…for Stull Observatory

Three Devices resembling computers display material experiments in front of a glowing grid, all set around the Austin-Fellows observatory at Alfred University’s Stull Observatory.

Device 1 is a solid, black glass orb distorting the red neon behind it.

Device 2 is a ceramic “moon” inscribed with a grid and craters obscuring the high pressure krypton behind it.

Device 3 is a curved glass tube embedded with a uranium reticello pattern, revealed by UV light and superimposed in front of a purple argon grid, almost like a hologram.

The final piece is a monitor displaying the Pure Data code for Kepler 3, a sound piece that transforms the current position of seven celestial bodies into an audible chord according to Johannes Kepler’s music theory. Because Austin-Fellows is a dome, the chord churns and resonates eerily in space

Listener is an oscilloscope that displays the sound waves it hears in the room. It is made from a microphone and amplifier wired to a modified CRT television, housed in a custom glass case. What’s going on in there?

Clock is a sound installation shown in the Cube Gallery at Alfred University in winter, 2024. Five bottles blown from black glass slowly fill with water. Listeners can turn on a blower by pressing a switch on the wall labeled “Yes,” which activates the bottles.

The resulting sound is intense, creating swirling harmonies and dissonances that vary wildly depending on where the listener stands.

Hot Shop Music translates glassblowing technique to music.

Combining the ways glassblowers communicate technical information with compositional conventions in jazz and new music, Matt McAllister and Charlie Manion wrote a modular score following Pearl Dick’s glassblowing and performed it with a chamber orchestra at Firebird Community Arts in September of 2021.

Featuring musicians Matt McAllister, Chihsuan Yang, Wyatt Waddell, Marcus Reese, and Artie Black, conducted by Charlie Manion

The first iteration of this performance, similarly featuring a live, adaptive musical accompaniment to a blown glass demonstration, occurred at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio in 2017