Works with & for string quartet

Smaller works

Works with voice

Larger works

from Newtown Odyssey - an open-air opera about, on & for a creek

Water Lilies 1 is a short work for amplified solo voice setting Donna Masini’s poem of the same name from her collection "4:30 Movie." Masini’s Water Lilies poems are assembled floating across the printed page, like flowers resting on a fluid surface. I use amplified voice, electronic filters, and three distinct head positions (or acoustic panning) to mirror Masini’s poetic form, gently swaying and inwardly accumulating as words & sounds float and drift across space.

Here the weariest
		       come to rest 
						in the swirl
	of light and time and water 
				         water and air
    						               blues, teals
     a twisting wisteria
		  	     		seems to wrestle
	  the trellis
			              of its own trail
			   				         tier on tier
    	climbing its wires
				                        of air

				After the war
		   
            in his atelier
					a fog, a silt
					    		      filming each iris
     Monet twisted the laws
			       		of landscape and paint to raise

	    the real 
		   		 into a kind of stairwell
								    to tease 
		his Parisians out of the sterile 
		 			
   trials of war
			   	to rest
						    not to erase
	but ease
				let them stare
			   					and stare


***

https://stephanielamprea.bandcamp.com/album/quaking-aspen 

Recorded as part of New Focus Recordings "Quaking Aspen" project with soprano Stephanie Lamprea, featuring new work by Jason Eckardt, Wang Lu, James May, George Gianopoulos, and Hannah Selin. With special thanks to Stephanie for making this project come to life.

Water Lilies 1 (after Donna Masini) for amplified solo voice & electronics(2021)

Water Lilies 3 is a short work for amplified solo voice setting Donna Masini’s poem of the same name from her collection "4:30 Movie." 

Stephanie Lamprea, soprano

Water Lilies 3

After the allies
after the serial 
trials
the lies
his real 
aim was to make a 
"pond that remembers all"
not to paint "it"
rather 
"the air that touched it"

Water Lilies 3 (after Donna Masini) for amplified solo voice & electronics (2021)

Water Lilies (Floating) is a short work for amplified solo voice setting Donna Masini’s poem of the same name from her collection "4:30 Movie."

Stephanie Lamprea, soprano

(Water Lilies Floating)

		

			water 

						lilies
            will
			air				
wait		
air

				    iris
								    air			
	east        
      			             wars		   
							water
		
		teals
							west
				wisteria  
						trees
  		write						
air
					water			
		
			will-						    
lilies
  laws
						ows swirl

	aisle				
				air

								reels

(Water Lilies Floating) (after Donna Masini) for amplified solo voice & electronics (2022)

you don't want to have me try and describe my music - trust me!

K. Rohde - Three Minutes with Ned for tenor and piano

When I have a "big" piece to work on, I always start a "smaller" work or two on the side. These adjacent side pieces, that are typically for no one other than me, can be done in days, but more often take years to complete. Part explorations, part distraction, and part self-indulgence, these "smaller" works tend to take on a life of their own. 

I am fascinated by discussions surrounding repetition in music. They range from phenomenon of trance to the affect of ecstasy, to the thrill of rapture. However, my preoccupation with repetition has to do with its obsessive qualities - the ability to disorientate or distort. My world of repetition is in a fractured state, constantly in motion, always searching for an anchor or point of reference. And once I start thinking about repetition, I cannot help but think about how it central to ideas about form.

Rather than using ostinati or endless streams of repetitive cells or loops, my version of repetition is a shattering of phrases, mostly incomplete or played from odd starting points, that accumulate and accrete, forming larger shapes and sets of textures. The music can "revolve" in place, or circle around a point, at times saturating the space as if unable to escape, eventually hoping to break free of the repetition's gravity to reveal a "new way" - - - but this is all far more hopeful than anything I would (could) ever do in my music. 

At the end of completing this piece, I came up with a definition of form that, for now, is one I am using when making work:

"Form" is a story we tell ourselves so we can tell it to others about what happens on the inside of something, or between multiple points, or around a space, or as something frays or gathers, or along a line that we can no longer see or understand its beginning and can't help but think about how it will end. Form is basically life.

