Mots (1963), for 5 solo voices and 8 instruments
Betsy Jolas

Mots (Betsy Jolas)

pour Flûte, Clarinette Basse, Percussion, Piano et Violoncelle

Solistes de l'Ensemble intercontemporain et de l'Ensemble Next
Oscar Jockel, direction

Chants d'étoileurs II (2020 / 2022)

performed by:

Elijah Spies – viola
Francesco Palmieri – guitar
Jacob Mason – piano
Mikołaj Rytowski – percussion

recorded by Santiago Villar Martín
mixed by Isaac Roth Blumfield

recorded Nov 30, Klaus Linder Saal, Musik Akademie Basel

Underglow | for viola, guitar, piano, percussion, feedback network, and electronics (2022-23)

String Quartet composed by Ko Muramatsu for MIVOS Quartet, premiered at VIPA in July 2024.

Virtuality

Performed on July 6, 2024 at the Paul Hindemith Center in Blonay, Switzerland as part of soundSCAPE Composition and Performance Exchange 2024.

Leah Thomas, Clarinet
Mark Fewer, Violin
Mafalda Santos, Cello
Kyle Adam Blair, Piano
Julius Mauldin, Conductor
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Mirror-Laden is a potpourri of different characters, moods, and figures. I tried in constructing this piece to maximize the contrasts both within sections and in-between sections while still weaving a formal thread that would bind the whole piece in a sensible and self-consistent fashion. I have been thinking a great deal recently about the discrete sections that appear in various rock, pop, and metal genres, and I wanted to find an approach to my own music that would integrate this kind of compartmentalized approach. I found that by vastly simplifying my pitch language and by more intently focusing on rhythmic variation and dynamic fluctuation, I could more intuitively create chunks of music that, while rather dissimilar on the surface, are united through specific formal and character elements.

The “mirror” in the title derives from the oversaturation of inversion throughout the piece, whether with respect to pitch, rhythm, character, or timbre. As I discovered the pitch sequences that I would use in Mirror-Laden, I noticed a striking similarity of one sequence to the opening melody of “Subject and Reflection”—a short piece from the sixth book of Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. Having found this uncanny resemblance, I decided to use this idea of reflection as a foundation for each section of the piece.

Julian Stuart-Burns - Mirror-Laden

Beauty is brief and violent for sinfonietta

Premiered at Lucerne Music Festival on August 31st, 2024. Performed by International Ensemble Modern Academy 2024

Beauty is brief and violent

Fleeting Musings And Restless Pause: A Bassoon Pocket Concert (2015) for bassoon, flute, harp, viola, and bass.

Commissioned by Steve Dibner and Brad Balliett for the Metropolis Ensemble.

Live recording: premiere by Brad Balliett and the Metropolis Ensemble - Oct.11, 2015, (le) Poisson Rouge.

Fleeting Musings And Restless Pause: A Bassoon Pocket Concerto (2015)

Rehearsal recording of first half - May 2017. American Composers Orchestra; David Tinervia, baritone.

Part 1: Into the Weddell Sea
Part 2: Trapped in Pack Ice 

Music composed by: Nina C. Young
Text written by: Nina C. Young and David Tinervia
Optional Generative video by: R. Luke DuBois

"Out of whose womb came the ice" creates a sonic and visual glimpse of a segment of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17).  In August 1914, at the onset of WWI, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton gathered a crew of 27 men and set sail for the South Atlantic.  They were in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize of the Heroic Age of Exploration: to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent by foot.  Upon entering the Weddell Sea, they encountered unusually foul weather.  Weaving south through the treacherous seas of ice, their ship, the Endurance, became trapped only 85 miles from their destination.  After months of waiting for the ice to break, the ship was crushed and sank, leaving the crew stranded upon the ice floes without any means of contacting the outside world.  In pursuit of survival, Shackleton and his crew endured 22 months traversing ice floes up the Antarctic Peninsula.  The final leg included a deadly 800-mile open boat journey in their lifeboat, the James Caird, in hopes of reaching South Georgia Island.  The crew was rescued on 30 August 1916; everyone survived.  Though this expedition failed, it remains one of the most miraculous stories of polar exploration and human survival.

"Out of whose womb came the ice" looks at the expedition from the time they enter the Weddell Sea (December 1914) to the sinking of the Endurance (November 1915).  The vocal and orchestra music focuses on the crew’s perception of the Endurance in relationship to their surroundings.  She goes from being simply a ship, to a lifeline and memento that connects them to the world they left behind.  Once she sinks, they are truly left alone.  The visuals and electronics offer narrative elements drawn directly from documents of the journey: journal entries of the crew and images by expedition’s official photographer Frank Hurley.

Out of whose womb came the ice (excerpt) for baritone voice, orchestra, and electronics

Composed and recorded by Nina C. Young, April 20, 2020, New York.

present perfect

present perfect (2020) voice, prepared piano, electronics

Premiered at outHEAR Festival in Larissa, Greece on December 14th, 2019 by members of Klangforum Wien and PPCM. 

Felix Martl, bass clarinet
Mikael Rudolfsson, trombone
Leo Morello, cello
Joonas Ahonen, piano
Dimitrios Polisoidis, conductor

recorded by Dimitri Papageorgiou

[pictured: John Divola]

Sunol (2019) for bass clarinet, trombone, cello, and piano

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

They left us grief-trees wailing at the wall (2020), for 9 amplified instruments
Commissioned by Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental, The Riot Ensemble, and Wien Modern

Live Recording, Riot Ensemble, 12 November 2020, London

Julian Stuart-Burns - Mirror-Laden

Julian Stuart-Burns

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