315 Ensemble with Decho Ensemble & Ben Ellis
Route 20 Sofa Company
Nelson, NY
May 18, 2024 7:00 pm
Ben Ellis
Walt (2020)
Darrag O'Neill
Darragh O’Neill has earned an international reputation as a brilliant performer and composer His career as a concert guitarist has taken him to many of the great music venues around the world Highlights include Carnegie Hall New York, Wigmore Hall London, Oude Kerk Amsterdam, the Manggha Theatre in Krakow and numerous performances back home in his native Dublin’s National Concert Hall His original compositions for solo guitar have been described by The Irish Times as: ‘Descriptive, openly charming, and so based on traditional guitar techniques that they seem to spring from inside the instrument ’
Walt captures the whimsy and light heartedness of Walt Disney‘ s imagination
Saudade No.3 (1980)
Roland Dyens
Born on the 19th of October 1955, the French performer, composer, arranger and improviser Roland Dyens began to study the guitar when he was nine years old Later he studied with the Spanish master Alberto Ponce in a class where he obtained, in 1976, the "Licence de Concert" from l'Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris (France). A laureate of the Menuhin foundation, in 1988 he was classed among the 100 best contemporary guitarists of ail styles by the french magazine Guitarist.
Today, his compositions and arrangements are performed around the world to unanimous praise and enthusiasm Truly, his work sheds new light on the possibilities of the guitar Because of his unique talent and the originality of his music, Roland Dyens must be considered one of the most innovative and complete musicians of our time
Three Preludes (2006)
Dale Kavanagh
Canadian-born Dale Kavanagh is acclaimed as one of the guitar world´s most gifted interpreters Between 1986 and 1988 Ms Kavanagh was a top prize-winner in Spain’s “Segovia Competition,” Italy’s “Gargnano Competition,” Switzerland’s “Neuchatel Competition,” and First and Special Prize winner in Finland’s “Scandinavian International Guitar Competition ”
Dale is currently very engaged with composing and has recently written pieces for The Marlow International Guitar Youth Competition, Aniello Desiderio, Costas Cotsiolis, Giampaolo Bandini, Emma Rush, ChromaDuo, Irina Kulikova and many more
Ben Ellis
Ben Ellis programs recitals that explore all the unexpected corners of the guitar repertoire Programing and pairing works from 18th to the 21st century, Ellis finds the surprising threads that connect contrasting works. His programs have included pairing transcriptions of violin music by Ysaye and Bach as well as the standard “When You Wish Upon A Star” arranged by Chet Atkins paired with an homage to Walt Disney by contemporary composer Darragh O’Neil His performance credits include solo recitals for the Great Lakes Guitar Society, the Skaneateles Library Concert Series, and the Classical Guitar Society of Upstate NY
Fascinated with reaching out to new audiences, Ellis also curates special programs that pair music with art, wine, dance, and historical events. Ben has presented these custom designed events at venues such as the The Smith Opera House in Geneva, NY, Shelter Studios in NYC, and the historic Barnes Mansion in Syracuse, NY. Most recently, Ellis presented arrangements of rock and roll songs for the classical guitar at The Principle Art Gallery in Charleston, SC. The musical selections highlighted the galleries exhibit of behind the scenes photos of notorious rock musicians
Ben is currently working on several chamber music projects including the LaLena-Ellis Guitar Duo and the New York Guitar Quartet The NYGQ will soon be releasing a world premiere recording of a new work by composer John Anthony Lennon. Other projects include a collaboration with composer Chris Cresswell on a new composition with live electronics and looped samples.
Ellis holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Fredonia He currently resides in Syracuse, NY where he maintains a large teaching studio An active freelancer, Ben has also performed with the Syracuse Symphony and the Syracuse Opera
Decho Ensemble
Too Late in the Evening (2023) Chris Cresswell
The poem, Too Late in the Evening, comes from Tim Carter’s Remains, a book of documentary poetry based on the life of his mother, who passed away in 1995 The poems are written from interviews, letters, news clippings, and pictures Tim collected over the years Tim gave me access to the cassette recordings of conversations and other ephemera from his childhood, which form the basis of this work (Chris Cresswell)
Hocket (1992)
Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk’ s music has often been described as “folk music from another planet,” that description seems particularly apt for this stunning two-part vocal piece which seems to simultaneously hint at Inuit singing games, the ensemble vocal music of the Mbuti pygmies from the Ituri Rainforest, early Medieval European polyphony, and nothing previously imagined by the human species (Frank J Oteri)
Letter to the Poetess Rimma Dalos: I (1985)
Sofia Gubaidulina
This composition, says Sofia Gubaidulina, was an attempt in the mid-1980s to correspond musically and poetically with the Hungarian-Russian poet Rimma Dalos, who was living in Moscow at the time This composition was preceded by a letter from Rimma Dalos to Sofia Gubaidulina, which only consisted of a few poetic words She took these as the starting point for her musical “ response letter” in the hope that it would lead to a longer correspondence Unfortunately, fate soon separated the two artists The short contact was not continued and remained without consequences (Hans-Ulrich Duffek)
Flora (2020)
Robert McClure
Flora is a set of six miniatures written for Jacob Swanson and Sarah Marchitelli of the Decho Ensemble Each movement explores characteristics of a different plant or flower Each was chosen to correspond with either a primary or secondary color Ever since moving back to the United States, my wife has filled our house and garden with plants I have becoming increasingly interested in how beautiful and weird plants can be (Robert McClure)
i’m sorry, not sorry (2016)
Ruby Fulton
I got the idea for i’m sorry, not sorry when I read that Hillary Clinton was the first presidential candidate in US history to say the words “I’m sorry ” to her supporters during her concession speech after losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump I found that shocking and it made me think about how strange it is that women feel the need to apologize so much more than men. Beyoncé has an awesome and powerful song called “Sorry” that features the lyrics “Sorry, I ain’t sorry, ” which gave me the idea for the words and the concept of the piece. And I stole the harmonies from a passage in Beethoven’ s Piano Sonata, Op. 110. (Ruby Fulton)
Decho Ensemble
Hailed as a “winning combination in every way!”, Decho was founded by Sarah Marchitelli and Jacob Swanson in 2011 with the intention of sharing the saxophone as a concert instrument of wide ranging capability. Critically acclaimed for their “blend and precision”, the ensemble has performed throughout North America and Europe. Following years of continuous collaboration, in 2019 Dr. Katherine Petersen joined Decho to champion works for voice and saxophone
Presenting on concert series, television, and radio, the Decho Ensemble has collaborated with chamber orchestras, poets, dance companies, and ensembles/instrumentalists in addition to their all saxophone programming. Decho has presented at the North American Saxophone Alliance Regional and Biennial Conferences, United States Navy International Saxophone Symposium, the Women Composers Festival of Hartford, International Congress of Voice Teachers, and the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project Since 2016 the Decho Ensemble has participated in residencies at Mercyhurst University, Idaho University at Moscow, and with the Ny Musikks Komponistgruppe in Oslo, Norway as part of their inaugural PULS Festival
Sarah Marchitelli serves as Lecture of Music Education at the State University of New York at Fredonia. Dr. Katherine Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Voice and Head of Voice area at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Jacob Swanson teaches music for the Gowanda Central School District and is a Vandoren Artist Clinician.
