Last season, Fonema Consort came to New York to perform and I was asked to play as their NY-based guest artist. It was a delight to meet these young musicians, so gifted and thrilled about the music they were playing, the excitement of putting on their own shows, sharing their discoveries with new listeners and friends. It has been terrific lately to see so many musicians around the country and the world throwing themselves into new-music composition and performance, and to witness and take part in the entrepreneurial spirit that has become a necessity but also a positive expression of our modern era. Chicago has been very fertile ground for ensembles and composers, and Fonema Consort seems to have quickly made itself known amid that lively scene.

I’m interested in the group’s focus on the voice along with instruments. Co-founder Nina Dante has a remarkably flexible voice and a passion for new works that was evident as soon as I met her. I’ve always been drawn to the basic song/spoken nature of music, that primal utterance from the throat, whether blossomed into pitch and melody, or closer to speaking voice or other vocal noise. Also, always, I love the combination and balance of words and music, the great question that Strauss so memorably put forth in Capriccio. It’s wonderful to see a group explicitly focus on this fundamental aspect.

I am looking forward to play works by two great American artists with Nina. One is Charles Wuorinen’s Visible, which sets text by Paul Auster. The lines are stated three times, each time with more urgency and wildness. The twisting together of voice and violin is so effective in this piece- the lines swoop and turn and keep meeting at common notes, only to swerve away again.

We’ll also be playing Morton Feldman’s Voice, Violin and Piano. Feldman’s distinct language of quiet tones, floating sonorities and unpredictable silences sets such an example of exquisite craft, attention to beauty of sound and passing time, and brilliant thinking realized with simple materials. This piece will put the voice and the violin, which is often likened to a soprano voice, in duet along with the piano’s particular resonance.

I’ll also be playing two solos, by Oscar Bianchi and Kaija Saariaho. Bianchi’s Semplice is a solo that I recently recorded. Its title is rather tongue-in-cheek, for it is actually a very ornate piece full of curlicues and light, fanciful passages. He told me that it should sound “semplice” (Italian for “simple”), though the music is actually not. I think this means conveying a certain ease in executing it, and also having a large sense of the trajectory. Though much of the piece has a bright, radiant quality and wonderfully utilizes the sparkling, pretty high register of the violin, it gradually introduces a more edgy microtonal language, with ponticello adding a layer of grit.  Oscar, an Italian-Swiss citizen, is very active, with performances lately with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Aix-en-Provence festival and Ensemble Modern, but his music may not be familiar in Chicago, so I am pleased to perform it there.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne is a memorial piece that she wrote for Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski. Compared to her many lush and sweeping large-scale pieces – operas, symphonic works – this is a small sample of her music, but it draws the listener immediately into an amazingly vivid atmosphere and sound world. Moving in sensuous waves and rounded gestures, it is elegiac yet warm and enveloping. Like many composers of the last few decades, she explores some non-pitched sounds – here, crunching noise caused by pressure on the strings. Though this is often an aggressive-sounding noise, Saariaho applies it here subtly, using it to add a poignant twinge to the sighing lines.

I’m looking forward to join Fonema Consort for these works, to share them with listeners and to see and meet people in Chicago in early March!

 www.fonemaconsort.com

More on it this event soon – for now, here is the note I recently sent them for the program book. If you’re in the Chicago area, I hope you’ll join us!

I was truly delighted when Shulamit Ran and Elsa Charlston asked me to put together this concert of Ralph Shapey’s music for the Contempo series. His work has been immensely satisfying to play and explore. After performing his Evocation No. 1 on a recital in 2005, I dove into studying more of his music, recorded most of his solo violin and duo works on two CDs, and organized and performed in a Shapey “Composer Portrait” concert at Miller Theatre in New York in 2009. It is wonderful now to have the opportunity, with my new non-profit nunc, to bring together a brilliant group of musicians who are passionate about Shapey’s music, and to share its vibrancy and strength and beauty here in Chicago. I am especially happy that, in addition to including two performers who worked directly with Shapey, this concert features a younger generation of artists for whom his work continues to be thrilling and meaningful.

