Beautiful, Marianna. I feel as if you just rotated by on your axis! (((()))))

Infinity’s Reflection invokes feelings of nostalgia and reminiscence. A combination of both handbells and choir chimes provides a rich musical texture and gives ringers the extra challenge of frequently switching between the two different instruments. The chimes are meant to represent the mysterious pull of memories as one struggles to move on to a more promising future. The melody is constantly thrown back and forth between chimes and bells, imitating the oppressive influence of the past on the present. One of the motives that appears several times in the bells includes many fast, repeated notes accented by syncopation, attempting to rise higher but always inevitably descending down to the same pitch, as if trying to run away from something.

Written for and performed by the Westminster Concert Bell Choir.

Infinity's Reflection

Sarasvati

For full program notes, see: http://www.rockfordsymphony.com/heitzeg-scurria-we-are-met-at-gettysburg/

I. Honor and Sacrifice (Amy Scurria)
This movement is dedicated to the composer's father, a Vietnam War veteran. Its focus is the people--the soldiers, their families, those who lived near and in Gettysburg and who unexpectedly found their peaceful agricultural community the center point of an enormous battle attempting to solve long-standing painful issues in American history. The composer notes that the woodwinds in this movement symbolize a mother waving goodbye to her soldier son.

II. Wounded Fields (Steven Heitzeg)
An adagio for strings alone, dedicated to the victims of war and genocide, the movement revolves largely around the pitch G, sounding as a continuous ground bass, to build images of Gettysburg and its sacred, hallowed ground.  Conceived as a plea for peace and anti-war in its reverential lyricism, the movement honors the dead by responding with peaceful and healing music.

III. The Last Full Measure (Scurria/Heitzeg)

Lincoln's address draws attention to the devotion of the soldiers at Gettysburg, especially those interred in the national military cemetery, which was the occasion of his great address: they who gave "the last full measure of devotion." The movement is dedicated to the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, who had died in a plane crash in October 2002. Throughout his career in the Senate, he had fought non-militaristically and non-violently for peace, social justice, and the rights of all. The movement is cast in seven sections laid out to evoke the era and to convey progress toward freedom and equality, with the children's choir entering at the ending in a clarion call to conscience and the common good.

We Are Met at Gettysburg was performed some ten times by the two commissioning orchestras soon after its composition. Individual movements were also performed by other ensembles in the intervening years. This performance by the Rockford Symphony Orchestra is the first complete hearing since 2003.

(excerpted from program notes by Steve Ledbetter)

Amy Scurria

We Are Met At Gettysburg

Performed by Saikat Karmakar, violin.
This piece was the result of a semester-long collaboration in an MSU seminar on digital symbiosis: composers teamed up with performers to create a new work for a solo instrument and electronics. The idea behind this piece was exploring sounds, both acoustic and electronic, that could complement each other in a soundscape, while also incorporating melodic and rhythmic elements in a semi-narrative ABA structure.
Made using Max/MSP.

Endeavor No. 1

Performed by the MSU Campus Band on April 26, 2017, directed by 
Connor Fetting.

Renascence was inspired by the poem of the same name by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay lived in my region of Maine for part of her life, and her impact on the town of Camden in particular is evident. A statue of her stands in the harbor park, overlooking the bay. The opening verse of this poem can be found in many places around Camden, painted on the inner walls of our public library and etched into stone tablets on the top of Mount Battie:
 
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay. 

Renascence does more than just depict the natural beauty of Penobscot Bay. It is an epic story, and an epic-length poem for Millay, who was only twenty years old and nearly unknown at the time she wrote it. The protagonist goes through a dramatic transformation, a philosophical hero's journey, as she falls from innocence and experiences the pain of understanding others' suffering. Just when she seems unable to die, despite her intense longing for death, she reclaims her will to live and sees the world through new eyes, with appreciation for all the things around her.

Commissioned by the MSU Campus Band as a winner of the 2017 MSU Large Ensemble Composition Competition.

