counter)induction

Partita by Ryan Streber

noreply@blogger.com (Sumi) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:49:00 +0000

Tomorrow at the counter)induction's concert, I am going to play Ryan Streber's "Partita" for solo cello.
He wrote me this piece in 2007. I have performed it at c)i anniversary concert at Merkin hall, as well as at my recitals in Japan. So I would say I know this piece quite well.... but every time I play this piece, I am inspired to play it differently each time. This piece is like walking along side of a collage. Every time I play this piece, I see different characters, colors that I didn't notice before, hear different voices. So, please come to the concert tomorrow and let's discover this piece together.

What to do with all the boxes of CDs...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Meyer) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:05:00 +0000

For the past few weeks, we have been living with boxes of CDs and posters in anticipation of our big CD release show tomorrow on 4/29.

Since we are indeed apartment dwellers, we thought we would put them to good use!

But we really hope they all wind up played on the stereo/computer in YOUR home

Hope to see you tomorrow!

The groove has been established

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Fingland) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:21:00 +0000

I think it's safe to say that we're now in a comfortable performance-ready groove. This particular set of rehearsals was NOT easy to put together. In fact, our last major rehearsal was yesterday - a whole week before the concert. And the one prior to that was also a week removed. Of course there are a couple of odd little ones scheduled here and there in the interim, but the performance season approaches critical mass in late April - and even with almost three months' lead time on the scheduling, we just managed to get the requisite hours booked- whew!

One advantage I've noticed about having major rehearsals spaced so far apart is the 'percolation' factor: for me at least, both technical passages and musical ideas seem to develop in a less hurried way, and age nicely with more periodic contact. Certainly better than cramming everything frantically into the few days before the show.

Thank goodness for Skype, bringing Doug to the vantage point of Steve's piano lid for tweaks and suggestions. Kyle managed to make it up for rehearsals on her piece, and even though I'm not in that one, all feedback so far suggests that she BRINGS IT! Can't wait to finish up the season in both a dramatic and celebratory way.

A Brief History of A Brief History

noreply@blogger.com (Douglas Boyce) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 22:57:00 +0000

Next week, c)i will premiere the chamber version of my work 'A Brief History of Acceleration' on our CD release concert. This is an interesting work for me to have composed at this point and in this place;– it draws on improvisational practices that have not been a significant part of my musical activities since I was an undergraduate. The 'big band' version of the piece was commissioned by the Williams Jazz Ensemble, an ensemble that served as one of my best and favorite compositional laboratories in which to explore musical possibilities. My time with the ensemble also helped me to develop an approach to music which focused on the experience of music rather than traces of music, on the performance and the performer rather than a score or a recording. Inevitably my engagement with the WJE and the apparatuses of musicking moved my practice on– any technical system contains within it an inescapable tendency for change. Though the aesthetic distance between my work and the aesthetics of the WJE seemed to grow, my work increasingly evidenced efforts to reproduce the character of partnership and communitarianism that my experience with WJE embodied. The aleatory and tychism of all music of the last decade is an echo of those jazz based but not bounded experiments.

This chamber version of the work has been created specifically for c)i's upcoming concert; we were looking for repertoire that would capture c)i's energy and dynamism while at the same time being a bit of a party piece. It also struck me as a fun chance to let the c)i performers step out as improvisors in a way that doesn't happen that often in our concerts.

The acceleration of the title evokes multiple changes in speed – the expressive accelerando and ritardando of performance, the mechanical acceleration we associate with the power of internal combustion engines, or perhaps the increase of speed that Deleuze, Guattari and Lyotard associate with the economic and technological rationalization of the world. But at root, I intend to evoke the

acceleration described in the philosophical work of Steigler and Gille – the personal experience of a technical milieu changing at an ever increasing rate, an experience in which one, as a participant, contributes to and is caught up in that increasing change. This slippage between a controlled fall and a mad rush is to some extent heard in the changes in tempo through out the piece, but mostly through increasing density, activity, and general ferocity.

A Brief History of Acceleration is dedicated to Andy Jaffe, from whom I learned more than can be easily listed or expressed in words.