The piece is in two parts: the first half is "circling" and the second half is "revealing."

It is written for and dedicated to Thomas Feng.

circling/revealing for solo piano (2018-2022), Thomas Feng (piano)

I love Sonic Youth. Like my other loves (The B52s, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, etc.), it is all about the time and place in my life. The later 1980s/early 1990s were the edge of my true youth, and it was sonic in many ways. Kim Gordon's Tunic (Song for Karen) is an all time favorite song of mine, from an all time favorite album of theirs (Goo). As a child, I remember Karen Carpenter, and when I first heard this song by Sonic Youth, it landed with an explosion of irony and relevancy and truth. For the uninitiated, I strongly recommend watching the original music video for this song! The lo-fi, DIY quality is mesmerizing.

My remix, like all my remixes, is not an arrangement. It's my weird re-imagining of the song using the forces I have been given to work with. In this case, it is violin and vibraphone. All my remixes are pieces I make for my friends. That keeps it real for me. And that is without any irony, but with a lot of relevancy and truth.

My favorite lines from this song come from the mutating chorus. Karen talks to us from the great beyond. She addresses members of her family. In doing so, she says as much about their concerns & views about her as she says about herself. It goes:
 
She said:
"You aren't never going anywhere."
"You aren't never going anywhere."
"I ain't never going anywhere."
"I ain't never going anywhere."

I get that.

This piece is for Shalini. This performance is with Anna Prelser (vln.) & Loren Mach (vibes) of Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in concert April 30, 2023 at the Bayview Opera House.

sonic tunic, a remix for vln. & vibes after Tunic (Song For Karen) by K. Gordon & Sonic Youth (2023)

1 - 6/7ths. of the way to the end of the world  0:00-4:35 
2 - engendering [a]round [a]n end of gender  4:50-9:11 
3 - queer chant [shadow subsong with chorus]  9:17-15:10 

I have been thinking about the end of the "world" since childhood. Since then, I have been thinking about the end of my desires, my dreams, my oddnesses - the end of beauty, the end of the body, the end of sex, the end of truth (or at least the end of the use for truth), the end of love, the end of music, the end of queerness (which is in large part about ending things). All these spaces approach endings – when one ending is reached, there is always another ending beyond it waiting. Endings can be beautiful. And aching.
 
Alternative scenarios fascinate me. Something that has been very seductive to me is imagining micro-cultures where a community that otherwise has never been allowed to thrive to flourish in the light of promise. I ponder: An eco-pessimist culture that honestly embraces the reality of full eco-collapse, also known as the end of the world, but without having lost hope entirely. A fully gender-rich, or emptied, range of countless identities. A world where valuing the truth is the most prized of currencies, or the least. An understanding that some of us possess an endless urge to control, to place everything into an order, to spin in place. A time when queerness is not quite normative (then it would be, by definition, not queer), but kind of being there "just because." And I imagine if all these "cultures" had their own folksongs. 
 
At times, it feels very hard to imagine new realities. These imagined folksongs for these existing micro-cultures have not existed until now. The songs are very easy to sing if you know the words. The words are not easy to remember. The music that goes along with the tunes and the words - well, that is the hardest part of all! 
 
In short, these are pieces conceived for cultures that I want to have folksongs. The words are mine - the prosody, the tunes, all mine. The songs are theirs, whether they want them or not. In these folksongs, the human voice and the words are rarely heard, and only emerge as if unable to be contained.
 
This piece is dedicated to the ever kind and deeply conscientious Gusty, and with deep gratitude to the highly collaborative Grossman Ensemble musicians, the marvelous and thoughtful conductor Tim Weiss, to the visionary Dr. and Mrs. Grossman, and the University of Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition and its dedicated partners and donors. Thank you for being so very kind to me (to all of us on this program, in fact) in a field where it is very easy to do things for some but not for many. Your generosity and consideration is gratefully recognized by many of us. And it matters.