Shapey was a composer working in and expressing his own time but he was vehemently committed to studying and appreciating the great music of composers before him: Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Mozart. He was inspired by their remarkable craft and their striving for expression of the highest qualities in people – spiritual, strong and noble, or warm and loving - though he also conveyed lightness and humor. Culture nowadays often focuses on the currently interesting, and people innovate by drawing from the flood of information and sources around them, and do not necessarily feel they need to connect their creations or their values to the greatness of the past. While any person can create whatever they wish and call it art, I think there should always be a treasured place for those like Shapey who engaged with the collective learning and achievements of our musical forbears and sought to continue these values into the present in their work.

As a violinist, I enjoy playing Shapey’s music because he was a violinist and he wrote both very naturally and very challengingly for the instrument. I also love his slow movements, which are expansive like a vast landscape, and his impish, goofy humor, and the mighty ruggedness of some of his music. Shapey was particularly inspired by Beethoven, and I love the gritty strength and abundance of energy and the radiant joy of both composers.

For tonight’s program, we chose three pieces – the Piano Quintet, “2 for 5″ for clarinet quintet, and the String Quartet #10 – from late in Shapey’s life and career, and one earlier piece – “Five” – that I and Blair McMillen have recorded. The late works are very moving to hear as a culmination of Shapey’s lifelong work. His evolution involved several periods and stylistic changes, his early music being more neo-classical and transparent and metered, the middle period being strongly gestural and dramatic and having a more free sense of time.  His late music, like some other artists’ late work, conveys alternately a sense of spiritual ecstasy, spacious calm, noble striving and released joy. It was innovative in that it is based more on texture and rhythm than on melody; its layers of counterpoint create harmonies and energy but the drama stays in one state rather than constantly developing. The violin/piano duo “Five” is from his middle period, a work in five succint movements that packs quite a punch, with wit and vivacity.

(Jan 29, 2013)

I’d love to see you there! My program notes are below. 

nunc presents

“Got to be Modernistic”

a chamber music concert

with Miranda Cuckson, director, violin and viola

and

Joseph Brent, mandolin; Alex Lipowski, percussion; Adrian Morejon, bassoon; Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano; Matei Varga, piano; Ning Yu, piano

at Mannes Concert Hall
150 West 85th Street 

Program:

Quasi hoquetus (1984)  for bassoon, viola and piano   by  Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931)

Nocturne (Kawase Hasui)  (2010)  for mandolin and violin by David Loeb (b. 1939)

Dikhthas (1979)  for violin and piano by  Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001)

*short pause*

Requiem furtif (1998) for violin and claves by Georges Aperghis  (b. 1945)

in the hospital yard (2012)   for violin and piano  by  Michael Hersch (b. 1971)

Visible (2004)  for voice and violin     by     Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938)

Got to be Modernistic (1930)  by James P. Johnson  (1894-1955)
arranged for violin and mandolin  by Joseph Brent (2013

Program Notes

by Miranda Cuckson 

In 2007, I started presenting chamber concerts in New York, largely here at Mannes, and I called this series “Transit Circle”, after a kind of telescope. Last year, I decided to incorporate the series as a non-profit, music-presenting organization and I renamed it nunc, which is Latin for “now.” The word appealed to me partly for its compact, knobbly aural charm, but also because it succinctly evokes both the past and the present in one syllable: “now” expressed in an ancient language. With nunc, I would like to celebrate and bring across the freshness and immediacy of music of all eras.

Tonight’s program comprises mostly recent works, by composers whose music I find full of idiosyncratic character, inventive craftsmanship, and stirring expressiveness. A uniting thread is the variety of unusual instrumental combinations. One of the joys of my work has been collaborating with musicians and developing an understanding of the sounds and construction of their instruments, and experimenting with combining my sound with theirs. This program presents some less-frequently-heard musical synergies, and is assembled as an aural progression meant to tantalize and engage the ear with timbral contrasts and colors.

The concert begins with Sofia Gubaidulina, who was born in the Tatar SSR and has been known for using unusual combinations of instruments. Her music has been influenced by the indigenous music of her region, her keenly felt mysticism, and what knowledge she was able to acquire, in the insulated Soviet Union, of techniques of contemporary Western composers. In the 1980s, Gidon Kremer brought her to foreign attention by performing her violin concerto, and in 1985, she finally was able to travel outside of the USSR, thus launching her productive international career.

