For four computer-procesed voices and computer generated sounds

Medea was realized using the System Concepts Digital Synthesizer and the Lexicon digital reveberator at the Centre for Computer Research in Music and Accoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. The concept of the piece evolved while I was working on the music for the production of "Medea-Plays" conceived and directed by Ed Isser at the Stanford Drama department. As a result I decided to use four narrators, each reciting a section of a different version of the Medea story in a different language (Greek, Latin, French or German). The excerpts were taken from the plays written by-. Euripides, Seneca, Jean Anouilh and Heiner Müller.

In January 1987 recordings of Sabine von Dirke, Beatrice Philibert, Martha Taylor and Livia Tenzer narrating the texts in the four different languages were made. They were then loaded onto the Foonly-F4 computer and processed both with the Lexicon digital reverberator and the Foonly-F4 computer. The result of these manipulations were mixed with synthesized sounds created, using the System Concepts Digital Synthesizer designed by Pete Samson. These sounds were designed by the composer to create a new dimension of tension between the artificial sounds and the concrete sounds. In a way I was trying to juxtapose the Greek myth and an opposite idea: The Judeo-Chri-stian symbolism of child sacrifice as the ultimate religious commitment, as in the stories of Isaac in the old testament and Jesus in the new one.
Medea was written between September 1986 and March 1987. It is dedicated to the memory of sacrified children.