Composers Workshop IV

Wednesday, May 03, 2023 at 7:30p in the Concert Hall

Program

 

Thus Have I Heard

Qing XU

Matt Mason, piano

     In 2022, NASA released the sound of the black hole, making it for the first time audible to the human ear. Personally, I found the sound to be awe-inspiring and filled with a sense of wonder. It felt like I was listening to the secrets of the universe, and I was filled with a profound sense of admiration and respect for the immense power of nature that created this phenomena. Knowing that I was listening to something that could not be seen or understood.
     The aim of this composition is to evoke a sense of the cosmos through the use of sound effects, improvisation, and dynamic changes. Random elements are incorporated to create an atmosphere reminiscent of outer space, with the goal of inspiring cosmic imagery in the minds of the listeners.

Rhapsody in Tulle

Lucy SHIRLEY

Lucy Shirley, piano

I've always been intrigued by documentaries about aging prima ballerinas. I see the struggle of aging in such a physically demanding art-form as ballet as a bit of a microcosm for life: when the day comes that I cannot do the things I used to, will I view my choices as being "worth it?" In Rhapsody in Tulle, I imagine someone asking this very question--grieving the loss and reveling in the memories.

No Scars

M DENNEY

M Denney, voice & electronics

so I wrote You love letters / and sung them in my house
and all around the south / the broken strings and amplifiers
scream with holy noise / in hopes to draw You out
but if no one sings along / in praise are You still proud
when I open my mouth?

-----Julien Baker, Blacktop

     The work I’ve spent the most time with over the last few years is my text score collection the water will come - dozens of short, abstract works that serve as conceptual maps for improvisation, places for thoughtful sonic and performance attention. What originally began in 2016 as brief works in the style of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit or Pauline Oliveros’s Sonic Meditation eventually grew into a document of my own changing perspective through my MFA, my transition, this PhD program, and now most pressingly the growing violence trans people are facing, especially in Iowa. The works have become more pointed, more personal, and more visceral, focusing less on ideas about nature and more on how I as a woman have come to understand and relate to my body and my place in the world.
     No Scars is the first work in the water will come to feature explicit notation and explicit performance direction. The harmony, an 11-limit realization of a D minor tetrachord, is sustained “quiet, constant, and thin” as a bed, while a performer is instructed to speak the given text; a cut-up, piecemeal monologue about my experiences with pain and self harm as a teenager. In this performance, the harmony is provided by three synthesizers and a cassette tape loop, while the text is presented in two forms: a layer of ghostly whispers and my own chanting, electronically harmonized performance. Along with my original text, this performance includes a brief fragment of Casey Plett’s short story ‘Lizzy & Annie’.

intermission

Electric Dreamscape No. 3

Kevin SWENSON

Matt Mason, piano

     In this piece I am beginning to explore generative musical forms. I wrote 25 fragments of music using a pitch-class set derived from the name Matt Mason, the performer for whom this work is composed. These 25 fragments are separated into five "primary moment groups". Each moment group contains five fragments respectively, and the fragments of each individual group were composed using a shared algorithmic process. In addition to the 25 fragments, there are three longer stretches of music that are intended to offset the episodic nature of the work.
     These materials are stored in the computer and the piece's form is determined as a series of semi-random decisions by the machine in real time. The live effects applied to the piano are similarly chosen by the computer as the work unfolds. Thus, the piece is different every time that it is performed.

Domus Doldrum

Lucy SHIRLEY

Gabe Albertus, percussion

In Domus Doldrum (a Latin-inspired wordplay on the title of Tyga's track Bored in the House), the percussionist employs various items such as flowerpots and metal bowls to create a constantly changing state between domestic boredom and bliss.

Irradiation

Matt MASON

Eugene Ryoo, saxophone

At the core of this work is a folk-song-like tune. It has been deformed and misshapen but pieces of the unmarred song occasionally peak through giving you a glimpse of what the song meant and was meant to be. The piece is titled Irradiation because it explores this process of change as continuous reconstruction, rather than as viewing both the original and the new as discrete musical objects. The piece takes shape as independent groups of musical fragments that can appear and disappear (sometimes at the performer’s discretion) and it is the performer that ultimately chooses when the original, unobscured tune can come through.

Nori for violin and piano

Sanggeun CHOI

Junhong Zhou, violin
Liu Hsin-Hui, piano

Nori is a Korean word meaning “play”. The general folk tunes of Korean traditional music have a graceful style based on repeating rhythmic elements. Those moderate rhythms show the beauty of simplicity, spicing up amusement from the conversational juxtaposition between the percussive and melodic instruments. In this piece, two representative Western instruments, the piano and violin, emulate the nuance of amusement with folk tunes, following the concept of simplicity and temperance. They are nevertheless unconventionally expressed in accordance with each instrument’s different characteristics such as the piano’s wide range and harmonic reverberation and the violin’s delicate techniques.