CNM Ensemble Concert I
Sunday, September 21, 2025 at 7:30p in the Concert Hall
In memoriam: Lawrence FRITTS (1952-2025)
Program
4 Mod 4 (1998), mixed quartetCaleb Estrada-Valentin, flute |
Pre-Images (1999), bassoon and tapeBen Coelho, bassoon |
Life-Drawing (2001), flute and tapeLisa Bost-Sandberg, flute |
Mappaemundi (2001), video |
Imprimitivity (2006), pianoRene Lecuona, piano |
Musicometry I (2004), clarinet and tapeJean-François Charles, clarinet |
4 Time-Screen (2009), percussion ensembleMiles Bohlman, Marimba |
Performer's Biography
A distinctive and eloquent voice in the music of today, Lisa Bost-Sandberg is described by renowned musician Robert Dick as “…one of the important composer-performers of her generation…[her] interpretations are infused with deep musicality, questing intelligence and a joyous spirit.” Deeply committed to contemporary music as well as its rich roots in the classical repertoire, Bost-Sandberg is known as an engaging flutist/composer/improviser, a dynamic presenter of workshops and lectures, and an impactful teacher. |
Program Notes
| 4 Mod 4 (1998) - for mixed quartet In social worlds, the individual and the groups seem perpetually at odds. Either an individual's identity is subsumed by the group or the group becomes fractured by the individuals that comprise it. In abstract worlds of mathematics and music, however, individuality and unity can sometimes be thought of as the same thing. For example, the algebraic expression 4 mod 4 = 0 characterizes a collection of four individual elements as a single unit. Likewise, 4 mod 4 treats the four instruments, flute, clarinet, violin, and cello, as individual elements that unite in a whole. From the beginning of the piece, open textures created by silence and wide registral spaces allow individual instruments to freely develop their own voices. As the work progresses, however, the voices begin to compete with each other, becoming more angular and rhythmically non-conforming. As the character of each instrument becomes increasingly complex, certain features are inevitable shared by combinations of instruments and small alliances are thus formed. This tension between individuality and conformity evolves into two extended duets. The first duet, for clarinet and cello, has practically no communication between parts, as if each is adamantly maintaining its independence. The flute and violin duet is much more cooperative as the instruments seem to share the common goal of shutting out the pizzicato cello, who tries to join in. Like 0 mod 4, the goal of musical identity acts as a gravitational pull to unite the four instruments in the final section of the work, which ends in a simple homophonic statement of unity. |
| Pre-Images (1999) - bassoon and tape The conceptual notions of "image" and "pre-image" can arise in music in very provocative ways. A common example is formed by the relationship between pitch-class (a class of notes sharing the same note name but not register) and pitch (which is register-specific). Here, a pitch-class is said to be an image of a pitch; conversely, a pitch is a pre-image of a pitch class. Compositional manipulations that act directly on pitch classes also act indirectly on their pre-image pitches. This idea is extended in a number of ways in the work, Pre-images. Particularly notable is the dialogue between the digitally-processed image of a recorded bassoon and the live instrumental pre-image. Pre-images was written for Benjamin Coelho in early 2000. |
| Life-Drawing (2001) - flute and tape In the musical as well as visual arts, the relation between concept, process, and object raises fundamental question that must be newly addressed in each work. These questions are as intriguing today as ever: which comes first, concept or process? is the concept the object? does the process determine the object or does the object imply its own means of generation? Artistic responses to such questions are naturally influenced by the medium. In Life-Drawing, the compositional process originated with the physical sound of the flute. The instrument was digitally analyzed and various sonic features were extracted and compositionally manipulated. Among the most important transformations was one that mapped the flute's partials from a linear space to a curved space, creating a symmetrical, sometimes Impressionistic harmony. Another important transformation was one which applied mathematical curvilinear functions to the iterations of key clicks, giving the work a flowing, almost hand-drawn temporal quality. As it interacts with the tape part, the live flute draws from the computer-realized material, creating a sound universe which acts to unify concept, process, and object. Life-Drawing was written for Tadeu Coelho, to whom the work is dedicated. |