A video of the premiere can be found at: https://youtu.be/1JetPck0b5Q?si=rMa7itv5a5jccdyr

The Hardest Folksongs Never Written (2023) - Grossman Ensemble, with Tim Weiss (cond.)

from Newtown Odyssey - An open-air opera for, about, and on a creek
libretto by Dana Spiotta
sets, props, and design concept by Marie Lorenz
music & sound by Kurt Rohde

SITE/SCENE 6 on shore just past Penny Bridge
Just past the Penny Bridge, the CREEK BEING becomes visible. They sing and the GUIDES join in, revealing themselves as SPRITES. It is now clear that the GUIDES have been in league with the CREEK BEING all along. SOLO with creek sprites nonword “wordish” singing in background.

CREEK BEING:
Pools of glistening oil make
A perfect mirror: the city skyline Or your faces peering down
Disguise, dredge
Benzene, Dioxin, and Cesium
Surrender to my beauty, my stench, my reek PCB, TCE, and DDT

Pools of glistening oil make
A perfect mirror: the city skyline Or your faces peering down
Maximize, monetize Getty, Texaco, and Exxon
Pour in your overflow, your waste, your excreta Slurry, copper, and sulfuric acid

Pools of glistening oil make
A perfect mirror: the city skyline Or your faces peering down
Reclaim, rezone Sewers, eggs, and CSOs
Give me “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” Bristle worms, mussels, and cormorants

Creek Being Aria, from Newtown Odyssey, Charlotte Mundy (sop.)

This is a sound study compiled into an extended music phrase.

N.O. 2021 - Piano Drifting Music 1

N.O. 2021 - Stitched Together Version of Sound Phrases

N.O. 2021 - April 13, 2021 - Inside The Tunnel

"Newtown Odyssey" is a fantastical opera about our relationship to our environment. We want to engage what is historically and presently apparent if one slows down, looks, and listens closely. It is both celebratory and cautionary, both serious and satirical. This on-the-water experiential performance is built to accommodate the happenstance of live performance on an industrial waterway. - Dana Spiotta, librettist

Scene 3 - The Developers: Inside the actual opera, this scene is filmed and viewed as audience members travel along the site during the performance. Heard here is this film's soundtrack. The music/sound is meant to simulate and abstract antiquated recording technologies for playback and/or amplification for the sung text (possibly Victrola players, Sony Walkman, etc.).

VIDEO OF FILM: https://youtu.be/OIxjjpT5rWA?si=bxE2g2lRhJQOOhuV

Singers:
Charlotte Mundy, Developer 1
Kyra Sims, Developer 2

TEXT
Developer 1 
(spoken/sung)
Welcome to One Creek One, site proposal #0352-A!

Developer 2
Pull over for a moment!
Hang with us, chill out
Have a micro, a nitro
a brine, a biotic 
a switchel, a shrub, 
a feral-strained, forage-forward
slightly fizzy semi-hard 
kam-bu-cha!

Developer 1
Natural yeast, grown in the creek
Local, indigenous! 
 
Developer 2					 
Bio-fermented, right from the creek
Organic, unfiltered!

Developer 1 
Unfiltered!

Developer 2
Fermented!

Developer 1
From the creek

Developer 2
From the creek

Developer 1
We have a proposal, 
Pending community rezoning

Developer 2
Pending an environmental review

Developer 1
Pending city approval

Developer 2
Pending tax incentives!

Developer 1							
Hear us out! Here us out!

Developer 1 
(spoken/sung)
Hit ‘em with the pitch deck! 

Developer 2
Luxury lofts 
Lavish views, roof decks
Reclaimed oak flooring
Basaltina stone counters
Sleek, smart 
Kohler bidets
Luxury lofts,
Lavish views, roof decks
Wall of windows gleaming
private Peloton gyms
full height
Soaking tubs

Developer 1
5000 units
All sustainable, of course	
With limited community beach
and green space 
Don’t be a NIMBY 
Rezone, rezone, 
Re-zone

5000 units
All market-rate, of course
With a public art walk
with upcycled pavers
Don’t be a NIMBY
Rezone, rezone, 
Re-zone

Developer  1 
(shout singing)										
Wait, wait
Rich people need housing too!						
							
