Composers Workshop III

Sunday, April 02, 2023 at 7:30p in the Concert Hall

Program

 

Madonna


I. A Statue, Weeping
II. Reconstruction, Attempt 1
III. Ave Maria
IV. Reconstruction, Attempt 2
V. A Statue, Cracking
VI. Reconstruction, Attempt 3
VII. A Statue, Crumbling
VIII. Reconstruction, Post-Mortem

Matt MASON

Matt Mason, piano

Junji Ito wrote about the figure of the Madonna from Christianity as an artifact that is both exalted and neglected. The Madonna, derived from the words for my lady, is a central figure in the art and iconography of Christian religion. My piece explores these ideas of exaltation and neglect through interweaving motifs that demonstrate the contrasting treatments of Mary that have been placed at the center of this iconography. For the musical and textural elements of the piece, I extricate the harmonic foundations of hymns I remember singing in Church, now a far distant memory. In utilizing only memory as an object for reconstruction, even the celebratory moments become shrouded in clouds of nostalgia, glazed in saccharine ignorance or insidiously laced with resentment.

Wandering on the Border of Infinities II

Ziang HAN

Sayyod Mirzomurodov, clarinets
Ryan MacDonald, flutes
Natalia Terra, double bass

Wandering on the border of Infinities II has the same title as my recent string quartet composition. They all happened in a place that cannot be confined within time or space, filled with mysterious air. As you are wandering around it , unknown and strange fields start to emerge and disappear. Sometimes you just look at them from afar, sometimes you find one that is very tempting, and you walk into it…

Intermission

Chasing Dawn

Kris PEYSEN

Michael Klyce, violin
Larissa Myers, violin
Trevor Jackson, viola
Celia Phillips, violoncello

This is an expanded version of a piece I originally wrote for Fresh Inc Festival in 2018. When I was commissioned to write that piece, I was asked to respond to folk music in some way. Partly as a result of this prompt, I began to listen to some string quartet music with heavy Americana influences. As I became more immersed in this sound-world, I decided I wanted to incorporate some of those stylistic elements in this piece. I then combined those elements with a style that I was more familiar with - a type of Stravinskian rhythmic language that I use often in my music. This final, longer version of the piece is about the merging of these two styles, and how they contradict, enliven, and ultimately incite one another.

 

anti-social behavior

I. Forever
II. Daze
III. MAKERESPECT

M DENNEY

Hanna Rumora, violoncello

Content Advisory - Blood
     “This is about loving and longing. About shaming and hating. About the promises of kindness and the pleasures of doing damage. This is about crazy desire and having a gift for cruelty. This is about the difference between the figure and the body. About the fickleness of renown. About who gets what and who owns what. About who is remembered and who is forgotten. Here. In this place.”

- Barbara Kruger, “This is about you. I mean me. I mean you”

“…our actions are often framed by the expectation of violence. A trans woman rolling her eyes, or swearing a lot, or getting frustrated; things we wouldn’t normally even look for violence in; can be framed that way. And god forbid a trans woman acts masculine. Even “traditionally masculine” behaviors that are common among cis women are touchy for us, like not wearing makeup or being assertive of one’s needs. Trans women aren’t understood as innately deserving of care and community. Instead, the ability to exist in any given space is a privilege that can be taken away. Just about anything can be held up as proof of our “true” “male” selves, and used to force us out of communities.”

- Lily Alexandre, “Girls Own the Void: Trans Women, Alienation, and Metastability”