Night Shift : An Oratorio for Audience, Ensemble, Soloists, Choir.

Night Shift Nr 5 _Berlin_

Dimitri Papageorgiou, Oumuamua for kanun and string quartet (2022) — “A messenger from afar arriving “first” for kanun and string quartet. Commissioned by Sonar Quartet with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

ZEITSTRÖME FESTIVAL – Tage für aktuelle Musik | SONAR QUARTETT / SOFIA LABROPOULOU kanun  | Akademie für Tonkunst, Darmstadt, Germany | Feb 11, 2023 | 19:00

Oumuamua for kanun and string quartet (2022)

Hexis is a meditation on habits translated through recurring musical gestures fading away. The piece convokes cello, vibraphone and waterphone to create an ethereal soundworld where the subtile interplay between the two players shapes discrete melodies, slowly emerging from the quasi-repetitions of the motives. Accents and ascending gestures contrast with these subtle sounds as a means of escaping certainty, aiming for other soundscapes and experiences. This piece is dedicated to Charles Davidson, as well to its interpreters, Claire Edwardes and Blair Harris.

Hexis was commissioned by Ensemble Offspring with the generous support of Charles Davidson.

Claire Edwardes : percussion
Blair Harris : cello
Audio: David Trumpmanis

Peinture : Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1980

Hexis (2023) - Ensemble Offspring

Liza Lim
"The Tailor Of Time" (extrait)
pour hautbois, harpe et ensemble 

Philippe Grauvogel, hautbois 
Valeria Kafelnikov, harpe 
Ensemble intercontemporain 
Enno Poppe, direction 

04.11.2023, Cité de la musique 
Enregistrement Cité de la musique -Philharmonie de Paris

Liza Lim, The Tailor Of Time (extrait)

I wondered if I could make at least neoclassical piece out of ordering all the chords by strength/tension level according to my own system.

It begins on the Major Tonic, goes through all the predominants and dominants in order then goes under into the "chords with less tension than the Major Tonic" and finally rises up to the Major Tonic again.

The Slow Climb for String Quartet

Violinists in My Life with Eleanor Bartsch, by Laura Schwendinger
1. Eleanor Bartsch 
2. Wei He 3. Miranda Cuckson 
4. Desiree Ruhstrat 
5. Curtis Macomber

Violinists in My Life with Eleanor Bartsch, by Laura Schwendinger

No. 8, Nostalgia

1. Satz  Symphony No.9 - Op.76 No.1 (Grande Preludio) - Sound Boosted

For two microtonal keyboards (2019)
Duration: 7 minutes
Commissioned by the Ray-Kallay Duo (Vicki Ray & Aron Kallay)

Program note:
I wrote "hush" during a time when I wanted nothing more than a hug.  The uncannily saccharine sounds of the piece are meant to surround and envelop the listener as similar to how an infant might be swaddled when held in their mother’s arms.  The piece is scored for two microtonal pianos using alternate tuning systems reminiscent of a music box.  Over time, the tuning is further warped, creating a haunting and unearthly emotional affect.

Though lullabies are generally used to soothe a child to sleep, they are often even more meaningful for the mother who sings them, and the lyrical content of many historical lullabies is dark and lamentful.  "hush" tries to capture this duality, portraying the sweet, yet eerie nostalgia of childhood.

hush

Lumina (2020)
for orchestra (2222.4331.3perc.harp.pno.strings)

Performed by the USC Thornton Symphony (Donald Crockett, conductor)

Program note:

"Lumina" explores the spectrum of light and dark and the murkiness in between. Using swift contrasts between bright, sharp timbres and cloudy textures and dense harmonies, the piece captures sudden bursts of radiance amongst the eeriness of shadows.

Lumina

Above the Fray (2020)
for multitrack string quartet

Performed by the JACK Quartet:
Christopher Otto (violin), Austin Wulliman (violin), John Pickfold Richards (viola), and Jay Campbell (cello)

Program note:

From today’s orchestras to the Titanic, classical musicians respond to catastrophe in the most peculiar way – play some Bach tunes. As intensely, beautifully, devotedly, and ignorantly as possible. Because Bach must be our universal healer, our vaccine, our band-aid, our paycheck.

Above the Fray pokes fun at this phenomenon by warping and distorting Bach’s famous “Prelude” from Cello Suite no. 1, unraveling its passages into threads that transform, detune, and degrade at different rates for different performers over the course of the piece. Unlike Western art tradition which believes that classical music is a one-size-fits-all solution, this piece dares to ask what if we all are not the same? What if we each have infinitely unique identities that morph differently under different circumstances? What if our responses to a piece of art wildly differ from each other and change over the course of our lives? And what if art itself is not a static monolith, but rather something dynamic that we allow to breathe, reshape, decompose, and reincarnate into new lifeforms over time?

Many thanks to the JACK Quartet and National Sawdust for commissioning this piece.

The Slow Climb for String Quartet

Uhor

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