Coming up soon!

noreply@blogger.com (Miranda) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:06:00 +0000

Ten days until our CD release concert! Looking forward to rehearse this weekend and get back to Kyle Bartlett's squawks and quirky rhythmic figures (and to put the instrumental parts together with her own theatrical vocalizations) and to Douglas Boyce's groovy take on big-band swing, combined with his idiosyncratic experiments with "open pulse" and aleatoric writing.

I think it's great that we are presenting these two world premieres by Kyle and Doug and a premiere by Erich Stem at the April 29 concert, while the CD itself offers previous works by these three composers. Cool to highlight the ongoingness of c)i creativity. Our composer-member Ryan Streber's Partita for cello is featured on both the CD and the release concert, at which we will also give live and lively renditions of "Dead Cat Bounce", written expressly for c)i by Eric Moe, and "Ciao Manhattan", by Lee Hyla, who has had a close association with c)i for some years. Sciarrino's "Centauro Marino" - the only work by a non-American on the CD - represents just the sort of breathtakingly vivid conjuring of a soundworld that c)i is crazy about.

Come and join us to celebrate and have a great time on the 29th!

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:01:00 +0000

On Tuesday the c)i players had the first rehearsal for our April 29 CD release show, which features a new piece for piano quartet and narrator by Kyle Bartlett, as well as a new arrangement of a big band piece by Douglas Boyce. It was a thrill to rehearse these two works with the ink still drying on the page, so to speak (we received the scores days before the rehearsal).
Kyle's piece will be our second with narrator in as many months; the text, written I believe by the composer, is most striking! Serial killers, obscenity! Thrilling; I can't wait to see this come together. And Doug has given us the chance to test our jazz abilities by taking solos, comping and so on. This program is all American, but with such excellent variety. I look forward to it.
Steve

adventures in marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:19:00 +0000

So, last week I reached the double bar line on my latest piece for the band. It's called MOTHERS and it's about Grendel's mother and an Italian female serial killer. The idea came to me last November in a hotel in New York. I was in the city for a conference on new opera, and I was thinking a lot about the way composers talk about their work to others.

Fast-forward to 12:30 am. One thing I love to do when I'm staying in a hotel is watch the gristly, spooky true-crime shows on late at night. I don't watch TV much as a rule, and the coincidence of being able to stay up late and watch whatever I want on tv feels like a luxury.

Perhaps I was subconsciously on the market for an easy-to-explain subject for a dramatic work. Once it came to me, it seemed obvious - female killers! I had been wanting to do something with the character of Grendel's mother for some time. When I read about Leonarda Cianciulli, the "Soap-Maker of Correggio" who killed three women in a deluded plan to protect her son on the battlefield in WWII, I realized that both of these women killed on behalf of their beloved sons - Grendel's mother in retribution for Grendel's death, and Cianciulli as a protective sacrifice for her son's safety. (also to make what she called some "acceptable creamy soap.") Mother-love gone very, very wrong.

I hope you will come hear MOTHERS at our next concert - 4/29, Tenri Cultural Institute. I'll be doing the sprechstimme role. It's a big party for our CD release, so you'll hear some choice cuts from that as well as this world premiere and Douglas Boyce's A BRIEF HISTORY OF ACCELERATION in a brand new arrangement. Hot.

Coming together

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:36:00 +0000

Every musician has at the back of his or her mind the musical equivalent of the "bucket list" (I detest that term)-- pieces one would love to perform or to compose, but hasn't yet found the right collaborators, or venue, or concert for them. I prefer the more attractive term "desiderata." With the extraordinary program this evening we are all checking multiple works off our lists of desiderata. I feel so fortunate that the program, the venue, and the collaborators have come together to perform these monumental works. And while we'll draw big, beautiful, bold checks next to three items on out list, working with Paula and Yuki and being buoyed up by the passion of their music making has only inspired us to add more items to our desiderata. I look forward to making more and more check marks with them.

A Preview in Pictures...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Meyer) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 03:23:00 +0000

It is so amazing to see what this group has become since we first started in the late 90's.

I love that my son Ethan can have a conversation with Steve during a car ride while looking at Nono's score.

I love that we get a chance to collaborate with great musicians like Paula Robison and Yuki Numata.

Ben loves that he can practice the Lachenmann at "full-volume" in the kitchen without waking up Ethan.

Hope to see you Sunday at 6pm!

