DOTL

David Coll - Instrumental Works for Small Ensemble

New Music Unlisted 6

Torrente for violin and guitar
Daniel Alvarado Bonilla - 2021
(including J.S. Bach - Adagio from Sonate in C, BWV 1005)

Odradek Duo
Andria Chang - Violin
Julián Restrepo - Guitar

This piece was written in memory of my friend Samir Alejandro Yahuar (1984-2021).

Torrente

Bestiario pour guitare, piano et trio a cordes
Daniel Alvarado Bonilla (2019)

Commande de Radio France pour l'émission "Création Mondiale".
Score published by : Babel Scores 
https://www.babelscores.com/fr/DanielAlvaradoBonilla

-I. Enérgico
-II. Calmo, nocturno
-III. Fluído, alucinatorio
-IV. Calmo, misterioso
-V. Contínuo, como una toccata

Ensemble Almaviva
Pablo Márquez - guitar
Ezequiel Spucches - piano
Ana Millet - Violon
Lucía Peralta - Alto
Louis Rodde - Violoncelle

Enregistrement fait à la Seine Musicale (Boulogne Billancourt) le 12 septembre 2020.

Bestiario

Low-fi delirium for alto flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone and electronics
Daniel Alvarado Bonilla - 2022
Œuvre commandée par l'Ensemble Sillages et l'Ensemble der/gelbe/klang, avec le soutien du Ministère de la Culture - DRAC Bretagne. 

Julie Brunet-Jailly - alto flute
Hugo Clédat - bass clarinet
Jean-Baptiste Bonnard - vibraphone

Recorded by engineer Alexandre Chaigne at Music Unit Studios (Montreuil, France)

In Low-fi Delirium, most of the electronics consist of sounds that come from real "vintage" keyboard instruments such as the mellotron, the optigan and the Rhodes electric piano. In some ways this piece pays homage to the psychedelic music and delirious times of the sixties. 

The sounds of these analog instruments have always inspired me since I was a teenager and I have always thought of using them outside of their usual musical context (that of rock, pop or jazz). Although nowadays there are very powerful digital keyboards and softwares created to simulate these instruments, there is nothing, in my opinion, like the real machines – with their charming flaws and their analog sound qualities. The mellotron is an instrument in which each key triggers the playback of a magnetic tape which contains a real pre-recorded instrumental sound. It is in a way the analog ancestor of the digital sampler. The mellotron's pre-recorded sounds have a rudimentary "cheap" and almost “kitsch” sound quality. It is precisely this characteristic which, in my opinion, gives the mellotron its charm and potential! I wanted to use these sounds in order to establish an interaction, a dialog with the three acoustic instruments. This is how each instrument of the ensemble will be enlarged by its mirror or by its "low-fi" electronic alter ego. The pre-recorded mellotron sounds will be the electronic doubles of the wind instruments, while the bell or celesta type sounds of the Rhodes will weave a link with the vibraphone. Alongside these electronic instrumental sounds there are other “vintage” and “concrete” vinyl crackle noises, old clocks ticking, radio interferences...

Low-fi delirium

While the title of this piece may be more immediately evocative of the works by composer Pierre Boulez, its significance lies in the sense of the word given by Guy Debord and practiced by the Situationists in France and elsewhere. Literally meaning drift, Debord describes it as follows:

"In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.."
"The ecological analysis of the absolute or relative character of fissures in the urban network, of the role of microclimates, of distinct neighborhoods with no relation to administrative boundaries, and above all of the dominating action of centers of attraction, must be utilized and completed by psychogeographical methods. The objective passional terrain of the dérive must be defined in accordance both with its own logic and with its relations with social morphology."

While I had known of this term for some time now, it had only recently occurred to me that I compose in this manner. A work lives as a performance, and during this brief moment there is the potential for incredible things to occur that are contingent upon the conditions in the space. An instrument is a terrain in its own right; the performer, with each gesture and every cue, makes decisions that can have significance. Even in a concert hall, things change. 

