A selection of works by performers and composers featured in the June 2nd 2018, 7pm Next Festival of Emerging Artists concert at Music Mountain, Falls Village CT 06031.  Featuring Soprano Tony Arnold, Artistic Director Peter Askim and composers Jessica Meyer, Liisa Hirsch, and Brett Dean.  Admission Free, Donations supporting the David M. Hunt Library are welcome.  Culinary tent opens at 6pm.  Call Hunt Library for tickets, 860-824-7424.

Next Festival of Emerging Artists Featuring Soprano Tony Arnold June 2 2018 at Music Mountain, 7pm

In Tone

Recorded live at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC on March 23, 2014.

This is the first movement of a forthcoming work by Tawnie Olson, and this is the world premiere.

Meadowlark - Tawnie Olson

Brett Dean: Nightsky (live 30.3.14)

Pulse Project 1 - After Tenney

2 - DADA (from "On the Nature of Thingness") performed by Tony Arnold and ICE

Taken from the Pancrace 2LP (PP28) out early April 2017

Penultimate Press is proud to present the debut recording from French outfit Pancrace.

Music for pipe organ Stiehr-Mockers 1848, Bird Calls, Baroque Violin, Tin Whistle, Boîtes à Bourdons, Landscape Piano, Motorised Bow, Standuino Pi Synth, Microphones, Hurgy Toys, AM radio, Church Bells, Uilleann Pipes and Hulusi. 
 
Pancrace is an improvising quintet comprising French, British and Austrian performers. The members include Prune Bécheau, Arden Day, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel and Jan Vysocky. Pancrace is also the name of the  church in Dangolsheim Alsace located next to where the instrument inventor Léo Maurel lives. Maurel makes ingeniously designed instruments inspired by the hurdy gurdy. 

The recording emerged from a disruption of the traditional elements within the church, namely the church organ which was prepared inside out whilst the performers challenged it’s gregarious authority with an array of constructed and modified instruments. In Pancrace one can hear many of these shape-shifting instruments and devices being twiddled without quite knowing which are bowed, plucked, hammered or rubbed. The results are a maelstrom of sound and song which see-saw between the harrowing and the sublime with incredible detail to sonic content.  

Pancrace instigates proceedings in the confinement of an organ; a Cyclops puffing its continuous and raucous breath only to be woken by instruments who, like horseflies, mischievously start tormenting proceedings with microtones and striated polyrhythms. The journey ends four sides later with the language of the birds imposing an unadorned silence on the church.

http://www.penultimatepress.com

Pancrace - C (excerpt)

I was completely blown away by both the inside and outside of Gaudi's "Sagrada Familia" Basilica in Barcelona during a family vacation this past summer. Each side of the outer structure uses very different and dramatic artistic and architectural elements to tell the story of the death and birth of Christ, while the inside has some the most stunning stained-glass windows I have ever seen. These four movements are snapshots of these different aspects of the church, culminating with a moment that explores the truly awesome impact of the building as a whole.

Premiered April 30th, 2017
Brooklyn Public Library
counter)induction

Miranda Cuckson, violin
Jessica Meyer, viola
Raman Ramakrishnan, cello
Aaron Wunsch, piano
Benjamin Fingland, clarinets

Sagrada Familia "Nativity Facade" mvt 1

May 18th, 2017 (premiere)
St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Wall Street
NOVUS NY
Julian Wachner, conductor

This work is based on assertions found in Masaru Emoto's book "The Hidden Messages in Water", which can be interpreted as a more spiritual extension of String Theory/Quantum mechanics.  String Theory is about how objects in our universe are composed of vibrating filaments (strings) and membranes (branes) of energy, and the author asserts that the best vehicle to capture and transport these vibrations is water.  His way of proving this was to take pictures of the crystals formed in frozen water after being exposed to different kinds of music and concentrated thoughts directed towards the water. The results were a visual representation of the manifestation of variations of positive and negative emotions.

"Through which we flow" embodies different sonic manifestations of joy, hate, and prayer - using the resonances specifically created by string instruments and the unique acoustic of the church itself to remind us of the power of our own thoughts and actions.  This is piece is dedicated to Julian Wachner, Melissa Baker, Walker Beard, Joshua Anand Slater, Avi Stein, and Harrison Joyce for their tireless work in making Trinity Wall Street an important musical institution here in NYC.

"Through Which We Flow" for String Orchestra

(Culminating version, Oct. 21st, 2017 at the Gabriela Lena Frank Academy of Music -  subsequent tweaks expected.)