Paula Robison says the devil made her do it.

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:17:00 +0000

Cool thing: tracing Schoenberg's musical references to Lucifer, "Miscalled the Morning Star" through the whole work...sometimes only as a scattering of descending pizzicati....almost as a reminderto the fallen or falling Napoleon...., sometimes the scattering and then the ponticello grindingof death, also tossed off as a dark reminder at selected moments....what a genius!

Paula Robison on "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte"

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:04:00 +0000

Lord Byron was a powerful swimmer. Whenever the whirlings of his eventful and tumultuous life got a bit too much for him he would dive into the nearest body of water and swim, sometimes for many miles, sometimes through the canals of Venice, often far out to sea. As I've prepared Schoenberg;s "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte," wondering how in Heaven's name I, a woman, can declaim Byron's words, I have heard first the voice of Schoenberg snarling at me, insisting that it was written for a man's voice and should be done only with a male reciter...and then suddenly the voice of Lord Byron: laughing, shrugging his beautiful shoulders, and saying "Swim, woman, swim! Jump in and swim!" What could I do? I jumped in, and I'm swimming for my life, and I feel like George Gordon, Lord Byron is right there next to me. I hope that the spirit of Schoenberg will relent a bit and say that this was a good thing! Many a woman lost a son or brother to Napoleon; many a woman her husband, or lover, or both. Every day in our war-infested, tyrant-molested world a woman loses a loved one or is lost, herself, in battle. So Byron's powerful words speak very much from our women's hearts and minds, too.I look forward with all my heart and mind to this, my first "Ode to Napoleon", with the amazing players of counter)induction.

We will perform "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" this coming Sunday. More info here.

Shhhhhhhh........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!............ ,,, .......... !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sumi) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:45:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

As you may know, c)i is going to have a concert at the "Casa Italiana" of Columbia University.

Please note: It is a 6 pm concert! (on March 4th).

Below: Jessica Meyer, Miranda Cuckson and wonderful guest violinist Yuki Numata during the rehearsal of Nono quartet.

As Miranda mentioned in her previous post, Nono's "Fragmente-Stille" has text fragments. on the contrary to Schoenberg's "Ode to Napoleon", Nono himself asked performers not to reveal the texts in the program notes... !!!

So, the only way for the audience to know what texts say is ..... to listen, sound, and silence.

Here is the very first page of the piece. The first text says.....

.....Geheimere welt..... "....secret world...."

Welcome to our world. See you at the concert.

Dal Niente

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Fingland) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:32:00 +0000

In a performance career which often calls for the use of extended instrumental techniques, it's been quite refreshing working on Lachenmann's Dal Niente. I've had quite a number of experiences where composers seem use these sonic effects more for their shock or novelty value, rather than as structural components which are developed into substantive ideas, as Lachenmann does. In the right hands, they can also very effectively enhance and expand the contextual sonic envelope of a piece without being structural. But in many other cases they do seem to be used as a kind of wallpaper of pseudo-sophistication, trying to add a layer of depth that sometimes doesn't quite match the design scheme of the piece as a whole.

Lachenmann is extremely meticulous with his notation, not only creating sensible symbols for each effect, but also devising a whole alternate set of values in bass clef, of all things, to differentiate between fingered playing with just air sound/key-click variants and the actual sounding treble-clef pitches which are notated normally. This initially seemed ludicrous for a treble instrument (indeed, as written the bass clef values do sound an octave higher than written, which was a little confusing a first). But if one shrugs off the convention of actually having to play something in the correct octave and looks at this system purely from an interpretive point of view, it becomes increasingly apparent that this was the right choice: as the piece cycles from bass to treble clef, one begins to develop a sense of two instrumental personalities struggling for dominance. One is the sound of the clarinet as we know it conventionally, and the other is its opposite, perhaps even its genesis; simple air, channeled at different speeds and modulated to bridge the gap between sound and space.

Supplements

noreply@blogger.com (Douglas Boyce) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:20:00 +0000

Over the years, counter)induction has performed several concerts thematically related to our up-coming concert, Where words leave off: New Voices, Talk Dirty to Me, drama: music and its double.
This persistent recapitulation of a thematic is rare for us, and indicates either a shortfall of our programmatic imagination (unlikely, it seems) or a question that keeps resurfacing, an unsolvable question, an aporia in the discursive network of musicking.

