The 2023 Music on the Edge Series is co-presented by The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA

counter)Induction
January 28
Warhol Museum

Ensemble Dal Niente
February 11
Warhol Museum

No Exit New Music Ensemble
February 25
Bellfield Auditorium

Al Cerulo
April 15 
Warhol Museum

For complete details and tickets, visit https://www.music.pitt.edu/mote

Music On the Edge 2023 Season

Jude Traxler's In Modifier Keys

composed by Greg Saunier, performed by Ensemble Dal Niente

Deerhoof Chamber Variations

CAPTCHA for Baritone and Piano
Duration: 16'
Text by CAPTCHA
Performers: American Modern Ensemble, Jesse Blumberg, baritone; Blair McMillen, piano
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1473
Online Perusal Score: https://issuu.com/robertpaterson/docs/paterson_captcha_perusal
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/captcha-baritone-version

PROGRAM NOTES
CAPTCHA originated with an assignment I was given as a participant in the American Opera Projects (AOP) Composers & The Voice program. Throughout the year, we wrote a variety of arias and songs and were given various "challenges." Some of the challenges included using no more than four lines of text, using found text, using prose, and also trying to avoid the passagio (a term used in classical singing to describe where different voice ranges cross over, for example, where the chest voice and head voice cross). I neglected to incorporate any of the challenges into previous pieces, and I only had one song or aria left, so I had to incorporate all of the remaining challenges into a single piece.

For found text, I decided to use CAPTCHA texts. The term CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University. A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that only humans can pass. For example, humans can read distorted text presented as a graphic, but current computer programs cannot. To find interesting words and phrases, I spent many tedious hours in front of my computer loading CAPTCHA texts. Actually, what I ended using are reCAPTCHA texts, which are derived from a free version of CAPTCHA that uses combinations of real words from scanned books that need human confirmation and gibberish text.

I initially wrote one song entitled CAPTCHA, but later decided to compose an entire song cycle that incorporates the original song. Each songs uses a few key words (the few that are actually real words and phrases) as a springboard. I attempt to phonetically interpret the other words and phrases that don’t make sense, infusing emotion where none exists. Ultimately, my goal is to create an emotionally moving experience, despite the nonsensical nature of the words.

Winter Songs

CAPTCHA - IV. voix Gustroor

c)i emerged from a very practical need - finding performers for works when Kyle and I were students at Penn.  What emerged was a collective of composers and players interested in pushing the limits of performance, but also engaging with music's deep questions of historicality and ontology.  I was studying with Anna Weesner through this, and c)i ended up playing some of her music a few times, specifically Light and Stone.  As is much of Anna's music, it's quite coloristic, mimesis in the best sense; diverse musical patterns mirroring the branching paths of nature.  This performance is from a 2008 concert exploring these ideas called root, branch, crystal, at our second home, Tenri Cultural Institute.  

(image: Seurat's 'The Stone-Breaker'

Root, Branch, Crystal - Live at Tenri 10/12/08

Anna Weesner:  Light and Stone

Quintet l'homme armé was one of the first works specifically composed for the quintet formation of counter)induction, and one of the clearest (and at the same time least clear) manifestations of my decades-long interrogation of medieval and renaissance practice. It takes as its touchstone the eponymous 15th cent. melody, but the melody is subjected to a series of transformations so drastic as to render it largely unrecognizable. 

This transformed melody, however, serves as the source material for the piece in much the same way that the 'l'homme armé' tune did for so many composers of masses from the mid-1 5th to the end of the 17th centuries. Indeed, several contrapuntal and isorhythmic techniques occur within the piece, though they are partially or completely effaced by a different set of contrapuntal and textural strategies derived from Lutoslawski and Ligeti. 

The source tune and the tradition surrounding it serve as organizing principles, but not, in any significant way, as a stylistic framework. Rather, consideration of earlier compositional practice informs current practice, not through a one-to-one mapping,

Here it is performed at the 2019 Corcoran Music Fesitval by counter)induction's current lineup.

Douglas Boyce's 'Quintet L'homme Armé'

American composer Robert Paterson is a true New Yorker—born and bred in Buffalo, he lived in Rochester and Ithaca for over ten years, in New York City for over twenty years, and now lives in Saratoga Springs, near the Adirondacks. Paterson’s colorful music embraces a wide variety of themes, everything from goddesses and online dating to mathematics and the environment. His music is filled with emotion and fierce rhythmic energy, marked by elegance, wit, and meticulous craftsmanship. Named Composer of The Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie Hall, Paterson is the winner of the Alfred I. DuPont Award, and his opera Three Way won the Grammy® under Best Classical Producer of the Year. His music is often a Best of the Year pick on National Public Radio. His orchestral tone poem, Dark Mountains, regularly airs on NPR’s Performance Today. Three Way premiered with Nashville Opera, then BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and across the United States. Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, The Oratorio Society of New York, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Musica Sacra, Austin Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and ensembles worldwide perform his works. Paterson gives masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. He is the Artistic Director and house composer for Mostly Modern Projects. Robert is a lifelong vegan and advocates for animals and the environment, celebrating the natural world with ground-breaking works such as his Triple Concerto, A New Eaarth, Listen, and I Go Among Trees.

CAPTCHA - IV. voix Gustroor

Robert Paterson Composer