20231229_EChO

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents

EChO Electric Chamber Orchestra Eren Gümrükçüoğlu, Director

Wednesday, November 29, 2023 7:30 p.m. | Lindsay Recital Hall

2

PROGRAM December 1952 (1952) for one or more instruments and/or sound-producing media

Earle Brown (1926–2002)

Justine de Saint Mars, electric cello; Eren Gümrükçüoğlu, electric guitar Rachael Lawson, EWI; Ky Nam Nguyen, Đàn tranh Healing (2023) for harp and electronics

— World Premiere —

Youngsun Kim (b. 1987)

Noël Wan, harp Frequencies (2023) for fixed media

Ghost Breath (2020) for flute and electronics

— World Premiere —

Rachael Lawson, flute

Until It Blazes (1991) for amplified solo instrument

Ky Nam Nguyen, keyboard new cosmologies (2020) for flexible ensemble

Justine de Saint Mars (b. 2001)

Rachael Lawson (b. 1997)

Eve Beglarian (b. 1958)

inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993)

Justine de Saint Mars, electric cello; Eren Gümrükçüoğlu, electric guitar Rachael Lawson, flute; Ky Nam Nguyen, Đàn tranh

To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All… Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.

Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.

Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM Brown: December 1952 The following note and sketch appear on a notebook page dated Oct. & Nov. ’52, but they are the basis of the composition December 1952 as well as being particularly relevant to “Four Systems”: “...to have elements exist in space...space as an infinitude of directions from an infinitude of points in space...to work (compositionally and in performance) to right, left, back, forward, up, down, and all points between...the score [being] a picture of this space at one instant, which must always be considered as unreal and/or transitory...a performer must set this all in motion (time), which is to say, realize that it is in motion and step into it...either sit and let it move or move through it at all speeds.” “[co-efficient of ] intensity and duration [is] space forward and back.”

The composition may be performed in any direction from any point in the defined space for any length of time and may be performed from any of the four rotational positions in any sequence. In a performance utilizing only three dimensions as active (vertical, horizontal, and time), the thickness of the event indicate the relative intensity and/ or (where applicable instrumentally clusters. Where all four dimensions are active the relative thickness and length of events are functions of their conceptual position on a plane perpendicular to the vertical and horizontal plane of the score. In the latter case all of the characteristics of sound and their relationships to each other are subject to continual transformation and modification. It is primarily intended that performance be made directly from this graphic “implication” (one for each performer) and that no further preliminary defining of the events, other than an agreement as to total performance time, take place. Further defining of the event is not prohibited however, provided that the imposed determinate-system is implicit in the score and in these notes.

Kim: Healing Healing can be described in four categories: live electronic music, indeterminacy, religious music, and musical quotation. The sound fragments of the harp and live electronic sound produced by Max are superimposed and juxtaposed, resulting in a torrential flow of the sound mass. The title of the piece, Healing, means the process of making sound and becoming healthy again. This piece consists of three large sections, A, B, and C. Each section symbolizes the past, present, and future; however, the order of the sections A and B can be flipped and redefined into new meanings. These three sections reflect the hope to heal the hurt and wounds of the past, creating a new momentum for the future. I believe that every time and space, everything that was before, is now, and will be, exist in one. I express this reality through reconstructing it in music, conveying the temporal and spatial effects through electronics. Everyone in contemporary society needs healing. I hope this music brings the audience the power of healing, as if the sound of King David’s harp, from over 3,000 years ago was echoing.

De Saint Mars: Frequencies Frequencies is a work for fixed electronics depicting a passage of time in which two unknown otherworldly beings try to communicate with one another. The first time the main three note theme appears in full it is punchy and dynamic.

When it is restated later, it is obscured by high synths coming in and out above the music, becoming a slightly less recognizable echo of the theme. This symbolizes an attempt by the second being to repeat what was spoken by the first being in their own language. The introduction of the new section is the second being speaking in their language, attempting to communicate from their front. There is no hostility between these two creatures, just curiosity in a brief interaction with each other.

Lawson: Ghost Breath The haunting flute solo, Ghost Breath, features a variety of extended techniques and unexpected harmonies for an unsettling experience. The solo flute depicts the creeping breath and haunting voice of a ghastly spirit. Ghost Breath is dedicated to one of Rachael’s teachers, Dr. Mary Matthews, a vibrant performer and supporter of new music.

Beglarian: Until It Blazes Inspired by a line attributed to Jesus in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Until It Blazes is a minimalist work of variable duration for piano, guitar or other plucked string instrument, harp, marimba, or vibes, or a MIDI keyboard. The stereo delay establishes a perpetual antiphonal polyrhythm, against which short melodic patterns are repeated. By accenting different notes within a repeating pattern, new melodies emerge from the accents, cutting against the pattern’s grouping and creating yet another layer of polyrhythm. For example, if in a repeating three-note pattern every fourth note is accented, a new melody will emerge; if every fifth note is accented, a different melody will emerge. Until it Blazes is structured around the gradual growth and decay of these various melodic patterns, ultimately building to a climatic conclusion. figgis-vizueta: new cosmologies I see fundamental connections between the improvisatory and interpretative processes in my music and the formation of new, imagines histories of indigenous peoples. I think violence lives in our bones and our blood and that we still feel remnants from the first settlers to murder and poison our ancestors. Imagining a future for us means imagining a past separate from the settler-colonialism that killed many of our mythologies and stories.

When I think about Steve Mackey’s piece Indigenous Instruments, I think about the power of a white man’s imagination. The power of being able to conjure into being a new indigenous people, not ravaged by genocide.

I imagine the power of being celebrated, featured, and written about for it. Perhaps it’s just a small piece in the scheme of things, but I can’t shake how much that piece radicalized me to tell my own stories, to imagine new pasts and futures, and to fundamentally understand that white people gain their power from stealing our traditions and knowledges, our proximity to the divine, the cosmological, and the truth.

– ifv 2020 nyc