This endless interrogatory recapitulation shouldn't surprise us, as it is a continuation of traditions' inability to resolve the question;– as a survey of the Muses and their domains shows us that the line between music and speech was a blurry one from antiquity. Whether we consider Hesiod's Euterpe, muse of flutes and lyric poetry or Pausanias' Aoide (the muse of song), the muses with musical attributes are linked to poetry and sung text.

Nor are these Classical linkages simply a confusion that modernity sorted out;– the wrangling of of the Council of Trent, the monody of the Florentine camerata, the rise of instrumental music in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the synthesizing aspirations of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerke show us not a gradual clarification, but a return again and again to this unresolvable tension and ineluctable linked between speech and music.

What this makes me think of, actually, is a different source from antiquity - the closing of Plato's Phaedrus, in particular the readings of the passage by Derrida and Ricoeur. There's a nice summary of the Derridean take [ here ], and for Ricoeur's take, it's probably just best to read Memory, History, Forgetting. Derrida expands Rousseau's notion of the supplement - it is that which comes to aid to something ‘primary’ or ‘original.' In this aiding, the supplement displays that which is absent from the original form.

What this makes me think of here is not that music is a supplement to speech or that speech is a supplement to music, but rather that the relationship seems to alternate, each becoming the supplement of the other. This transductive loop does not render the question of primacy moot, though it does become unanswerable; rather, the positioning and re-position of the two domains becomes generative, a source for next question, the next concert, the next work of music, and the next piece of verse. And this constant generation of new question seems very much what we do here at c)i.

music and words

noreply@blogger.com (Miranda) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Luigi Nono's string quartet Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima is in many ways about silence and introversion. The act of listening is heightened by the music's many long fermatas and silences, and by the many hushed but precisely shaded colors and timbres. Meanwhile, fragments of text by Hölderlin are meant to be read silently by the performers only. Amidst the quiet and contemplation, though, we find in rehearsal that there is a multitude of concrete details of sound and ensemble to be figured out! Intricate rhythms that combine and interlock amidst tempos that shift constantly, sometimes even a few times within a measure. Phrases that are shaped in rhythmic unison, pitches and colors that blend and match. Nono's distinctive, dark and energetic scrawl on the manuscript facsimile pages presents thickets of fermatas of varying lengths, tempo markings, tremolos, dynamics ranging from pppp to fff, extensive bowing instructions in Italian, Hölderlin text fragments in German...Lots of information, all distilled in performance into precise yet rough sounds, synchronized gestures and a string of poetic fragments provoking individual streams of thought.

It will be thrilling when all this contained introspection and the eerie metallic sound of this piece explodes after intermission into Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon, in which Lord Byron's text will boldly issue forth in the voice of Paula Robison, and we will fill the hall right from the start of the piece with rich, resonant harmonies, erupting energy and swaggering long phrases. Come and hear this great program and experience as the balance swerves between words and music, thought and expression!

Fuller program note on the Nono here: http://www.mirandacuckson.com/2012/02/27/ci-concert-march-4-nonos-string-quartet-and-schoenberg/

More Words about Music!

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:24:00 +0000

For the next concert, I'm hugely excited to be working with one of my favorite musicians, Paula Robison. She and I first played together on a Mozart concert; she played operatic arias on the flute with such style, so communicatively, that one heard the text in one's head. She has since taken up a second career as Sprecherin; we have done Pierrot Lunaire several times together, and when the idea for the upcoming show took shape, I knew she would be interested in this meeting place of words and music we are exploring.
I'd also like to share some things I've seen recently that seem relevant to our program:

Sometimes the words get in the way of my poetry.
-John Ashbery

…we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
-Romans 8:26

These certainly got me thinking.

Why Schoenberg is (still) contemporary

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:59:00 +0000

On March 4, counter)induction will present "Where Words Leave Off...," a concert exploring the written word as inspiration for music. On this program we will perform Arnold Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41, composed for string quartet, piano, and recitation.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, wrote his large-scale poetic work Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte in 1814, upon the ignominious abdication of that leader. His stanzas drip with sarcastic disappointment, castigating Napoleon's vanity and greed. Arnold Schoenberg took up Byron's work and composed his Ode during World War II, as a work of protest against that tyranny. In light of the Arab Spring and the continuing bloody struggles in Syria and Bahrain, the messages of Schoenberg's 1942 musical work, and of Byron's 1814 poem, seem distressingly contemporary.

