Silent G

Sassy As Hell (2024) by Dalton H. Regnier
Commissioned by Julia Lougheed and named for her personality, Sassy As Hell places the bass clarinet inside the world of electronic dance music. Drawing on techno, funk, and industrial aesthetics, the fixed media constructs a gritty, high-voltage soundscape over which the bass clarinet struts, snaps, and unapologetically takes up space.
The electronics incorporate samples from:
Hell — King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Welcome to Hell — black midi
Highway to Hell — AC/DC
Hell — Sleater-Kinney
These tracks also happen to be among Lougheed’s favorite non-clarinet music.
Empire Falls (2025) by Dameun Strange
As the world approaches the quarter-century mark of the third millennium, the global order long defined by Pax Americana shows visible signs of fracture. Following World War II, the United States expanded its political, military, and cultural influence across the globe, positioning itself as both imperial power and moral authority. In recent years, that dominance has begun to erode, exposing the instability inherent in all empires. Empire Falls reflects on this moment of rupture.
The work draws in part from Strange’s 2020 visit to Senegal, supported by a Jerome Fellowship, where he researched Black maritime cultures for his larger AquaSonos project. While visiting Gorée Island and the Door of No Return—one of the most significant sites of the transatlantic slave trade—Strange created field recordings that became the conceptual and sonic foundation for this piece. Among the restored colonial buildings, the ruins of the former governor’s palace stood as a stark reminder that imperial power is always temporary.
Empire Falls is scored using a hybrid graphic notation that replaces conventional pitch-based writing with symbols suggesting gesture, register, and intensity. The performer improvises within limited pitch collections derived from tetrachords, responding in real time to the electronic track. Strange describes this process as “wordspinning”—listening to spoken text and translating its rhythm, contour, and emotional weight into sound.
The fixed media incorporates archival recordings, including speeches by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and excerpts from historical lectures on empire. Reagan’s voice appears throughout the work in distorted and fragmented forms, transforming familiar rhetoric into unstable sonic material. These recordings are juxtaposed with voices and field recordings that evoke resistance, memory, and liberation.
The piece unfolds in two contrasting sections: Pax, which evokes the rigid, oppressive stability of imperial power, and Ignis Populi (“Fire of the People”), which opens into greater improvisational freedom and expressive space. The bass clarinet becomes the voice of disruption—shifting from constrained gestures to expansive, defiant sound.
Commissioned by Julia Lougheed, Empire Falls frames performance itself as an act of protest, using the physical and sonic extremes of the bass clarinet to confront the fragility of empire and the enduring force of collective liberation.
Variation of Environmental Dialogue (from Sonic Meditations, 1971) by Pauline Oliveros

Composed during the formative years of her Deep Listening practice, Pauline Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations invite performers and audience members to expand their awareness beyond themselves into the sonic space shared by everyone present. Deep Listening in a performance challenges the traditional concert narrative, inviting audience members to participate and musicians to listen more than they make sound. These pieces also introduce the element of play to classical music concerts, which had become serious and somewhat austere experiences in the 70s.

Here is the text score for Environmental Dialogue:

Each person finds a place to be, either near to or distant from the others, either indoors or out-of-doors. Begin the meditation by observing your own breathing. As you become aware of sounds from the environment, gradually begin to reinforce the pitch of the sound source. Reinforce either vocally, mentally or with an instrument. If you lose touch with the source, wait quietly for another. Reinforce means to strengthen or sustain. If the pitch of the sound source is out of your range, then reinforce it mentally.

In this variation, Silent G places listeners in an environment she knows to be a calm, happy place: her swimming pool.

Deep Listening as a practice promotes empathy, compassion, and connection. These are all therapeutic responses to the turbulent and challenging themes explored in Empires Fall. Please join Silent G in this healing exercise using your mind, your energy, your breath, and your voice.

‍

Silent G is the stage name of Julia Lougheed, a Phoenix-based clarinetist and exploratory sound artist.  Working at the intersection of classical music, noise, and performance art, Silent G creates artistic explosions and dynamic experiences for audiences. Committed to the creation of new music, Silent G exclusively performs works by living composers and original improvisations. Her performances dissolve conventional genre boundaries, pushing the clarinet into experimental, electronic, and underground art spaces. Her music has been described as “what would happen if Laurie Anderson and Yoko Ono had a baby—and that baby took clarinet lessons.” Silent G has performed throughout the United States and Canada and has appeared at international festivals in Mexico, Ireland, and Italy.  Her debut album, Among Other Things, was released on Tonsehen Records in 2022.