The members of House on Fire met Ben Richter in 2019 while we were all attending CalArts,
and as our ambitions as a group grew, we wanted to work with someone who would engage
the latent, unexplored possibilities of our instrumentation. The piece sprawls - musically,
temporally, physically. Each movement reconfigures the group around a spare set of
instruments, in each permutation pulling out new composite sounds. Wells plays cello and bass
melodica simultaneously, Andrew tunes a C# drone, Richard plays a creaky melodeon.
Dissolution Seedlings is House on Fire’s first large-scale commission.

House on Fire is a new music trio based in Los Angeles, California, with Wells Leng (piano/cello),
Richard An (piano/percussion), and Andrew Anderson (piano). Founded in 2021, the group’s
primary focus is collaboration with living composers, and encouraging the development of
pieces of unorthodox instrumentations, impractical setups, and normal pieces too.
Inspired by nonhuman consciousness, Ben Richter’s music orients toward the uncanny
timescales we do not perceive in everyday life, often combining gradual transformations across
perceptual thresholds. The founding director of Ghost Ensemble, Ben has composed Rewild
(2022, released 2024 on New World Records) and Wind People (2016, released 2018 on
Indexical) for the group as well as commissions for many other ensembles and performers. As a
solo artist, Ben’s albums include Aurogeny (2023) and Panthalassa: Dream Music of the Once
and Future Ocean (2017), both combining