Dérive (2009), for bass clarinet and cello. Ensemble Praesenz

Composed by Zak Hap

TAK ensemble:
LAURA COCKS  |  FLUTE
LIAM KINSON  |  CLARINET
CHARLOTTE MUNDY  |  VOICE
MARINA KIFFERSTEIN  |  VIOLIN
ELLERY TRAFFORD  |  PERCUSSION

Performed on December 12, 2015 at Symphony Space, NYC. 

Program notes of the performance: 
a little called Pauline was written out of a fascination with the poetry of Gertrude Stein, a key figure in the Modernist Literature movement. One of Stein's seminal collection of poems, "Tender Buttons," tries to "create a word relationship between the word and the things seen." From this book comes the fragment "a little called Pauline" which has been set in this piece. Similar to Stein, I found myself trying to create a relationship, but this time between the sound of the spoken word and its inherent musical qualities. Through the course of this work, I explore this relationship through the use of timbral associations, text painting, texture correlations, and stylistic juxtaposition. An important source of inspiration throughout writing this work has been practice of reciting poetry. As a semi-frequent audience member of poetry readings, I have found myself regularly baffled by the musicality exhibited by poets. Their work and intuition exploring the space between syntax, sound, and meaning provided the framework in which I approached writing with the text for "a little called Pauline."

Text by Gertrude Stein from Tender Buttons: 

A little called anything shows shudders. 

Come and say what prints all day. A whole few watermelon. There is no pope. 

No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices. 

A little lace makes boils. This is not true. 

Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top. 

If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head. 

A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window. 

Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning. 

I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing. 

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for. 

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

a little called pauline

Los Senderos se Bifurcan pour violoncelle et grand ensemble
Daniel Alvarado Bonilla - 2016

Cameron Crozman - Violoncelle
David Reiland - Direction
Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire
Enregistrement Live / CNSMDP Salle d'Art Lyrique - 4 Octobre 2016

Dans Los Senderos se Bifurcan, la forme concertante m'a permis de travailler pour la première fois sur l'interaction, l'opposition et la convergence entre le soliste et l'ensemble instrumental. La structure de l'œuvre s'articule autour de quatre mouvements qui s'enchaînent. L'ensemble anticipe le matériau exposé par la ligne du soliste ou crée une sorte de réponse/conséquence à celui-ci. L'univers sonore du violoncelle est alors élargi, voire multiplié par le groupe instrumental. De même, l'ensemble peut établir une situation d'opposition, prenant un sentier différent et contrastant. En dehors de ces idées strictement formelles, il y a eu d'autres éléments qui m'ont accompagné pendant le processus (labyrinthique) de la composition de l'œuvre : la lecture de Borges, le chant d'oiseaux de la colline de Montjuïc à Barcelone, ainsi que le souvenir de mon grand-père, Ricardo Alvarado Pantoja (1928 – 2016), à qui cette pièce est dédiée.

Los Senderos se Bifurcan

Caldera (2016), for prepared bass clarinet and marimba. Transient Canvas duo

Ghost Dances takes its title from the American Indian religion based on the visions and practices of the prophet Jack Wilson (also named Wovoka), a Nevada-born Paiute. The Ghost Dance lasted five days and its participation promised many things, including an afterlife joined with ones relatives. All those who practiced the religion must be peaceful and nonviolent. I wrote this short work as a study meant to access some small effect of the delirium imbued in such an experience, amidst contemplation of larger societal forces at work, both in the late nineteenth century and now. This work is dedicated to my late teacher Luc Brewaeys and in gratitude to Michael Goldberg, for his countless hours of help.

