Helen Newby continually seeks ways to expand the technical and expressive boundaries of her instrument through close collaboration with other innovative performers, composers and artists. She is widely recognized for her “warm tone” and “intimate balanced sound” (The Washington Post), and as a “superb” and “committed champion” of new music (Cleveland Classical). Newby’s passion for collaboration and experimentation has led her to work with a number of both emerging and established composers, including Steve Reich, Chaya Czernowin, Marcos Balter, Sabrina Schroeder, Ashley Fure, and Tania León, among others. Her premiere solo album, Dialogue, featuring commissions by David Bird, Danny Clay, Adam Hirsch, Kurt Isaacson and Haley Shaw, was released in early 2017 on Ephemeral Stream Recordings.

Newby has performed with and alongside ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Eco Ensemble, Real Vocal String Quartet, One Found Sound, and Contemporaneous, among others. She is a founding member of Amaranth Quartet and Chartreuse. She has been in-residence at several new music-focused festivals such as Bang on a Can, the Banff Institute, New Music on the Point, SICPP, the Barnes Foundation and Music in Bloom (Bloomington, IN). Recent and upcoming collaborations with pop, electronic and indie artists include Kygo, Michael Bublé, and Gregory Porter, among others.

In addition to an active career as a performer, Newby is equally dedicated to education and working with emerging composers, performers, and communities of listeners. She has given concerts and workshops for undergraduate and graduate students at institutions including Oberlin College, Brown University, Georgia Southern University, DePauw University, SUNY Fredonia, Hillsdale College, Tromsø University, and the Norges Musikkhøgskole. She maintains a private teaching studio in Brooklyn, NY.

Newby studied at Oberlin College with Darrett Adkins (B.M.) before continuing her education at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Jennifer Culp (M.M). She began her studies in Los Angeles, CA with Rachael Lonergan. She plays on a 2016 “Allegrezzo” cello by Brian Lisus.

www.helennewby.com

Composed and mastered by Nicholas Denton Protsack.

Performed and recorded by Helen Newby.

Helen Newby (cello) - In The Refuge Of A Cave

Street View Sketches is a collection of several short, standalone pieces—each meant to evoke a place in the world that is significant to me. Sometimes these pieces tell stories, other times they operate in more general terms. There are two things every piece shares in common, however:
  The first is that, rather than just describing a location, each piece attempts to create a sonic impression of actually experiencing it. This might include emulating the general atmosphere of a place, or the sounds one hears while there, or even the kind of mindset one might be in when visiting. It is for this reason that I refer to these pieces as "sketches", as it gives the listener a taste of these elements, just like a sketch might.
  The second commonality between each piece (or "sketch", as it were) is that every featured location can be found on Google Street View—whether it be a terrifyingly tiny shoulder of a highway, clinging to the precipice of a cliff in Yosemite Valley, or a plain, nondescript bridge over a creek in Kelowna, British Columbia. Every one of these locations can be reduced to GPS coordinates on a search engine navigation app, and a 360 degree snapshot taken from a moving vehicle. In fact, I have chosen to include GPS coordinates in the titles of every piece, so that anyone reading them can look up these "snapshots" for themselves.
  Similar to the "sketches" and "impressions" I previously described, the internet is full of snapshots—soundbites—things that only give a taste of real, authentic experiences. Many see this as part of a dangerous disconnect from reality that is becoming alarmingly more prevalent in society. While I sympathize with these concerns, I wonder whether they could be mitigated if we just remained mindful of what these snapshots and soundbites really are: Impressions—glimpses of things we might someday see or do, or fond memories of things that once were.

Performed by cLoud Collective, December 5th, 2021.
Mark Menzies - Violin
Justin DeHart - Percussion
Reuben de Lautour - Piano

Composed by Nicholas Denton Protsack.

Street View Sketches - Aurora

Street View Sketches - Rock Hopping

Street View Sketches - Learning To Install Snow Chains In A Yosemite Hailstorm

Street View Sketches - The Ocean, The Dunes, And The Great Highway

Violinist, Erin James, is equally at home as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestral player. She holds a masters degree from the Royal College of Music in London and her performances have been aired on CBC Radio and taken her across Asia, Europe and North America. Erin’s musical interests range from baroque to contemporary and she thoroughly enjoys any piece that is singable or danceable. Erin has performed at the Music By the Sea festival, played with the Vancouver and Edmonton Symphonies and with the Vancouver Opera and Allegra Chamber Orchestras. Erin is currently pursuing her doctorate in violin performance as well as a degree in fashion design and her thesis work combining textiles and music has been fully funded by a Bombardier SSHRC grant. A Pocket Concert in Toronto is one of several upcoming performances and a Johann Strauss Foundation scholarship to pursue studies in Austria is the most recent in her collection of numerous scholarships and grants.

