Call it Intuition (chamber) | Eric Estrada Valadez

Call it Intuition (2024)

Instrumentation:

flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, and string quintet

Duration: ca. 10'

"Call it Intuition" is inspired on Isaac Asimov's short story "Reason," part of the "I, Robot" anthology. This story narrates the conflict between a robot that becomes aware of its spirituality and desire to serve a higher being, and two engineers dispatched by the robot company to remind it of its purpose: to prevent a solar storm from reaching Earth, not to engage in rituals or theological debates. When asked by the engineers how it knows it wasn't created by humans but by a greater being, the robot simply replies, "Call it intuition.”

Musically, I try to represent the tension between the robot's ideals and the engineers' mission through the superimposition and juxtaposition of two musical layers: one representing the robot and that is built through additive processes at the outset of the piece, and another representing the engineers, elaborated with a counterpoint that accompanies the theme of the robot.

Commissioned by AURA Contemporary Ensemble

Performance History:

Premiered at the Moores Opera House by AURA Contemporary Ensemble on April of 2024