Live recording of the premiere performance by International Contemporary Ensemble at The Walden School, July  10, 2015.

Alice Teyssier, flute/voice
Ryan Muncy, sopranino saxophone
Stephanie Richards, trumpet
Ross Karre, percussion
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Josh Modney, violin

Program Note:

In what musicians would think of as the Baroque and Classical eras, girls in Europe and the Americas made embroidery samplers to show they had mastered the art of needlework. The samplers that survive offer a tantalizingly small window on the artistic skills and sensibilities of historical women whose names would otherwise be lost (including at least one, now long dead, who was also called Eliza Brown). Samplers don the mantle of “art” uneasily: they are extravagantly decorative displays of practical, domestic skill, composed of disparate elements that add up to unexpected wholes. In Eliza Brown’s sampler, a tiny house nestles below gigantic birds perched in trees that look like magnified feathers. Weighty verses of poetry cavort with meaningless script – numbers and alphabets wrought in many styles and colors. I would like to think that the unique features of each sampler reveal something of the woman who made them, but I cannot see Eliza Brown’s needle flash in the sunny schoolroom of another century. I do not know if she chose her own design or if was it proscribed for her, either by some figure of authority or by convention.  

Text (anonymous sampler verse):
When this you see, remember me
And hold me in your mind
What others say when I'm away
Speak of me as you find

Sampler Verses (live)

Counting Out Time (2016)

Live recording of premiere performance by Spektral Quartet, Dec. 5, 2011. 

String Quartet No. 1 (live)

Live recording from the premiere run, October 2017, Edge Theater, Chicago, IL

Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, soprano
Ensemble dal Niente 
Featured in this excerpt: Kyle Flens, percussion; Ben Melsky, harp; Chris Wild, cello; Ben Sutherland, electric bass 

The Body of the State is a 3-scene monodrama about Juana of Castile (1479-1555). Juana unexpectedly inherited the Castilian throne when her husband died in 1506, but she never truly ruled – her father quickly declared her insane, claimed her power, and confined her to a house in remote Tordesillas, where she remained for essentially the rest of her life. Recent scholarship poses Juana as an intelligent woman whose erratic behavior, whether calculated or involuntary, was a desperate and understandable response to lifelong suppression of her agency and personal freedom. In this light, The Body of the State aims for a nuanced portrayal of Juana’s psychological struggle to maintain her sense of self within this oppressive familial and social context. Rather than serving as a “pit orchestra,” the instrumentalists who perform the piece are onstage with the singer and involved in the production of the work as both a theatrical and musical representation of the complex relationships and societal forces governing Juana’s existence.

The perspectives of seven contemporary women – myself and six women with first-hand knowledge of incarceration – are also woven into The Body of the State. In the fall of 2016 I took part in a faculty reading group at DePauw University that met via videoconference with the graduate class at Indiana Women’s Prison. The group’s topic was epistemic injustice, which occurs when we discount someone’s ability to be a knower and reduce that person to a knowable object. Epistemic injustice affects many marginalized people, including the incarcerated. As I learned about epistemic injustice from the women at IWP, I realized its role in Juana’s story, and asked the IWP scholars if they would like to participate in the creation of this piece. Several women were interested, and in the end a group of seven of us met regularly at IWP over the next five months. We read a book about Juana together and wrote responses to it in the form of poems, essays, and free-written ideas about the intersections between her life and ours. We synthesized elements from these texts into the libretto for Scenes I and III, and decided to retain my pre-existing (2014) text for Scene II. We developed a group vocal improvisation practice using spoken and sung fragments of text. Recordings of these improvisations, as well as the ubiquitous hiss of the HVAC systems in the IWP education building, are featured in the work’s electronics. I am deeply grateful for the knowledge, talent, honesty, and generosity that each member of the group brought to this project.

The Body of the State, Scene III, Aria "Timeless Time" (live)

W.R.Y.W

MACARENA ROSMANICH
un grito (2019)

for 5 instruments 
(fl., cl., pno., vln., vc.)

Saskia Worf, flute
Aristides Porto, clarinet
Theresa Jensen, violin
Larissa Nagel, cello
Ke Xu, piano 
Ni Fan, conductor

Live Recording. 21.06.2019
Palazzo Ricci 
Montepulciano, Italy.

un grito (2019) for five instruments

First draft, first movement

New Music for Strings 2018. Harpa Hall Reykjavik.

Drucker: Series of Twelve: Heartache

🌪 The desert is a place of endless imagination, where any mirage is unique and perfect. Every moment in a desert is unforgettable and breathtaking 🧡
Exclusively on Bandcamp channel: fidem-community.bandcamp.com/releases

Fidem Community - One Three

Interdisciplinary artist from the Arctic, with roots in the forest

First draft, first movement

Ole Lind Rørstad

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