Gubaidulina’s collaboration with Russian bassoonist Valery Popov led her to contribute several substantial works to the bassoon repertoire, including a concerto and Quasi hoquetus for bassoon, viola and piano. This trio joins the wind and string instruments in “hocketing”, interlocking rhythms and plaintively lyrical duets. The piano supplies rich resonance and harmonies, and punctuates the activity with brusque chords. The piece progresses from a swirling but essentially static opening through increasingly fervent episodes, culminating in a desperate outpouring. 

 David Loeb studied with Peter Pindar Stearns at Mannes College and teaches at Mannes and the Curtis Institute. He has written extensively for Asian instruments and for early-music instruments. The culture of Japan has been a particular source on inspiration for him. He has composed many pieces for mandolinist Joseph Brent, including several sets of solo Caprices and three Nocturnes, which Brent has recorded with colleagues. The Nocturnes partner the mandolin with violin, guitar and clarinet respectively and are based on work by Japanese and Dutch visual artists. Loeb wrote:

“The three Nocturnes, despite their different instrumentation, comprise a cycle. Each piece derives its character from several works of an artist who frequently depicted night and twilight scenes. Perhaps because of a palette restricted by the need to communicate darkness, thees scenes often have a very dramatic character. Kawase Hasui traveled extensively in Japan during the early 20th century, producing more than 600 woodblock prints, mostly depicting rural and village scenery. Almost all of his night scenes have a very peaceful atmosphere, even those with rain or snow.”

Iannis Xenakis was among the avant-garde composers who thrillingly revolutionized post-World War II music. A Greek French citizen, he was not only a musician, but an engineer, architect, mathematician and author of theoretical works on music. In his compositions, he incorporated ideas stemming from his scientific interests, pioneering electronic and computer music, and applying stochastic and aleatoric processes, and set and game theory. While his works derive from highly cerebral concepts and treat sounds and sound events as objects put through experimental processes, the results are usually very visceral and emotional. Tension and excitement build up as layers accumulate and clash, and the combination of control and disorder in the rhythm creates a wild sense of motion.

Dikhthas (1979) employs the relatively conventional violin-piano duo but creates an explosive partnership in which the instruments combine their sometimes similar, sometimes drastically contrasting lines to form a bristling, volatile texture. The piano plays densely gnarled polyphonic passages as the violin wails on vertiginous slides. A microtonal section brings the focus onto a single main note and the rhythms it enunciates. Violin and piano break off to exchange strenuously virtuosic solos before joining again in scurrying, wild textures.

Greek composer Georges Aperghis studied with Xenakis and has lived for many years in France, where he founded the Atelier Théâtre et Musique. His music often involves theatrical elements (gestures, spoken text) and can be humorous and sardonic. Though he works largely in experimental theater, he has written many instrumental compositions. Requiem furtif is a duet for essentially melodic and essentially rhythmic instruments: the violin and claves (wooden sticks). Aperghis has said that the piece should conjure “leaves rattling in a cemetery”, the claves suggesting lifeless objects, the violin conveying life and movement. He also described the piece as “a frozen portrait à la Giacometti”.  The violin skates around in legato arpeggiated fifths and is synchronized rhythmically with the quick taps of the claves. At times, the instruments trade sharp, startling attacks.

Widely considered one of the most gifted and powerfully communicative artists of his generation, Michael Hersch teaches composition at the Peabody Conservatory. Also known as a formidable pianist, he has performed throughout the US and Europe. His recent commissions include those from the Cleveland Orchestra, baritone Thomas Hampson and Ensemble Klang. His music uses spare materials to grippingly visceral effect. He creates vivid drama by packing the utmost expression into very simple bits of material. Using isolated clusters or double-stops, Hersch employs the power of a single attack, or of a precisely shaped crescendo on a single note, to express his aims. His markings are careful and concise, conveying both gentle motions and violent contrasts across a huge dynamic and pitch range. His new piece in the hospital yard is a movement from his chamber opera on the threshold of winter, transcribed for violin and piano from the original version for soprano and eight instruments. The opera is based on Romanian writer Marin Sorescu’s last work, The Bridge, in which the author confronted his impending death from cancer during the final weeks of his life. The violin and piano form a largely unified statement of pummeling rhythmic spurts and and tolling quiet tones.

Charles Wuorinen, winner of the Pulitzer prize and a MacArthur fellowship, has long been a celebrated American musician and has written a large catalogue of more than 260 works for a variety of mediums. Born in New York, he began composing early on and later attended Columbia University. His music is atonal and characterized by contrapuntal compexity, ingenious formal and pitch design, and brilliant use of timbre, and can be anything from flamboyantly playful to very cantabile and passionate. As a conductor and presenter with the Group for Contemporary Music, he championed the music of Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter and Stefan Wolpe, among others.

