Memento Mori
for Large Ensemble

Performed by Northwestern University's Contemporary Music Ensemble
conducted by Ben Bolter

May 21st 2021, Regenstein Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston (US)

(bs fl, ob, clar, bs clar, bsn, hrn, trp, trb, tb, perc (2), pno, vln (2), vla, vcl, and db)

Memento Mori

Score Follower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEkwERKf8WE
Written for and recorded by the JACK Quartet (https://jackquartet.com/).

Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violins
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, violoncello

Recorded by Brian Riordan at Salisbury Congregational Church, Vermont, June 2021.

*good quality headphones or loudspeakers are recommended*

as eroding arches collide [2021] for string quartet

Reportage audio sur les "Espaces acoustiques" de Gérard Grisey. 
Réalisé à l'occasion de la répétition du 12.12.2013 à la Cité de la musique.  

Jens McManama, cor
Jean-Christophe Vervoitte, cor
Vincent Léonard, cor
Pierre Turpin, cor
Grégoire Simon, alto
Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris
Ensemble intercontemporain
Pascal Rophé, direction 
 
photo Samuel Favre ©Luc Hossepied pour l'Ensemble intercontemporain
Concert le 14.12.2013 à la Cité de la musique

Gérard Grisey, Les Espaces Acoustiques - reportage

Its harmonies, textures, and timbres are the sonic equivalent of a color palette saturated with neon. Its figurations that speed up and slow down, weave in and out, are reminiscent of cars - autonomous micromachines operating within the confines of a macro world.
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Commissioned by the Fall 2023 Berkeley New Music Ensemble

📷: Josiah Adrineda

Hyperlight Highway

Performed by Yarn/Wire at UC Berkeley's Hertz Hall, 15 Dec 2023.

Recorded by Jeremy Wagner and Brendan West; mixed by Luke Taylor.

————————————————————————————————————

Marsinah worked in a clock factory. She was a working class hero: she frequently led industrial strikes, and due to this, was murdered in 1993 under the brutal dictatorship of Soeharto’s regime. This piece is meant as an hommage, as a tribute to names excluded from official history.


The title is taken from Sapardi Djoko Damono’s poem, “Dongeng Marsinah” (english: “Marsinah’s Tale”). 


Marsinah, the transcendental clock,

ticking ceaselessly

weaving transience

eternally:

“we do not demand much,

only a decent life,

a grain of rice.”


The sound of the upper range of the pianos is reminiscent of clock sound. Percussions too: woodblocks, bongos, and congas. Inhabiting the clock-like timbre is an extremely limited pitch collection, repeated over and over, perpetually slowing down: a claustrophobic space. Yet, as the piece slows down, it increases in density, as if opening up a possibility of a Messianic arrival. Such an advent would mark the redemption of the dead generations.

Marsinah's Pendulum (for two pianos and percussion)

Tristan Murail
Le Partage des eaux, Contes cruels, Sillages
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Pierre-André Valade

More info: http://www.outhere-music.com/en/albums/le-partage-des-eaux-aecd-1222

Tristan Murail: Le partages des eaux

Written for and performed by the Eco Ensemble
Directed by David Milnes
Recorded Live at the premiere on May 9, 2024
Hertz Hall in Berkeley, CA

Oboe. Bassoon. Horn. Timpani. 2 Violins. Viola. Cello. Bass

Overture for Overture: Amongst other reasons, the French spelling of Ouverture is employed in order to foreground its connotation with "opening" (ouvert-ure) in a more literal sense. Such a reading invokes a negative space in a continuity, a parting of the curtain, a rupturing moment in which resides any and all hope for a unity beyond that which separates. 

Widerklang is torn from another 'prologue to a prologue,' the dedication from Goethe’s Faust, the opening lines of which serve as an epigraph for Ouverture—"Widerklang:" “Ihr naht euch wieder,
schwankende Gestalten / Die früh sich einst dem trüben Blick gezeigt.” [You once again draw near, wavering forms / who first appeared before too-clouded eyes.] Meaning to “resound” or “echo,” Widerklang suggests a sound familiar to us, repeated and yet wholly changed in its form. It is further an homage to the Eco Ensemble, for whom the work was written.

Ouverture – "Widerklang"

2nd performance of the piece at the Blackheath Halls Great Hall, London by The Riot Ensemble.

Incipit omaggio a G.B. Pergolesi

Julia Blondeau
Namenlosen (extrait)
pour quatre solistes, ensemble et électronique
Emmanuelle Ophèle, flûte
Philippe Grauvogel, hautbois
Clément Saunier, trompette
John Stulz, alto
Ensemble intercontemporain
Matthias Pintscher, direction
Julia Blondeau, Gilbert Nouno, réalisation informatique musicale Ircam
José Echeveste, conseiller scientifique Ircam (équipe Mutant/Représentations Musicales)
Enregistré en direct le 09.06.2017 par France Musique à la Philharmonie de Paris

Julia Blondeau, Namenlosen (extrait)

Eda Er | The Sound Traveller
07.03.20
The Times Academy | Edition 2020
a production by HERMESensemble, De Veerman & AMUZ, in collaboration with Musica, Impulse Center for Music. With the support of the city of Antwerp

HERMESensemble
Wim Henderickx, coach The Times Academy | Peter Merckx, musical director

Naomi Beeldens, soprano | Karin de Fleyt, flute | Freya Bovijn, clarinet | Antoine Maisonhaute, violin | Marc Tooten, viola | Stijn Saveniers, cello | Catharina Feyen, double bass | Yutaka Oya, piano | Vincent Caers, percussion

Recording realized by concertrecord.be
Pieter Ketelslegers | Andy Van Den Bosch | Dieter Janssens
concertrecording.be

The Sound Traveller-for Ensemble

George Papajohn (b. 1998 Milwaukee) is a composer, improvisor, and multi-instrumentalist currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His recent work engages with latent tensions of identity held within the material, historical, and phenomenological aspects of sound. 

His music has been performed by Ensemble Dal Niente, the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, and by frequent collaborators Cameron Roberts and Julia Ansolabehere. George earned his B.M. in music composition at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music where he studied with Alex Mincek, Hans Thomalla, and Jay Alan Yim. He is currently pursuing a PhD in music composition at the University of California, Berkeley.

...for more recent music and updates, visit my website...

Ouverture – "Widerklang"

George Papajohn

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