Apocrypha - for violin, viola, and electronic sounds, composed by David Bird, performed by andPlay (Hannah Levinson and Maya Bennardo), February 25, 2017, at the Dimenna Center for Classical Music, NY 

"Apocrypha" is written for violin, viola, and electronics, and is loosely inspired by Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel "Solaris". Lem's work follows a team of scientists stationed on a distant planet covered by a vast and gelatinous ocean. In the novel, the ocean demonstrates a bizarre ability to manipulate the emotions and memories of the scientists. "Apocrypha", exploits a similar process, where the enveloping presence of the electronic sounds prompt turmoil and sensation within the duo's intimate performance. “Apocrypha" was written for andPlay (Hannah Levinson and Maya Bennardo), and was developed in the summer of 2016 at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute.

“In the budding, growth, and spread of this living formation, in each of its movements separately and in all taken together, there was something one was tempted to call a cautious yet not timid naivety, as it strove frantically and rapidly to know, to take in, an unexpectedly encountered new shape. Then, in mid-journey, it had to withdraw when it was in danger of transgressing certain boundaries established by a mysterious law. This agile inquisitiveness was so utterly at odds with the immensity that stretched to every bright horizon. I had never before been so aware of its vast presence, its powerful, inexorable silence breathing evenly through its waves. Staring in wonderment, I was descending to regions of inertia that might have seemed inaccessible, and in the gathering intensity of engrossment I was becoming one with this fluid unseeing colossus, as if—without the slightest effort, without words, without a single thought—I was forgiving it for everything.”

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Apocrypha - for Violin, Viola, and Electronic Sounds

andPlay is committed to expanding the existing violin/viola duo repertoire through performing rarely heard works and commissioning emerging composers.  This New York City based duo of Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola, first played to an eager crowd on Fire Island in the summer of 2012, and has since performed at venues such as The Stone, Firehouse Space and The Tank.  andPlay has also appeared on the PLG Arts, East Bank New Music, Composer’s Voice, and the Concerts on the Slope series.  The success of their first commissioned piece, “Pulling Anchor” by Matt Frey, led them to pursue similar opportunities with other composers, premiering nine new pieces in the two years since their founding, including works by David Bird, Fjóla Evans, and Ian Ng.  Continuing with this tradition, andPlay will work with five composers this upcoming season, including Robert Honstein, Ashkan Behdazi, and Nicholas DeMaison.  

Maya and Hannah met while studying at Oberlin Conservatory, and continued their educations at New York University and the Manhattan School of Music.  Despite living on opposite sides of the city, the members of andPlay enjoy taking the subway to meet for rehearsals and delicious baked goods.      

composer, drummer, technologist, assistant professor of music at Wheaton College

Ambient dance sounds from the mass media unconscious.

Apocrypha - for Violin, Viola, and Electronic Sounds

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