Conrad

Igniting Kites & Flying Fireworks for Orchestra (2015).

Performed by: Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra; Brandon Philips

The work is written in a pseudo overture style. It aims to evoke a sense of speed and vigour – often found when flying kites or watching fireworks. This is done by manipulating one of the main traditional features of orchestral overtures: the use of dotted rhythms. These dotted rhythms are inverted in order to better evoke the aforementioned feeling of urgency. These figures occur throughout the first theme, which is suggestive of emotions involving pride and joy. This is taken over by the counter-theme, which poses a lighter, comical stance. The opening first section is then brought to a close with both themes supported by strongly tonal harmony, which further enhances the work's sense of joyful celebration. 
  
The piece continues straight into a transitional section, continuing to make use of the dotted rhythm feel (except now portrayed using triplets/compound time). This leads into the second section, which introduces a lyrical aspect to the piece. Different melodic episodes are presented by various members of the orchestra; each evoking a different sense of 'happiness'. These episodes include suggestive feelings of exhilaration leading up to contentment. 
  
The satisfaction posed by the final melodic episode is immediately juxtaposed by angst and impatient material. This is suggested using pointillistic rhythms in conjunction with chromaticism. This is derived from the second theme, which ultimately amalgamates into a large climax. This point marks the return of the first section, revealing that the piece is in altered ternary form, 
  
Igniting Kites & Flying Fireworks concludes with a coda, which recalls thematic incipits that have previously occurred throughout the piece. These are then combined in order to create a powerful climactic resolution. It signifies both the explosion of fireworks and the overall completion of the work.

This composition was awarded joint-1st prize at the 2015 KwaZulu-Natal National Philharmonic Orchestra Composition Competition.

Own Works

Igniting Kites and Flying Fireworks

Hysteria: Antic Impulses for Chamber Ensemble (2015) is a composition resembling a state of madness and paranoia. The simple leitmotif introduced by the Bass Clarinet is used and manipulated across the texture within unconventional phrasal structures, which evoke a feeling of uncertainty and general confusion.

Own Works 2015

Hysteria

The creation of Mbira Rolls: for Traditional Instruments (2016) was inspired through the composer’s interest in traditional Southern African musics. The piece is constructed with the goal of emulating the style of music inhabited by the Mbira: a traditional African thumb piano. This instrument, originating from (now) Zimbabwe, was imported into South Africa by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey during the 1950s. Whilst influenced by this traditional style, Mbira Rolls also makes use of traditional Western Classical compositional textures, allowing a unique synthesis between these two (somewhat polar) art forms. The work’s title draws on this synthesis, naming its two largest influences affecting the work’s transparent and rhythmically abundant texture: The Mbira, and minimalist composer John Adams’ Piano Concerto, Century Rolls (1997). 
Mbira Rolls begins with a constant beat similar to that of a shaker or djembe ostinato, which is immediately expanded into a wide range of timbres (both utilising Western Classical and South African techniques). The development of this opening takes place in variation form, similar to traditional Mbira playing. At each variation, a short melodic episode occurs in various instruments; an idea taken from Western Classical variation structure. As these episodes become more harmonically distant, the piece introduces a new theme, which pays homage to the well-known South African traditional hymn written by Enoch Sontonga. This grows into a climactic arrival back into the beginning texture, revealing the macro structure of the work to be in ternary form.  
The piece ends in an unusual coda, making use of all the previously exposed material.

SACM Recordings

Mbira Rolls

Quickstep on Fox Street: Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano (2016) is a one-movement composition focused on the general atmosphere of the Maboneng precinct, a newly refurbished urban-artisanal neighbourhood, based in the heart of Johannesburg, South Africa – the composer's hometown.
The work attempts to achieve the fast-paced, frantic lifestyle of 'Johannesburgers', whom live in the business capital of South Africa, whilst simultaneously suggesting elements of general musicality and culture. This blend was inspired by the lifestyle present in the Maboneng precinct. The Quickstep element of the work derives from the familiar dancing pattern, based on a fast and unyielding tempo.
Quickstep on Fox Street begins with an unashamedly stark figure, which is returned throughout the piece. This figure is placed in an asymmetrical phrase, which uses heavy counterpoint and modal chromatic harmony to suggest a restlessness environment. This phrase is then repeated throughout the work, interspersed by different themes of contrasting nature. With each repetition, the initial phrase becomes more complex. This suggests that the piece is in rondo-variation form. The final repetition leads up to a climactic point of arrival, where the asymmetrical phrase is finally answered by its major counterpart, concluding the piece.
Quickstep on Fox Street was written for the Young Artist Summer Programme 2016, hosted by the Curtis Institute of Music.