Ghost Dances (2017), for alto flute, english horn, 2 guitars, violin, and cello. Left Coast Ensemble

Totem
pour contrebasse et électronique
Daniel Alvarado Bonilla - 2018

Louis Siracusa - Contrebasse
Enregistrement Live / Centquatre Paris - Festival Manifeste
16 juin 2018

Evocation d’une cérémonie tribale, presque onirique. 
La contrebasse est l’objet rituel. De celui-ci émanent les incantations, des éclats d’énergie et de lumière qui éclairent la nuit ; des rythmes lancinants et des sonorités percussives qui cherchent à nous conduire au paroxysme hallucinatoire.

Totem

Stacey Pelinka, flutes; Peter Josheff, clarinets; Hrabba Atladottir, violin; Leighton Fong, cello.

score can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/83917272/Muthologos

Muthologos (2008), for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. Eco Ensemble

Jesse Stiles & Pauline Kim Harris - Live at Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, November 24, 2019.

Jesse Stiles & Pauline Kim Harris - Works & Process

Kathleen Winters, flutes; Tomoko Ono, piano; Gavin Ryan, percussion.

                          Recital to side, same with to side livid in part 
                          newly profuse did civic offer on a dial, sweep 
                          flight oh disposal profligate buck more in and 
                          ready. Tantric cube up tight seam, signal limit

(excerpt of a single stanza from STREAK~~~WILLING~~~ENTOURAGE ARTESIAN (2009), by JH Prynne)

I had the pleasure to hear Jeremy Prynne read this poem some years ago, and was struck with the sheer energy spouting from his mouth, among so many words, all ceaselessly moving forward. Yet visually the poem assumes a wholly different character. It’s a poem that sits on twelve tightly carved pages, each uniformly laid out with six block-like stanzas. For me, it was a compact and efficient example of the projectivist project, stated early on by Charles Olson in his essay Projective Verse. It stresses the idea that in any poem there must exist a “...high energy-construct and, at all points, an energy-discharge.”
Said What Choice Spoken (which are the last words of the 34th stanza) imagines its own initial material in such a way, but it acts upon an impulse to break free of the structure that makes the mouth mechanical: to move beyond the work as an untouchable-yet-felt object, and to find ways that allow these impulses to carve out pathways through such a structure, so as to enter into different spaces of expression that are wholly irrational, unexpected, and inexplicable. I hope that this may create some level of exhilaration that touches upon one’s experience reading Mr. Prynne’s poem.

Said What Choice Spoken (2012), for flute, percussion, and piano. Illinois Modern Ensemble

Peter Josheff, clarinets; Antoine van Dongen, violin; Mary Artmann, cello; Karen Rosenak, piano.

Black Piet is a work that takes its title from an aspect of a Christmas tradition in Holland and Belgium, where Saint-Nicolas (of whom Santa Claus is derived) has one or several black servants/slaves. ‘Zwarte Piet,’ as he is named, throws children in his burlap sack if they are naughty, taking them with him on his voyage back to Spain. At its most problematic, this festive tradition results in children and adults alike dressing in blackface, for concerts and parades. 

I became aware of this tradition in November and December 2012, as I was composing this work and preparing to return to California after a year of living in Gent, Belgium. I decided that titling this work Black Piet could not only problematize the idea of migration that is central to this festival, but would also place the work in the company of other protest pieces, such as works by John Lennon and The Clash to Hildegard Van Bingen and Julius Eastman. These issues apply to ideas that I have tried to weigh musically, such as the difference between actively embracing diverse sounds, as opposed to passively tolerating those that are somewhat incongruous. Ultimately I was unsure of how such ideas translated musically, so it came down to a simple decision over whether or not to find a new title. Once I made the association between this work and this cultural practice, the title felt inevitable. My hope is that, in keeping this title, the work might in some small way draw attention to a cultural practice that does more harm than good.


Notes: Piano technique from 6 minutes to end is incorrect. It is meant to be a squeaky, pitched sound, attained by pressing a glass strongly forward and back along the vertical length of a range of mid-pitched strings inside the piano.

Muthologos (2008), for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. Eco Ensemble

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