Summer Listening 15

Howard Wershil -- Variations and Varietals

Experimental Music

Acoustic Works

paul rudy

Contemporanea

Segunda producción discográfica de la Sinfónica de Alientos de la Policía Federal, dirigida por Luis Manuel Sánchez y producida por Rosino Serrano. Grabada en la sala Nezahualcóyotl de la Ciudad de México en 2009.

Ingenieros de Audio: Humberto Terán y Valeria Palomino. 

Todos los derechos reservados.

Sinfonía India - Carlos Chávez

There is tragedy occurring in Ukraine.  So many causes need our attention and monetary donations throughout the world, with Ukraine being a grave situation at this moment in time.  

Should you choose to purchase this piece, know that I will be donating a portion of the proceeds to one or more well-vetted organizations assisting the citizens of Ukraine in areas of health, food, shelter, and emigration. 

----------------------------------------------------------
  
Years ago, I was a fan of Harlan Ellison’s science fiction writing.  In one of his short story anthologies, for each story, save one, there were useful and enlightening introductory notes, drawing the reader into the unique fascination of each story.  For the exception, however, referred to in various notes for the other stories in the anthology, the notation was simply, as I recall, “I have nothing to say about this.”  Part of me feels that, for this most recent composition of mine, I should offer the same.  But I’m afraid you’re simply out of luck, as I give in to the part of me that needs to share.

It's really quite strange, you know, this return to composing after 18 years of relative inactivity.  Strange, and astonishing.  When I began this project, I came to my workshop with clear intents.   But as I began to browse through my many available software instruments, and improvise with each of them, I found a sound compelling enough to persuade me to ignore my original intents.  Lost baggage, perhaps?  Found treasure?  Who knows?

At this point, I consider the piece a sketch.  A sketch can become something richer, more colorful, more defined, with added depth and nuance.  A sketch can simply remain a sketch, and garner its own dignity and honor in its essential form.  For now, let’s consider the piece a work in progress, perhaps to be completed later, with richer materials, and brighter sonorities; or to be declared complete at a later date, or perhaps abandoned, as I move on to newer and stronger challenges.  

For now, It Is What It Is.  I profess no ability to predict its future.

What is this music expressing?  A sense of the ongoing struggle of humanity to evolve?  To survive?  To excel?  Is the piece an anthem for our turbulent times, or a mere study in the effect of reiteration?  As composers, we hear as we compose as we perform as we compose as we hear as we perform as we compose… ad infinitum, simultaneously and sequentially, in varying lengths and random orders.  But what the composer hears is not what the listener hears.  What is the listener hearing?

What are you hearing?
 
Why “A Candle (For Ukraine)”?  Title selection can occur at any point of the compositional process, beginning to end.  In this case, I chose the final title, after considering several iterations of various titles, over half-way through the process, as I was listening to what I was composing, and using the feedback of what I heard to both compose and to title.  Some of us… some of you… do have a strong sense that we live in extraordinarily tenuous times.  Perhaps I was tuning in to a kind of zeitgeist, letting it work its art of persuasion on my abilities to title a composition.  Perhaps, as some of you, I am simply reacting to the texture of the fabric of our times.

As mentioned earlier, I will be donating a portion of proceeds from this to organizations assisting humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.  But you certainly don’t need to purchase a piece of music to support the causes and situations you believe in.  Obviously.  Perhaps I’m simply hoping to have written music that elicits a response.  

In that spirit, I welcome your feedback.  Have a Listen.  Share a Thought.  Express your point of view as part of a family, a community, a country, a planet, where we can foster the best from each other, if only we elect to do so.  

And please… continue to persevere, whatever your talents or interests.  

For yourself.
For things that matter.
For all of us.


