So strange, so unexpected, so heartbreakingly sad and beautiful

With Julia Brooks, astrid hubbard flynn, Jacob Frost, Justin Massey, Connor Scroggins and Nick Ortiz. Thanks to SPLICE Institute and Popebama (Erin Rogers / Dennis Sullivan) for creating the virtual free improv space where this interaction took place.

Sextet Improvisation @ SPLICE Institute 7-2-2021

Featuring Thomas Stevens (trumpet), Roger Bobo (tuba) with Dallas Brass Quintet (principals of Dallas Symphony; vintage recording never released

PARODIE III/Friedman

Astounding performance by Hub New Music (4/1/2022), and special thanks to my masters thesis advisor, Dr. Yu-Hui Chang, my Yiddish professor, Dr. Ellen Kellman, Dr. James Praznik (recording), and New Music Brandeis.

-
Somewhere far, somewhere far, lies a meadow in the mountains.

In this meadow, memories gather to embrace one another and come away as something new.
-

"the meadow with the butter-flowers" is the fifth and final movement of Butter-lider, a setting of poems by H. Leivick, Yankev Glatshteyn, Kadia Molodovsky, and Rokhl H. Korn, four of my favorite Yiddish writers of the 20th century. However, instead of setting these texts for voice, my music accompanies recordings (graciously archived and provided by the Yiddish book Center) of the poets themselves reciting their writing. This final movement features my own text assembled from translated fragments of each of the four poems.

Through this piece, I hope to facilitate a dialogue, across artistic media, across time and space, between these writers’ unique perspectives, and my own, on what it means to make Yiddish art. I refuse to fall into the elitist and insulting narrative of “elevating” a folk tradition by bringing it into classical music spaces. Rather, I hope to participate in this living culture so that it may reach new audiences and new generations, and to offer another medium, another language, through which to tell Yiddish narratives.

the meadow with the butter-flowers

Katie Lipow, voice 
Markus Kaitila, piano 
poetry by Ren L[i]u

find more of Ren's work on Instagram at @poemeloaday and @renallegedly

i picked up the phone
today to greet
Something on the other
end

    i picked up the
    phone, its body
    heavy in my palm
    heavy and
    stuck
        to these damp hands
        this layer of wet
        the only vestige of
        cold dewdrops
        in my hand

i picked up the phone
today, only to
    hear your entire being
    crackle through
    and I could’ve sworn you might’ve
    been crunching chips on the other end
    just to feign
    Static
    and I love you for that
    which I did not say
    just inhaled your words through my nose
    and exhaled only breath with my mouth

i picked up the phone
today, for only
    your voice to fill
    all my senses
    my fingertips grazing along
        the topsoil of this wall for your skin I cannot reach
    smelling the cedar of your clothes
    and your voice, god
    your voice
    that symphonic
    surprise
    of stepping into something beautiful
    crunching leaves of
    golds and auburns and crimsons
    beneath your feet
    to have to pay attention to
    everything you are walking with
    you always knew how to make autumn in springtime
    you equinox of harvest
    you bounty
    when the rest of us are just counting buds

I picked up the phone
    today, to only taste blank air
    after we said our goodbyes
    no autumn
    or leaves
    or anything
    my palms fully dried

i picked up the phone
    only to find it
    full of everything
    and with no gravity at all

elegy for seeds unsaid

MASQUERMYND is a nonverbal journey through the mind, told through choreographed, dance-like action, dealing with the inner struggles of personal and sexual identity. A masked person wakes in a room and doesn't know where they are or how they got there. They encounter themselves in different identities, genders, and permutations, confronting their own psyche in a maze of their own mind. Masquer: Maker or wearer of masks, Mynd: "Film" or "Picture" in Icelandic.

What you hear here is the music I composed for "MASQUERMYND", a short film my father, Brently Davis, starred in, co-directed, and created the masks for. Watch MASQUERMYND here:
youtu.be/uV5hH2OywjY
Buy the soundtrack here:
https://zandraxofnebulon.bandcamp.com/album/masquermynd-original-soundtrack

I've been working on this music since February 2020 and, in September of 2022, I finally completed it and uploaded the film to Youtube. Although I've been composing since 2017, this is my first major project, and I'm happy with how it's come out.