Please Me, Place Me is a work that calls into question 'who?' without further explanation.

Our soprano is at once in the process of storytelling and recollecting, both directing and reflecting, while at the same time communicating with the string quartet and you, the audience. Her identity is unknown, her experience of time is unsure, and she is grasping hold of what she can say with certainty. These words are those of Gertrude Stein: Stanza in Meditation, Part 3, no. 3. John Ashbery, speaking of this collection of poems, states:

'Perhaps the word that occurs oftenest in the Stanzas is the word "they," for this is a poem about the world, about "them..." Less frequently, "I" enters to assess the activities of "them," to pick up after them, to assert his own altered importance. As we get deeper into the poem, it seems not so much as if we were reading as living a rather long period of our lives with a houseful of people.'

The joy of making music is that there is never a 'me' alone. Music exists between people– and thus, I wonder who the 'me' is that I'm referring to in the title.

Tony Tony Tony

Please Me, Place Me (2017), for soprano and string quartet. Tony Arnold and Third Angle

Intertwined Distances (2018)
Solo Harpsichord and Electronics (quadrophonic)

commissioned by and written for Mahan Esfahani
Premiere: March 2018, Madrid, Fundación Juan March
http://www.march.es/musica/detalle.aspx?p5=100310
Recording: Live radio broadcast 

----------------------------------

Some words about the piece: 

Distance, Movement, Silence, Perception, Paradox, Continuity...

According to Merriam-Webster, distance is a separation in time, an extent of advance from a beginning; and in mathematics it refers to the degree or amount of separation between two points, lines, surfaces, or objects.

In this piece I am exploring the qualities of various dimensions of ‘distances’.
The piece opens perceptual spaces and plays with the listener’s perceptions. It is an observation of how the sound moves and travels within the concert hall, of the distances between the performer on stage and the audience, and of the relationships of both with the quadraphonic speakers. On another level, it explores the phenomena of distance in time (the centuries- old harpsichord being placed in a modern environment) and distance between people (geographically, emotionally, etc). Our daily life is made of these intertwined distances, which are constantly in movement and change.

On a personal level, the electronic component comes out of a close collaboration, between Mahan Esfahani and the composer.

The sounds are solely harpsichord sounds, specially recorded for this piece. In association with various filters and processes, the material developed further and gained other colours and qualities.
The piece is an observation of these constant movements of sound and various perceptions of distances – and of ultimately how all these unite and convolute by twining with each other.

Intertwined Distances (2018)

Nathan Davis, Cactus (1999)

Homage to John Cage

The idea for a cactus and tape work came about when I heard a performance of John Cage’s Child of Tree.  I was immediately smitten by the sound of the cactus in particular.  Taken from its natural environment and placed in the confined and groomed existence of a pot, amplified with a contact microphone, the cactus took on a completely new and interesting character, however paradoxical.   Without the amplification its subtle and poignant resonance goes largely unnoticed.  The relationship between natural objects and their unnatural extension is the metaphor which inspired Grandchild of Tree.  I am deeply indebted to Nathan Davis for his amazing cactus technique and samples! 

Degrees of Separation, Grandchild of Tree

along some intrínsecas rutas (2019)- Electrónica

May 2020
Fernando Saint Martin- toy piano y handpan
Diego Cajas- clarinete

Aire bajo tierra

Drum Improvisation 6:25:13

Nathan Davis "writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority" (NYTimes). He has received commissions from Donaueschinger Musiktage, International Contemporary Ensemble, American Opera Projects, Tanglewood, Calder Quartet, Yarn/Wire, Steven Schick, Claire Chase, Miller Theatre, and the Ojai Festival. His opera/ballet "Hagoromo" premiered at the BAM Next Wave Festival. Lincoln Center presented “Bells” for ensemble, multi-channel audio, and live diffusion broadcast through a conference system to audience members’ mobile phones. Other performances at Mostly Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, the Park Avenue Armory, The Kitchen, Roulette, Darmstadt, Helsinki Musica Nova, and Acht Brücken Köln. Davis was a fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and received awards from Meet The Composer, Fromm Foundation at Harvard, Copland Fund, Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, MATA, and ASCAP. CDs include "The Bright and Hollow Sky" and "On the Nature of Thingness".

2 - DADA (from "On the Nature of Thingness") performed by Tony Arnold and ICE

Nathan Davis music

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