Echo Chamber (2025)

for orchestra [2(1.2/pic) 2(1.2/eh) 2(1.2/bcl) 2(1.cbsn) – 4 3 3 1 – timp – perc(2) – str]

Duration: 10’

Premiere: April 23, 2026 @ Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, ON

Hannu Lintu (conductor), Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Gustavo Gimeno (music director)

*Percussion Requirements

1 = Tam-tam, Almglocken, Xylophone, 3 Tom-toms (low, medium, high) & 2 Bongos (low, high), Whip, Suspended Cymbal, Tubular Bells

2 = Bass Drum, 5 Temple Blocks, Glockenspiel

Programme Note:

With the growing prevalence of AI-generated content, sensationalized media, and algorithmic amplification, our sources for reliable information have eroded alongside our collective ability to critically discern where the truth lies. We are reaching a tipping point where we can no longer trust what we see or hear in our digital landscape. Drawing on the dual meaning as both an acoustic and socio-political phenomenon, Echo Chamber explores reverberation and repetition as an allegory for our engagement with contemporary media and the circulation of (mis)information.

           The piece begins with the introduction of a slow, lyrical melody in the bass clarinet. As the work unfolds, this germ of an idea spreads throughout the orchestra with its initial meaning fading as it is refracted and reinterpreted by different voices. Unlike an acoustic echo — where sounds gradually decay — ideas within this piece selectively gain momentum and gravity, allowing certain aspects to accumulate false significance through their repetition. By the end, only fragments of the original melody remain, distorted and recontextualized by their continuous transformation. The piece concludes not with resolution, but with collapse, as the amplification of the repeated ideas reaches its breaking point.

           Echo Chamber was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for their 2025/2026 concert season, as part of Liam Ritz’s role as RBC Affiliate Composer.