any key). As a composer, I’m exploring the possibility of a missing piece, that is, omnitonality — all keys at once.