Flatirons Chamber Music Festival - Season 2022

Museum of Lost Clouds
Nima Janmohammadi - Composer

Featuring:
Deborah Song - Violin
Patrick Yim - Violin
Celia Hatton - Viola
Jamie Clark - Cello
Kenny Lee - Cello

Museum Of Lost Clouds

Premiere by Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra 3/3/2018
First Church in Boston

Directed by Andrew Steinberg
Raymond Kelly and Sean Mix - soprano saxophones
Thomas Giles, Cole Belt, Scott Chamberlin, and Andy Wilds - alto saxophones
Michael Brinzer and Jacob Swanson - tenor saxophones
Josh Lang and Bryan McNamara - baritone saxophones
Ryan Mantell - bass saxophones

This piece is a homage to Walter Benjamin; written thinking about his death at Port Bou, a small town on the border of Spain, where he took his life in 1940. I tried to create a flat but dynamic surface. This dynamic surface is built through the conjunction and juxtaposition of musical materials that are controlled by the particular placement of each saxophone. The ensemble is placed in the balcony surrounding the audience; this use of space creates a sonic effect that brings out subtle variations in the sound, and gives a tactile sensation to the perception of time. There are not so many sudden changes or rhythmic activities, however the sounds are used in a way that there are many activities within them. There are not so many activities in death, but death itself is an activity that activates fading of the body, and in the case of Benjamin, his posthumous life.

Void in the Mirror of Snow

Premiered in 10/27/2017
Music of Tresholds 
Pierce Hall, New England Concervatory

Recording from NEC's Composer Series concert. 2/5/2018
Jordan Hall, Boston

Derek Beckvold, Bass Saxophone
Ross Wightman, Double Bass


The other's body was divided: on one side, the body proper -skin, eyes- tender, warm; and on the other side, the voice-abrupt, reserved, subject to fits of remoteness, a voice which did not give what the body gave. Or further: on one side, the soft, warm, downy, adorable body, and on the other, the ringing, well-formed, worldly voice- always the voice. 

Roland Barthes, "A Lover's Discourse"

A Lover's Discourse: The Other's Body

Recorded and premiered in August 1st, 2018
Slosberg Hall, Brandies University
Sound Engineer: Tony Di Bartolo

Conductor: James Baker
Cellos:  Joshua Gordon, Christopher Gross
Flute:  Barry Crawford
Bass Clarinet:  Benjamin Fingland
Bassoon:  Adrian Morejon
Horn: Jenny Ney
Trombone: Kevin Fairbairn
Percussions: Matthew Gold, Mike Truesdell
PIano: Steve Beck
Violin: Yuri Namkung
Viola: Liuh-Wen Ting
Double Bass:  Greg Chudzik


Program Notes:

"We ran into a shelter filled with tears and sounds I had hidden" is a piece for two Cellos and ensemble. There are two distinct sound worlds. In the first, time and musical objects are suspended; sounds are clear but scattered. Various pitches are used throughout, with only a few active intervals. In the second, time is directional but non-linear, constantly expanding and shrinking. Sounds are pale, unstable, but also rough and impatient. Harmonies are based on registers, limited but with large timbral variations. Different sounds are created with various placements of the bow on the Cellos (with their 4th strings one octave lower); these timbral changes are echoed by bowing ropes attached to the Bass Drums. The whole ensemble is also echoing and shadowing the sounds of the Cellos. At certain points, the musical materials remain constant, but the shadowing techniques alternate incessantly, and there are moments when these two sound worlds merge into one faint structure. 

The title of the piece refers to my childhood, during the war between Iran and Iraq. The sound of sirens was all over the city, signaling that people should go and take cover. However, there were no shelters, and we had to run to the basement of our old house, which was already falling apart. The basement was dark; the only things I could see were the shadows of the leaves on the bricks and the varied spectrum of darkness. It was full of abundant objects, such as big pots, vases, books, tires, metallic parts of different appliances, etc. As a child, I was always excited to discover those objects, guessing what they were by touching them and hearing their sounds. Those were my first experiences with sounds, naked sounds, empty of any specific expression, but liberating, protecting me from bombardment.

*Temporal opposites of the piece are inspired by a poem by Mohsen Emadi:

Death is when the heart does not beat and the clock beats.
Love is when the heart beats and the clock does not beat.
Perhaps this simple comparison explains
why you glanced at your watch.
You knew that waiting is the dense endurance of eternity
and love, the miracle of mortals,
makes eternity ashamed,
but death does not wait for anybody.

The long summer afternoon
was going down on coffins and clock towers
the ruins knew
and you did not know
that war makes waiting invalid
and saving life
the whole Truth.

Was she dead?
Had she fled without you?
Or you were not in love anymore?
The dead were not answering.
The living were escaping
and love from then on
beat within
the pulsing of a clock.

We ran into a shelter filled with tears and sounds I had hidden (2018)

"Please listen with headphones" 

Li-Mei Liang, Abigail Hong, violin				
Laura Rose Williamson, viola 		
Joseph Gotoff, cello

Skin is a surface that keeps our psycho-physical memories, our past experiences that are too traumatic to be remembered consciously. Skin is unreliable; it changes, fails, and yet we invest to keep it the way we wish it could be: skin as utopia, skin as simulacra. Skin is a permanent reminder that bodies die; a fragile metaphor, beauty of decay. Skin is political; it has been stigmatized in its history. Skin is a site; retentive of her smell, her aura, eroticism of her ecstasy, and the poetry of her body.

Skin Memories (For String Quartet, 2015)

"Please listen with headphones"

Ensemble: Survivors Breakfast

Conductor: Nima Janmohammadi

Jolee Gordon, Voice 
Lysander Jaffe, Viola
Anto Meliksetian, Violin 
Martine Thomas, Viola 
Nikita Manin, Clarinet
Allison Burik, Sax
Gabriel Garcia, Sax
Jonathan McGarry, French horn 
Alec Toku Whiting, Bass koto
Anastasiya Dumma, Guitar
Max Fletcher, Guitar
Magdalena Abrego, Guitar
Matthew Okun, Guitar/bass
Grace Ward, Double Bass
Adam Tuch, Piano
Robin Meeker-Cummings, Electronics

Nima Janmohammadi

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