MATA 2017 Program Notes

Program Notes, MATA 2017 All notes by the composer unless otherwise indicated ____________________________________________________________________________

TUESDAY: SCENATET- The Anti-Hygge Eric Wubbels: (​New Work) YU Oda: ​Everybody Is Brainwashed “This work was written for a live techno band called “Project 128", which I am member of. One of my current interests as a composer is to explore groove in music, and the challenge in this track was mixing and mushing up acoustic sounds of the violin and cajon with elec. beat, bass, some materials from the contemporary classic music, as well as a pop song from Japan, to create a new type of rhythmic drive. The borrowed materials are from works by: Daniel Moreira, Takamasa Aoki, and Teresaten.”

Daniel Tacke: ​musica ricercata | music poetica “In ​musica ricercata | musica poetica​, threads of melody and sonority are woven into a series of expanding musical canons, creating a network of developmental trajectories modeled after the canonic movements of J. S. Bach’s ​Goldberg Variations​. Recurring gestures and fleeting glimpses of veiled lyricism create moments of familiarity and significance amidst a sonic landscape characterized by increasing fragmentation and the complex web of meanings elicited by ancient contrapuntal processes, blurring the lines between traditional instrumental identities and opening the experience of listening to new possibilities of expression.”

Martin Grütter: ​Messer Engel Atem Kling “For his tales about angels, flowers, beasts and men, Mahler needed a full one and a half hours.

Due to rationalisation, cerebral compression procedures, globalisation, new processors and the theory of relativity, today we manage it in three minutes. Messer! Zap! Angel! Woosh! Breath!

Pling! Kling! But now listen, it'll be over in a moment!”

Christian Winther Christensen: ​Chorale “​Chorale​ is based on an old duo work. Now it's a three movements work where the chorale both show up inside the complex guitar structure and in the piano where I use a concrete and more minimalist synthetic piano sound. The work is composed for Scenatet.”

Kaj Duncan David: ​Computer Music “The sight of a lone face in the darkness, illuminated by the blueish hue of a screen, is a common scene in the modern night-time. The light is cold, revealing a solitary subject hard at work, lost in love, or simply gazing into the abyss of cyberspace. In ​Computer Music, ​this idiosyncratic light is a central compositional parameter: on a dark stage, seven performers sit in a line in front of seven networked computers, evoking images of some strange office or cybercafé.

On their screens, the performers see a graphical score that instructs each individual which keys

on the keyboard to press. The keys are linked to a software synthesiser, and to the screen, such that pressing a key, produces a sound ​and i​ lluminates the key-presser. Later in the piece, the performers are instructed to drag their fingers across the mousepad, thus controlling the colour of the light emitted by the screen.

The piece is the latest in a series (that I started in 2012 with ​Sound & Vision ​for six instrumentalists with laptops, that has since included solo and trio laptop pieces, and a solo for snare drum and audiovisual feedback) exploring tight synchronicity between sounds performed and the accompanying illumination of the performer. The original impetus for this series was to somehow reflect on the phenomenon of the motionless 'laptop performer', common in electronic music concerts. The perceived 'inactivity' of such performers is (was?) a big discussion in electronic music circles, and inspired me to make pieces for strictly immobile performers, where the scenic setting is given a movement through patterns of illumination.”

Murat Çolak: ​Orchid (​Prefers no program note) ____________________________________________________________________________

WEDNESDAY: The Naked Piano Sdraulig: ​collector “​collector​ takes a hypersensitive approach to touch. The keyboard is conceived primarily as a physical environment to be navigated by the pianist in an indeterminate/exploratory way.

Choreographic actions are seeded in this environment for the pianist to execute, which may only occasionally audibly sound. The pianist listens to these resultant sounds, comparing and categorizing them. These decisions in turn impact how the pianist navigates the keyboard: touch is mediated by listening.”