2017-04-26 Campus Band

Renascence

Natalie Law, bassoon
Sarah Palermo, voice

Mean Time Between Failure, for bassoon, voice, and electronics, uses both fixed media and live signal processing to tell the story of a robot, Unit 098 S1-10, who undergoes a transformation from a mechanical device to a sentient being, exceeding its original programming and expressing needs of its own. The title of the piece comes from a term in engineering which refers to the predicted amount of time that a device will function without failure. In the beginning of the composition, the bassoon and voice act as a singular entity, reacting to and anticipating the actions of the other. The voice initiates the existential crisis, triggered by a new sonic environment in the fixed media; then the bassoon leads the disturbed voice towards a newfound peace and an awareness of self, despite the tumultuous change in character.
The sampled recordings in the fixed media include pre-recorded bassoon, played by Natalie Law, and printer sounds from the Selma D. and Stanley C. Hollander MakeCentral: Makerspace at the MSU Library. Growing up above my parents’ printing and graphics design business, I was accustomed to hearing the ticking, ringing, and shifting of digital printers and old fashioned printing presses. Once I knew this composition was going to be about a robot, these sounds immediately popped into my head as a way of communicating a mechanical and musical environment. The staff at Hollander MakeCentral were accommodating enough to assist me with this project by allowing me to record sounds of their equipment, including the Espresso Book Machine, the MakerBot Replicator 3D printer, and the USCutter Laserpoint II vinyl cutter.

Mean Time Between Failure

Written for and premiered/performed by the brilliant Portland Piano Trio!

Premiered at Bates College in Lewiston, and at Mechanics Hall in Portland, ME.

When researching astronomical terms to find inspiration for the piece, the word ‘syzygy’ struck me the most. It means a ‘conjunction or opposition’ of planets, as well as the term used when three planets are visible at the same time in the night sky. This also coincides with the fact that the piece is my first piano trio, three entirely different instruments and worlds of sound.
Each instrument can be considered a ‘planet’ with its own characteristics; the violin is fiery and energetic, the piano is atmospheric and grand, and the cello is vibrant and sonorous. 

Each of the instruments has its own solo exposition, and then suddenly become visible to each other, which is the first time all three play together in a burst of light led by the cello. As the piece progresses it becomes more complex, and almost manic, until finally each instrument detaches from each other and retreats back into its own realm.

Syzygy

Music: Marianna Filippi
Sound: Bruna Matić
Accordion: Martina Jembrišak

The piece "Les Couleurs de mon Ame" is written and dedicated by  Marianna Filippi to Chloe Cedille, French accordionist.
Few days before playing the piece publicly, Chloe became quadraplegic and had to be hospitalized for a long time. 
"Les Couleurs de mon Ame" turned out to be a shining light of hope: practising the piece in mind helped the accordionist to recover her arms, to recreate neurological connections and play afresh. 

With a new romantic mark, American composer Marianna Filippi translates with accuracy and brillance the smile and colours she felt in Chloe Cedille and the ability to transform each difficulty into a graceful travel.

"Les Couleurs De Mon Ame" has been premiered in April 2020 in Zagreb by Croatian accordionist Martina Jembrišak.

Marianna Filippi: Les Couleurs De Mon Ame

Borderline  (Intro)

Cobra

Recording from the world premiere of VÍDDIR, February 19th 2020 in Grundtvigs Kirke, Copenhagen.

Performers:
Bass Flute 1: Björg Brjánsdóttir
Bass Flute 2: Marie Sønderskov
Bass Flute 3: Flavia Huarachi
Bass Flute 4: Sofia Kayaya
Bass Flute 5: Beata Preisaite
Alto Flute 1: Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir
Alto Flute 2: Marina Cyrino
Flute: María Ösp Ómarsdóttir
Piccolo: Christine Elizabeth Clancy
NEKO3: Fei Nie, Kalle Hakosalo, Lorenzo Colombo
Bass Guitar: Skúli Sverrisson
Double Bass: Bára Gísladóttir

Recording: Alma Hede and Yangyadi (Chloe) Deng
Mix: Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir

Photo: Therese Precht Vadum

VÍDDIR

Marianna Filippi is a professional composer of chamber music, and received her BMUS Hons degree in composition at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales.

She is now studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark pursuing her Masters of Composition.

Syzygy

Marianna Filippi

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