I am so pleased that we are able to present this monumental work. If you don't know it, the poem can be found here.

We are especially fortunate to be joined by Paula Robison as reciter for this work. In addition to being a world-renowned flutist, she has given many critically acclaimed performances as reciter of of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Meaning, hotter than hot. Join us for the free show - more info here.

counter)induction plays well with others

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:44:00 +0000

MULTIPLE MODERNISMS is the opening show in a year of fierce and fabulous collaborations. We're really excited to have Matthew Levy of the Prism Saxophone Quartet suiting up with us for the gig. These collabs give us the opportunity to work with people we admire and respect (Matt, then Magnus Lindberg 1/23/12, Paula Robison 3/4/12!) and stretch out into new repertoire. Both Steve Beck (piano) and Matt Levy (sax) are performing Milton Babbitt's "Whirled Series" for the first time. This is what Steve says:

"Rehearsing Whirled Series with Matt- what a great pleasure! Although we live in two different cities, we've managed to carve out a good amount of time for it. I'm pleased to report that it's not as hard to put together as some of the other Babbitt duos I've played (I remember Sextets being particularly vexing). Or maybe it's just that I'm getting experienced at all the ins and outs."

I hope you'll join us on 10/30 for this hot show!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 01:03:00 +0000

Here's what c)i clarinetist BENJAMIN FINGLAND has to say about the Webern quartet Op. 22, which we're preparing for our Oct. 30 show:
Just finished our first Webern rehearsal - what a piece! A perfect example of 'less is more'. My individual part is almost sight-readable, and extremely minimal. But when put in context with the others, one realizes how much rhythmic, textural, and coloristic detail is compressed into every note. Grace notes abound, many within an intensely hocketed, syncopated framework - covering very large intervalic jumps, which at the breakneck speed of the second movement are extremely challenging to coordinate between parts. The real magic happens with the convergence of all the individual details, and the character of the piece (in my opinion, both impish and suave) shines through. Klangfarbenmelodie at its best! It's a real pleasure playing with Matthew; the sax is by far the coolest addition to our forces to date!

upcoming show with the rockin' MATTHEW LEVY!

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 01:10:00 +0000

counter)induction is super-revved for our upcoming concert MULTIPLE MODERNISMS. On October 30 we'll be playing Boulez, Bartlett and Davidovsky, PLUS we'll be joined by the renowned saxophonist Matthew Levy (of the Prism Saxophone Quartet) for Webern's Quartet Op. 22, and the fiendishly complex Whirled Series by Milton Babbitt. He'll also play Scelsi's solo Tre Pezzi.

Matthew sends along this message...

"I've been a huge fan of c)i for many years. The group plays with breathtaking sensitivity and virtuosity, and their programs are brilliantly conceived. I was deeply honored to be invited to join them. Plus, I dig me some modernism."

Ah, Matt, you know how to talk to the ladies!

MULTIPLE MODERNISMS is the first concert in a year celebrating the art of collaboration. First Matthew Levy, then Magnus Lindberg, then Paula Robison, and then... YOU, as you help us celebrate the release of our first cd later this spring. See you soon!

Miranda rehearsing Kyle's new work

noreply@blogger.com (Douglas Boyce) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Getting ready for the premiere

on history

noreply@blogger.com (Douglas Boyce) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:25:00 +0000

As is the entire ensemble, I am excited about this performance at Bargemusic, the first performance of my music at this New York institution.

I'm also excited because of the strong thematics of the program connecting contemporary compositional practice to historical practices and so in turn to the historicity of of all acts of musicking. Further, these lines-of-flight connects this historicity of work-objects to the archeologies of the self, especially as expressed in the works of Kyle Bartlett, Louis Karchin, and myself.

