Guest Orchestra Concert: Seattle Modern Orchestra, Tribute: Joël-François Durand

Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) completes its third annual residency at the UW with a 70th birthday celebration of UW Composition Professor and School of Music Director Joël-François Durand. SMO presents an evening of world premieres, conducted by UW alum Julia Tai, with works written in tribute to Durand by his former students Byron Au Yong, Jeff Bowen, Yiğit Kolat, Eric Flesher, and Ryan Hare, plus a world premiere by graduate student composer Yonatan Ron. 

Program

Guest Ensemble: Seattle Modern Orchestra
70th Birthday Celebration Concert in Honor of Joël-François Durand 
Featuring Alumni and Student Works

Still Moves (2025): Yonatan Ron

La descente de l'ange (2022): Joël-François Durand

Five Verses (2025): Eric Flesher

Toward the Eighth Climate (2025): Jeffrey Bowen

Toccata “au fil de la plume” (2024): Ryan M. Hare

La quatrième mélodie (2024/25): Yiğit Kolat

Stars Whisper 星星低语 Les Murmures des Étoiles (2025): Byron Au Yong

Julia Tai, conductor 
Sarah Pyle, flute/piccolo 
Rachel Yoder, clarinets 
Luke Fitzpatrick, violin  
Christine Lee, cello 
Cristina Valdés, piano and keyboards 
Bonnie Whiting, percussion

Program Notes

JOËL-FRANÇOIS DURAND
La descente de l'ange for Bb clarinet and violin was written in 2022 and is the fourth in a series of works in which I explore the use of the acoustic phenomenon of first-order beats as musical gestures to create structural and formal materials. In this piece, the appearance of the intervals that create the beats is reached very progressively: generally speaking, the musical phrases use intervals that get smaller and smaller, so that the ear is slowly guided into this world of very small intervals.

The formal trajectory is composed of a series of metamorphosis of the original gesture: in each step, the notion of melodic and harmonic interval changes slightly. At first, we hear a somewhat typical, descending melodic line in the clarinet, constantly disturbed by the sliding lines of the violin (first “disturbance”). The ambitus of the melodic lines gets progressively smaller and, eventually, all the melodic motions are contained within a minor 2nd. These movements are centered around D, and soon even these tiny melodic movements stop; all that remains is the D. But as the intervals were getting smaller, the phenomenon of first-order beats started to become more and more apparent. Eventually, the D “disappears” because it is not moving anymore, and the beats themselves take center stage. The very notion of pitch is replaced by the static movement of the beat patterns. We have now reached the center of the metamorphosis: our perception has progressively shifted because the perspective in which the notes are presented has radically changed.

Retrospectively, we can now realize that the first measures of the piece already announced the zooming-in that constitutes the trajectory toward this last step; and we see that the germ for the beats that take center stage was already present in the descending melodic lines: it was actually the “disturbance” created by the violin line against the clarinet’s. It is then clear that the formal concept of the piece is not just a “variation” on the melodic lines heard in the first section, but the idea of disturbance between the two instruments.

BYRON AU YONG
Stars Whisper 星星低语 Les Murmures des Étoiles
During my first composition lesson with Joël Durand, I shared a sketch for violin and piano, inspired by music from John Cage, who had recently passed away. Joël asked me what I wanted to accomplish from this simple score. I replied that I felt stuck with fragments, so he encouraged me to study musical forms as well as non-musical structures. Eight weeks later, I had a 32-page composition called The Moon Embalmed in Phosphorus, inspired by Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, medieval rhythmic modes, and an overall trajectory prompted by the big bang theory. 

30 years later, I continue with the modernist dilemma of fragmentation, but with the knowledge and skills I learned while studying with Joël. Stars Whisper 星星低语 Les Murmures des Étoiles includes 28 sonic moments that are in clusters of seven related to the cardinal directions (north-south-east-west), as well as the seasons (winter, summer, spring, autumn). The ensemble plays together as if reading a star map to create sonic constellations inspired by the 28 Mansions of Chinese cosmology. that traces the movement of the moon—and in this offering—through the whispering of the stars.

JEFFREY BOWEN
Toward the Eighth Climate
The “eighth climate” of the title refers to an order of reality posited by the 12th-century Persian mystic and philosopher Suhrawardī and elaborated by the 20th-century French philosopher Henry Corbin (in whose writings Joël-François Durand and I share an interest). For Suhrawardī and Corbin, this eighth climate is an intermediate domain, existing between the world of the sensible (that which we experience through our senses) and the realm of the intelligible (i.e. the realm of ideas, forms, and archetypes, accessible through intellectual reflection).  

