UW composers Jeff Bowen, Arshia Ashari, Melissa Wang, Huck Hodge, Joe Krycia, and Sandesh Nagaraj explore unconventional sonic landscapes in this concert presented by the UW Composition program.
Program
Jeff Bowen
Ignition/Convection for computer-realized sound
Arshia Ashari
Within This Sleepless Bed of Secrecy
Dalma Ashby, solo violin
Melissa Wang
Maybe a phone call or two, or three, or five, or six, or thirty
Kimani Bishop, tenor steel pan; Jai Lasker, electric guitar; Logan Bellenkes, electric bass; Rose Martin, voice & 2 non-resonant objects; Galin Hebert, drum set; Melissa Wang, tape & electronics
—Intermission—
Joe Krycia
Cello Sonata, 2020-?
Peter Tracy, cello
Sandesh Nagaraj
Against the black tide of mud
Sandesh Nagaraj, Musical spoons and voice
Huck Hodge
re[(f)uƨɘ]
mi
x
Huck Hodge, melodica, styrofoam, electronics
Program Notes
Ignition/Convection
This study derives its sound material exclusively from a recording of a single match being struck against a matchbox and bursting into flame. In addition to serving as the sole sound source in the work, the striking of a match guides the formal design of the piece as well as a gestural image. The first third of the piece—the ‘ignition’—consists of several varieties of noise-based textures confronting one another and developing into a sound mass which eventually peaks and dissipates. In the remainder of the work, new periodic and harmonic structures are progressively revealed, as flames are drawn out after a moment of ignition through the dynamic effects of convection currents in the air.
I, within this sleepless bed of secrecy,
seek once more the dreamlike figures of your visage
–Ahmad Shamlou, Nocturne (1954)
Maybe a phone call or two, or three, or five, or six, or thirty is about obsession. For example: obnoxious and consecutive phone calls late at night, and blocking the number will not be helpful because they will find another way to contact you. Reality is skewed when people become obsessed with something or someone.
The piece is bitonal, featuring tenor steelpan, electric guitar, electric bass, drum set, voice, two percussive sounds, and pre-recorded tapes. The first and fourth movements are read with sheet music, the second movement through a graphic score, and the third movement through written instructions. The hymn in the piece is “How Long” by Peter Wang.
Against the black tide of mud
An improvisation using wooden spoons that employs a single rhythmic structure that I composed using Carnatic rhythm syllables. The sound of the wooden spoons are transformed using an octave pedal and a short delay.
re[(f)uƨɘ]
mi
x
refuse (n.)
refuse (v.)
reuse (v.)
ruse (n.)
fuse (n.)
re-fuse (v.)
Hidden in this word are a number of conceits, each of which informs the piece in its own way. Among them, my abiding interest in uncovering beauty in nominally ugly junk and the delight I take in auditory illusions. Through slight shifts in the voicing and registration of a harmonic collection, a protean shift results: noise becomes dissonant harmony, dissonant harmonies fuse into complex timbres, timbres melt into single pitches. re[(f)use] was commissioned by Music at the Anthology for the JACK Quartet (the original version consisting of parts for melodica, string quartet, and electronics). This performance is of a revised version for solo melodica and electronics that was premiered earlier this fall at CNMAT in Berkeley, CA.