Developer 2
We haven’t even told you about the floating, glass-bottomed 
gastro-pub!
Developer 1
Or the roof-top
Skate park!

from "Newtown Odyssey" - (scene 3) The Developers

Between Scene 2 (The Citizen Scientists) and Scene 3 (The Developers), a Sonic Path is activated on the Newtown Creek site. Audiences follow the sound along a winding path as it leads them to the location where the Scene 3 film will be shown on the side of a dilapidated building wall. This pre-recorded track includes field recordings made by artist Marie Lorenz as she documented her travels along the the Newtown Creek between 2021 and 2023.

from "Newtown Odyssey" - Sonic Path 1

Between Scene 3 (The Developers) and Scene 4 (Conrad VanWalt), a Sonic Path is activated on the Newtown Creek site. Audiences follow the sound along a winding path as it leads them to the location where the Scene 4 will place - atop a lifeguard's chair overlooking the creek. This pre-recorded track includes field recordings made by artist Marie Lorenz as she documented her travels along the the Newtown Creek between 2021 and 2023.

from "Newtown Odyssey" - Sonic Path 2

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

The opening movement, "chorale canons," which is a series of increasingly intricate canons of a chord progression. The movement was inspired, in part, by a portion of the following poem...a poem which, in its own way, is a canon:

"…who will say of me I kissed her who will say of me I kissed someone who kissed 
her or I kissed someone who kissed someone who kissed someone who kissed her."

from "[I hope when it happens]"
"frank: sonnets" by Diane Seuss

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, I

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

The quartet contains three “remixes” of songs from The Sacred Harp Songbook; "504 Wood Street," "I’m Going Home," and "Can I Leave You?" In their original versions, each song is in 4-parts, sung be a group of singers of any size and any level of training. The songbook combines mensural and shape-note notations, allowing for nearly anyone to be able to participate regardless of their musical training or background. The 2nd. movement is "504 Wood Street (remix 1)." 

The second movement was inspired by a portion of the following song, which is decidedly NOT from The Sacred Harp Songbook:

"At some point, you' d have to live as if the truth was true."
-Tamara Linderman, The Weather Station, from "Loss"

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, II

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

This is the 3rd movement: "blah, blah, blah (after Greta Thunberg)."

"blah, blah, blah (After Greta Thunberg)" takes the rhythms and pitch material from Thunberg’s speech at the 2021 Youth4Climate Conference in Milano. It was this speech where her version of the “blah, blah, blah” moniker took hold. So much of the message in that speech could easily be applied to other areas of society, although none as potentially dire as climate catastrophe. For me, the world of new music has a lot of “blah, blah, blah” occupying it; I think most fields do. The words of Thunberg's that strike me most potently are: "We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope it. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people." I think this is true: Institutions might wield the power, but they do not wield the hope.

This movement was inspired by a line from "The Double" by José Saramago:

"Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered."

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, III

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

The quartet contains three “remixes” of songs from The Sacred Harp Songbook; "504 Wood Street," "I’m Going Home," and "Can I Leave You?" 

The Sacred Harp Songbook approach to combining voices has intrigued me since I participated at an Old Time Music Festival in upstate New York in the Summer 2010 with my friends artists Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey. While there, I played viola in spontaneously formed fiddle groups, completely by ear, listening and contributing differently than I had been trained and previously practiced. One evening after getting stoned, I wandered the festival grounds with David and heard group singing that was decidedly NOT Old Time or Bach chorales. I came upon a group of about 30-40 people jamming on The Sacred Harp songs, music I had seen and heard many times before, but never live. It was miraculous. And it set in motion many things that to this day I find myself re-examining again and again: skill, desire, purpose, utility, intention, vulnerability, beauty, memory, absence, belonging. 

My 2nd Sacred Harp Songbook remix in the quartet, "I'm Going Home," was inspired by the words of artist Helen Frankenthaler:

"I think technique determines aesthetic as much as aesthetic determines a new medium."