His 2004 song Visible sets poetry by writer Paul Auster:

Spools of lightning, spun outward in the split, winter night:

thunder hauled by star –

as if your ghost had passed, burning, into the needle’s eye,

and worked itself sheer through the silk of nothingness.

 Auster, whose work often deals with the role of chance in life, has spoken of his experience as a 14-year-old seeing his friend killed by lightning just a few feet away from him. The above text is stated by Wuorinen three times, each section having increasing urgency and greater leaping intensity. Voice and violin are entangled in twisting lines that frequently meet at shared pitches, then veer away from them. 

James P. Johnson was a pioneer of the stride style of piano-playing, and a key figure in the development of ragtime into jazz. Along with Jelly Roll Morton, he brought piano playing in America to a new level of virtuosity and influenced many great jazz artists that followed, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Art Tatum and Fats Waller. Born in New Jersey, Johnson grew up hearing the music of New York City’s vibrant club scene and the ragtime of Scott Joplin. He honed his craft to become one of the most brilliant exponents of the Harlem Stride style, in which the 4/4 oom-pah of the left hand accompanies ornate, often improvised, blues-inflected flights in the right hand. Johnson was a prolific composer of musical theater; among his songs were “Charleston”, which became one of the most popular hits of the 1920s, “Carolina Shout”, which became a virtuoso test piece for striving jazz pianists, and “You’ve Got to be Modernistic”, which dates from 1930. Johnson’s playing of this piece was later re-issued by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. (Joseph Brent made tonight’s arrangement for violin and mandolin.) Though Johnson was an influential innovator and talent of his time, he is not as well-known or widely credited today as the more celebrated Art Tatum, Fats Waller or Jelly Roll Morton, and was for a long time buried in an unmarked grave in Queens.

Performer biographies:

In great demand as soloist and chamber musician, violinist Miranda Cuckson is highly acclaimed for her performances of a wide range of repertoire, from early eras through to the most current creations. She has been praised as “fiercely gifted” (Time Out NY), an “extraordinary” violinist of “undeniable musicality” (New York Times). Her CD of Luigi Nono’s “la lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” for violin and electronics (Urlicht) was named a Best Classical Recording of 2012 by the New York Times. She has also made five lauded CDs on Centaur Records: concertos by Korngold and Ponce with the Czech National Symphony, and disks of violin music by Ralph Shapey (two-CD set), Donald Martino, and Ross Lee Finney. Vanguard Classics released her CD “the wreckage of flowers” featuring the violin works of Michael Hersch. Upcoming releases include solo and duo works by Anna Weesner, microtonal solo violin pieces, and solo/duo works by Carter, Sessions and Eckardt. Recent concert highlights include her performance of Walter Piston’s Concerto at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra, and the world premieres of Harold Meltzer’s “Kreisleriana” for violin and piano, commissioned by the Library of Congress, and Jeffrey Mumford’s “through a stillness brightening” for violin and ensemble. Miranda is director/founder of the non-profit organization nunc. She made her recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall as winner of the Presser Award. She performs frequently at major venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, Library of Congress, 92^nd St Y, Zankel Hall, Bargemusic, and the Marlboro, Bard, Bodensee, and Lincoln Center festivals. She has worked with composers such as Dutilleux, Carter, Adams, Sciarrino, Haas and Davidovsky. She studied at The Juilliard School, where she was awarded her doctorate with high honors, and teaches at Mannes College.

Joseph Brent has brought a consummate artistry and dedication to the mandolin, and has helped to bring his instrument into the 21st century. Graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1999, he immediately began working closely with many of the great modern composers, including Carter, Boulez, Lindberg, Neuwirth, and Nathan Davis. He has given solo recitals in America, Europe and Asia, and made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2001 with the New England Philharmonic. He and his duo partner, harpist Bridget Kibbey, were among the first artists in the Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections program. Recently he gave a series of performances and masterclasses with the New World Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, and was invited to perform as soloist with Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony in 2013. He has an active career in popular and improvising music and has played with Woody Allen, Regina Spektor, Jewel, Gary Smulyan, Erin McKeown, Stephane Grappelli, Alice and Ravi Coltrane. The Joe Brent Quartet features his own compositions and arrangements. His books of pedagogy, Scales and Arpeggios for the Mandolin and Orchestral and Chamber Excerpts for Mandolin are published by Lulu. His debut album, Point of Departure, features duets with Ms. Kibbey, and he recorded the mandolin works of David Loeb for Vienna Modern Masters. He is on the faculty of Mannes College.