Composed and produced by Nicholas Denton Protsack.

Performed and recorded by Erin James.

Erin James (violin) - In The Refuge Of A Cave

Some places are inexplicably special. They immerse whoever is present in a feeling of awe so palpable, it can almost be heard as if it was a whispered message. To some, these places are known as "thin places"—or places in which barriers appear thin between the everyday world we experience and another, "special" (or perhaps spiritual) world. Regardless of what one believes them to be, anyone who has found themselves in one of these special places knows it as a transcendent and wholly unique experience. Murmur from Thin Places (2022) is a musical exploration of this phenomenon, and the unique emotions experiencing such a place can inspire.

Performed by the Toronto Summer Music Festival Chamber Music Fellowship, July 2022.

Murmur From Thin Places

When you hike in the Chugach Mountains, relationships between all things—some unfolding over thousands of years—can be readily observed everywhere you look. Nothing is inanimate. Everything seems to have a life and trajectory behind it; the massive glaciers propagate themselves from the ice field high in the peaks above, patiently sprawling across the valley for eons until they each find a spot that suits them. Their meltwater, like a vast circulatory system, feeds many streams and rivers, which in turn nourish the local marshes, fungi, plants, and animals. The mountains constantly make their motion known to you as well; several times a day, the unearthly rumble of distant rockslides punctuate the vast white noise of the wind and rivers. Even the force of gravity seems to have a mystical persona that hangs in the air. Everything is constantly drawn downward from the peaks to the valleys.

The calls of the Golden Crowned Sparrow seem to echo this state of being; though the melodies will vary slightly from place to place, they, too, always descend downward.

When I visited the Chugach Mountains, I spent much of my time transcribing the calls of the Golden Crowned Sparrows. Taking in their melodies, and the landscape around me, I had a bizarre, almost transcendental thought: A mountain must perceive a glacier similarly to the way I, or a sparrow, perceive a brook gurgling by our feet. Perhaps all forms of existence are just different sides of some cosmic coin. Perhaps through music, I can show how a sparrow's call can become a brook, and that brook can become a glacier...

Performed by Corvus Ensemble, March 2023 at Federal Hall, New York City.

A Sparrow is a Brook is a Glacier

When you spy the cap of a mushroom in a forest, what you are actually seeing is a mere fraction of the fungal organism that produced it. The vast majority of the organism is comprised of mycelium—subterranean tendrils that form vast networks beneath the forest floor. These networks are not only what allow the fungus to propogate, they also act as an integral player in the entire forest ecosystem. Specifically, mycelium networks latch onto the roots of trees and other plant life, exchanging some energy for essential nutrients the trees and plants rely upon to be healthy. This symbiotic relationship runs deeper, however. By passing nutrients through these networks, some trees and plants have evolved a remarkable ability to literally communicate with one another: They alert one another to disease and predation, and even assist one another, altering their root structures to make space for growth, and sharing their nutrients.
  When musicians perform as an ensemble, they must form a collective intelligence to produce a desired group sound. Sometimes this collective intelligence can behave quite like an organic network, analogous to trees and plants communicating through mycelium. In creating A Mind in the Branches, I intended to realize a work of music that would bring this process of collective intelligence to the forefront of the performance. Rather than treating the ensemble as a homogenous unit that traverses a linear work of music from beginning to end, the performers instead have their own individual agency, their own ability to explore the score a number of non-linear ways. However, in doing so, they will also encounter instances in which they must work together, or musically communicate with one another, or even behave as a homogenous unit for a moment, should the need arise. In doing so, the performers become interdependent "trees" in the ecosystem that is A Mind in the Branches.

Performed by the ECHOES Ensemble, Prague. July 2023.

Composed by Nicholas Denton Protsack.