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, IV

"seeking all that’s still unsung" is a string quartet that was written for and is dedicated to the members of the Lydian Quartet (past & present), an ensemble that has been extremely supportive and central to my creative life for more than three decades. I am especially grateful to Judy Eissenberg, who thought of this project, saw it through, and has always been truly generous, if not fully honest to the point of 'being real' about how life & art works. This work was made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The movements to the piece are:
I - chorale canons  00:00-05:58
II - 504 Wood Street (remix 1)  06:01-09:10
III - blah, blah, blah (after Greta Thunberg)  09:15-17:20
IV - I'm Going Home (remix 2)  17:24-21:43
V - the rub: die Torschlusspanik  21:47-26:14
VI - Can I Leave You? (remix 3)  26:15-30:21
  
"chorale canons" is a striking new way for me to begin a piece. The opening chord progression is typical of much of my music: non-functional, more modal than tonal, rife with symmetries and near circular qualities, and very connected to the properties of endless voice leading. This progression is the music for the entire piece; a series of chords that melt into one another, containing all the qualities of multi-part vocal writing from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, while being nothing like that at all. My chorale is only the juicy parts; the “tune” will not show up for a while, if ever. This “unchorale” of mine is then set against itself in various ways using canonic. Each canon is more intricate than the previous one and accumulates towards distortion until reaching a rupture with tearingly rich, twisted harmonies that almost collapse and struggle to coalesce in time to "right the wrong" and allow the music to move forward into the future gently.
  
The quartet contains 3 “remixes” of Sacred Harp songs: "504 Wood Street," "I’m Going Home," and "Can I Leave You?" I participated at an Old Time Music Festival in upstate New York in the Summer 2010 with my friends artists Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey. One evening after getting stoned, I wandered the festival grounds with David and heard group singing and came upon a group of about 40 people jamming on Sacred Harp songs, music I had seen and heard many times before, but never live. It was miraculous. It set in motion many things that to this day I find myself re-examining again and again: skill, desire, purpose, utility, intention, vulnerability, beauty, memory, absence, belonging. 
  
"blah, blah, blah (After Greta Thunberg)" takes the rhythms and pitch material from Thunberg’s speech at the 2021 Youth4Climate Conference in Milano. It was this speech that her “blah, blah, blah” moniker took hold. Much of the speech’s message could easily be applied to other areas of society, although none as potentially dire as climate catastrophe. For me, the world of new music has a lot of “blah, blah, blah” occupying it.

"the rub: die Torschlusspanik" is an untranslatable German describing the panic one feels when they are running out of time as they gradually slowly move through the gate of life. In this movement I imagine the "rubbing away" of the prescribed manner of playing the instrument as one is taught/meant to play. This is first done with retuning, then by location (it is difficult to play as a quartet when the members get up and walk away!), and finally as the extension of our voices. 

As I move away from playing and performing, I am focusing on making...writing...the music I have wanted to make first and foremost, and doing so with others. I do not want to be passing through this gate of life and wonder “what if.” "Can I Leave You?" is a return. My remix of this touching song on the altered instruments is a formation where all four voices are equal and different and one.

seeking all that's still unsung, a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches[FULL]

a work for chorus a cappella using poems of Paul Mann, commissioned and premiered by Volti of San Francisco, conducted by Robert Geary

Endless (2007): Epigram - Love's Lens & Someone Sings (MM I)

Kent Nagano [cond.]
The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra
from a 1998 performance in Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley

from Five Pieces For Orchestra: MM I

this is a piece for amplified violin and amplified viola, 4 tuned gongs, 4 diatonic harmonicas, 2 Chinese paper accordions, some singing, & a max/msp patch. thanks to Sam Nichols for his indispensable help with the max patch and running it during performance.
Anna Presler (violin) and Kurt Rohde (viola) perform the work.

...maestoso…misterioso... for amplified violin & viola, with assorted items (2012)

"ONE" is a work for my friend pianist Genevieve Lee. It uses poems by her husband, the poet Paul Mann, as the frame for assembling a dreamlike narrative about love, loss and memory.

