Concert version for brass quintet and live electronics, commissioned by Shriver Hall. (Installation version for overhead wavefield synthesis and video projection commissioned by EMPAC.)

[there are subwoofer bass frequencies present - use good headphones or larger speakers for best effects, not earbuds]

Audio documentation of the world premiere performance.  American Brass Quintet at Shriver Hall, December 8, 2019. (P.S. this was premiered on my birthday, and it was basically the best birthday present ever - thank you ABQ!)

Program Note:
Spending time in the chambers of ancient ruins and the cavities of basilicas and churches has led to a fascination with the interaction of architecture, light, and acoustics in relation to the human spectator. The different window types (from oculus to clerestory to stained glass) guide our relationships with the spaces, recanting visual stories as they divert beams of light in paths of illumination throughout the course of the day. The same is true of the sonic qualities of these, often vast, spaces. Within "The Glow that Illuminates, The Glare that Obscures" I take the brass performance tradition of the madrigals and motets of Renaissance polyphony and pass sourced quotations through a compositional prism. The resultant fragments are illuminated and obscured in the composition through the use of antiphonal and heterophonic writing, density and silence.  Fragments of Josquin's Miserere, a spare and austere motet setting of Psalm 51, jostle our memory as they are stretched and ornamented throughout the ritualistic sonic space.

The Glow that Illuminates, the Glare that Obscures (2019) for brass quintet + elec (concert version)

The music of composer Nina C. Young (b.1984) is characterized by an acute sensitivity to tone color, manifested in aural images of vibrant, arresting immediacy. Her experience in the electronic music studio informs her acoustic work, which takes as its given not melody and harmony, but sound itself, continuously metamorphosing from one state to another. Her musical voice draws from elements of the classical canon, modernism, spectralism, American experimentalism, minimalism, electronic music, and popular idioms. Her projects, ranging from concert pieces to interactive installations, strive to create unique sonic environments that can be appreciated by a wide variety of audiences while challenging stylistic boundaries, auditory perception, and notions of temporality. 

Young’s works have been presented by Carnegie Hall, the National Gallery, the Whitney Museum, LA Phil’s Next on Grand, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aizuri Quartet, Either/Or, the JACK Quartet, wild Up, and Yarn/Wire. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, Young has also received a Koussevitzky Commission, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award, Aspen Music Festival's Jacob Druckman Prize, and honors from BMI, IAWM, and ASCAP/SEAMUS. 

IN 2019 Carnegie Hall commissioned "Out of whose womb came the ice" with the American Composers Orchestra: for baritone, orchestra, electronics, and generative video, commenting on the ill-fated Ernest Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17.  Other recent projects include "Tread softly" that opened the NY Philharmonic’s Project 19, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh from the Philadelphia Orchestra, and "The Glow that Illuminates, The Glare that Obscures" for the American Brass Quintet alongside an immersive audio-visual installation version commissioned by EMPAC showcasing their wavefield synthesis audio system.

A graduate of McGill University and MIT, Young completed her DMA at Columbia University. She is an Assistant Professor of Composition as USC’s Thornton School of Music.  She serves as Co-Artistic Director of New York’s Ensemble Échappé.  Her music is published by Peermusic Classical.

ninacyoung.com