An advocate of contemporary music, Alex Lipowski is the Executive Director of the Talea Ensemble and has performed in ensembles such as the Second Instrumental Unit, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, ICE, and Wet Ink Ensemble. He has been seen on concert stages throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As a soloist and chamber musician he has collaborated with composers including Pierre Boulez, Helmut Lachenmann, Unsuk Chin, Pierluigi Billone, and John Zorn to name a few. Lipowski has presented guest lectures at the University of Virginia Commonwealth, Denver State College, and UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil and holds a Bachelors and Masters degree from the Juilliard School.  He has performed at festivals including the Lucerne Festival, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival and Great Mountains Music Festival.  A career highlight is a tour with Pierre Boulez through Europe and then to Japan performing Boulez’s work, sur Incises. He has recorded for Mode Records, Gravina Musica, Naxos, Tzadik, and the Living Artists Label.  

 Praised for his “teeming energy” and “precise control” by the New York Times, bassoonist Adrian Morejon has established himself as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician. As a soloist, Morejon has appeared in New York, Boston, Vienna and Prague, with the Talea Ensemble and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Upcoming highlights include solo appearances with the IRIS Orchestra and Miami Symphony Orchestra. He will be featured in a recording of Harold Meltzer’s Full Faith and Credit, double concerto for two bassoons and string orchestra, to be released by BMOP/Sound. An active chamber musician, Morejon is a founding member of Sospiro Winds, bassoon duo Dark & Stormy, and the Gene Project, and a member of the Talea Ensemble and Metropolis Ensemble.  He has appeared with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, International Contemporary Ensemble, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest, and Boston Chamber Music Society. He completed graduate studies at Yale while studying with Frank Morelli. He also studied bassoon with Bernard Garfield and harpsichord with Lionel Party at the Curtis Institute of Music. Morejon is currently on faculty at the Boston Conservatory.

Mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger has been heard in venues including Carnegie, Alice Tully, Avery Fisher, and Merkin Halls; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C.; Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston; Wigmore Hall in London, the Philharmonie in Berlin, Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. In addition to performing works from the standard repertoire, she has enjoyed a close working relationship with some of contemporary music’s most innovative composers. She obtained her BM degree at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, and afterwards studied at the Eastman School of Music. She is currently a Lecturer in Voice at Vassar College. Nessinger has collaborated with artists including Peter Serkin, Mitsuko Uchida, Robert Spano, Ida Kavafian, Fred Sherry, David Shifrin, and has been a soloist with the Baltimore and London Symphonies, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She has sung with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Brentano, Colorado, Pacifica, Orion and Endellion String Quartets, and as a guest artist at Tanglewood and at the Ravinia Festival. She has recorded prolifically, including two recent monodramas written for her: Lee Hyla’s Lives of the Saints and Suma Beach on BMOP/Sound; and Eric Moe’s Tri-Stan on Koch International.

New York-based pianist Matei Varga is established as one of the leading young artists of his native Romania. He has performed at major venues around the world, among them Zankel Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre and Salle Gaveau (Paris), the Romanian Athenaeum and the Radio Hall (Bucharest), Royal Dramatic Theater (Stockholm), and Casals Hall (Tokyo). Mr. Varga is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including the Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona, Porto International Piano Competition and George Enescu Competition in Bucharest. He also won the Dorothy Mackenzie Artist Recognition Award at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, “Salon de Virtuosi” Career Grant and the Mannes Concerto Competition. All Music Guide wrote about his Naxos album produced by Max Wilcox, with piano music by George Enescu, that it shows “a pianist fully on top of the rather punishing and never showy virtuosity required by Enescu’s music” and declared the recording a “standout”. He holds a BA from the National University in Bucharest, a MM and Professional Studies Diploma from Mannes College. He is a teacher at the Lucy Moses Music School and the Project Manager of the Vendome Prize.

