Seattle Modern Orchestra with UW Modern Music Ensemble: Music of UW Student Composers

Julia Tai leads the Seattle Modern Orchestra and members of the UW Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Valdés, director) in a program featuring the West Coast premiere of Clocks for Seeing by guest composer Anthony Cheung and world premieres by UW graduate students Justin Zeitlinger, Joe Krycia, Melissa Wang, and Yonatan Ron. With guest faculty Carrie Shaw, soprano. 

Program

artifact: Elegy for ensemble* (2024): Justin Zeitlinger (b. 2000)
simulacrum I, for five instruments
simulacrum II, for ten instruments
simulacrum III, for fifteen instruments

Times sway. Echoes, decay… for seven instruments* (2024): Yonatan Ron (b. 1992)
I. Times sway
II. Echoes, decay…

Red Blood Spills and Pools the Same* (2024): Melissa Wang; Text by Wayne Allen Jones (b. 1999)
Carrie Shaw, soprano

- Intermission -

Clocks for Seeing for six musicians** (2023): Anthony Cheung (b. 1982)
I.
II.
III.
IV.
 

Untiteld for ensemble* (2024):  Joe Krycia (b. 1993)

“Clocks for Seeing” was commissioned by the Talea Ensemble, and funded by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Mellon Foundation.

*World premiere
**West Coast premiere

Personnel

Seattle Modern Orchestra

Clarinet/Bass Clarinet: Angelique Poteat

Oboe: Dan Williams

Alto Saxophone: Soren Hamm

Trumpet: Alexander White

Violin I: Luke Fitzpatrick

Viola: Rose Hashimoto

Cello: Ha-Yang Kim

Piano: Cristina Valdés

UW Modern Music Ensemble

Flute/Piccolo/Bass Flute: Rachel Reyes

Flute/Alto Flute: Katelyn Campbell

Bassoon: Ryan Kaspandy

Trombone: Nate Wyttenbach

Tuba: Cole Henslee

French Horn: Nicole Bogner

Violin II: Justin Zeitlinger

Viola: Abigail Schidler

Bass: Eddie Nikishina

Electric Guitar: Nick Mendonsa

Piano: Ella Kalinichenko

Piano/Keyboard: Alex Fang

Percussion: Rose Martin, Melissa Wang

Program Notes

Justin Zeitlinger: artifact: Elegy for ensemble
One of the earliest full-length pieces I ever wrote is Fantasy for String Quintet (2014); the second movement is titled “Elegia.” (I cannot recall what compelled me to write an elegy at thirteen years old!) artifact: Elegy is an attempt to reflect on this work of my past and to examine the nature of the elegy, which here serves to mourn not bodily death but the constant smaller dissolutions of identity intrinsic to lived experience.

To begin, a live audio recording of “Elegia” was taken into Audacity, then tempo-compressed and re-expanded to its original length three separate times in increasing degrees of compression. To perform this operation, Audacity uses a high-quality tempo change algorithm called sub-band sinusoidal modeling synthesis (SBSMS). In short, SBSMS performs a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) of the input sound in fixed chunks, or windows, and reconstructs its frequencies using oscillators over the new target length. The nature of the windowing inherently constrains the frequency and time resolution with each successive compression and re-expansion of the file, which not only corrupts the accuracy of the its spectral content but also adds unintended presences in the sound, called artifacts. The “artifact” in the title thus serves a double meaning, referring also to “Elegia” as a distant relic of my personal past. 

The final layer of reconstruction was the transcription of these renderings for an ensemble of acoustic instruments. With the help of the Orchidea package for Max, I drafted orchestrations of the new sound files. Further algorithmic processing of each instrument’s onsets, durations, and dynamics was done in bach to mimic the particular expressive qualities of the files, while preserving the metrical and structural framework of the original. The three pieces that comprise artifact: Elegy call upon the performers to artificially patch together the disparate sonic content as one organism—by necessity, they grow in ensemble size as well as rhythmic and microtonal complexity. In the third piece, the full string quintet of “Elegia” is restored along with ten other instruments. 

I have taken to labeling the written pieces as “simulacra,” drawing upon the concept of the hyperreal developed by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007). In presenting three copies with no original, the line between identifiable reality and representation is subjected to a poignant process of blurring and ultimate collapse. 

Yonatan Ron: Times sway. Echoes, decay… for seven instruments
The piece explores different types of oscillations, these may present themselves in the form of a simple, repeated melodic interval at a regular rate, or complex, acoustic beats that occur when an interval smaller than a semi-tone is sustained. This notion of stable & regular ratios is also used to serve the majority of rhythmic & metric detail in the piece.

The first movement is based on cascading, scalic patterns that transform into slow melodic-steps and vice versa. While the texture is mostly polyphonic, many phrases and strata intersect with heterophony as well as homophony due to the voices’ proximity in range, or similarity in timbre and rhythm. This movement starts and develops with dense contrapuntal textures and concludes with sparsely voiced chords.

The second movement resonates with the concepts of the first and serves as an echo of the materials explored in it. Differently than the first movement, apart from the imitations at its beginning, in this movement - the degree of autonomy among voices is high, given that voices differ from each other in either rhythm, timbre, or range.