ONE - For Speaking Pianist On Poems Of Paul Mann, Pt. III, MM 15: Thru The Two Doors

from Five Pieces For Orchestra: MM V

Composed as part of the L.A. based Lyris Quartet's 2015 "Intimate Letters" commission/recording project. I imagined that if a letter is meant to be read, then music is meant to be heard. In this is 10-11 minute piece for string quartet, all the twists and turns that instigate change are begun by the second violin and viola...the first violin and cello have no option but to oblige and follow suit.

inside voice for string quartet (2015)

From performances of some works I completed years ago: 

-from Four Remixes for piano trio (2010/11), MM III & IV (Looped Trip & Maxed Out), with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

K. Rohde - 4 Remixes - III - Looped Trip

From performances of some works I completed years ago: 

-Concertino for violin and small ensemble (2009/10), MM I (Moto), MM II (Sotto), and MM III (Rotto), with Axel Strauss (vln.), Matilda Hofman (cond.) and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

K. Rohde - Concertino for violin and small ensemble, MM I (moto)

K. Rohde - 4 Remixes - IV - Maxed Out

Recorded by Lydian Quartet

I – NODE: Tuning Knot  00:00-03:22
II – Recently Found Fragments: Chant Loop  03:28-11:38
III – Striding Rituals: Nocturnal Gatherings for Mass Wooing  11:44-17:30
III.5 or 5.IV – Optional habits  17:43-18:40
IV – CODEX: I know I know this (…almost remembering…)  18:44-25:04
V – Turn the Corner: Post-Rapture Celebration  25:08-28:04
VI - NODE: Ex nihilo…In nihil [-for Mary Ruth-]  28:05-35:30

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past is dedicated to the Lydian String Quartet and was composed as part of their Composition Commission Award, which was made possible by the generosity and vision of Marjorie B. and Martin Cohn. It was composed in San Francisco and Cambridge and is 35 minutes long.

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past (2013-14/rev. 2017) for string quartet

"power is everywhere" is an assemblage of various writings/talks by Foucault. The singer is observer, actor, and deliverer of the message. She is not there to simply sing the text – she is there to instigate the way the music unfolds by way of what the words tell us. She is powerful, taking note of what happens and how to move forward. She is everywhere all the time. My piece is influenced by opera, song cycles, theater, and might even be considered a surreal singspiel.

Left Coast Ensemble, with Nikki Einfeld (soprano)
video: https://youtu.be/75lAqvPOLjQ

TEXTS (indicates omitted words)
Power (is everywhere.)

We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it "excludes," it "represses," it "censors," it "abstracts," it "masks," it "conceals." In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production.

Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it... We must make allowances for the complex and unstable process whereby a discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart.

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism. In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating. Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.
 
Justice must always question itself, just as society can exist only by means of the work it does on itself and on its institutions. The judges of normality (are present everywhere.) We are in the society of the great teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker-judge.
 
The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the outlaw, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order. What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something, which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life. As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one, perhaps, nearing its end.
 
But there exists a system of power which blocks, prohibits, and invalidates this discourse and this knowledge, a power not only found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly and subtly penetrates an entire societal network. (Intellectuals are themselves agents of this system of power - the idea of their responsibility for "consciousness" and discourse forms part of the system.) The intellectual's role is no longer to place himself "somewhat ahead and to the side" in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of "knowledge," "truth," "consciousness," and "discourse."

Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

Power exists only when it is put into action; it does not require your consent.

If no one knows who you are, can you be forgotten? If memory is power, are those who are forgotten powerless? The powerless are everywhere.

power is everywhere, an observed distraction for soprano & ensemble on texts of Foucault (2017)

Diane Seuss is a poet, a thinker, a seer, a sayer - an oracle of sorts. Her collection Four-Legged Girl is a complete game changer in the way it:
-tells stories, 
-captures the way we remember, reinvent, forget, 
-manages to shock and touch and move us,
-catches us off guard and draws us only further in.

It Wasn't A Dream is a collection of six settings of Seuss's poems from her collection. It is for soprano, tenor and piano four-hands. I composed it for the Brooklyn Art Song Society in 2018. Here is the third setting, which is the middle portion of the title poem. Thanks to soprano Charlotte Mundy, tenor Andrew Fuchs, and pianists Miori Sugiyama and Michael Brofman.