Poleukhina: ​for thing “this piece describes it self better than any words. the words that i put on the paper just too heavy or too big, or too specific - they are far from each other, they far from "a thing" this is a description about the absence of description” Michaels: ​Together in Perfect Harmony “The black and white clusters in ​Together in Perfect Harmony ​take their cue from the lyrics of the 1982 single "Ebony and Ivory" by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

I would never use the word "perfect" while speaking about my own music. The title is intended simply as a clue to the harmonic scheme of the piece. It is also an ironic interpretation of the lyrics from the pop song; the numerous dense clusters of my work are doubtfully what come to most people's minds when they associate the word "perfect" with music.

Together in Perfect Harmony ​was written for the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, who premiered it on February 26th, 2014 in Stuttgart, Germany.”

Laurello: ​Touch “Touch​ is a short toccata in two attacca movements. In the first movement, contrasting ideas

interrupt each other abruptly: as one idea gets longer in duration, the other becomes shorter.

Eventually one of the ideas is effectively erased from the piece by the other. In the second movement, players are asked to navigate a minefield of interlocking rhythms while maintaining a sense of aggressive forward motion. ​Touch​ was written in the spring of 2016 for Sarah and Thomas of Hocket.”

Herron: ​Full Blood Moon - Full Blood Moon “​Full Blood Moon - Full Blood moon​ is a trio for two instruments. The double bass soloist is backed by two performers inside the belly of the piano. In the piano, the strings are plucked, rubbed, and struck; and several electromagnets are employed to draw sustained pitches from the strings, creating a series of blooming harmonies.

The harmonic blooming that the magnets draw from the piano strings reminds me of the invisible yet tangible effects of the pull of cosmic bodies, such as the moon. The blood moon occurs in October when the moon is particularly close to the earth. It was the moon under which I wrote this piece in 2014.”

Hodges: ​Fire Command Room “Edna St. Vincent Millay’s (1892-1950) poem, “The Blue-Flag in a Bog,” reveals an account of the Rapture that is filled with grief, loss, bitterness, yearning, and ultimate transcendence.

Rather than feeling joy and expectancy upon being leaded into heaven, Millay’s figure mourns the loss of her beloved life on Earth, detaches herself from God in order to go back to the smoldering ash, and finds a miraculous blue flower that represents all of her treasured memories from life. Upon finding the beloved blue flower, she searches and cries out for God, who has consistently been there to rescue her from the burning Earth. It is only at the conclusion of the poem, when she has both the beauty of Earth and the haven of heaven, that Millay’s character is finally at rest.

Composer Sojourner Hodges’ (b. 1986) ​Fire Command Room​ uses select excerpts of Millay’s poem to create a sensitive, intuitive setting. Through the use of changes in thematic material and repetitions of prior themes, Hodges produces an auditory journey that parallels the steps of a woman in search of both redemption and remembrance. The work is inspired by pop influences, yet is also reminiscent of both folk song and recitative. ​Fire Command Room​ was premiered at Boston Conservatory’s Seully Hall on October 18, 2010.” (Program note by Bethany Worrell.) ____________________________________________________________________________

THURSDAY: plus 1 Hirsch: ​Cloud Tones “​Cloud Tones ​is a piece in a series of works that use "gliding" - sliding slowly along a piano's strings until the vibrations start to produce overtones and sympathetic responses from neighbouring strings - as the main sound source. These tones can disappear and reappear independently and therefore the sounding result is every time different. Viola relates to the sound by listening, picking up discerning pitches and adding its own sound to it.”

Cedillo: ​Monólogo III ​(prefers no program note) Wetzel: ​Amorphose II “The natural harmonics of the retuned guitar strings form the melodical basic structure of the guitar-part and are supplemented by a second harmonical line. The relationship between the melodical voice as the main voice and the harmonical part as a secondary line is also reflected and developed further in the relationship between the guitar and the Live-Electronic part. The title ​Amorphose​ describes the formal aspect of the piece. The aggregate state of an amorphous structure is being situated between solid and liquid. This idea of an amorphous structure is transferred at different musical layers: It is reflected through the pitch system, being divided into „crystallized“ central notes and ‘fluid’ harmonical structures. It is also present in the relationship between the precisely defined pitches of the Guitar Part and the Live Electronic Part, which transposes and multiplies the Guitar part permanently on a microtonal level, randomly and therefore leading always to a slightly different result.”