A Mind In The Branches

Beneath a marbled sky, the erg sprawls endlessly; its countless dunes molded by eons of relentless winds. They are linear dunes, long and snake-like, some reaching hundreds of kilometers in length. They slither across the landscape alongside one another—sometimes running perfectly parallel, sometimes converging, and sometimes branching off into patterns resembling river estuaries. It is a landscape in motion, appearing like a rolling sea to one who is patient enough to closely observe it. Sometimes, when the sand flows in the exact right way, it causes a mass-vibration to occur, and a haunting, rich tone hums across the erg. This sonic phenomenon is refered to by many as "singing sand dunes".
Erg for symphony orchestra is a work that is heavily inspired by the shapes, behaviors, and sounds of sand dune landscapes. This inspiration extends so deeply into the design of the work, that traces from actual dunes, drawn from satellite images of erg landscapes, are featured in the musical score and read by the performers as a unique form of notation. In addition to this, the sounds of wind, blowing sand, and even the sounds of "singing sand dunes" are all imitated, collectively coalescing to form a shifting and constantly evolving musical landscape.

Performed by the NZSM Orchestra, October, 2023.

The world has become a fracturing land. A land of desolate plains and jagged mountains. A land of bottomless fissures and blazing skies. A land of anxiety and boredom and broken resolutions. A land where life and reason cling to existence, screaming defiantly in the face of an overwhelming darkness.
"Into this Fracturing Land" (2020) musically invokes this dystopian world as a summary of many of my thoughts and experiences over the last year and half. What does it mean to fail? What does it mean to collapse? Can we undo the fracturing that has been set in motion?

Into this Fracturing Land utilized a tuning system in which the octave is divided into 31 equal steps, instead of the 12 steps used in most modern Western music.

Composed, performed, recorded, and mastered by Nicholas Denton Protsack. Album artwork created using "Artbreeder" AI neural network image processor.

Purchase on Bandcamp

Into this Fracturing Land

A faint breeze transforms into a gale; the sound of a million rustling blades of dry grass accompany it.  You open your eyes, and a landscape of golden hills—boundless as the sea—stretches before you.  The hills begin—slowly at ﬁrst—to churn in the wind, as if they really were waves upon a sea.  They roll, cascade, tumble, and swell, until they reach colossal heights, merging with the blue, marbled sky.

  Vision of a Flaxen Sea is a work for symphony orchestra that is inspired by numerous dreams, experiences, and works of art that concern the subject of hilled landscapes—particularly those that are swept by wind, and covered with dry grass or straw.  In my mind, these landscapes, dreams, and works of art have a very literal musical quality to them.  The aim of this work is to communicate that quality.

Performed by the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Young; December 13th, 2019.

Vision of a Flaxen Sea

Andrew Friedman is a San Francisco-based clarinetist, composer, and educator devoted to performing music new and old, large and small. His freelance credits include symphony, ballet, and opera institutions around the Bay Area and beyond; he is also a frequent performer at the Hot Air Music Festival and tours nationally with the Oakland-based classical/hip-hop fusion group Ensemble Mik Nawooj. Recorded appearances include on the From The Top and Performance Today radio programs, the soundtrack to Christopher Coppola’s 2017 feature film Torch, and Bay Area composer Taylor Joshua Rankin’s debut album Palettes.
Friedman graduated with honors from the University of Puget Sound with degrees in Music Performance and English and holds an MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; he spent summers training at the Round Top Festival Institute and the Eastern Music Festival. His teachers included Carey Bell, Dr. Kelly Burke, and Jennifer Nelson.

www.andrewfriedmanclarinetist.com

In the Refuge of a Cave:
Before there were bunkers, fortresses, or strongholds, there were caves. Since long before the dawn of recorded history, caves have held a universal significance as a source of refuge—a safe haven from the elements, predators, and natural disasters. Inversely, however, caves have widely been known to inspire a sense of apprehension and foreboding as well—potentially harboring in the darkness the very dangers from which they are meant to offer protection.
Writing these program notes in late July of 2020, I can't help but compare the duality of caves to the tremendous changes that have taken place during the last six months. The Pandemic has forced just about everyone to reinvent their lives in order to preserve their safety and security. Whether metaphorically or analogously, we have all retreated to our caves in one way or another. For example, while many of us have achieved refuge through social distancing and sheltering-in-place, doing so has forced us to face the existential darkness of isolation and confinement.
In the Refuge of a Cave (2020) is my perspective on these themes as a composer and musician. What musical artists could once rely upon—concert spaces, audiences, even the ability to perform onstage together—has disappeared or drastically transformed in mere days. Now, one's own insights, abilities, and resources are the only certainties in their musical endeavors. When writing In the Refuge of a Cave, I imagined these restrictions as a literal cave surrounding the musical artist. What could a musician do to create music if they were isolated within a cave? How could one find artistic fulfillment in such a lonely and remote place? The only natural answer is that a musician would need to make do with the sonic resources and tools that the space granted them. The musician would utilize the reverberations and echoes generated by the cave's walls; in doing so, they would stumble upon a way to play music with another—a past version of theirself—an echo.
In the Refuge of a Cave is dedicated to my many friends and colleagues who have found themselves forced to navigate a unique cave of their own in these challenging times. Thus, it is designed to be playable by any instrument or voice type, and no two performances will ever sound alike.

