Radioactivitas americio inducta (2016)

Radioactivitas americio inducta, for chamber ensemble (1111.1111.2.pno.11111), was premiered by the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra on 9th December 2016 conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk.

At its core, Radioactivitas americio inducta draws a parallel between a scientific process and a moment of profound social turbulence. The work takes its title and conceptual framework from the element Americium, which has no stable isotopes. The musical process is a direct sonic representation of induced radioactivity—a procedure in which an element’s nucleus is bombarded with particles in an attempt to force it into a different state. In the case of Americium, this violent intervention does not create the desired stability, but instead yields a cascade of 28 known unstable isotopes, each with a unique half-life ranging from milliseconds to thousands of years.

This scientific data serves as the direct blueprint for the music. The piece unfolds in 28 distinct sonic events, each corresponding to an isotope. An instrumental "attack" represents the particle bombardment, which then gives way to a "resonance" whose duration is a scaled representation of the isotope's half-life. This systematic approach creates a musical texture of constant flux, where moments of abrupt decay contrast with long, lingering sonorities, all within an overarching dynamic shape that recedes before swelling to a powerful climax.

Beyond this systematic process, the piece functions on a deeper allegorical level. It critiques a kind of "alchemical" hubris: the arrogant belief that the nature of an entity can be violently altered to fit a preconceived ideal, often with unpredictable and chaotic results.

The work was composed in 2016, and its specific catalyst was the political climate of the first presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The provocative and divisive rhetoric of the campaign is reimagined as the "particle bombardment" inflicted upon a social body: the American society. The resulting "unstable isotopes" are the unpredictable, fractured, and varied reactions within that society: some are fleeting moments of outrage, while others represent the deep-seated, long-lasting divisions that were being created. The piece models the act of "throwing something and seeing what happens," translating the process of induced social decay into a structured and visceral sonic experience.