Both movements develop in an interrupted continuous way. There are barely any sudden changes, raptures, nor rests, so that when they occur, their dramatic impact seems substantial.

Melissa Wang: Red Blood Spills and Pools the Same
Red Blood Spills and Pools the Same was inspired by Wayne Allen Jones's poem "jua huwaka ngozi nyeupe" (white skin peels when burned). This work highlights combinations of short percussive sounds such as flute tongue pizzicatos, voiced "ss ss", scraping fingernails on drum heads, drum sticks sliding across the piano keys, and muted piano strings. 

jua huwaka ngozi nyeupe (white skin peels when burned)

damu yote ni sawa (red blood spills and pools the same)

roho ziko wazi kama miungu (souls are clear like gods)

– Wayne Allen Jones

Anthony Cheung: Clocks for Seeing for six musicians (2023)
“For me the noise of Time is not sad: I love bells, clocks, watches – and I recall that at first photographic implements were related to techniques of cabinetmaking and the machinery of precision: cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing, and perhaps in me someone very old still hears in the photographic mechanism the living sound of the wood.”

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

Joe Krycia: Untiteld for ensemble
Looking back on my compositional output now that I am at the end of my Doctoral studies, I've noticed how many different stylistic shifts I have gone through, including how quick I've been to abandon a style to explore something new. I no longer feel the need to isolate these stylistic interests, and instead want to synthesize all of my interests in every piece I compose going forward. In Untiteld, you will hear tonality, noise, technical complexity, drone, repetition and free improv, often all at once.

Biographies

Julia Tai

Praised by the Seattle Times as “poised yet passionate,” Julia Tai is one of today’s most dynamic conductors on the international stage. She has conducted orchestras all over the world. Currently, she is the Music Director of Missoula Symphony Orchestra & Chorale, and the Co-Artistic Director of the Seattle Modern Orchestra. Recognized as a prominent innovator of the contemporary music world, she has worked with legendary composers, performers, and ensembles such as Jonathan Harvey, Tristan Murail, Robert Aitken, Séverine Ballon, Claire Chase, Stephen Drury, Graeme Jennings, Garth Knox, Carol Robinson, Steven Schick, International Contemporary Ensemble and Ensemble Modern. Under her direction, Seattle Modern Orchestra is a grant recipient of NewMusicUSA, The Amphion Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Washington State Arts Commission, 4Culture, and Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.

Seattle Modern Orchestra

Founded in 2010, Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) is the only large ensemble in the Pacific Northwest solely dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Led by co-artistic directors Julia Tai and Jérémy Jolley, SMO commissions and premieres new works from an international lineup of composers, in addition to presenting important pieces from the contemporary repertoire that are rarely if ever heard by Seattle audiences. The ensemble “operates at that exciting cusp between old and new, between tradition and innovation” (Vanguard Seattle) curating new sounds and experiences for concert goers in the region.

SMO provides audiences with performances of the best in contemporary chamber and orchestral music, and develops radio talks, lectures, and other forms of outreach in an accessible and inviting format all designed to expand the listener’s appreciation and awareness of the music of today.

Anthony Cheung 

Composer and pianist Anthony Cheung writes music that explores the senses, a wide palette of instrumental play and affect, improvisational traditions, reimagined musical artifacts, and multiple layers of textual meaning. Described as “gritty, inventive and wonderfully assured” (San Francisco Chronicle) and praised for its “instrumental sensuality” (Chicago Tribune), his music reveals an interest in the ambiguity of sound sources and constantly shifting transformations of tuning and timbre. As critic Paul Griffiths writes, “Anthony Cheung has an intensely accurate sense of where his notes are going, and how and why…[his music’s] precision is responsible for a wealth of sonic magic.”

Modern Music Ensemble

Performing repertoire spanning from the 20th century to works by living composers, the Modern Music Ensemble presents three academic year concerts focused on diverse and innovative programming. Under the directorship of Cristina Valdés since 2016, the ensemble has given numerous premieres and performed the works of both established and younger composers such as Patricia Alessandrini, Katie Balch, Olga Neuwirth, Chaya Czernowin, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Beat Furer, Kaija Saariaho, George Lewis, Wang Lu, José-Luis Hurtado, Pierre Boulez, Oliver Schneller, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and Ania Vu, amongst many others. The ensemble works regularly with visiting composers, conductors, and coaches/performers. Guests have included Stephen Drury, Garth Knox, Ursula Oppens, and Ludovic Morlot.

Carrie Shaw

Praised in the New York Times “as graceful vocally as she was in her movements”, “consistently stylish” (Boston Globe), and as a “cool, precise soprano” (Chicago Tribune), Carrie Henneman Shaw is a two-time McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians winner (2010, 2017). She has premiered major works by such Minnesota composers as Jocelyn Hagen and Abbie Betinis, whose annual Christmas carols she records for Minnesota Public Radio, and sung American premieres by such composers as Georg Friedrich Haas, Hans Thomalla, and Augusta Read Thomas. In addition to her work as an interpreter of contemporary works, Carrie specializes in music of the 17th century and has performed operatic roles with one of America’s leading Baroque opera companies, Boston Early Music Festival. Carrie is a member of Chicago’s Ensemble Dal Niente, Quince Ensemble, and uluuul. She holds degrees in English and voice performance from Lawrence University and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota.