filigree is a piece that explores the margins of sound, attempting to show musical gestures under varying degrees of magnification and compression. Sonic materials are at turns hyper-compacted and expanded to a grandiose volatility as the piece searches for a vantage point of relative stability. filigree was written for International Contemporary Ensemble.

International Contemporary Ensemble

Isabel Lepanto Gleicher - piccolo
Ryan Muncy - soprano saxophone
Clara Warnaar - percussion
Julia Den Boer - piano
Josh Modney - violin
Nicholas DeMaison - conductor

Premiered May 15, 2022
Martinos Auditorium - Brown University - Providence, RI

filigree (2021-22)

"three or four (of many)" by David Carlton Adams
Premiered June 8, 2022, at New Music On the Point by
JACK quartet

This piece explores the intersection of texture, just intonation, and renaissance polyphony. Ideas emerge, find expression, are subsumed, and disappear. Oh, and there’s math.

three or four (of many)- JACK quartet (live)

Black flight (2023)

From the album "Folk Songs" by Michelle O'Rourke + Ficino Ensemble
https://ergodos.bandcamp.com/album/folk-songs

I Would Be Where I Am Not

Recording by Yiyang Zhao on May 20, 2023.

Score purchase: https://www.babelscores.com/voir-et-rechercher-catalogue/instrumental/8124-pale-flower-vii8124

The "Pale Flower" series pays tribute to Luciano Berio's "Sequenza", with each piece written for a specific solo instrument. The entire series carries a particular humanistic meaning: flowers are meant to be vibrant. "Pale" flowers are abnormal, representing those who cannot voice their suffering or are oppressed due to cultural or social reasons. "Pale Flower VII" is composed for prepared cello, with the fixed pitches of strings I and II eliminated. This piece is more like writing for an instrumental installation than a traditional instrument. Through this approach, I aim to create a unique, piercing sonic state. The work aligns with the humanistic connotations of the "Pale Flower" series regarding its physical and sonic aspects. Cellist Yiyang Zhao commissioned this work, and I am delighted to have received his assistance and support throughout the compositional process.

Pale Flower VII 蒼白之花 VII (2022) for prepared cello solo

Michael Hersch
MEDEA - (excerpt 1)
Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano
Schola Heidelberg
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Ensemble Musikfabrik
live performance - June 3, 2023
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
PROGRAM NOTE (in German, with English language libretto included)- https://www.musikfabrik.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MUFA22822-WDR-Programm-85-230511.pdf
PROGRAM NOTE (English Translation) - https://michaelhersch.com/works/program/MEDEA.html

MEDEA - (excerpt 1)

Michael Hersch
MEDEA - (excerpt 2)
Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano
Schola Heidelberg
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Ensemble Musikfabrik
live performance - June 3, 2023
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
PROGRAM NOTE (in German, with English language libretto included)- https://www.musikfabrik.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MUFA22822-WDR-Programm-85-230511.pdf
PROGRAM NOTE (English Translation) - https://michaelhersch.com/works/program/MEDEA.html

MEDEA - (excerpt 2)

Michael Hersch
MEDEA - (excerpt 3)
Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano
Schola Heidelberg
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Ensemble Musikfabrik
live performance - June 3, 2023
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
PROGRAM NOTE (in German, with English language libretto included)- www.musikfabrik.eu/wp-content/uplo…m-85-230511.pdf
PROGRAM NOTE (English Translation) - michaelhersch.com/works/program/MEDEA.html

MEDEA - (excerpt 3)

Composed and performed by Scott Allen Miller.
Recorded at the CUNY Graduate Center by Itzá Garcia and Tobias Fandel.

This solo bass piece is my first completed composition that uses 31 equal divisions of the octave. The title, which (as usual) I applied to the work after completing it, comes from Kim Stanley Robinson's novel The Ministry for the Future. It wonderfully describes the simultaneous force and fragility of so many things, from our political institutions to our tuning systems. I also love the layered imagery of a lacy gossamer net, somehow still and steady, overlaying a veiny block of impossibly animated granite. I hear a similar restlessness in the music's slippage across 31EDO's small steps (dieses) and the expressive variety of intervals this produces.

Granite of the careening world, held in gossamer nets of words (2023) in 31EDO for solo double bass

Fated Nines - Jason Eckardt (Amorsima Trio)

Live recording of composer Clarence Barlow's "until" (version 5), for piano and drone. Performed as part of UNC's 2016 Festival on the Hill: Music, Science, and Nature.

Not a perfect recording, but I think it's successful enough to explore the idea of the piece. Thanks to Lee Weisert for organizing the festival and allowing me to take part!

until (version 5)

until (version 5) - Clarence Barlow

Richard Drehoff Jr. (b. 1991) is a doctoral student at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University studying composition and music theory. His compositional and research interests explore listeners' perceptions of gesture across time and examine sonic constructions of intimacy and vulnerability within the composer-performer-listener framework.

Richard is the Co-Director of earspace, an ensemble championing the presentation of immersive multimedia performances of diverse works by contemporary composers. His works have been commissioned by the Library of Congress and the New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble and have been performed by groups such as the Mivos Quartet, the ECCE Ensemble, and members of Talea Ensemble. Recent accolades include a residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, a composition fellowship from the James Tenney Memorial Symposium, and conference presentations at the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic on works by Galina Ustvolskaya and Pierre Boulez.