As I write in my program notes for the Piano Quartet #1,

“This work is for me a return to the rhetorics and formal structures of my “misspent” youth playing in punk-rock bands on the New Jersey shore in the late 80’s. The music we wrote was music with much ornamentation and embellishment, but little improvisation as the term is generally used— there was little time for expansive guitar solos in songs clocking in at under two minutes. In this temporally compressed grammar (or perhaps “syllabary” is a better term) distinctions between phrase and riff and verse were unclear, yet relevant, for this was music with a flair for form, form that could be felt in the body, not merely heard in the mind’s ear. Juxtaposition was privileged over transition, and repetition over development. Our ears brimmed with The Germs and The Minutemen, but also the more aggressive side of the British progressive rock scene. First among these groups was always King Crimson and its leader Robert Fripp. The particular harmonic and formal approaches of that group have had substantial impact on my compositional approach, and my approach to functioning and persisting as a musician in the late modern."

Thoughts like this have been in the front of my mind of late, as you can see from this series of postings I wrote a little while ago over on Bigmouths. (Here is the place to start the series).

It is, as ever, a delight to hear such subtleties expressed through the tremendous musicianship of the musicians of counter)induction. Not a show to miss!

On staying on track.

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:48:00 +0000

Sometimes (well, often) the music I end up with is quite different from the music I intended to compose. I hope this is not from incompetence; really it is as though only by getting to know the material in a very deep way will I discover what the piece needs to be like. And then if I can’t “stay in the game,” if I can’t for some psychological or practical reason follow where the material leads, I usually end up with a crummy piece or no piece at all.

Take, for example, the piece that Miranda Cuckson will premiere on Friday’s counter)induction show (Friday, Bargemusic, 8pm). For a long time I wanted to compose a piece using some recordings I have of my grandmother’s voice. I made the recordings about a year before she died, and they are very dear to me, almost too powerful. I began with very fixed ideas about what I wanted the piece to be like, and my stubbornness combined with the power of the recordings was a formidable obstacle. Somehow, though, I found first a way to let go of the form I had wanted, and then I let go of using the actual recordings of her voice. Instead I started with sounds that I associate with my grandmother in memories and in recurring dreams, like a sewing machine, a cigarette lighter (she was a committed chainsmoker), coins being dropped, water. After beginning in that way I was able to incorporate the sound of her voice as well.

Now I am just putting finishing touches on the final two-channel version to be performed on Friday. In affect it is really very dark. My husband said he found it “disturbing” and our bandmate Steve Beck said, “If I had a bed I’d check under it!” It wasn’t my intention to make it so dark, and I don’t think it says anything troubling about my relationship with my grandmother. I just tried to follow where it needed to go. You can judge for yourself at the concert.

Miranda Cuckson on Friday's show at Bargemusic.

noreply@blogger.com (Kyle Bartlett) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:42:00 +0000

Having a great time with the Wuorinen transcriptions, which he made recently for Tashi. Gorgeous, interesting music- the gently twisting lines of the Josquin and the wild intricacies of the Morley, with its quintuplets and septuplets. We play them over and over and hear new things each time.

Douglas's quartet: a cool mix of his frequent experiments with structured rhythms vs. non- , and some crunchy, head-banging stuff, Jessica wailing while the rest of us punch out rhythms in unison.

Looking forward to work with Lou Karchin and Kyle Bartlett, heading toward concert day... Having played a few pieces of Lou's, I find his Rhapsody very recognizably his... bright harmonies, ornate flourishes, gestures coming off the beat.

I'm really delighted we could put Kyle's new piece for violin and electronics on this program, after some technological issues impelled us to postpone the world premiere at last concert. The electronics are now sounding great- very intriguing and enjoyably strange, conjuring associations with her grandmother, lots of distorted vocal utterances and mechanical noises. Fun to combine pitched violin sounds with this!

Come and hear all this and more on Friday!

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sun, 29 May 2011 14:40:00 +0000

My first blog post ever! I'm excited.
We've been rehearsing Babbitt for Friday, and it is grueling. As Ben observed, we've been proceeding at a rate of about 50 bars per hour! Damn, that is slow! It's the very intricate rhythms, especially the irrational tuplets that don't align with strong beats, that are the most difficult.
But it is such incredible music, so incredibly rich and eventful. As Babbitt said, "I want a piece of music to be literally as much as possible". I love that, I always say that. This is some of my favorite stuff; it's sad that only now, after his death, is his music getting played more.