Third project for electronic music class, done in Logic. Originally for 8 speakers/surround sound, but made it stereo to post.
Cicada sounds and violin tremolo from freesound.org

Cicadascape

like birds

Red Clay Saxophone Quartet

Susan Fancher, soprano saxophone
Robert Faub, alto saxophone
Steve Stusek, tenor saxophone
Mark Engebretson, baritone saxophone

Recorded at UNCG by Anna Meadors, mixing/mastering by Mark Engebretson

Program note:
"Hopes to Be" was inspired by jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock's "Who Does She Hope to Be?", a beautifully lyrical tune. There is a solemn joy to the Sharrock piece, which I explore in the beginning of "Hopes to Be." Eventually the solemn chorale can no longer contain the joy hidden below the surface, and the music lightens, flutters above the ground, gains momentum, and pushes upward.

Hopes to Be

Performed by the University of Kansas Percussion Group, directed by Michael Compitello, 12/6/17

fragment / segment

Zach Herchen, saxophone

In linguistics, apophony is any sound change within a word that indicates grammatical information, i.e., sing, sang, sung. This piece was written for my friend Zach Herchen, in response to Berio's Sequenza IXb. We met at the Peabody Conservatory over 10 years ago, as students in the classical saxophone department. He performed this Sequenza in rep class, as well as his masters recital, and despite hearing it several times, I never quite understood it. As a young, impatient person, it sounded more like a nonsensical monologue, someone speaking to themselves in made up words. 

I rarely write for solo instruments, and when thinking of things I wanted to work on in this piece, I knew writing for solo saxophone would challenge myself to write more melodic and gestural music. This made me return to the Berio, and when listening to it all these years later, it made more sense to me. The gestures of this piece are very free and improvisatory, yet precise and structured. I had also been reading Steven Pinker's book, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, and wanted to somehow bring these ideas of grammar and melodies together for this piece. Because I am not relying on an ensemble to stack various layers, I needed to follow some other “language rules,” and what made musical sense were sound changes that indicate different “grammatical” information—timbre changes from the sax and through the electronics, changes in range, speed of the melody, all communicate slightly different feelings.

Apophony

Premiered by Aizuri String Quartet at the Princeton Sound Kitchen, November 27, 2018

Lignin is a class of chemical compounds that help form a tree’s structural tissues, like its wood and bark. While hiking in Snoqualmie, Washington, I saw a really beautiful phenomenon: young trees growing out of the stumps of what used to be very large trees. The roots of the new growth ran down the stump, and it looked like strange legs leading up to the trunk of the new tree, sitting atop the nurse log, as they are called. The breakdown of the old tree's lignin was helping to fuel the new tree. It made me think of the process of composing this piece, which felt like growth, decay and regrowth of small ideas, musical lignin.

Lignin

A flock of birds, a school of fish—similar motions cutting through the air and water. Stacked one on top of the other, they interlock in M.C. Escher's Bird / Fish No. 22, drawn from the same ink, the same geometric shape. The sounds interlock, the filtered saxophone becomes drums. The fluttery motion of birds in air and fish in water become one. 

Bird Fish was commissioned by Evan Chapman. I would like to thank Evan for asking me to write for him and for all the time and energy he put into this piece through all its stages—it has been an honor working with him.

Bird Fish

Performed by So Percussion at the Princeton Sound Kitchen, February 8, 2019

Interstices are very small spaces between adjacent objects, such as the space between cells of multicellular animals, or between atoms in a crystal, or between the components of an electrical cable. The piece is a melody that is split up between the players, a hocket, on an assortment of small instruments: crotales, and pieces of metal and wood. The energy of the music and the communication between the musicians live in the interstices.

Interstice

tree diffused light

Anna Meadors is a composer, saxophonist, electronic music producer and educator. Her music is inspired by nature walks and small details, birds, slightly uneven pulses, the buzzy stillness of bodies of water, and joyful improvisation. Her saxophone playing has been described as “potently feral” (American Pancake) and “sprawling across the walls and dripping onto the floor all John Zorn-like” (Outside Left).

She has compositions on albums by Party of One (Madefor records), clarinetist Andy Hudson (Potenza Records), percussionist Evan Chapman, and Consortium Works (people places records). As a saxophonist, she is lead soloist in the jazz-rock trio Joy on Fire, which has been called “a thrill of high voltage jazz ‘n’ roll” (All About Jazz) and has been featured twice on Bob Boilen’s All Songs Considered, NPR. Anna has engineered and co-produced the last three Joy on Fire albums (Procrastination Records), has filmed and edited two of their recent music videos, and is currently working on a solo saxophone and electronics album.

Anna is the Assistant Director of Columbia University’s Computer Music Center and a lecturer of electronic music composition and production in Columbia’s Music Department. She graduated from Peabody Conservatory with a B.M. in saxophone performance, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with an M.M. in Composition, and recently finished her Ph.D. at Princeton University in Music Composition.

Anna Meadors

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