With the same vigor and dedication for traditional and avant-garde repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries, pianist Ning Yu takes on some of the most demanding music written for piano, including pieces that incorporate extended techniques, multi-media and improvisation. Ning has performed dozens of world premieres including the works of Terry Riley, Michael Gordon, Tristan Perich, and Cenk Ergün among others. She has appeared on stages worldwide including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and also the United States. As a chamber musician, Ning has performed with leading new music ensembles such as Bang on A Can – All Stars, Signal Ensemble, and theater groups Mabou Mines and the Tectonic Theater Project. Ning is a member of the New York-based percussion and piano ensemble Yarn/Wire.  A native of Shenyang, China, Ning has been living and working in New York City since 2004. 

Hope you’ll join us! We’ll have CDs there for sale. Please see my previous blog posts for more info and thoughts.

Schedule:

CD release Event: January 4

Artists’ Event: January 5

Date and time: Friday, January 4, 2012, *7 PM
Place: Spectrum
121 Ludlow Street, Second Floor, New York, NY
Tickets: $15 general/$10 students and seniors

–Live performance by Miranda and Chris of Leggii 3 and 4 from “la lontananza nostalgica utopica futura”

–Demo of the recording featuring Richard Warp’s realizations of the electronics in 5.1 channel surround sound

–Miranda performs Chris’ composition “come ricordi come sogni come echi: six
studies on Nono’s ‘la lontananza nostalgica utopica futura’ for solo violin”

–Open forum with the artists

Date and time: Saturday, January 5, 2012, *7 PM
Place: Spectrum
121 Ludlow Street, Second Floor, New York, NY
Tickets: $15 general/$10 students and seniors

–Miranda Cuckson and Chris Burns perform Dai Fujikura’s “prism spectra” for viola and live surround electronics, which they are recording for an upcoming CD

–Chris Burns presents his own compositions: “Opalescence”, a glockenspiel solo performed by Trevor Saint, and “Xenoglossia” for live electronics

–Richard Warp demonstrates his new brain-computer spatialization interface

From the press release:

“la lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” distills Nono’s manifold lifelong preoccupations – philosophy, politics, history, theater, text, spatialization, improvisation, real-world sounds, electronics and amplification – into the relatively simple medium of solo violin and 8-track tape. The work requires a highly spatialized eight-channel speaker configuration for the electronics, and the violin soloist also wanders among the audience during the performance. Previous stereo recordings did not capture this crucial aspect of the work. The DTS-CD version of this new recording endeavors to present the work as the composer intended: a “surround-sound” experience. In addition, this recording also includes an element overlooked by previous recordings: vocalizations from the violin soloist that are pivotal to Nono’s intentions.  In the words of Miranda Cuckson, “Nono’s indications for the violinist to sing illuminate the fundamentally lyrical, almost operatic quality at the heart of the work: the piece is truly a ‘madrigal’ as Nono described it.”

Schedule:

Pre-release Event: November 2

CD release Event: November 3

Date and time: Friday, November 2, 2012, 8 PM
Place: Spectrum
121 Ludlow Street, Second Floor, New York, NY
Tickets: $15 general/$10 students and seniors

–Miranda Cuckson and Chris Burns perform Dai Fujikura’s “prism spectra” for viola and live surround electronics, which they are recording for an upcoming CD

–Chris Burns presents his own compositions: “Opalescence”, a glockenspiel solo performed by Trevor Saint, and “Alligator Char”, an electric guitar/percussion duo performed by Chris and Trevor

–Richard Warp demonstrates his new brain-computer spatialization interface

Date and time: Saturday, November 3, 2012, 8 PM
Place: Spectrum
121 Ludlow Street, Second Floor, New York, NY
Tickets: $15 general/$10 students and seniors

–Live performance by Miranda and Chris of Leggii 3 and 4 from “la lontananza nostalgica utopica futura”

–Demo of the recording featuring Richard Warp’s realizations of the electronics in 5.1 channel surround sound

–Miranda performs Chris’ composition “come ricordi come sogni come echi: six
studies on Nono’s ‘la lontananza nostalgica utopica futura’ for solo violin”

–Open forum with the artists

And from my liner notes: 