Urquiza: ​Belarretan “​Belarretan​. In basque : on the grass. After Manet's famous lunch (at Musée d'Orsay), inspired

by Titian's Pastoral concert (at the Louvre) – whose title was borrowed by Poulenc for his harpsichord concerto.

In the center of Titian's painting, a richly dressed noble, whose face stays in the shadows, plays the guitar. Beside, barefoot, a shepherd looks – and probably listens as well – very closely.

They are in the countryside (in the background trees, a flock, some isolated houses) in the company of two naked, almost unreal women, one of which sits holding a flûte, listening, whereas the other, standing, pours water from a jug.

What mystery turns visible the invisible, makes the noble and the shepherd equals, together in nature ? Could it be the sublime musique, sister of flowing water and bird singing, suspended in the illuminated gesture of the guitarist, whose features will remain forever unknown ?

In Belarretan, ten guitar pieces from the renaissance are spinning, troubled by their own echo and the amplification of parasite sounds ; the inaudible, become audible, speaks of the instrument's nature (wood, strings, metal) and the human nature (bone, flesh) that produces sound. Music is drown in music as nature drowns, to us, in nature.”

Elagin: ​Formation of New Sensual Experience "The new sensualities can be opened through technological progress" ​–​ ​М.A. Lifshitz "’Technical civilization’ and changing along with her everyday life, more and more saturated by technique and technology, require new vision and hearing, new sensuality and new reflexivity, changes historically formed patterns of instincts and reactions. "’new human’ should show a complete contrast to the real person. This is a human speaking in another language, having different gestures, obeying different impulses.”

Burzynska: ​Cold Burning Out “‘Cold burning out​’ is inspired by one of the theories concerning stellar evolution –

transformation from a white dwarf into a black dwarf. And what interests me most in the context of this piece is that moment when the star emits the last lights, cools down and evens out its temperature with the space around. Dealing with the general sense of ending and inevitable course of time is not easy, but nothing tragic, neither dramatic. As we perceive such cosmic events, we are conscious of “the extreme actions” that are happening there, but at the same time we perceive the universe as full of uninfringeable peace, infinite calm of darkness. Even if you prefer to see it as brutality, there is still no place for emotions. It just is as it is.

During listening one may want to contemplate the imperturbability, the power of the nature, the acceptance of what has to happen.

In this work, likewise in most of my electro-acoustic compositions, I collect music material in such a way to blur in the listener perception the line between electronic and instrumental part.

Working with previously recorded and processed sounds enabled me creating a specific and definite flow of time which was very important for this composition.” ____________________________________________________________________________

FRIDAY: Interiors Goldschmidt: ​...y te pierdes y te hundes... “​On a basic level, this piece consists of different monologues for each instrument. These characters each tell their own story, but the relationship between them remains obscure. Each instrument goes its own way without knowing exactly why they have found themselves on the stage together. To a certain extent, the idea is to take a sort of isolation and monotony that are suddenly confronted with one another, but they maintain their autonomy without engaging in any clear form of interaction. These parallel ways simply live on side by side without acknowledging each other.”

Bertelli: ​Libro d’Aprile “​Libro d'Aprile”​ was my final project at Ircam's Cursus II. It has been purposely designed for the 9th order Ambisonic system installed within the building.

The focus was to investigate the ambiguous interdependence between background and shape: looking at the sketches of a few renowned painters (especially Durer and Watteau) we can see how the images seem to pop out of the pages, letting the background show through, in some kind of vibrant absence.“ Auznieks: ​Piano “Even though the piece is relatively quiet and the piano (as an instrument) does play a very prominent role in it, my idea was to focus on less obvious meanings of the Italian word piano.

Think about possible plans, plots and schedules, undergirding the flow of time, notice various layers, how they can never be fully grasped by looking at them only vertically (pitch) or horizontally (time), they seem to require an additional plane of existence, a dimension of their own. While the design unfolds gently, exploring various arrangements of plain sameness, we hear: piano, piano, piano.