Engaged metaphorically within the compositional environment of this short piece, this idea of an intermediate realm evoked for me an intriguing threshold space—between perception of distinct acoustical phenomena and an apprehension of their interrelationships within larger musical entities. Contemplating a movement toward this threshold suggested a musical trajectory that gradually leads a short melodic formula (derived from the dastgāhs of traditional Persian music) from a state of fragmentation and distortion toward (but never quite reaching) alignment and stability—inviting the listener to co-construct this central musical object through active imagination.

ERIC FLESHER
Five Verses
Five Verses was created from a basic span of time containing rhythmic structures at various points. Beyond this, I (somewhat uncharacteristically) had no real plan; I read through this span in five turns (i.e., “verses”), backwards and forwards, each time choosing structures at different time points. These served as a formal background for the piece, whose worlds of pitch and timbre were mostly intuitively derived. I then allowed ideas and textures to evolve over the course of the five verses.  

RYAN M. HARE
Toccata “au fil de la plume”
Joël-François Durand was my primary composition teacher and the chair of my doctoral committee at the UW, and there can be no question that his ideas and music have had a strong, lasting influence on my own. While the music I write doesn’t often seem on the surface to sound much like Joël’s, on a deeper level, in the musical structure and in the manipulation of music material, the influence may be consistently discerned. Because it honors Joël’s importance to me and my great admiration for his music, in this piece, Toccata “au fil de la plume” for violin, cello, vibraphone, and piano, I leaned on these elements in a more clearly salient way.

The French expression “au fil de la plume” was one I encountered in Joël’s book, Joël-François Durand in the Mirrorland (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). Many of the ideas therein had been shared with me previously in lessons, and so their appearance and consolidation in the book has meant that I return to it fairly regularly, and in fact did so just before starting on this commission. The expression means “along the line of the pen,” referring to writing one’s ideas down just as they come, from the imagination straight to the paper. This is a critical topic in Joël’s book: pre-compositional planning versus allowing the imagination to flow unfettered, whether to be considered in terms of balance, or indeed in terms of collisions and clashes.

The foundation for this Toccata lies in the cello part, which is lifted straight from my composition for unaccompanied double bass, Lyric Étude No. 17 (2021). On top of this, I have layered on counterpoint in the other instruments, some of which was planned in advance and executed strictly, and some of which was interpolated against the base material freely and quasi improvisationally. 

YİĞİT KOLAT
La quatrième mélodie
The title La quatrième mélodie relates to Durand’s 2004 article “Melody—Three Situations: Un Feu distinct, La Terre et le feu, Athanor.” In this article, the composer describes three unique situations where melodic lines assume different roles in shaping the music. Durand’s recent work appears to introduce a fourth situation, where the fundamental unity between pitch, rhythm, and timbre is emphasized. A hallmark of this “fourth melody” is the perceptual phenomenon of beating patterns arising from frequencies in close proximity.

Despite what the title might imply, a “fourth melody” never fully appears in this piece. Instead, we encounter only failed emulations—gestures that seem poised to form a fourth melody but always fall short. Even an excerpt from Durand’s Geister, schwebende Geister, repeated as a refrain, is prevented from becoming one. The irony is that, despite all the struggle in the musical narrative, the work ultimately stems from a process that generates musical materials via a mathematical representation of beating patterns. 

YONATAN RON
Still Moves
In discussions on coherence in Western concert music, collages were often viewed as incoherent and jumbled forms due to their fusional nature, which led to a perceived lack of consistency. This criticism doesn’t necessarily apply to arts that are presented as static objects, like sculpture, painting, or architectural design—where coherence is judged by the unity of the (static) form. In contrast, this issue is relevant for art “in actus”—art that evolves over time, such as music, theatre, video, and dance—where coherence is assessed based on the temporal evolution and where forms gradually unfold.

The motivation for this piece began with my curiosity about what it would take to compose a collage that is uninterrupted and continuous, yet clearly communicates as a collage made of distinct materials, which, also when seeming to reappear, have been reformed to merely allude to their initial presentation.

