Program Notes:
Friday afternoon at work.  The clock reads 4:57 pm. It seems like it's said that for about 20 minutes now, though- somehow the last few minutes of work seem to be able to break the rules of relativity... it all starts when a bored office worker absently taps out a rhythm on her desk, and when the boss isn't looking she and a friend pass the last few minutes with a “drum” duet using what they have on hand- they even manage eventually to rope in their serious coworker.
This percussion trio is for two mechanical pencils as well as body percussion and live electronics. All the timbral changes are provided by a combination of electronic processing and experimenting with the different sounds a mechanical pencil can create. This allows for a lot of flexibility in performance even while keeping the rhythm exactly as written in the score. (The piece was so flexible, in fact, that the title kept changing with the duration of the piece- because it is now set at about 3 minutes, the title is set at 4:57 pm!)

4:57 pm

There's a recurring archetype across so many different myths of a mysterious group of three women wielding incredible supernatural power. They are known by many names in different myths, but again and again these trios of women appear, dictating the course and span of our lives. Benevolent or cruel as they choose, their power is unavoidable.

This piece is a portrayal of The Fates– Clotho the spinner, who spins out the thread of our lives, Lachesis who measures the length allotted to each person, and Atropos the inexorable, who cuts the thread of life with her shears. The voices weave together, sometimes dissonant and sometimes melding into one, turning in a moment from calm to sinister. I find something inherently powerful and mysterious about a cappella voices, even- maybe especially- with no text.

The Fates

Songs about knowledge, cynicism and hope- knowledge of the self, of the world, and of each other.

1)	 A man said to the universe:
	“Sir, I exist!"
	“However,” replied the universe,
	“The fact has not created in me
	A sense of obligation.”	
		Stephen Crane (1871-1900), from War is Kind and other Lines

2)	When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
	 When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
	When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
	When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
	How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
	'Til rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
	In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
	Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
		Walt Whitman (1819–1892), from Leaves of Grass

3) 	I was in the darkness;
 	I could not see my words
	Nor the wishes of my heart.
 	Then suddenly there was a great light -
	 "Let me into the darkness again."
		Stephen Crane, from The Black Riders and Other Lines
4) Ozymandias
	I met a Traveler from an antique land, 
	Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
	Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
	Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
	And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
	Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, 
	Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
	The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: 
	And on the pedestal these words appear: 
	"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings." 
	Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair! 
	No thing beside remains. Round the decay 
	Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, 
	The lone and level sands stretch far away.
		Percy Bysshe Shelley

Seven Cynical Songs- Movements 1, 2 And 4

Who Cares if You Listen examines the relationship between the composer and the audience, and how the act of performance can be a “filter” that dictates the relationship.  I examine, sometimes seriously and sometimes humorously, the effect of the "public"-- the audience-- on a composer and his or her work.  Does the composer have a duty to be accessible to the audience?  How does the meaning of a piece change based on the audience’s perception of it and its acceptance (or rejection!) by the audience?  What part can the composer play in shaping this process?   The words and short phrases are inspired by Milton Babbitt’s article Who Cares if You Listen.  The theatrical, playful elements of the piece break the “fourth wall” and call attention to the act of performing.  
       I believe that the purpose of music, no matter the genre or era in which it was written, should be to communicate something.  Music is a language, and as such the listener has an active and essential role in any piece of music.  A desire to communicate with an audience, musicians or not, should be a primary goal in composition.

Who Cares If You Listen

Flute: Lindsey Eckenroth
Clarinet: Johanna Aguilera
Piano: Angela Sutton

Gigue

No Coward Soul Is Mine

Factus est repente de coelo sonus,
tamquam advenientis spiritus vehementis ubi erant sedentes,
alleluia;
et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto,
loquentes magnalia Dei,
alleluia, alleluia.


Suddenly there came a sound from heaven,
as of a mighty wind coming where they were sitting,
alleluia;
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
speaking the wonderful works of God,
alleluia, alleluia.

Factus Est Repente

PRAYER OF ST. TERESA

Nada te turbe,
nada te espante
todo se pasa,
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza,
quien a Dios tiene
nada le falta
solo Dios basta.
- Teresa de Jesus

Nada Te Turbe

Hanging Tree

Composer and vocalist, specializing in choral repertoire.  Currently based in Los Angeles!

alice.dryden