Composed and mastered by Nicholas Denton Protsack.

Performed and recorded by Andrew Friedman.

Andrew Friedman (clarinet) - In The Refuge Of A Cave

Violinist Shaina Pan currently lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, performing with The Orchestra Now. Shaina holds degrees in Violin Performance and English from Indiana University, and recently completed graduate studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. An advocate for music by living composers, Shaina has premiered dozens of new works across the US, working with artists such as Kate Soper, Augusta Read Thomas, Ken Ueno, Terry Riley, and the Kronos Quartet, among others. She has performed with the IU New Music Ensemble, Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Lucerne Festival Academy.

www.shaina.bandcamp.com

https://soundcloud.com/shaina-pan

In the Refuge of a Cave:
Before there were bunkers, fortresses, or strongholds, there were caves. Since long before the dawn of recorded history, caves have held a universal significance as a source of refuge—a safe haven from the elements, predators, and natural disasters. Inversely, however, caves have widely been known to inspire a sense of apprehension and foreboding as well—potentially harboring in the darkness the very dangers from which they are meant to offer protection.
Writing these program notes in late July of 2020, I can't help but compare the duality of caves to the tremendous changes that have taken place during the last six months. The Pandemic has forced just about everyone to reinvent their lives in order to preserve their safety and security. Whether metaphorically or analogously, we have all retreated to our caves in one way or another. For example, while many of us have achieved refuge through social distancing and sheltering-in-place, doing so has forced us to face the existential darkness of isolation and confinement.
In the Refuge of a Cave (2020) is my perspective on these themes as a composer and musician. What musical artists could once rely upon—concert spaces, audiences, even the ability to perform onstage together—has disappeared or drastically transformed in mere days. Now, one's own insights, abilities, and resources are the only certainties in their musical endeavors. When writing In the Refuge of a Cave, I imagined these restrictions as a literal cave surrounding the musical artist. What could a musician do to create music if they were isolated within a cave? How could one find artistic fulfillment in such a lonely and remote place? The only natural answer is that a musician would need to make do with the sonic resources and tools that the space granted them. The musician would utilize the reverberations and echoes generated by the cave's walls; in doing so, they would stumble upon a way to play music with another—a past version of theirself—an echo.
In the Refuge of a Cave is dedicated to my many friends and colleagues who have found themselves forced to navigate a unique cave of their own in these challenging times. Thus, it is designed to be playable by any instrument or voice type, and no two performances will ever sound alike.

Composed and mastered by Nicholas Denton Protsack.

Performed and recorded by Shaina Pan.

Shaina Pan (violin) - In The Refuge Of A Cave

An ongoing aspiration of BMI Award-winning composer and cellist, Nicholas Denton Protsack, is to seek new connections between music and the natural world. Called a "(composer) to keep a close eye on" by the Canadian Music Centre, Nicholas' ecologically informed music includes composed works, studio albums, and experimental improvisations, and has been featured in a wide variety of concert settings across North America, Europe, and New Zealand. Recent accomplishments include two first prizes in the 2021 SOCAN Foundation Young Composers Awards and commissioned works for the Toronto Summer Music Festival and the American Prize-winning Ensemble for These Times (E4TT).

	As a cellist, Nicholas is an active freelance performer and advocate of new music—frequently involved in collaborative projects that range from traditional to highly experimental concert idioms. Although primarily a chamber musician, he has also appeared as a soloist with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra.

	Nicholas is currently undertaking a PhD in music at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), studying with composers Michael Norris and Dugal McKinnon. His other major teachers have included David Garner (composition), Jean-Michel Fonteneau (cello), Jennifer Culp (cello), and Morna Howie (cello).

Nicholas Denton Protsack

Popular tracks