Name: Iris by Chamber Cartel
Duration: 16 min 58 s
Description: Chamber Cartel's performance of Iris by Christopher Adler. Recorded live in November of 2013 by Billy Bolton. Performers are Lisa Cella, Flute; Caleb Herron, Marimba; Thomas Avery, Guitar; Jean Gay, Cello.

Performed by ensemble recherche. Recorded live Nov. 7, 2013, Lutkin Hall, Evanston.

Fray (live)

Chamber Cartel's performance of Iris by Christopher Adler. Recorded live in November of 2013 by Billy Bolton. Performers are Lisa Cella, Flute; Caleb Herron, Marimba; Thomas Avery, Guitar; Jean Gay, Cello.

Iris

Composed for and premiered by Chamber Cartel

Program Notes:
Years ago, while taking an accompanying class in undergrad, two of my colleagues were working on the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 78. It is piece that continues to floor me. Of the many astonishingly beautiful moments throughout, the piano chords at the outset have always been of particular interest. Brahms takes simple triads and voices them perfectly—the register, the spacing of the notes, the way those chords provide a buoyant cushion over which the violin melody stretches out—all of these elements combine to create something sublime.

In a way, I’ve been trying to live within the world of those chords for some time now. Brahms’ chords serve a traditional role in harmonizing a melody, and yet, is the melody necessary? More simply put, can chords, these monolithic musical creatures, rome free?

//

Domination of Black is taken from a poem of the same title by Wallace Stevens. The notion of a singular color exerting “dominance” reminds me of a James Turrell exhibit I once attended. For one of Turrell’s pieces, I entered a room that seemed pitch black. My eyes, however, adjusted and I realized there was a light sculpture in the corner. The darkness, once absorbed, provided a focus that illuminated so much subtlety.  

//

Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

(closing stanza to Domination of Black by Wallace Stevens)

Domination Of Black

"In meteorology, virga is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates or sublimes before reaching the ground."

Virga

Chamber Symphony, recorded by EQ Ensemble at Futura Studios in Boston, MA.

Chamber Symphony - I. moderate, anxiously

Chamber Cartel is an adventurous band of musicians seeking to propagate the avant-garde, experimental and New Music in and around the South east. We performed 12 concerts in our first season from which highlights include  - Crippled Symmetry, For Philip Guston, Why Patterns?, Inuksuit, songbirdsongs, Dressur, an entire John Cage festival, and Cobra to name a few. 

Iris

Chamber Cartel

Related tracks