| Mappaemundi is a 9-minute work for digital animation and computer-realized sound created by artist Sue Hettmansperger, composer Lawrence Fritts, and mathematician Walter Seaman. Like Medieval mappaemundi--maps that integrated geographical, spiritual, and emotional worlds--our Mappaemundi map or transpose interdisciplinary modes of understanding and communicating. Thus, visual images are treated like sounds, music becomes an extension of mathematical thought, and mathematics becomes a way of understanding artistic creation. The visual imagery of Mappaemundi is based on a series of paintings by Sue Hettmansperger that explores biological form in the human body and in the natural world. The artist digitally transformed and animated these images to create complex, evolving visual structures. These structures were combined with mathematically-generated images, creating a dialogue between the biological forms of nature and the mathematical structure that lies beneath. Similarly, the music of Mappaemundi traverses the physical world of sound and its abstract representation. The sounds in the work originated with a recording of a human body in an anechoic chamber. Breath and heartbeat were then digitally analyzed by the composer into discrete audio components. These fundamental units of sound were then recombined to create musical imagery that complements and extends the physical and emotional worlds evoked by the work's visual imagery. Music and image are also interconnected at the mathematical level, where color, form, spatial orientation, and movement interact with timbre, harmony, and rhythm to create complex, evolving geometrical, topological, and algebraic structures. |
| Imprimitivity (2006) for piano solo The title of the composition is Imprimitivity, a term borrowed from an area of mathematics known as group theory. I have been using groups as a compositional resource for over ten years, one of the few American composers to do so. While finishing my Ph.D in Composition at the University of Chicago, I had the distinct privilege of working with mathematics professor George Glauberman, one of the world's foremost group theorists. He pointed out to me that the group structures with which I was working were of a class known as imprimitive. Consider that a set of musical notes can be changed into another set of notes by a given transformation. The totality of such transformations forms a mathematical group. In my music, a group acts on sets of musical objects (notes, rhythms, timbres, etc.) in such a way that subsets are fixed or interchanged under these actions. In such cases, the group is said to be imprimitive. It appears that many of the great musical masterpieces of the twentieth century exhibit a significant degree of imprimitive group structure. The music of Schoenberg, Webern, Debussy, Messiaen, Babbitt, and Boulez, for example, often derives its form from the principles of imprimitivity, as music theorists are just now beginning to explore. |
| Musicometry I (2004) - clarinet and tape From Bach to Stockhausen, improvisation and composition have been inextricably linked. One of the most important current advocates of improvisation in composition is the clarinetist, Esther Lamneck, who integrates improvisation with fixed medium electronic music compositions, including my works Mappaemundi and Doctrine of Chances. In her initial improvisations that formed the basis of Musicometry I, I found that her playing reflected the measure of such important qualities of my musical language as timbral texture, rhythmic gesture, pitch contour, and harmonic structure. Using these improvisations as the compositional basis of Musicometry I, I similarly sought to represent the measure of these qualities that I found in her own playing. The result is a truly collaborative work, in which the performer and composer adopt the essential aspects of the musical language of the other, as expressed in the dedication: "To, from, and for Esther Lamneck." |
Composer's Biography
Lawrence Fritts is an American composer born in Richland, Washington in 1952. He received his PhD in composition from the University of Chicago, where he studied with Shulamit Ran, John Eaton, and Ralph Shapey. He was a Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Iowa, where he directed the Electronic Music Studios since 1994. |
| Work List * Intrada for wind quartet, 1978 * World Press in Review , electronic television music, 1979 * String Quartet No. 1 , 1979 * The Veil for guitar and tape, 1980 * Music from Omelas for tape, 1980 * In hora ultima for orchestra, double choir and tape, 1981 * When a happy thing falls for string orchestra, 1981 * Music in State for tape, 1981 * Masque Electrique for tape, 1981 * Sirens for tape, 1982 * Male Lingua for tape, 1982 * American Lunch , electronic film music, 1982 * The Ranch , electronic film music, 1982 * Songs from the Caucasion Chalk-Circle for guitar trio and voices, 1982 * Composition for Solo Clarinet, 1983 * Variations , tape, 1983 * Nyet, Nyet, Natasha for Toinband, 1984 * Composition for Synthesizers, 1984 * Subrisio Saltat for flute, 1985 * Moments for Piano, 1985 * Duet for Violin, Viola and Computer, 1986 * Metra for tape, 1986 * Composition for piano, 1988 * Tetraktys for tape, 1990 * Green Run for tape, 1994 * Minute Variations for tape, 1996 * Free Translations for horn and tape, 1997 * Thought-Forms for tape, 1997 * 4 mod 4 for flute, clarinet, violin and cello, 1998 * Eleatics for tape, 1998 * Forma Partis for Clarinet, 1999 * Doctrine of Chances for tape, 1999 * Orthogonality for saxophone and tape, 1999 * Pre-images for bassoon and tape, 1999 * Mappaemundi, video (with Sue Hettmansperger), 2001 * Life-Drawing for flute and tape, 2001 * Simple Matter for tape, 2002 * Natural Language for mezzo-soprano and video (with Sue Hettmansperger), 2003 * Musicometry I for clarinet and tape, 2004 * Monsterology for orchestra and tape, 2005 * The Boy Kicked the Ball for tape, 2005 * Imprimitivity for piano and tape, 2006 * Time-Screen, percussion ensemble, 2009 |