Name: Kevin Kay- Coalescing [Liam Battle, cello] by Liam Battle
Duration: 9 min 34 s
Description: Live recording of Kevin Kay’s Coalescing for Solo Cello

Written for Ensemble Dal Niente. For Bb Clarinet, French Horn, Harp, and Viola.

Conductor - Michael Lewanski
Clarinet - Katie Schoepflin
Horn - Matthew Oliphant
Harp - Ben Melsky
Viola - Ammie Brod

Written for Summer Residency for New Music at Depaul University with Ensemble Dal Niente.

our systems were built to fail - Ensemble Dal Niente

Terry Jennings – Piece for Cello and Saxophone (SLT-007)

Saltern’s latest offering marks the first-ever release of “lost minimalist” Terry Jennings’ visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis. Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Jennings was a close associate of Young, Terry Riley, and Dennis Johnson, and an early adopter of minimalist tendencies, creating slow, sustained music, influenced by jazz, modalism, and late romantic classical music. Jennings died tragically in his early forties, most of his work lost to a chaotic life; however, his forward-looking music quietly exerted a lasting influence on composers including Young and Harold Budd. Composed over sixty years ago, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, foreshadows a number of movements in postwar avant-garde music.

Despite the title, there is no saxophone on this album. At over eighty minutes, La Monte Young’s justly tuned realization of Piece for Cello and Saxophone for cello alone unifies and extrapolates Terry Jennings’ dense harmonies, creating an extended field of complex sonorities in motion, all brought to life by the immaculate playing of Charles Curtis. The recording captures Curtis in a performance from 2016 reflecting more than twenty-five years of dedication to the piece. Piece for Cello and Saxophone is released physically on double LP and digitally with kind permission from MELA Foundation. Mixed by Anthony Burr, mastered by Stephan Mathieu, and cut to vinyl via direct metal mastering by Hans Jörg Maucksch at Pauler Acoustics. Pressed at RTI and printed at Stoughton. Includes a four-page insert with liner notes by Young, Curtis, Burr, and Tashi Wada, and a download of the full recording.

Piece for Cello and Saxophone

Terry Jennings – Piece for Cello and Saxophone (excerpt)

Program Note: 
Three Places for string quartet is made up of three sonic portraits of special places that I frequented over the course of the last two pandemic years. Each of these locations has provided me some sort of refuge and fresh air, helping me navigate this challenging solitary and sedentary time. In each movement, I focus on capturing different aspects of an environment, from distinct sonic markers like the doppler effect of a train horn around a campsite, to more abstract character driven evocations of a visual like that of wine grapes strung between trees in a vineyard field, to more musical depictions of vivid imagery like that of the fluctuating surface of Lake Michigan. 

This piece is dedicated to Quatuor Diotima with admiration and gratitude.

Movements:
I: The Indiana Dunes (0'00 - 5'35)
II: The North Fork (5'40 - 7'50)
III: The Lakeshore (8'00 - 13'00)

Three Places For String Quartet - Live Premier by Quatuor Diotima

An Unexpected Tremor of Lines for soprano saxophone, cello, piano, and percussion. Composed by Lily Koslow. Program notes available below.

Soprano Sax: Tommy Davis
Cello: Alistair Mariz
Piano: Paul Çelebi
Percussion: Martin Daigle
Conductor: Charles-Eric Fontaine

Album Art: John Vaccaro
Recording and mixing engineer: Carolina Rodríguez
Recording engineer: Ying-Ying Zhang

An Unexpected Tremor of Lines was tangentially inspired by the novel "The Passion According to G.H.," by Brazilian author Clarice Lispector. The novel unfolds as a stream of consciousness monologue by an amateur sculptress, who tells of an existential crisis that overcame her upon crushing a cockroach in the door of a wardrobe. The mystical nature of the book inspired the mood and musical materials of this piece, influencing the development of rich harmony and textures which are organically expressive. The aesthetic of An Unexpected Tremor of Lines is a response to the narrator’s poetic experiences, as well as the timeless and prehistoric notion of a cockroach, one of the oldest insect species that exists today.

An Unexpected Tremor of Lines

Recorded by Nathan Meltzer, violin, Emily Mantone, cello, and Umi Garrett, piano.

Ammonite

everything and always: in memoriam Carla Bowen for Organ and 6-Channel electronics is dedicated to Carla, my beloved aunt whom we lost to domestic abuse. 

everything and always explores the existential nature of life, death, and the hopelessness and grief these states of existence give to us; the piece laments the tragedy of its subject. From its moments of glimmering joy to its fall into nothingness, it stands as a reminder that all things end yet are also infinite in their possibilities. Albert Camus wrote, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Through this piece, we remember Carla's life and the resilience of the human spirit, even in the face of tragedy. Her light brought joy and love to many — the world is a darker place without her.

Performer: Randall Harlow
Recorded: Dan Nichols
Engineered: Ryan Garvey

everything and always: in memoriam carla bowen

everything and always

Live recording of Kevin Kay’s Coalescing for Solo Cello

Kevin Kay- Coalescing [Liam Battle, cello]

Santa BUŠS
'Im Gewitter der Rosen...' for cello (2019 / 2025) 

Guna Šnē, cello 
(live recording : 31.01.2025. - JVLMA, Latvia)

The starting point for the piece “Im Gewitter der Rosen...”  is a poem of the same title by Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann,  along with it's numerous translations and different perspectives that these interpretations create. 



Wohin wir uns wenden im Gewitter der Rosen,
ist die Nacht von Dornen erhellt, und der Donner
des Laubs, das so leise war in den Büschen,
folgt uns jetzt auf dem Fuß.

Ingeborg Bachmann   


Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, and the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.

Translated by Peter Filkins   


Où que nous allions sous l’orage de roses
la nuit est éclairée d’épines, et le tonnerre
du feuillage, naguère si faible dans les buissons,
est maintenant sur nos talons.

Traduit de l’allemand par Francoise Retif   



Santa BUŠS 'Im Gewitter der Rosen...'

performed by Yarn/Wire at Paine Hall, Harvard University on February 28, 2025

Laura Barger – piano
Julia Den Boer – sampler & MIDI controller
Russell Greenberg – percussion
Dennis Sullivan – percussion

recording: Anthony DiBartolo
mix: Isaac Roth Blumfield

Program note:

In English, the word "dream" has a positive connotation, but there is a thin
boundary between a dream and a nightmare, and our experience of dreaming
rarely fits neatly into either category. In dreaming, a fluidity emerges between
bliss and dread, and one's desire to escape reality can collapse at any moment.
Familiar places, people, objects, animals might emerge, and as we dream we
know that it is both really them and really not them at the same time. Something
both illusory and deeply real is happening. While you listen, try to fall asleep.

The electronics for this work were prepared at the Südwestrundfunk Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany through their Workstay program with assistance from Thomas Hummel, sound designer, with recordings performed by James Morley, cello, and Rebecca Lawrence, double bass


Like a dream I can' t wake up from | for Yarn/Wire & electronics (2024-25)

Ensemble Hezarfen:
Violin: Ozcan Ulucan
Viola: Ulrich Mertin
Cello: Ozan Tunca

Edition Peters, Leipzig



iv 8 für Streichtrio

Ensamble Dúo Reflexión K: Beatrix Wagner (flauta) Gerald Eckert (cello).

Producción de Audio: Claudius Carstens
Plattenmonster Schallwaren
Grabado en Festung Friedrichsort | Kiel | Alemania

Kevin Kay- Coalescing [Liam Battle, cello]

Liam Battle

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