“When listening to the piece, I encourage one to ask a question: what is it that I am listening to?

In many pieces it is easy to segregate a musical object from its context, and imagine a certain hierarchy and then, perhaps, get closer to the essence of the piece. It seems to me that this quintet could be rather understood as context contextualizing context with only an illusion of emergence of objects. Like light shining on another stream of light. But if there is no surface what is it that I am looking at? Which one is the object and which one the context?

Context contextualizing itself. Hopefully this is all only to realize that we have been inside the object, which is the piece itself, for a while. Therefore, the question to ask is: is my mind the context of the piece or is the piece contextualizing my own mind?”

Pantura-umporn: ​Ripples “​This composition had been inspired by the ripple of water when the composer looked at the dried tree leaf drop onto water surface gently, small fishes pick their foods rapidly then dive back underwater, leave us ripples of water, from the middle then circle out. Ripples occurred also by the wind or small object dropped to water to protect our eyes to see what underneath its surface even though very clear water. The vibration of water wave comes in to a vibration inside composer’s mind reflected as inner phenomenon. This inspiration exposed together with Thai traditional music rhythm and texture. This piece sounds not as calm as its inspiration, it is clear cut, sharp, fast, rigid and naturally flow forward.” ____________________________________________________________________________

SATURDAY: NOVUS NY: Currents Venables: ​The Revenge of Miguel Cotto “​The Revenge of Miguel Cotto​ was developed for the London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper scheme, supported by the Jerwood Foundation. It was a collaboration with poet Steven J Fowler, who was formerly a professional boxer. It is based on some poetry written especially for the project and some from his book ‘Fights’. It will be released on disc by NMC in 2018.”

Wolfe: ​Record of Ancient Mirrors “Record of Ancient Mirrors”​ is a piece for Viola da Gamba solo and Ensemble. It is inspired by the mysticism of the mirror-- specifically the practice of using reflective surfaces to view other realms. I imagine the ensemble to be a reflection of the Viol through a water mirror. Sometimes the ensemble steps out of this undulating reflective surface and into the world. Other times, like with a 'chinese magic mirror', the sound of the viol illuminates hidden structures.”

Timofeev: ​Angel​ (prefers no program note) Pinto: ​12 Letters from Brown Men “​Letters​ was written to be the finale of thingNY's collaborative 2015 opera ​This Takes Place Close By, ​which premiered at the Knockdown Center in Queens after some development at the Incubator Arts Project. As a lot of the opera deals with the guilt of privilege after Hurricane Sandy, this scene, acknowledging the advantage of time and distance, is a series of letter excerpts highlighting the disproportionate effects of natural disasters on the poor worldwide.

Like Julius Eastman's broadened use of "nigger" in his compositions as code for literal and figurative "grounded people", I use the descriptor "brown men" in mine as a more broadened

code for the poor. "Sunbaked", "shelterless", "field-working", and "rednecked" have often been, and continue to be, very visible differentiations of power in humanity.”

Le Boeuf: ​Alkaline “​Alkalinity is the name given to the quantitative capacity of an aqueous solution to neutralize an acid. Measuring alkalinity is important in determining a stream's ability to neutralize acidic pollution from rainfall or wastewater. It is one of the best measures of the sensitivity of the stream to acid inputs. There can be long-term changes in the alkalinity of streams and rivers in response to human disturbances." * What is the tipping point at which a system is no longer able to recover balance? This composition uses alkalinity as a metaphor for American society's ability to neutralize political corruption. It has been a challenging process to respond to this struggle with sound. I have chosen to do so cathartically by expressing two disparate ideas violently attempting to achieve balance by any means into a cohesive union. This struggle continues throughout the piece both at a structural level represented by switching between highly notated and freely improvised sections, and at an orchestrational level by dividing the ensemble into subgroups that interact with each other but in disparate traditions. The result is a forced cohesion that remains unstable and is never quite resolved.” *scientific definition by courtesy of Wikipedia