The Decho Ensemble performs on vintage Buescher saxophones built in the United States
315 Ensemble
Leise Abenddämmerung (2022) Jonathan Nangle
Over the past number of years, I have been writing pieces exploring musical symbolism, taking a phrase or natural phenomenon and attempting to present it musically I did it in my piano piece Surface Patterns (2020) and, more recently, Granular Dusk (2022) for solo viola Leise Abenddämmerung translates as “soft dusk” It appears as a stage direction in the Liebestod, the final dramatic conclusion to Richard Wagner’ s opera Tristan und Isolde As Isolde mourns over Tristan’s dead body, she has a vision of him, star-haloed rising into the air At this point, Wagner instructs a soft dusk to be projected onto the backdrop My piece has no link to Wagner’s, the borrowed title acting as a means of projecting my musical imagination onto the scene (Jonathan Nangle)
river is in delta (2016/2024) Jaimie Elless
arr by Diane Jones
I first met Jamie Elless when she was a part of the Young Composers Project in Birmingham, UK She wrote river is in delta for two saxophones and electronics After conducting the world premiere, I asked her to arrange it for 315 Ensemble. One of the original 315 pieces, Jamie gave us permission to arrange it for our new instrumentation. The work uses fragments of a John Cage interview to generate melodic material. Jamie’s work draws inspiration from medieval European music, folk traditions, ambient and drone music, and queer liberation politics. (Chris Cresswell)
Augmensions/Extentations* (2024)
Patrick Ellis
*world premiere
Augmensions and Extentations is a work for chamber ensemble with fixed and live electronics, specially composed the new, US iteration of Chris Cresswell’s 315 Ensemble Rather loosely inspired by 1970s German kosmische music, industrial music and the composer Catherine Lamb, as well some of my recent pieces of mine such as Passing Through, (2023) Fractured Motion, (2022) Between Two Trios, (2022) and Objects and Portrait Projections (2022)
Characterised by different acoustic and electronics layers that are based around a simple chord progression with oscillations and swells, I wanted the overall work to be essentially a ‘ sum of parts’, with the electronics augmenting what is produce by the live instruments. (Patrick Ellis)
Formed in Birmingham, England in 2016, 315 Ensemble is led by composer/guitarist Chris Cresswell and is dedicated to performing electro-acoustic music. Revived in 2021 in its namesake community, 315 Ensemble“…blurs the boundaries between industrial and organic, soothing and suspenseful, introspective and anxious” (International Clarinet Association) A chamber quartet, the group features Diane Jones on flutes, Ryan Sparkes on clarinets, Chris Cresswell on electric guitar, and percussionist Andrea Scheibel.
Committed to performing new music that embraces contemporary classical, ambient, and electronic musical worlds, 315 Ensemble has commissioned and championed exciting composers from around the world, including Emily Levy, Patrick Ellis, Kirsten Devaney, Benjamin Damann, and Jamie Elless. It also serves as the primary vehicle for Chris Cresswell’s work as a composer and sound artist.
They have performed at the Frontiers Festival in Birmingham, England, have been featured on the International Music Council’s Window on the World radio program, and released their debut EP on Ravello Records in 2018
315 Ensemble is invested in, and supported by the Central New York arts community. They have received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, CNY Arts, WCNY-FM, and Birmingham Conservatoire.
Thank You!
A tremendous thanks to Ben, Sarah, Jacob, and Katherine for joining us tonight to celebrate the relaunch of 315 Ensemble. A huge thanks to Shawn Gilmore and the Route 20 Sofa Company for hosting us. Thank you to Onondaga Community College for the rehearsal space. And finally, a huge thanks to Amber, Robin, Will, and Frances for putting up with our weird noises and personalities.
How to Support 315 Ensemble
Thanks to the generous support of friends of the ensemble, and fellow new music group, loadbang, you can support 315 Ensemble using the QR code below.
You can use the same QR code to sign up for our (occasional) newsletter.
We appreciate your support as we continue to grow and cultivate the new music community in Central New York and beyond