There have been several recordings of “La lontananza”, including one by Kremer with Sofia Gubaidulina as sound artist, and another by violinist Melise Mellinger with Sciarrino. I recorded the piece in 2011 with composer/sound artist Christopher Burns, soon after our live performance that autumn in New York. In the performance, I was acutely aware of the physical environs (a high-ceilinged chapel); of the listeners sharing the performance space, thus eliminating the “fourth wall” between performer and audience; and of my sound mingling with the tape sounds emitted from various locations.  A few days later, I was immersed in the process of turning this intrinsically dramatic work into a recording. Any audio recording of music extracts the sound itself from its physical origins and its actual temporal context, thus creating a different experience. A recording of “La lontananza” particularly distills the piece, turning a theatrical, partly improvised musical work into a documented combination of sound elements. In this way, a recording of “La lontananza” is much like a sound recording of an opera, in that it removes the vivid visual distractions of the stage.  While this might be a partial experience of the whole, it can be a thrilling and illuminating means of focusing in on the music itself. 

I am excited that, with this recording of “La lontananza”, we actually offer two  ways to listen to Nono’s piece: in stereo and in surround-sound. In stereo, you will hear simply the music itself from a concentrated sound source. In surround-sound, you will experience a recording that restores the sense of spatialization – and thus theater – to the piece. Through current technology, the “musique concrète” sounds come alive as if actually happening in the same room, the wandering of the violinist-figure is ghostly but palpable and the listener’s role in the work feels central and participatory as in a live performance. I am truly delighted that we are able to create such a tantalizingly immediate experience of this great work for the first time.

A couple years ago, I started looking into “La lontananza” and was drawn strongly to its magnetic synthesis of music, theater, text and socio-political awareness. I feel its evocation of the refugee’s condition is as urgent today as twenty years ago. I am delighted to work with Chris Burns and Richard Warp, who have done such brilliant, sensitive work on this piece and recording. I am grateful to New Spectrum Foundation, Urlicht Audiovisual, Glenn Cornett and Gene Gaudette for making this project possible.

Hope you all had a wonderful summer! I had a really great time playing at various festivals, enjoying lots of really involving, moving and fun music and some lovely locations. Now shifting gears somewhat to focus on the year ahead..  performances are now posted on my calendar page. This year there are a number of things pending, which I will post and fill you in on as they get finalized – such as a CD release concert in the spring for my Sessions/Carter/Eckardt CD on Meyefi Records (which will feature full performances of the pieces on the CD); a couple more events presented by nunc, my new non-profit organization that is just now getting going; a concert featuring Donald Martino’s music; another performance in Chicago..  It is a busy recording year for me, three CDs in the works of solo and duo music, violin and viola, with electronics and piano. Very exciting and thought-inducing pieces, some that I’ve performed, some that I’m now learning and plan definitely to perform live for you soon. My new CD of Nono’s “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura”, the first recording of the piece to feature surround-sound and Nono’s vocalizations as indicated in the score, will have its release on November 3 at Spectrum. 

Here’s to a terrific, productive year ahead.

New and recent violin music, coming up!  On Friday, July 13, I am going to perform a solo violin recital at NYC’s Bargemusic. I hope you’ll come and enjoy it! It is such a great pleasure to play at this unique venue by the Brooklyn Bridge and I particularly love it there in the summer. I’m playing on the “Here and Now” series, which features contemporary works. I’m pleased about the program I am presenting, as the pieces are all by composer friends (or family) with whom I’ve worked. In most cases, I have known them for some years and have given performances and made recordings of their solo and chamber works. This concert alternates three short works (3-5 min.) with longer ones.

Program:

Saariaho wrote her Nocturne for solo violin in 1994. She had just commenced work on a new violin concerto called Graal Theatre when the great Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski died. In her sadness, she immediately composed her Nocturne, which was performed in Helsinki. Returning to work on her violin concerto, she then decided to use the Nocturne as its opening material. The piece progresses slowly in languorous sighs and heaving waves. It utilizes resonant harmonies, the open strings of the violin, fluttering harmonic trills and crunchy, bow-pressure sounds – a color that she employs with an unusual delicacy.–M.C.

Oscar Bianchi:  Semplice

I am performing a recital with Aaron Wunsch at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC on April 15 at 3pm. Here are program notes I wrote for it. Hope you enjoy! Come and hear if you are in the area!

Phillips Collection link

Miranda

This recital program, consisting of the Violin Sonatas of Leos Janácek and Richard Strauss and a suite of transcriptions by Ross Lee Finney, presents two streams of commonalities among the works to be performed. One is the composers’ nationalistic use of folkloric material, and the other is the flowering of an ornate, stylistically individual Romanticism in the late 19th-early 20th centuries.

