Juno (2015)

For Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Percussion, Piano

For much of the world, 2015 was one of the warmest winters on record. In Boston, where I live, it was one of the coldest. By mid-January it seemed like we might get a pass from mother nature, but in the last week of January, winter storm Juno paid us a visit, launching a series of massive blizzards that brought a record breaking amount of snowfall. At the time I was holed up in a small New Hampshire cabin, fireplace and food close at hand, working on this piece, actually. For me the storms brought an eerie, magical calm: leafless trees crackling in the wind; pristine, untouched snow as far the eye could see; deep cold and an endless white horizon. At the same time my wife, eight months pregnant with our son, was alone in Boston, commuting to work on treacherous, ice-covered streets hemmed in by ten foot tall snow banks and a sea of frustrated commuters. The contrast was extreme. My piece Juno, reflects on that time: the anticipation before the first big storm; the beautiful stillness of fresh snow; the loud, dirty, struggles of an urban winter; and the feeling of heaviness as the season drags on seemingly without end. Juno was commissioned by the Mandel Foundation for the Utah Arts Festival and premiered in June 2015 by the Verge Ensemble.

Recorded 9.30.15 live at Bates Recital Hall
UT Austin New Music Ensemble
Dan Welcher, Conductor

www.roberthonstein.com

Juno

Recorded at the Tannery Arts Center, Santa Cruz, California, USA.

Download: https://darkroomtheband.bandcamp.com/album/we-see-the-same-stars-differently

Anil Prasad interviews Darkroom: http://www.innerviews.org/inner/darkroom.html

Dedicated to the Recording Angel.


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We See The Same Stars Differently

The piece is divided into 8 sections, which each time extends followed by a number sequence: 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, and 2. In this case, the last section becomes twice longer than the previous one, representing the effect of longing, which means Pratiksha in Indian language. The harmony is based on the chromatic transposition down of the chord of three pitches until it supplement the first chord (upper tetrachord) to the full Indian raga scale.
Also, I was inspired by gamaka’s definition that they are basically connective forces and the manner of travel from one note to another. There are 32 ways of gamaka’s, which are mainly responsible for the aesthetic enjoyments in the entire performance, differing from each artist. My intention not to represent gamaka's, but use them in such a way, that they could transform into microtonal ornamentation of the melodic cycles.
The work is commissioned by the Wigmore Hall with the support of André Hoffmann, President of the Fondation Hoffmann, a Swiss grant-making foundation. The world is dedicated to the ensemble Apartment House. 

Recording engineer  - Simon Reynell

Pratiksha

Composed by Robert Honstein. Arizona premiere.
Recorded live in Katzin Concert Hall at Arizona State University in March 2016. 

An Economy of Means, II. Chorale

Middle Ground (2016)
for Violin and live processing

1. Too Far
2. Too Close
3. Bridging the Gap

Cast in three movements – Too Far, Too close, and Bridging the Gap – Middle Ground searches for a common space between opposites. The first movement, Too Far, emerges quietly from the highest range of the violin. Barely audile, fingers at the instrument’s edge, the music hovers in a cloud of ethereal tones before slowly descending. In an abrupt shift, the second movement, Too Close, lives in the violin’s lowest range. Distorted, rhythmic bursts hammer away at chopped up scales and jagged arpeggios. Eventually waves of sound surge upwards, only to plummet back down, pulled by a relentless, unyielding gravity. The final movement, Bridging the Gap, seems almost without hope. Exhausted by the previous movement’s struggle, the music searches for a new path forward. Two lines, one descending and the other ascending, gradually, methodically move towards each other, steadily intensifying as they approach middle ground.

Middle Ground was commissioned by Kat Kroll, Barbara Sapienza, and Nancy Karp + Dancers and premiered February 10, 2016 by Kate Stenberg at the ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA.

Recorded live at the ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA
Kate Stenberg, Violin

Image credit - detail from 'Painting #5' by Thekla Hammond

www.roberthonstein.com
www.katestenberg.com

Bridging The Gap

Apocrypha - for violin, viola, and electronic sounds, composed by David Bird, performed by andPlay (Hannah Levinson and Maya Bennardo), February 25, 2017, at the Dimenna Center for Classical Music, NY 

"Apocrypha" is written for violin, viola, and electronics, and is loosely inspired by Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel "Solaris". Lem's work follows a team of scientists stationed on a distant planet covered by a vast and gelatinous ocean. In the novel, the ocean demonstrates a bizarre ability to manipulate the emotions and memories of the scientists. "Apocrypha", exploits a similar process, where the enveloping presence of the electronic sounds prompt turmoil and sensation within the duo's intimate performance. “Apocrypha" was written for andPlay (Hannah Levinson and Maya Bennardo), and was developed in the summer of 2016 at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute.

“In the budding, growth, and spread of this living formation, in each of its movements separately and in all taken together, there was something one was tempted to call a cautious yet not timid naivety, as it strove frantically and rapidly to know, to take in, an unexpectedly encountered new shape. Then, in mid-journey, it had to withdraw when it was in danger of transgressing certain boundaries established by a mysterious law. This agile inquisitiveness was so utterly at odds with the immensity that stretched to every bright horizon. I had never before been so aware of its vast presence, its powerful, inexorable silence breathing evenly through its waves. Staring in wonderment, I was descending to regions of inertia that might have seemed inaccessible, and in the gathering intensity of engrossment I was becoming one with this fluid unseeing colossus, as if—without the slightest effort, without words, without a single thought—I was forgiving it for everything.”

davidbird.tv

Apocrypha - for Violin, Viola, and Electronic Sounds

for uilleann pipes and string quartet aka the brilliant Pádraic Keane and ConTempo Quartet!

something like light but not (string quartet and uilleann pipes)

"Middle Ground"

I. Too Far
II. Too Close
III. Bridging the Gap

composed by Robert Honstein
performed by Louis Raymond-Kolker

Cider Gallery, Lawrence, KS
April 6, 2018

Middle Ground - Cider Gallery

Robert is a composer living in Boston, MA. He co-founded the <a href="http://www.sleepinggiantmusic.org">Sleeping Giant</a> composer collective and the <a href="http://www.fastforwardaustin.com">Fast Forward Austin</a> music festival.  Send me emails at <a href="mailto:rhonstein@gmail.com">rhonstein@gmail.com</a>  !

Check out my <a href="http://www.roberthonstein.com/wordpress/">website</a> for more info, shows, and sounds.

Bridging The Gap

rhonstein

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