Less than a decade ago, I was convinced that I would pursue a career not in music, but in genetics. Science had long been an important part of my life, and despite a change in career plans, biology has remained an important part of my identity. Helices Unfurled reconciles these two disciplines by deriving its musical processes from concepts in molecular genetics and biotechnology. Throughout the work, a series of trichords are used, each representing the five nucleic acids found in DNA and RNA. The first movement, “ATGC”, is based upon the process of DNA replication. Various enzymes separate two anti-parallel strands of DNA, allowing for each strand to be copied. However, the process of replication only occurs by reading the template strands in one direction. Since the two strands run in opposite directions, the leading strand is replicated continuously while the lagging strand is replicated in small segments called Okizaki fragments. Quick diatonic interjections heard primarily in the woodwinds represent the various enzymes and other proteins involved in DNA replication. The movement is in an arch form (ABCBA), where A and B represent the leading and lagging strands respectively and two sections are related by “inversion” of base-pair related harmonies and by retrograde. The C section represents the replication fork, layering the lagging strand as retrograded segments, the leading strand in its linear form, and the protein interjections. The title of the second movement, “1x TBE”, makes reference to the liquid buffer used in gel electrophoresis. This technique uses an electric current to separate molecules such as DNA strands primarily by size. Smaller particles migrate faster through the gel than larger particles, causing a separation into a spectrum of various length samples on the gel. In the music, this is represented in the music as an accelerating canon occurring in multiple tempi simultaneously. “AUGC” derives its musical process from RNA splicing. When a gene is transcribed from DNA to RNA, the RNA contains regions that are not expressed, called introns. The introns are removed from the RNA strand, leaving only the exons which are expressed into a protein gene product. To represent this concept in music, the movement alternates between two contrasting musical ideas. As portions of one idea are incrementally deleted, the contrasting material elongates until the fully realized melody of the secondary material is presented without interruption. As a final part of RNA processing, a long series of adenosine (A) nucleotides are added to the end of the sequence, called a poly-A tail. The coda in the music prolongs the harmony associated with the adenosine nucleotide and ultimately recapitulates the protein gestures from the first movement based upon the melodic material of the exons before propelling into a final cadence.