As the piece unfolds, fundamentally different ideas transform into one another, with each transition ensuring that one parameter—pitch collection, register, dynamics, duration, or timbre—remains unchanged across successive ideas.

The image I envisioned while composing was that of a dark ride at an amusement park, where the emphasis lies in the paradox of expecting the unexpected.

Biographies

Seattle Modern Orchestra

Founded in 2010, Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) is the only large ensemble in the Pacific Northwest dedicated solely to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Led by co-artistic directors Julia Tai and Bonnie Whiting, 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.  

Co-Artistic Directors: Julia Tai and Bonnie Whiting 
Founding Director: Jérémy Jolley 
Managing Director: Michelle Cheng 
IT Specialist: David Schneider 
Administrative Coordinator: Mina Pariseau 

Byron Au Yong creates musical works that have been featured at American Conservatory Theater, Hawai'i Opera, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Nashville Opera, and more. Honors include a Creative Capital Award and Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellowship. He holds degrees in theater, dance, and music from NYU, UCLA, and the University of Washington, and currently serves as an Associate Professor and Director of Arts Leadership at Seattle University. He studied with Joël Durand from 1992-1996.

Jeffrey Bowen’s compositional works feature gradually evolving processes and explorations of liminal spaces, and have been performed by Pascal Gallois, Maja Cerar, Beta Collide, Ensemble DissonArt, and the Luminosity Orchestra, among other ensembles in the USA and Europe. He has recently presented work at the University of Washington’s Harry Partch Festival, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the International Computer Music Conference, the SEAMUS national conference, and as a resident artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Recent projects have been supported by the Jack Straw Foundation and by Seattle’s 4Culture and Artist Trust organizations, and his work What Will Sound (was already sound), for violin and electronics, was released by Parma Records in 2020. His music has been recognized with a First Prize in the 30th International Composition Competition “Città di Barletta,” and with second prizes from the European Composer Competition in 2021 and from the American Prize in 2023. He is currently based in Seattle, where he teaches music theory and guitar at Seattle University and is co-director of the Inverted Space Ensemble. He completed his doctoral studies in composition at the University of Washington under Joël-François Durand.

Eric Flesher earned his DMA in Music Composition at the University of Washington, studying under Joël-François Durand. His previous teachers include Paul-Heinz Dittrich, Alexander Goehr, and Aurelio de la Vega. He has served on the faculties of University of Washington, Central Washington University, and Edmonds College and has additionally spent decades teaching privately. His recent music has primarily involved modular synthesizers, often taking natural sound sources both as inspiration and as a means of creating sound worlds.

Born 1970 in Reno, Nevada, Ryan M. Hare, composer and bassoonist, now lives in Pullman, Washington. He earned tenure and the rank of full Professor at Washington State University, where he taught composition, bassoon, and music theory from 2003 until 2020, when he decided to take a voluntary early retirement in order to focus his attention on composing.

Ryan’s music has been performed at a large variety of venues and festivals worldwide, in as diverse locations as Tokyo and Darmstadt, and in the United Kingdom, South America, Southeast Asia, and China. Commissioners include Fred Korman, who was the longtime former principal oboist of the Oregon Symphony, and the Washington Music Teachers Association, who awarded Ryan "Washington State Composer of the Year" in 2012. Further commissions have come from the Walla Walla Symphony, Mid-Columbia Symphony, Washington Idaho Symphony, Marysville Chamber Music, Common Tone Arts, Affinity Chamber Players, the University of Idaho Vandaleers Concert Choir, and the Lake Forest College Orchestra, among others. His music has been championed by performers and ensembles around the world, with notable recognition from New Music USA, Artist Trust, and the American Prize. In addition, a number of Ryan's compositions are published by TrevCo Music Publishing and ALEA Publishing, and his composition Taratantara: Flourish for Orchestra was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Yiğit Kolat’s music draws inspirations and expressions from a wide array of topics ranging from bytebeats to the application and ethics of artificial intelligence in music. The complicated political and social landscape of his native Turkey is a recurring theme in his diverse output. His works, described as “touching and convincing...a multi-sensory universe,” (K. Saariaho) have been recognized by a prestigious array of international organizations, including the Tōru Takemitsu Composition Award, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the Concours International de Composition Henri Dutilleux. His music has been featured throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia by leading ensembles, among them the Tokyo Philharmonic, Nieuw Ensemble, and Talea Ensemble. He has presented his research at conferences such as Conference on AI Music Creativity (University of Oxford), Spectralisms International Conference (IRCAM), and Reëmbodied Sound Symposium (Columbia University). Kolat currently teaches at the University of Washington, where he completed his doctoral studies under Joël-François Durand.   

