This piece will not save the world, nor is it trying to do so. I had something I needed to say, and I knew a music made merely of pitches and rhythms would be insufficient.
 
Art has responded to the torture or suffering of human beings in various ways. Some art, like that of the ancient Greeks or even the Renaissance, functions as a means of justification or glorification of suffering. On the other hand, many artworks cry out against injustice. Picasso's Guernica attacks the German bombing of a defenseless Spanish town; Slaughter House V, Vonnegut's novel on the futility of war, uses the American bombing of Dresden as a case study; Wafaa Bilal's "Shoot an Iraqi" is a more contemporaneous example.
 
The music in this piece is not programmatic, yet it does function as a frame for three sets of text. The text is whispered and has been carefully overlapped to obscure the individual lines. In this way, the text functions as both a sonic element and subtle purveyor of semantics. With only three performers, the texture will be thin enough that an occasional word or two will pop out. The sources are drawn from words associated with the Spanish Inquisition, words connected to the Abu Ghraib Photos, and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, 1984, which makes the use of torture illegal under any circumstances. Conceptually and textually, this piece is greatly indebted to Stephen F. Eisenman's The Abu Ghraib Effect.

erhu: Wang Guowei
cello: Ezgi Karakus
percussion: Scott Steele

The Avoidance Of A Word

Su Counterpoint was inspired by the first Red Cliff poem by Su Tung-po. In the poem, he looks into a river and sees eternity. This contrasts with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who gazed into the river and saw perpetual flux. The piece is a contemplation of stasis and change. 

clarinet: Jun Qian
zheng: Zhou Jing
percussion: Scott Steele

Su Counterpoint

Commissioned by Trillium Ensemble
Premiered on the Pittsburgh Soundpike 
at the Pittsburgh Festival of New Music

Elise DePasquale - flute
Rachael Stutzman - clarinet
Katie Palumbo - piano
all with crystal glasses 

Notes:
I’ve long been attracted to the music and ideas of György Ligeti. Heidegger’s writings on time have left a deep impression on me. The piece is dedicated to my mom, the third influence in the title. Listen, and you will hear the lullaby she used to sing. It appears both in the foreground in the middle and in the middle-ground throughout. My own voice and tastes are reflected through my choices.


Conversations w/ Ligeti & Heidegger & Mom in the Background

A Tale of Nine Coins is based on two folksongs from Uqbar. Both are first heard in the opening cello solo. The first is titled "upward behind the onstreaming it mooned." The second is "The Parable of the Nine Coins." Two blog posts on my website are dedicated to this project and subject matter. For more information please visit: http://scottsteelecomposer.com/2014/08/29/uqbar-confessions-part-i-of-ii/

Performers:
Peter Arvantely, clarinet
Scott Steele, xylophone
Stephanie Wingfield, cello

This piece is dedicated to the Eveloff Family


Nine Coins

This is a short excerpt from a larger piece, "Conversations w/ Ligeti & Heidegger & Mom in the Background." It is performed here by Trillium Ensemble. 

To listen to the full version please visit: https://soundcloud.com/scottsteele/conversations-w-ligeti-heidegger-mom-in-the-background-1

For more on the composer: scottsteelecomposer.com

For more on Trillium Ensemble please visit: http://www.trilliumensemble.com/

Conversations [Excerpt]

This is an excerpt from the end of Su Counterpoint. It is performed here by Jun Qian on clarinet; Zhou Jing on the Chinese zheng; and Scott Steele on Percussion. The full recording is to be released n 2016 on Albany Records on a recording of contemporary clarinet music performed by Jun Qian. The project is titled "West Meets East."

For more on Scott Steele, please visit: scottsteelecomposer.com

For more on Jun Qian: http://blogs.baylor.edu/junqianclarinet/

Su Counterpoint Excerpt

for string quartet

Program Notes:

The word “ecstasis” has the same Greek root as the word ecstasy. Taken according to what it originally meant, it means “apart or outside of.” This word appears in Martin Heidegger's book Being and Time. The “temporalization in the unity of the ecstases” is that informative process by which Past, Present, and Future are each partially responsible for the other two. 

Due to the temporal nature of music, I decided to compose a piece with Heidegger's temporal model in mind. Even though nearly all the material for the piece can be traced back, in some way, to the opening chord, the different ways it has been developed give many of the consequent ideas a very distinct character. The simultaneity of unity and division is exploited. Each time an idea surfaces it occurs the context of its surroundings the way it is experienced, I hope, is modified. This piece is about playing with our memory of the past and our expectations for the future. 

Writing for the string quartet can be a daunting task for a composer given the rich history of the genre.  The ensemble carries with it certain associations and expectations for what it ought to be like. These expectations can be alluded to or dialogued with; they can be rejected by composing antithetically; or, they can be ignored entirely.  Even though I often choose the latter of the two approaches in my pieces, for Ecstasis I opted to compose a quartet that, in many ways, ignores much of the history of the genre. 

visit http://scottsteelecomposer.com/compositions/ for a list of other works

Ecstasis

This excerpt is from my string quartet, Ecstasis. It features a fast and energetic section that dissolves into a more introspective, quiet atmosphere. 

 For a recording of the full, 13 min. work, please visit: https://soundcloud.com/scottsteele/ecstasis

Scott Steele 1

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