Howard Wershil		September 2022

A Candle (For Ukraine)

Erika Eckert, viola and Paul Rudy melodica, percussion and toys
 
In September, 2010, I arrived starry-eyed at the American Academy in Rome for a year that promised wide open potential. Among the first things I learned was that my studio sits on the site of Galileo’s telescope demonstration to the Lyncean Society of April 14, 1611. I began contemplating the stars in a different way: through a lens of others’ contemplation. On Christmas Eve, 1968, the first images of Earth came to us from space through the Apollo 8 crew. A few years later, Galileo the space probe, was designed to continue to gather and send data even as it’s eyes and ears disintegrated during its plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere: information comes at a cost. Further out yet, Voyager’s image of Earth shows our home as a small blue dot from 3.7 billion miles away, and for the first time we can actually see our own smallness. Galileo, the man, invited a new scientific gaze outward, while Apollo 8 and Voyager invite us to take a look at how we see ourselves. Telescopes are wormholes outward and ideas, the rabbit hole inward. Galileo, among other things, discovered the moons of Jupiter, hence the title of this work. One of his moons, Io, is a beautiful handmaiden, is the lover of Zeus, is a white cow, or companion to Prometheus, who was chained, as She is chained around Jupiter, just where Galileo left her 400 years ago for us to re-gaze upon. In contemplating Galileo’s political and religious challenges, we began to focus compositional energies around the problem of dogma. Dogma, no matter how it is expressed, enforced or perpetuated (whether in religion or science), easily becomes stuck energy, and is a force that tends to limit human potential. Perhaps Leto II in Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune says it most concisely when he reflects that “knowing is a barrier to learning.” Learning outward begs a balancing inward and an openness to changing notions of how our universe works and why we are here.
 
At Rome Around Jovan Moons was created during a week-long intensive collaboration with Erika Eckert at the American Academy in Rome. It uses sound samples from the Cassini, Voyager and Galileo Space Probes courtesy of NASA and the University of Iowa; recordings of my brother Jon’s Ham radio contacts from around the globe; sounds from Rome and the Academy, and in specific, those recorded on New Years Eve 2011 as Rome exploded in fireworks. At Rome Around Jovan Moons was commissioned by the American Academy in Rome for the 400th Anniversary Celebration of Galileo’s Telescope Demonstration, April 14, 2011 with generous supported by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

At Rome Around Jovan Moons

Arvo Pärt- Spiegel Im Spiegel

Premier Performance by
Emlyn Johnson, Flute
Molly Morkoski, Piano
UMKC Conservatory, November 15, 2023
Grant Recital Hall

Published by Alias Press, a Theodore Presser Affiliate

Rudy The 39th City

Performed by Factory Seconds Brass Trio: Jack Sutte, Jessie McCormick and Richard Stout. 
Assembly line Suite
in nine movements
1) Daily grind 1’55”
2) Paper jam 1’50”
3) Cutting room floor 2’20”
4) Squeaky wheel 2’40”
5) Interchangeable parts 2’25” (may be interchanged to #8)
6) Lunch break 4’33”
7) Quality control 2’40”
8) Power outage 2’30” (may be switched to #5)
9) Cranking it out 2’50”
Total time 23’ (including Lunch Break)
Program Notes:
Assembly line was written for a trio of first-rate seconds: Jack Sutte, Jesse McCormick and Richard Stout! Playing in the Cleveland Orchestra is one thing, and this is something entirely different…

1-Daily Grind : the task remains mind numbingly regular. Time
warps…ceases to exist, and then lasts forever. The mind wanders into oblivion even as the body continues to carry out tasks!

2-Paper jam : the hurridier I go, the behinder I get. Only at the copy
machine is it possible to have started 10 minutes ago, and already be 30 minutes behind…

3-Cutting room floor : Assembling raw footage shot on the set, clarity is laboriously edited out of 10 takes. The floor accumulates piles, while the final reel tightens. Bit by bit the scene clarifies and emerges whole.

4-Squeaky wheel : like every well-oiled machine, time, repetition, and friction, cause even the best maintained equipment to cry out. I wonder if machinery likes it even less than over-worked disgruntled humans. You think you’ve got it bad…?

5-Interchangeable parts : out of small, identical little parts, more and
more complicated things can be made. While evidence existed from two thousand years ago in the Carthage war machine, Eli Whitney
standardized the modern interchangeable part for an order of 12,000 muskets by President Washington in 1798, which initiated the slow march towards the homogeneity of Western society, despite attempts to thwart it…

6-Lunch break : everyone needs a break, even on the daily grind of making music. Ever wonder what happens back stage at half time of a concert?

