Chamber Concerto (2022) in one movement 
for nine players and electronics

Live recording of the premiere at UC San Diego, May 2022

Michael Jones & Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, percussion
Shaoai Ashley Zhang & Kyle Adam Blair, keyboards
Ilana Waniuk & Pauline Ng, violins
Alex Taylor, viola
Peter Ko, cello
Matthew Kline, double bass
Steven Schick, conductor

"Chamber Concerto" is a celebration of instruments and the musicians who play them. Although a certain emphasis is placed on the synthesizers of the ensemble—with their ever-shifting tuning and timbral identities often articulating the work’s form—this is not only a synthesizer concerto: ultimately, everyone has their say and comes to the fore as soloist. And, at the apex of the piece, the paradigm of soloist-versus- tutti is set aside altogether: here, the entire ensemble metaphorically breathes together, as if a single organism.

After having made a series of intensely focused, inward-facing works amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I see "Chamber Concerto" as a more gregarious type of piece that celebrates the multiplicity of its materials. Aspects of some of my earlier works make appearances here, sometimes in direct quotation, sometimes in more abstract ways.

"Chamber Concerto" unfolds in a single, continuous movement. Many may wish simply to listen and form their own impressions, but for those interested in a “guided tour” of the form, a rough outline follows:

1. A rhapsodic, microtonal synthesizer solo is joined by an atmospheric ensemble accompaniment. Gentle clouds of spatial audio briefly encircle the audience. The tempo quickens into a quasi-waltz, leading to...

2. A B-flat-minor outburst on the piano—an apparition of Rachmaninoff? Almost as soon as it appears, the music is again microtonally inflected by the synthesizer and winds its way back to the opening texture. Suddenly...

3. A brisk, playful toccata begins. Wooden and skin percussion instruments feature prominently, as do synthesized harpsichord and harp timbres. The toccata eventually topples into...

4. Another fast section, this one more impassioned in character. A hyper-expressive line is passed between the cello and viola, winding its way down in register while being interrupted by fast, aggressive gestures.

5. The ensemble eventually settles into a calmer mode. Spatial audio returns, as does the Rachmaninoff-esque material, now sounding like a faded memory. Up to this point in the piece, the cello’s lowest string (typically a C) has been tuned down to B-flat. This fact is now overtly revealed in a series of gently pulsing B-flat overtone chords. The “apotheosis” of the B-flat string having now been reached, the music progresses to...

6. A dreamlike “tuning interlude.” The ensemble and audience are constantly enveloped by spatialized sound as the cellist tunes the B-flat string back up to C. Immediately following this interlude...

7. The ensemble plays a long, calm meditation on falling perfect fifths. The synthesizers (now generating sine tones) and strings tune harmonies in just intonation. Bowed vibraphones continually outline the fifths cycle. A simple yet expressive viola solo grows out of the texture. Suddenly...

8. The music snaps out of its dream: the fast toccata material returns. After being the sole focus of attention for an extended passage, the toccata becomes something of a formal “hub,” enabling several other ideas from earlier in the piece to be revisited as well. The work concludes in a manner both playful and reflective.

Chamber Concerto

Performers: Steven Schick, conductor; Wilfrido Terrazas, flute; Ellen Hindson, oboe; Grace Talaski, clarinet; Kosuke Matsuda, percussion; Kyle Adam Blair, piano; Miguel Zazueta, Natalia Merlano Gomez, Alex Taylor, voice; Amir Norouz Nasseri, Ilana Waniuk, violins; Myra Hinrichs, viola; Peter Ko, cello; Matthew Henson, bass

Production assistance from Alex Stephenson, David Espiritu and Jessica Flores 

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Stylistically, Interviews resembles a collage: materials borrowed from Josquin, spectralism, Leonard Cohen, high modernism, elevator music, the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Kyle Adam Blair, Appalachian folk singing, bits recycled from my own pieces, the recorded voice of my mother, my own songs and poems. But collage is generally creating something new out of things that come from different places, disparate things; this feels more like a multifarious reflection of my own musical and personal world – things that all come from, or at least have been absorbed into, the same place, a musical inheritance or accumulation. I’ve always felt slightly unsure of the relationship between all of the many aspects (personas?) of my music making – sometimes they feel far away from each other, held in different compartments – but here I feel I’ve found a way for many of them to coexist in one place.

Conceptually, I think of Interviews as more concerned with storytelling than with aesthetics. Or at least, Interviews represents an intersection between musical and personal concerns. In the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, I undertook ethnographic research as part of my PhD coursework. For this I interviewed both my parents, Vicki and Trish, asking them all kinds of questions about their lives: what it was like for them growing up, how they came to terms with their sexuality, what it was like living through the politically tumultuous 1980s in New Zealand, how they went about starting a family, how it was for them when I came out. 

At the time, this was a really rewarding process of discovery and documentation, a way to learn new things about my family and where I’d come from, a way to feel connected to them across the Pacific during the enforced separation of the pandemic. Now, those interview recordings have other resonances. Trish was diagnosed with early onset dementia several years before we made the interviews; by the time we recorded them, her dementia had started to really affect her short term memory. Now, nearly four years later, her dementia is quite advanced, and many of those memories are gone for her. Looking back, the documentation of those memories is precious. 

The making of this piece has been both a way for me to hold on to that preciousness, those past perfect moments of connection, but also a way to process grief, the ongoing present of loss and change. In many ways Interviews occupies a threshold, between looking back and looking forward; it is both at once, acknowledging the messiness and multifacetedness of memory, not singular, smooth, or linear. I also see it as a small way of showing gratitude for both of my devoted, supportive, sensitive, beloved parents, and of celebrating Trish’s life.

Interviews, for ensemble and prerecorded sound

Please visit my website for my latest works and recordings: https://alexstephenson.com

The music of composer Alex Stephenson (b. 1990) has been described as “masterfully orchestrated” and exhibiting “sonic beauty” (San Diego Union-Tribune). His work draws in equal parts from a deep-rooted lyrical spirit, a fascination with the science of sound perception, and a love of musical repertoires both old and new. With each project, he intertwines these diverse influences in novel ways, curating sonic worlds that feel simultaneously fresh and familiar.

Stephenson’s works have been commissioned by and received performances at the Tanglewood Music Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Breckenridge Music Festival, Royaumont Voix Nouvelles Festival, ISCM World New Music Days, Composers Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and numerous additional venues and institutions across the United States and in Europe. His recent and upcoming collaborators include the [Switch~ Ensemble], Susan Narucki, Duo Axis, Ensemble Dal Niente, Flux Quartet, and the La Jolla Symphony. 

Stephenson holds a doctorate in music composition from the University of California San Diego. He also studied at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Chicago, and, as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. He currently resides in Central Illinois, where he is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Illinois State University and co-directs the RED NOTE New Music Festival.

Chamber Concerto

Alex Stephenson

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