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

Shadow Figures (2021/24) for piano and synthesizer (one player)

Performed by Shaoai Ashley Zhang

I. Meditation (after Charles Ives)
II. Machine
III. Night (after Alban Berg)

Shadow Figures

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.

Shadow Figures

Alex Stephenson

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