III - It Wasn't A Dream (part 2) from It Wasn't A Dream (2018)

Diane Seuss is a poet, a thinker, a seer, a sayer - an oracle of sorts. Her collection Four-Legged Girl is a complete game changer in the way it:
-tells stories, 
-captures the way we remember, reinvent, forget, 
-manages to shock and touch and move us,
-catches us off guard and draws us only further in.

It Wasn't A Dream is a collection of six settings of Seuss's poems from her collection. It is for soprano, tenor and piano four-hands. I composed it for the Brooklyn Art Song Society in 2018. Here is the second setting. Thanks to soprano Charlotte Mundy, tenor Andrew Fuchs, and pianists Miori Sugiyama and Michael Brofman.

II - Free Beer from It Wasn't A Dream (2018)

This is from my collection of Etudes for Mixed Ensemble, which is an ongoing set a pieces for the Schubert Octet instrumentation, plus piano. 

These works try to capture what appears to be the commonly understood idea of virtuosity, and apply it to an otherwise inherently awkward musical affect; Saturation is the idea behind "A(u)nti Mazurka." 

In total, these pieces are as much studies for the ensemble as they were for me when I composed each of them. This performance is from the 2019 Composers Conference, as performed by the Conference Ensemble, conducted by James Baker.

from Etudes for Mixed Ensemble - III. A[u]nti Mazurka

This is from my collection of Etudes for Mixed Ensemble, which is an ongoing set a pieces for the Schubert Octet instrumentation, plus piano. 

These works try to capture what appears to be the commonly understood idea of virtuosity, and apply it to an otherwise inherently awkward musical affect; Clumsiness is the idea behind "All Thumbs." 

In total, these pieces are as much studies for the ensemble as they were for me when I composed each of them. This performance is from the 2019 Composers Conference, as performed by the Conference Ensemble, conducted by James Baker.

from Etudes for Mixed Ensemble - I. All Thumbs

This is from my collection of Etudes for Mixed Ensemble, which is an ongoing set a pieces for the Schubert Octet instrumentation, plus piano. 

These works try to capture what appears to be the commonly understood idea of virtuosity, and apply it to an otherwise inherently awkward musical affect; Distraction is the idea behind "as we do…" Additionally, the form of the piece is based on a short poem by Paul Mann:

A few more poems to float

downstream

river that loses itself

thru its mouth

as we do

In total, these pieces are as much studies for the ensemble as they were for me when I composed each of them. This performance is from the 2019 Composers Conference, as performed by the Conference Ensemble, conducted by James Baker.

from Etudes for Mixed Ensemble - II. as we do...

"Tongues of Angels" was composed by composer/pianist Jared Redmond for PART 1 of Kurt Rohde's Farewell Tour PARTS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6. The work was premiered in May 2018 in San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento and Davis, CA. This performance features Jared Redmond (piano) & Kurt Rohde (viola).

This piece is very subtle & soft, so listening with headphones is recommended.

Jared Redmond - Tongues of Angels (2018/19)

"gentle rules" is an ongoing series of short movements for piano four-hands. The movements may be played separately, as a complete set, or as selected movements; If more than one movement is played, these movements may be performed in any order the performers desire.

Each movement has a "poetic" title. The basic music material is "generated" through a series of very simple rules that were put in place before the composing occurred. These rules were inspired by the poetic title by way of a free associative process.

The work was composed for ZOFO. They premiered the first movement at Old First Concerts on Sept. 15, 2019 in San Francisco.

I. - "petals open/closed": The numbers 11, 7, 5 and 3 are the basis for generating where to start and where to end a series of symmetrically constructed mini-canons; Piano Right is -1 and then in retrograde; Piano Left is +1 and then in retrograde. After the middle section, the process is reversed and exchanged between the parts.

gentle rules, I. petals open/closed (2019)

This work is inspired by the angel music from Messiaen's "St Francois d'assisi." I don't believe in angels. But if I did, I would imagine them as a point of transmission between us mere mortals and the divine creatures beyond. They can talk to us, traveling from a realm we cannot get to, and they can also talk to the inhabitants of that realm on our behalf. In my piece, the violin and the piano are either us (here) or them (there). You are free to decide which. 