Yonatan Ron began his musical journey as a guitar player. He later studied composition independently under composer and guitarist Ruben Seroussi, head of the composition department at Tel-Aviv University. Ron occasionally participated in the CEME festival held by Meitar Ensemble, hosting masterclasses given by composers such as G.F Haas, Philippe Leroux, and Ivan Fedele, among others. He later obtained his B.A. in 2021 from The Koninklijk Conservatorium, The Hague, NL and in 2024 he pursued his master’s in composition at The University of Washington where he currently studies for his Doctoral degree.

In his music, he favors working with a variety of complementary materials and their transformations rather than traditional, dialectic, development-driven composition. Often the compositional strategy revolves around a hierarchy of presentiment, suspense, and thrill, while prioritizing continuity and anticipation. He draws inspiration from a variety of fields, ranging from visual arts, through mathematics and psychology, to music history and theory.

Ron’s works are published by the ‘ICL’ and are frequently commissioned by the Israeli Music Festival. His awards include 1st Prize at the 2018 Calefax Composition Contest, the Israeli Prime Minister Award for Music Composition (2019), the Abraham and Felicija Klohn Prize (2019), and the Siday Fellowship for Musical Creativity (2018, 2019).

Praised by the Seattle Times as “poised yet passionate,” Julia Tai has conducted orchestras around the world. Recognized as a prominent innovator of the contemporary music world, she has worked with legendary composers, performers, and ensembles such as Seattle Chamber Players, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Ensemble Modern. She is currently the Music Director of Missoula Symphony Orchestra & Chorale, and the Co-Artistic Director of the Seattle Modern Orchestra. 

Sarah Pyle, flutist, currently lives in Bremerton, Washington and works on projects involving  intersections of visual art, music, and nature. She is a specialist in contemporary music and holds degrees in flute performance and environmental studies from Oberlin College & Conservatory. 

Seattle-based clarinetist Rachel Yoder performs in a variety of solo, chamber and large ensemble roles, including frequent appearances with the Seattle Modern Orchestra, Yakima Symphony Orchestra, and Odd Partials clarinet/electronics duo. She is instructor of clarinet at Western Washington University and editor of The Clarinetjournal.  

Luke Fitzpatrick is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and artistic director of Inverted Space, a Seattle-based new music collective. He has performed as a touring member of the Harry Partch Ensemble as well as with Deltron 3030, Terence Blanchard and the E-Collective and has appeared on recordings released by Ablaze and Centaur records. Luke is currently concertmaster of Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, Seattle Festival Orchestra and Federal Way Symphony. He is a founding member of the String Quartet Pure Flavor and performs with Temple Mozaic, an improvisational music and dance collective alongside Smerk, Orb and Free. Besides music related things, Luke is an avid dancer and enjoys biking, eating sushi and collecting shoes.  

A Paris Fulbright Fellow recipient, Christine Lee pursues a wide range of creative, musical projects; while  her passion is in chamber music, she also devotes her time towards teaching and solo engagements. In  the ‘24-’25 season, Christine began her third year as Artist-in-Residence faculty member at the University of Washington School of Music, where she coordinates and coaches both undergraduate and graduate level chamber ensembles. 

Recently hailed by Fanfare Magazine as “excellent” and “clearly sensitive,” pianist Cristina Valdés is known for presenting innovative concerts with repertoire ranging from Bach to Xenakis, has toured extensively with the Bang On a Can “All Stars,” and has performed with Seattle Chamber Players, the Mabou Mines Theater Company, the Parsons Dance Company, and Antares. She is currently an Artist-in Residence at the University of Washington, and Director of the UW Modern Music Ensemble.  

Bonnie Whiting’s work centers on the relationship between percussive sound and the voice, performing, commissioning, improvising, composing, and championing music for the speaking and singing percussionist.  She has released solo albums on the New Focus Recordings and Mode Records labels. She is Co-Artistic Director of Seattle Modern Orchestra and she has performed with the country's leading new music groups: Ensemble Dal Niente, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea  Ensemble, and red fish blue fish percussion group. She is Chair of Percussion Studies and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Washington.