If you're wondering where the music from the bartender scenes and the end credits is, it's not here because I didn't write it. Those songs are "Time" and "Unwhere" by the artist Reeder, from their album "It is the Nature of Dreams to End". I found out about Reeder through The Adventure Zone (They did some music for the final episodes of it), and fell in love with their music. I can't express how grateful I am that they allowed me to use their music in this movie. Thank you, Reeder, so much. Listen to their music here:
music.iamreeder.com

Lastly, I want to thank my mentor throughout this process, Eric Radloff. Eric is a talented musician, songwriter and composer who I met through a composition camp (Junior Composers). The generosity and support he has given me throughout this project, from going overtime on our weekly music lessons to spending extra time recording instruments for some of the songs on the score, has been nothing short of a miracle, and without him, I don't know how many more years this would have taken me. Thank you, Eric.
Listen to Eric's music here:
okudaxij.bandcamp.com

Track credits:

1. "MASQUERMYND" - Vocals by Zander Davis, Brently Davis, and Laine Porwit. Laugh by Jake Marley. Recorded and edited by Brian Arnold, final production/edits by Zander Davis.

3. "The Lady in the Booth" - 5-String Violin played by Louisa Byron

6. "The Lizard Man" - Acoustic Guitar and Electric Bass played by Eric Radloff.

9. "The Old Man" - Clarinet played by Mary Kate Hines and Aayush Raheja. Flute played by Aayush Raheja.

Album Credits:

Eric Radloff - Compositional Advisor/Production Advisor/Production Assistant/Great Dude

Noah Johnston - Helpful supportive friend and colleague

The Old Man (feat. Aayush Raheja and Mary Kate Hines)

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.

K. Rohde - Inside Voice For String Quartet (2015)

Live performance by Stanley Friedman (trumpet) and the Memphis Symphony Brass Quintet; tone poem for brass inspired by the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi; winner of 1992 International Trumpet Guild Composition prize; published by Editions BIM (Switzerland)

La Pittura by Stanley Friedman

Metallics (1995) pour trompette solo et dispositif électronique
Jean-Jacques Gaudon, Ensemble intercontemporain

Metallics

"For Anton Vishio" (2019) is a composition for clarinet, flute, and piano. Anton Vishio is a composer, theorist, and pianist who was, to me, a kindred spirit - not only through his curiosity and celebration of new music that has and remains very important to me and work, but also through his uncanny ability to connect music of the past with what is happening now. He remains a dear friend, and this piece is dedicated to him.

For anonymity purposes, I will not name the incredible performers of this composition (unless they want to be identified, in which case I will list who they are...!) and its date of premiere. This is only for your ears.

For Anton Vishio

Many field recordings taken in the second half of 2020 in Boston, MA, Ann Arbor, MI, and Saint Paul, MN. Sometimes placed into the mix unedited, other times looped, filtered, slowed down, reversed, etc. Collaboratively assembled by 琳琳 and astrid hubbard flynn.

throughout, underneath (with 琳琳)

Max Friedman is a composer, trumpet player, Yiddishist, translator, and educator based in Memphis, TN. His music and scholarship explore the multitudes of ways Yiddish speakers have and continue to express their identities through music. His composition “Butter-Lider,” for Yiddish poetry recordings and sextet, was commissioned and premiered (Dec. 2022) by Cleveland’s No Exit New Music Ensemble. Other compositions have been performed by Yarn/Wire, Hub New Music, the Lydian String Quartet, Ekmeles, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Brown University Orchestra, and the Boston-based Horizon Ensemble. An advanced Yiddish student and translator, Max was a 2021 Steiner Program Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, and in 2022 attended the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Yiddish Summer Program. He has also presented at conferences hosted at Indiana University, Brandeis University, and the University of Toronto, and he is a 2023 Fortunoff/In Geveb Fellow. Max holds degrees from Brown University (AB ‘20) and Brandeis University (MFA ‘22).

the meadow with the butter-flowers

Max Friedman

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