The two instruments play near each other, but never with each other. Their rhythmic parts operate in a predetermined plan:

(piano) 7 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 (becoming agitated)
UNITY 8
(violin) 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 (becoming enlongated)

Only when they reach the "end" of the plan (13/1) is there a common space for the two players to connect, to be as one and communicate in a singular way, sometimes as one, sometimes alone.

The work was composed for and performed by Anna Presler (violin) and Eric Zivian (piano).

one wing for violin and piano (2019)

It is difficult to think of a song, any song, without the words.

Consider all the ways songs are made – words first and then music, music first and then words, the haphazard fusing of sound and action given speech, the democratized & collective assembly of a rally cry given melody, the purposeful need to make something created solely to be remembered so one “knows” they need to buy that product while at the store or they “must” vote for that candidate while at the polls or they “will” thank their god while at the church.

Songs occupy so many parts of our being. They are remarkable devices for connecting the written or the spoken with the act of musicking – to sing; to music a story, to song an emotion or remember a memory or be inspire to do something you hadn’t considered doing only moments earlier. So to take away the words of a song is a surgical act that assumes the music will survive without the text; that the message is somehow still intact even though it is no longer being told with the word and only with the sound.

It is fitting that the opening of Mitchell’s Blue is:

“Songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey Blue
And there is a song for you”

These remixes are works that sail away from the original song, but they definitely started out at the port of the song. Perhaps THAT is the joy of the remix – it honors the port of departure as the most important location in the journey. It’s not about where you are going; it’s about where you started from.

-- 

Hildegard was a polymath; a poet, a doctor, a musician, a theologian, a philosopher, an artist and a leader. Her text to the Ave Maria is original poetry and does not use the traditional liturgical texts. While liturgical in nature, her version is clearly centering a very active role for Mary – not just the mother of Jesus, but healer, creator, builder, warrior, leader.

“Hail Mary, 
O authoress of life, 
rebuilding up salvation’s health, 
for death you have disturbed, 
that serpent crushed 
to whom Eve raised herself, 
her neck outstretched 
with puffed-up pride.”

Ave for alto flute, viola & cello, a remix after Hildegard von Bingen (2020)

It is difficult to think of a song, any song, without the words.

Consider all the ways songs are made – words first and then music, music first and then words, the haphazard fusing of sound and action given speech, the democratized & collective assembly of a rally cry given melody, the purposeful need to make something created solely to be remembered so one “knows” they need to buy that product while at the store or they “must” vote for that candidate while at the polls or they “will” thank their god while at the church.

Songs occupy so many parts of our being. They are remarkable devices for connecting the written or the spoken with the act of musicking – to sing; to music a story, to song an emotion or remember a memory or be inspire to do something you hadn’t considered doing only moments earlier. So to take away the words of a song is a surgical act that assumes the music will survive without the text; that the message is somehow still intact even though it is no longer being told with the word and only with the sound.

It is fitting that the opening of Mitchell’s Blue is:

“Songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey Blue
And there is a song for you”

These remixes are works that sail away from the original song, but they definitely started out at the port of the song. Perhaps THAT is the joy of the remix – it honors the port of departure as the most important location in the journey. It’s not about where you are going; it’s about where you started from.

blued for alto flute, violin, viola & cello, a remix after Joni Mitchell (2020)

Trotsky was killed with an icepick to the skull. It was actually an ice axe.

I recently read a short play, which begins the moment after the hammer strikes and becomes embedded into Trotsky's head, that proceeds to detail the thoughts and sensations, moment by moment he had as he remained conscious and confronted his assassins in order to question them.

Trotsky had to seek treatment at the hospital. He was operated on and died the next day from exsanguination and shock. Exsanguination is an extreme loss of blood.

His last words were "I will not survive this attack. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before."

This piece was written in 2018-19 for and is dedicated to Jared Redmond, who is simply the best.

Trotsky's Icepick (a meditation) for solo piano (2019)

This an easy way to get quick access to recent (& not-so-recent) works of mine. Contact me with any queries. REQUEST: Should you wish to play my work, I ask you include it on a program that reflect the values of belonging, and make an honest effort to be fully inclusive. Thank you.

(pronounced Road-HEE or Rhoad-DAH)

Kurt Rohde

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