7-Quality control : Products slowly grind by on the conveyor belt of
consumerism, needing to be checked for quality. Attention to detail
languishes in mind-numbing sameness. Worker bees dozing off…don’t buy it if it came off the floor on a Monday morning!

8-Power outage : Just like machines squeal and break down, so do the power systems that drive them. Whether a fire running out of wood for steam to drive conveyor belts, or electricity shorting out, systems that run hour-upon-hour are not sustainable forever.

9-Cranking it out : Despite all that can go wrong with 90 musicians on stage, or thousands of moving parts on an assembly line, work gets done. Sound and merchandise are cranked out in the never-ending cycle of modern-day consumption of both art and tangible goods.

Performance notes:
Individual movements may be played separate from the suite, or in smaller sets of suites ordered out of varying combinations of movements.
#6 Lunch break may be “performed” as the start and end of intermission.
#5 and #8 may be interchanged in order (thanks to Eli Whitney!)
Trills in the horn and trumpet parts are to the next natural note up, unlessotherwise specified with an accidental.

Assembly Line Suite

Mountains Rising Everywhere is an homage of sorts to Joseph Schwantner’s and the mountains rising nowhere which rocked my world when I heard it at age 26 in my first composition class. I had played in band all the way through college, but had never heard anything like Schwantner’s work before. “If this is what music can be,” I said to myself, then, I want to make it! I wrote my first composition in that class, and the rest, they say is history. When I was younger, I climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000 ft. peaks and loved being on the tundra. My favorite days were those spent on a mountain where I didn’t see anyone all day long, and Schwanter’s music really captured some of those favorite experiences. Being on the tundra, and alone is, to this day, one of my favorite places to be. So when I had the chance to go to Alaska, my second to last state, I jumped at it! I knew I would see mountains rising everywhere, especially going on an adventure with Composing in the Wilderness, and I was not disappointed. The bush plane flight into Port Alsworth and Lake Clark National Park was through one of the most striking glaciered mountain passes imaginable. There was something new, and wonderful about being in a place that can only be arrived at in a plane! And then, a float plane took us deeper into Lake Clark National Park for a six-day adventure with hiking and kayaking. As the plane flew away, the feeling of being at a place few others had ever been on Lower Tazimina Lake was wonderful and exhilarating. I got that pit in my stomach I used to get when heading off at a trail-head to summit a mountain. There was no camping where they dropped us, so we inflated the kayaks and paddled for an hour and a half until our guide found a suitable place to camp. I was expecting the grand views of mountains and glaciers, and Alaska did not disappoint, but the miniature landscape of lichens and tundra plants at our first camp site were took me by complete surprise. With each step, I felt like I was trampling upon a miniature Pandora-esque civilization. It was one of the most intricate, delicate, and yet resilient landscapes I have ever seen. Each morning when I opened my tent, I was surprised to see that it had snowed, only to realize that “snow” is the natural color of Caribou Lichen, a primary occupant of the tundra carpet of Alaska. So, on a trip where I expected my gaze to constantly be upward and summit-focused, I was pleasantly surprised to be constantly enthralled with what was under my feet. And so, with mountains rising everywhere, I enjoyed mostly, the intimacy of the miniature plant life underfoot. If adventure is encountering the unexpected, well, this experience with Composing in the Wilderness came through in a most the most novel and magical way.

Mountains Rising Everywhere

Arvo Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten

The Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra

In Lux Aeterna
April 10 2011
Auckland Town Hall

Arvo Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten

Why have we not had any direct encounters with aliens? One theory that stirs my imagination is the “Zoo Hypotheses” that more advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are just observing us (to learn, or for entertainment?), and we are being given the freedom to develop on our own without outside influences. Are we so benevolent with the life around us on this planet? We observe a lot in our voyeuristic social media culture, but what do we learn? How does that observation change us? Are the aliens observing us also learning from us? I wonder how many layers of observation are going on above and below us. Are we just a plaything for beings more intelligent than us or are we being experimented on like we experiment on those creatures we perceive as less intelligent than us? I wonder what Schrodinger’s cat observed in its box…

Zoo Hypotheses

Weld - Soloist version (Revised 2023)

Bog Bog, The Electronic Ladyland Mixtape

Tracklisting & interview - http://www.infine-music.com/news/374/podcast-024-arandel

Check Arandel´s interview @ The Drone : http://www.the-drone.com/magazine/arandel-bog-bog-the-electronic-ladyland-mixtape/ 

Follow Arandel on Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/arandel

BOG BOG, the Electronic Ladyland

Infos

PODCAST 024 - ARANDEL : Bog Bog - the Electronic Ladyland mixtape

A giant of the avant-garde shows us how to listen. 

