The University of Washington Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Valdés, director) performs works by Jonathan Harvey, Wolfgang Rihm, Luciano Berio, Nicole Lizée, and an improvised duet for ensemble and conductor, led by School of Music professor Steph Richards.
Program
Still for tuba and electronics (1997): Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012)
Cole Henslee, tuba
Drei Vorspiele zu einer Insel (2003): Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024)
Sehr ruhig
Sehr rasch
Sehr ruhig
Rachel Reyes, flute; Taylor DeCastro, violin; Tyler Smith, percussion
O King (1968): Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
Cassidy Cheong, voice; Rachel Reyes, flute; Cameron DeLuca, clarinet; Taylor DeCastro, violin; Christine Lee, cello; Olivia Hsu, piano
Music for Body-Without-Organs (2011): Nicole Lizée. (b. 1973)
Rachel Reyes, flute & bass flute; Cameron Deluca, clarinet, bass clarinet & harmonica; Taylor DeCastro, violin; Christine Lee, cello; Ella Kalinichenko, piano; Tyler Smith, percussion
Conduction #148 (2025): Steph Richards (b. 1982)
an improvised duet for ensemble and conductor
Cassidy Cheong, voice; Rachel Reyes, flute; Cameron DeLuca, clarinet; Cole Henslee, tuba; Taylor DeCastro, violin; Olivia Hsu, piano; Tyler Smith, percussion; Steph Richards, conductor
Program Notes
Still for tuba and electronics (1997)
Known for his musical ideas and technological innovations, English composer Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) was deeply influenced by spirituality and sought a musical space beyond time–a “new type of music”. This search for a free, flexible musical language led him to utilize the capabilities of electronics to further explore a new sonic landscape he coined as “the new Pythagoreanism” in the late 1990s. His work for solo tuba and electronics, Still (1997), calls for the soloist to improvise around a series of eight chords. The combination of sustained reverberated chords and free improvisation create eight new musical scenes.
—Rachel Reyes
O King (1968)
Moved by the death of the American civil-rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., Luciano Berio (1925-2003) wrote a short piece with the text consisting solely of his name. O King (1968) was initially composed for voice, flute, B-flat clarinet, violin, cello, piano and calls for the voice to blend in as a part of the ensemble. The vocal part begins with just the vowels followed by the consonants of Martin Luther King Jr.’s name. At the climax of the piece, the voice soars above the ensemble and gives his name in full during the final few measures. Following the completion of the chamber version, Berio included a symphonic edition of this piece as the second movement of Sinfonia (1968-69) for eight amplified voices and orchestra.
—Rachel Reyes
Music for Body-Without-Organs (2011)
Deleuze and Guattari’s body-without-organs is defined as an anomalous shapeshifter—it is fluid, boundless, mutable, and in a continual process of ‘becoming’—no longer confined by the medical profession’s corporeal boundaries. In her book Deleuze and Horror Film author Anna Powell analyses horror film from a Deleuzian perspective and conceptualizes the body-without-organs as it applies to certain films and characters from the genre. Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Tourneur’s Cat People, Verhoeven’s Hollow Man are some of the films that feature this type of entity. She also looks in great depth at the literal body-without-organs: i.e. the character Frank Cotton in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser whose organs gradually restore themselves throughout the film after being torn to shreds by the Cenobites.
Music for Body-Without-Organs is a sonic representation of this continuous process of movement and flux and the fusion of elements to form new entities. It is what I imagine these characters would dance or listen to while going about their business. The work is continuously shifting and mutating. It has moments of trance-like material, elements of glitch, psychedelic touches, and a distorted interpretation of ambient music.
While composing the piece I also envisioned a striking scene from Herk Harvey’s 1962 cult classic Carnival of Souls. It involves the main character Mary Henry, who is perhaps a zombie, possessed, or simply undead (it is never really made clear, only that there is something “off” about her). While practicing hymns alone in church one night she falls into a trance. The hymns suddenly mutate into eerie and twisted melodies. Her pointed toes begin to work the organ’s pedals with fierce abandon. Her fingers rapidly caress the keys with more and more urgency while she sways and contorts her body to the music. As she moves deeper into a trance, ghouls materialize and begin dancing to her demonic music. Arriving in time to avert the song’s conclusion, the church’s minister appears, pulls her hands off of the keys and proclaims the music sacrilege.
—Nicole Lizée
Drei Vorspiele zu einer Insel (2003)
The highly prolific composer Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024) was one of the leading figures of the new wave of German music in the 1970s that leaned more towards free expression and emotion over structuralism. His profound interests in visual arts, literature, and philosophy greatly influenced his works. Having described himself as a “pathless wanderer”, his works explore an unrestrained musical climate–free to meander and move towards unforeseen possibilities of colors and forms. Drei Vorspiele zu einer Insel (2003) or Three Preludes for an Island showcase Rihm’s musical ideals in three short movements for flute, violin, and percussion. Each movement traverses diverse musical climates moving from ethereal motifs, cacophonous explosions, and long winding melodies that disappear into the atmosphere.
Rachel Reyes
Conduction #148 (2025)
an improvised duet for ensemble and conductor
—Steph Richards