2016/07/30 11:00 YASP: Composition Recital

Quickstep on Fox Street

Six Modal Aphorisms: for Solo Piano
This piano suite consists of small axiomatic statements based upon the natural modes (excluding Ionian mode):
II. Dorian
III. Phrygian
IV. Lydian
V. Mixolydian
VI. Aeolian
VII. Locrian

Pianist: Michael Davidman

2017

Six Modal Aphorisms

My Eyes Are Always Hungry (2017) for unaccompanied choir
Composed by Conrad Asman
Performed and commissioned by Eric Banks and The Esoterics vocal ensemble.

The omnipresence of poverty both globally and within South Africa (the composer’s homeland) sparked the creation of My Eyes Are Always Hungry. The work illuminates this hardship using the poem Afterimages by Audre Lorde, a North American poet and civil rights activist. My Eyes Are Always Hungry uses Lorde's first verse of her poem Afterimages, which was written as a memorial to Emmett Till, a 14-year old black boy who was lynched for allegedly catcalling Carolyn Bryant. In 2017 it was disclosed that Bryant had fabricated her entire testimony during Till's trial.

This piece was written as part of the POLYPHONOS Young Composer Prize 2017.

Afterimages
BY AUDRE LORDE

    I
However the image enters
its force remains within
my eyes
rockstrewn caves where dragonfish evolve   
wild for life, relentless and acquisitive   
learning to survive
where there is no food
my eyes are always hungry
and remembering
however the image enters
its force remains.
A white woman stands bereft and empty
a black boy hacked into a murderous lesson   
recalled in me forever
like a lurch of earth on the edge of sleep   
etched into my visions
food for dragonfish that learn
to live upon whatever they must eat
fused images beneath my pain.

My Eyes Are Always Hungry

On a Night (2015) for alto solo and unaccompanied choir
Cape Town Youth Choir
Conductor: Leon Starker
Soloist: Estelle Roux

On A Night

One Lingering Quasar: for Flute and Piano

One Lingering Quasar (2016) was created with the pretense to investigate various foreign pitch vocabularies. This piece fuses the two different vocabularies of quintal harmony and the melodic enigmatic scale. A quasar is a massive and extremely remote celestial object that emits an exceptionally large amount of energy. The idea deep space is the source of the piece’s overall mood and character: slow; unmoving and immovable. The dark, strong harmonic tones delivered by the piano anchor the irregular melodic in the flute. As these anchors become more harmonically active, the texture slowly gains momentum. This is at a glacial pace, similar to how an enormous quasar gently wanders through the cosmos. After this momentum is achieved, it is not carried through, but abandoned mid-flight, not allowing the piece to achieve any climax. Conversely, One Lingering Quasar continues to slowly lose this energy, just as how in space the gradual loss of energy continues ad infinitum. After the recapitulation of the modified sonata form is completed, the quasar loses all its energy, and is lost to space. The piece concludes with the same harmonic anchors with which it began, yet with all their energy emitted completely.

Performance:
Sakhile Humbane (Flute)
Conrad Asman (Piano)
Composition II Recital. C7; SACM.
November 2017

Unknown album (2017/11/15 00:30:29)

One Lingering Quasar

Sense Twitch Sprint for Flute, Violoncello and Piano (2018) by Conrad Asman.

Performed by: Liesl Stoltz (Fl.), Peter Martens (Vc.) and José Dias (Pno.)

The experience of feeling intensity at different rates of speed sparked the creation of Sense Twitch Sprint (2018). The work, for Flute, Violoncello and Piano, is framed through animal predation, with specific reference to cheetah hunting impala (an antelope found in eastern and southern Africa). 
Sense Twitch Sprint is split into two main sections, depicting the different stages of a typical cheetah hunt. Once the target is located, the wild cat approaches its prey with deathly silence and focused eyes. “The Stare” (I.) suggests an unsettled, arid mood with thin textures and rustling figures displayed in the instruments. When the anxiety of the impala becomes unbearable, the animal dashes out of sight and “The Chase” (II.) is on. Darting gestures within fast and changing metres induce the frantic and heated intensity of the hunt, clashing the speed of the predator with the agility of its prey. Sense Twitch Sprint is a race of stamina, strategy and speed that can only have one survivor.

This work was commissioned by Liesl Stoltz for her African Explorations concert series in early 2018.

