Rebecca Lane, microtonal bass flute
Jon Heilbron, contrabass
Adam Asnan, recording
Samuel Dunscombe, mixing
excerpt from 2021 release on Another Timbre
http://www.anothertimbre.com/catlambmuto.html

Muto Infinitas (2016) Excerpt

catherine lamb -- descensus trio (2020). i recorded each part by myself over the course of the pandemic.

catherine lamb -- decensus trio

Performed at the Festival of Laurence Crane: A Tribute Concert on Monday 18th October 2021.

The title is an accidental pun on Laurence’s Bobby J for electric guitar. I was chatting with Patrick about putting the piece together and told him we might both have to muster up our best Bobby D impressions (aka Bob Dylan).

Lara Agar (violin, harmonica)
Christian Drew (guitar, harmonica)
Harry Harrison (percussion, harmonica)
Patrick Hegarty (guitar, harmonica)
Darius Paymai (harmonium, harmonica)

Bobby D

Air (1986)

For the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity's Evolution: Quartet 2022

Played by the Uxor Quartet

Rather

2022-08-13 1100AM CD1

The edge of things

May song (2022)
six voices and prerecorded audio
Performed by Exaudi, at Exposure 2023, Milton Court, 22 May 23

Cressida Sharp, sop.
Jessica Gillingwater, mez-sop.
Tom Williams, counterten.
David de Winter, ten.
Michael Hickman, bari.
Simon Whiteley, bass

James Weeks, cond.

Text by Goethe (1771), trans. Lisa Jeschke & Lucy Beynon (in Jeschke, Anthology of Poems by Drunk Women, Materials, 2018 http://material-s.blogspot.com/2020/10/lisa-jeschke-anthology-of-poems-by.html.)

How beautiful shines 
To me, the nature! 
How the sun glows! 
How the mead smiles!

Blossoms penetrate 
From each branch 
And a thousand voices 
Out of the shrubbery

And joy, and joy 
From each breast. 
O earth, o sun,
O joy o lust!

O love, o love!
As golden, as beautiful 
As the morning clouds 
On those heights

You bless gloriously 
The fresh field
The blossoms’ steam 
The bountiful world.

O girl, girl
How I love you! 
Your eyes gaze! 
How you love me!

This is the way the lark loves 
Song and air
And morning flowers
The smell of heaven

How much I love you, 
My blood warmed
By you, for me, a youth, 
And joy and courage

For new songs
And dances
May you be happy eternally 
As long as you love me.

Prerecorded sounds include two field recordings of a wind turbine in Bernau bei Berlin, recorded by Peter Cusack, 2021.

Art: Unknown photographer, WT-Energiesystems Albertshof wind turbines, Bernau bei Berlin, c. 2020

Thanks to James Weeks and Exaudi, and to Paolo Carlotto and Nick Moroz for audio engineering assistance.

May song

Performed by Affinity Brass, November 1st 2014, at the Church of the Annunciation, Brooklyn

Erik Carlson - Second Brass Sextet

Original Program Notes:

I have been drawn to miniatures as of late because they seem only ever more true to life. A series of moments, some beautiful, some vexing, all begging for an explanation as to their meaning and arrangement. The catch is, whatever “meaning” we may find, wish for, or declare, is but a superimposition of our own making. Our stories about ourselves or our lives, as interesting as they may be, sit atop a bedrock of meaninglessness, incoherence, and dissatisfaction.

In music, meaning has always felt elusive to me. Instead, this search is often substituted for an adjudication of rule following, norms, or living up to particular musical expectations. These pieces come awfully close to suggesting ‘normal’ musical behaviors, and yet fall short of offering satiety in that respect. Miniatures, on account of their brevity, frustrate musical expectations that one might long for. They cannot really be said to undergo any kind of development, repetition becomes either difficult (or gratuitous), and often they suggest participation in a whole that is maddeningly difficult to demarcate.

In listening to these pieces, consider that, of all the great human qualities, fighting that bedrock of dissatisfaction is one of the most inextinguishable. Such is life.

I. Sinfonia
II. Liturgical Song
III. Romancero
IV. Popular Song
V. Finale Ultimo

Five Miniatures

This piece was written for 840 and the NME. It is composed from five combinations of pitches and rhythms, stitched together to make one unfolding form in which groups of notes are covered and uncovered in turn. This process of covering up sounds led me to thinking about the phenomenon of auditory masking, whereby the perception of one sound is altered by another which occurs simultaneously (or very soon before/after). Auditory masking can affect the nature of sounds we hear in various ways, particularly when those sounds are already closely related in pitch or timbre. 

polarpatterns.wordpress.com

Masking Set was performed by Sara Rodrigues (voice), Francesca Gilbert (viola) and Peteris Sokolovskis (cello) at 840: 840: Five Year Anniversary on the 31 January 2020 at Café OTO.

Five Miniatures

Mark Limacher

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