The Czech composer Janácek (1854-1928) developed a highly personalized manner of writing that incorporated piquant inflections and gestures from Moravian folksong, remarkably vivid atmospheres, and a beguiling mixture of fantastical and earthy qualities. Deeply involved in the collection and study of his country’s folk music, Janácek was a forerunner to the ethnomusicological work of Hungarians Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and was contemporaneous with Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, whose music also displayed a personal association with folksong. Janácek became known mainly for his vibrantly colorful and soulfully moving operas – Jenufa, Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Makropoulos Case, House of the Dead- and he put much of his own effort into seeing those works produced in opera halls. However, his small but tremendously distinctive output of chamber works garnered great fondness and admiration in later years. These works often had an autobiographical bent – relating to his youth, falling in love etc. They include some piano pieces (Into the Mists, the Sonata), two programmatic and fiercely Romantic string quartets, and the Sonata for Violin and Piano.

The Violin Sonata was written in 1914 amid the early rumbles of World War I. Janácek kept revising the piece until 1920, by which time he was at work on his opera Katya Kabanova. It is in four movements, with moods that shift suddenly from sweetly wistful and warmly relaxed to breathless and impassioned. Pizzicato gestures evoke sounds from nature, and melodies have a plainness and directness that contrasts with the flourishes that suddenly erupt throughout the piece.

German composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949) possessed a very identifiable compositional style that combined extravagantly swirling lines and intricately layered textures with advanced chromatic harmonies. Following on the innovations of Liszt and Wagner, Strauss and his contemporary Gustav Mahler took Romanticism to heady extremes of complexity, intensity and harmonic experimentation. Though florid and seemingly free-flowing, Strauss’ works form remarkably cohesive expressions of emotion, whether of heroic grandeur, poignant longing, tenderness or ardent romantic outpouring. Strauss did not profess particular interest in folk music, but certain elements, such as horn calls and snippets of melody, evoke the indigenous music of the Bavarian countryside.

Strauss was mainly renowned for his operas – Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Salome, Ariadne auf Naxos, Capriccio – his orchestral tone poems – Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, Ein Heldeleben – and his songs. However, he did produce a small number of chamber works, mostly earlier in his career. These include the Cello Sonata, the Piano Sonata, and the Violin Sonata in E-flat major. The Violin Sonata was written in 1887-8 and is considered the last of his works to adhere to classical forms (mainly the sonata allegro of the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo). At the time of writing the piece, he was in love with the soprano Pauline de Ahna, and the work exudes a youthful, optimistic exuberance and an undercurrent of sweetness that pervades even the bold virtuoso writing. The second movement, titled Improvisation, meanders gently; its wistfulness and hovering dreaminess are qualities that recur throughout much of his oeuvre. The closing Finale movement opens with a somber introduction in the piano, after which the instruments sally forth with almost orchestral grandeur and sweep.

Ross Lee Finney (1906-1997) belonged to the generation of American composers that included Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Walter Piston and Virgil Thomson- artists who grappled with the conflicting European and homegrown influences on American classical music and sought to define it as a distinct national art form. Finney, who was born in Minnesota and grew up in North Dakota, sang folksongs with his family during his childhood, and he always retained a great love and affinity for the tunes of his native land. Following studies with Nadia Boulanger and Alban Berg, Finney sought to incorporate the twelve-tone method with material and melodic/harmonic qualities drawn from folksong, and the fluctuating balance of these elements formed the central dynamic of his compositions throughout his life. Though never a hugely well-known composer, he had some high-profile premieres and was a much-regarded teacher for decades at the University of Michigan, where his pupils included George Crumb and William Bolcom.

Fiddle-doodle-ad is a suite of transcriptions of American folktunes. Written in 1945, it comes from a time when Finney was making much direct usage of folk material in his compositions. The piece was a nationalistic response as World War II was reaching a close. The eight melodies are presented simply, with little embellishment or departure from their basic forms, and with subtly enriched harmonic support.  The suite is artfully organized in a satisfying sequence of moods, ranging from the rambunctiousness of Rye Whiskey and Rippytoe Ray to the sorrowful Wayfaring Stranger, and from the pure simplicity of The Nightingale to the intriguing asymmetries of Cotton Eye Joe and Oh, Lovely Appearance of Death.