For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=293

EX.293 Pauline Oliveros

Classical Hits

The Eternal Vow

Wetiko is not for easy listening, this is hard listening. Ideally this should be listened to at maximum volume with plenty of bass. A powerful sound system for a large venue would be best. Sounds used - about 80% guitar, 10% esraj (Indian string instrument) and 10% string samples

Wetiko

Arvo Pärt - Summa

Performed by Great Noise Ensemble, 10.14.11.

Cheating, Lying, Stealing by David Lang

Making Music, Adopt a composer commission for Llandaff Cathedral Choral Society, 2012.

Behold the Best of Mornings (excerpt)

Nathan Davis, Cactus (1999)

Homage to John Cage

The idea for a cactus and tape work came about when I heard a performance of John Cage’s Child of Tree.  I was immediately smitten by the sound of the cactus in particular.  Taken from its natural environment and placed in the confined and groomed existence of a pot, amplified with a contact microphone, the cactus took on a completely new and interesting character, however paradoxical.   Without the amplification its subtle and poignant resonance goes largely unnoticed.  The relationship between natural objects and their unnatural extension is the metaphor which inspired Grandchild of Tree.  I am deeply indebted to Nathan Davis for his amazing cactus technique and samples! 

Degrees of Separation, Grandchild of Tree

Après l'ascension du grand escalator du métro, un dernier bout d'ascension mécanique avant de déboucher sur la grande Halle de St Charles… Faire ressortir de façon sensible le tempo de la gare au milieu de la débauche d'informations et de mouvements qui nous harcèlent sitôt émergés au coeur de cette Cathédrale temporelle. Jeux de distorsions temporelles: accélérations, ralentissements, étirements… La superposition aléatoire des voix d'ELLE et de celle de la SNCF crée d'autres changements de perspectives, un peu d'humour, de recul, aussi…
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Conception / Direction artistique / Mise en son : Stéphane MARIN
Composition:  Emmanuel MÉNIS / Stéphane MARIN 
Écriture textuelle: Elizabeth MASSE / Stéphane MARIN
Collecte témoignages: François SARDI
~~~~~~~~~
© Espaces Sonores
~~~~~~~~~
"Gare aux Pépins ! " - ESPACES SONORES - @ Small is Beautiful (Lieux Publics) - Oct 2011.
~~~~~~~~~
http://www.espaces-sonores.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ESPASON 
 https://www.facebook.com/AnUmbrellaFor2

QUAI A 1 - "Un Pépin pour 2" @ Gare Saint Charles - Small is Beautiful (Lieux Publics)

Commissioned by the Handel House Museum, London for the Pegasus Choir in response to The People Walked in Darkness from Handel's Messiah. Premiered at The Grosvenor Chapel, London, December 2009.

Further information at www.duncanmacleod.org

Lumen

Music for Sauntering Cows

My musical Odyssey continues to grow, with 6 CD's of 2012 Stories on transformation, sound healing and meditation practice and improvisation performance and facilitation. At the center of my journey is music for the higher purpose of peace and healing between people and Mother Earth. I am grateful to have received so much recognition for this music including Rome Prize (2010), Guggenheim (2008), Fulbright (1997), and Wurlitzer Foundation (2007 and 2009) Fellowships; 2 Global Music Awards (Innovation in Sound and Mixing and Editing); Sounds Electric ’07 Competition (Dublin), EMS Prize (Sweden), Citta di Udine (Prize ex aequo, Italy) international prizes, and performances all over the world. I perform internationally and am available for booking small and large groups and venues.  I teach at the University of Missouri at Kansas City where I received the 2008 Kauffman Award for Artistic Excellence. In 1994 I completed the Colorado Grand Slam after climbing all 54 of Colorado's 14,000 ft peaks. I now enjoy surfing the unknown and catching all the things I missed getting to all those summits…