Noriko Kawai, piano • Ted Mann Concert Hall • December 10, 2010 Written on the occasion of composer James Dillon’s 60th birthday this piece paints an exuberant, athletic portrait in tribute to a wonderful composer and friend. Tchotchke features wildly transformed traditional gestures, reminiscences of the ambitious complexities of Dillon’s early piano works, as well as audacious passages of pianistic fury. These curiosities are packaged in a short, tightly refined keepsake.

Tchotchke for Noriko Kawai (solo piano)

Written specifically for violin virtuoso Irvine Arditti’s 2009 visit to the Twin Cities this piece was imagined as a quasi-schizophrenic internal dialog between 9 distinct personalities. The resulting meta-counterpoint of thematic materials requires the soloist to navigate between these competing moods in rapid succession as each material invades the others. These constant interruptions serve to first obscure, and eventually, to illuminate the emblematic J. S. Bach fragment laying at the heart of the piece.

Dyspnoea for Irvine Arditti (solo violin)

This short work for violin duo was written for the Swedish/German violin duo of Martin & Cecilia Gelland on the occasion of their visit to the Twin Cities in Fall 2013.  The work is inspired by the contours of the San Francisco Bay Area skyline and the contemplation of the catenary curve as an organizing structure.
Premiered 7 October 2013, Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall, University of Minnesota

Oberleitung for Duo Gelland (violin duo)

This is the first movement from a 25 minute solo work for saxophone + piano which was written for- and premiered-by saxophonist Jeffery Kyle Hutchins and pianist Neil Nanyi Qiang, 6 March 2015 at Studio Z in St. Paul.  Zusammenfluss—a German word for “confluence” from the roots “Zussammen” (together) and  “Fluss” (river, flow)—is a work conceived as a dialog between differing modes of temporal perception.  Its central object is glimpsed on a multiplicity of time scales to form distinct streams of activity, combined and re-combined in turbulent flow, to explore notions of consonant and dissonant time.  It is the fourth installment in a cycle of German-titled duos and trios that form the basis of a large-scale chamber cycle to be completed in 2015.  Zusammenfluss was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Anonymous.

Zusammenfluss for Kyle Hutchins (saxophone + piano)  (excerpt)

For Flute, Clarinet Duo
Premiere of Feb. 7, 2016
Lauren McNee, Fl; Emily Beisel, Cl.

Nutation

Pléonasme for String Quartet
Pléonasme was composed specifically for the technical facilities and explosive virtuosity of the Arditti string quartet. The work places the members of the ensemble into various dialogic oppositions as they struggle to project shifting musical densities through myriad improvised strategies. The piece mimics the dynamics of human conversational encounters and is therefore amenable to any number of morphologically equivalent programmatic interpretations. Pléonasme is dedicated to the composer’s two small children whose innocence and wonder continually inspire fresh insights on the seemingly mundane features of the ordinary world.
Premiere performance by the Arditti String Quartet
30 June 2012 Espace de Projection, IRCAM Centre Pompidou, Paris, France


Pléonasme for Arditti Quartet (string quartet)

...auf einer grünen Aue... for saxophone duo
This short work for two saxophones explores resonance arising at the intersection of incident planes of activity within a common physical space.  The dialog between the two musicians is established through the rigorously determined recurrence of randomly conceived structures that are allowed to interpenetrate and feedback on one another to form a third entity in the space between the two performers.  The work takes its name from a funerary text and is dedicated to the memory of Raymond Wagner. 

Premiered 9 April 2013 Ted Mann Concert Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins & Alex Richards, baritone saxophones
Ensemble CMW 

...auf einer grünen Aue... for saxophone duo

Jeremy Wagner is a composer and sonic tinkerer currently living in Berkeley, CA.

Jeremy L Wagner

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