Sense Twitch Sprint

shisa nyama for mixed ensemble (2018) by Conrad Asman (b. 1996)

Instrumentation: Piccolo, Trumpet, Alto Saxophone, Violin, Cello, Voice, Piano, Drums and Double Bass

A “shisa nyama” (Zulu for “burnt meat”), also known as a “bring-and-braai”, is the popular South African pastime of having a barbeque. The event brings together any type of person – friends, family or even complete strangers – to share and indulge in a feast of different meats, poultry and carbohydrates; all cooked on an open wood fire. This fun, festive environment featuring a smorgasbord of many flavours instigated the creation of this composition.

shisa nyama for mixed ensemble (2018) opens with the sizzling effect of meat on a fire from the vocalist and drums. This quickly develops into the main bass line on which the piece is anchored. The work features a texture created from a musical collage of different melodic quotations take from various styles of music. Incipits taken from western classical, jazz, and Afro-pop repertoires are all cited to further suggest the “coming together” of various styles and tastes. The work’s main (and ironically original) theme acts as the refrain to which the music anchors its ebb and flow into symphonic, waltz, kwela, atonal, improvisational and aleatoric structures. The piece gradually grows to a large climactic statement featuring all previous material being presented simultaneously – resulting in a large wall of sound with mentions of Mahler, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Paul Desmond and Brenda Fassi, among others. 

shisa nyama ends like any successful party: with a bang!

This performance of shisa nyama (2018) was performed by members of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. The work won the clazz category in the 2018 SAMRO Overseas Scholarship competition for composers.

shisa nyama [burnt meat]

Shuāng Miàn Xiù [Two-faced tapestry]: for Orchestra
Orchestra: Suzhou Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Eric Qi-Yuan Zhu

The delicate art form of traditional Chinese embroidery sparked the creation of Shuāng miàn xiù [Mandarin for Two-faced Tapestry] for orchestra (2018). The composition specifically focuses on portraying the complex technique of splitting, stitching and weaving two layers of silk forming an image on either side; a technique synonymous with embroidery from Suzhou in China. This practice of producing different results within the same frame forms the basis of the overall musical texture. Shuāng miàn xiù opens with a series of fleeting gestures, treating the orchestral canvas as a mirror. The harmonic environment for the entire work is similarly structured: utilising inverted diadic harmony and coloured with interlocking dissonance. Rhythmically, Shuāng miàn xiù explores the intrinsic mirroring of triple and quintuple time. After exposing the opening material, the work further develops all these musical elements; weaving a thin, fine background texture. This is suddenly contrasted by a calm, celestial middle section, suggesting the purity and lightness of weaving finely split silk. This grows to a climax with rapid figurations and articulations interlaced with a slow, sliding harmonic progression. Shuāng miàn xiù closes as it opens; a complete mirror of the entire aforementioned structure and harmony is presented, though the colour of the texture now presents a different, elated atmosphere. A final slither of silk hints at the opening fleeting gestures from which the piece was born.

This work was named the joint winner of the 2018 Jinji Lake Composition Competition, held in the People's Republic of China.

Artwork: LeOui Rendsburg

Shuāng Miàn Xiù [Two-faced tapestry]

Xiǎo Hé Tǎng Shuǐ [The Flowing River]: for Sheng, Erhu & Orchestra
Performed by: Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra
Erhu: Ye Chunhong; Sheng: Tang Ruofan

The Chinese folksong 小河淌水 [pinyin: Xiǎo hé tǎng shuǐ English translation: flowing river/stream], rooted strongly in Yunnan culture, is a fine example of how one can express complex meanings of a written text through music. This became the grounding method upon which this composition of the same name,  The Flowing River, was constructed.
The legend of this folksong takes place near an unknown stream of water in the mountains near the Ancient Tea Horse Road. A beautiful maiden from a nearby village falls deeply in love with a travelling horseman. The night before he leaves for battle, they get engaged beside the river. Every night the maiden sings the song of the flowing river, in hopes for her words to be carried to her far away love. When the horseman return, the general tells the maiden that her love has had a change of heart and cannot face her, but instead offers a jade necklace to her as a token of guilt. The maiden refuses to remarry and continues to sing; hoping that her love will come back home. Yet, unbeknownst to her, the general did not have the strength to tell the maiden that her fiancée had died in the mountains and the necklace was meant as a gift to ask her hand in marriage.
This poignant and emotionally complex tale contains not only touching emotions, but an intriguing structure. In parallel to this, the composition follows a similar musical form, with the foreground material often being masked by a musical depiction of the flowing stream. The stream is the main focus of the textural element in this composition, with the programme depiction taking place in the background. The piece opens with a slow, colouristic depiction of the water, evoking a mystical, wonderous mood. This eventually transforms into more gushing textures and flowing melodies, with the emergence of our two lovers: the Maiden (musically represented by the Erhu) and the horseman (the Sheng). This becomes morphed into a rhythmically focused section, depicting both characters’ joy of being in love, swelling to a climactic point of full euphoria. Suddenly, this is all halted when a distant Trumpet sound the call to battle, bidding the horseman farewell.
The piece’s mood turns cold and dark, and closes with the full folksong melody finally stated as a whole, placed in a sombre but still hopeful atmosphere. As the maiden continues to sing for her long-lost husband-to-be, 小河淌水 / 《 Xiǎo hé tǎng shuǐ 》 / The Flowing River slowly fades to completion.

Score available here: https://bdpmusic.co.uk/product/asman-the-flowing-river/

Conrad

Alexandra