Performed by the Bozeman Symphony, conducted by Norman Huynh

Learn more at http://scottleemusic.net

The Fire Beneath

A collection of my recordings of many of my favorite easy listening rock tunes from the 60's and 70's.

Dream A Little Dream of Me - Elizabeth on Vocals

Nathaniel Mackey - Poet and Narrator
Mellissa Hughes - Soprano
Bill Kalinkos - Bass Clarinet
Tim Leopold - Trumpet
Mike Lormand - Trombone
Doug Balliett - Bass
Sam Budish - Percussion
Brad Balliett - Conductor

Mastered by Rick Nelson

"Red Wind" sets selected verses from Nathaniel Mackey’s Blue Fasa (2015), which continues his two serial poems Song of the Andoumboulou and “Mu.” His poetry braids these poems into several volumes, which exhibit themes of movement, migration, and transit.  As Mackey points out in his introduction, Blue Fasa “announces an Eastern turn” to the poems.  It constantly alludes to non-Western traditions and is highlighted by imagery from India to the Caribbean, California, the Sudan, and beyond.

Among his influences is fieldwork from a wide range of ethnographers, and specifically for Blue Fasa, Janice Boddy’s Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zār Cult in Northern Sudan (1989).  Boddy’s work details the zār-possession rituals of the Hofriyati, a pseudonym she uses for the people of the village where she did her fieldwork.  In this Islamic culture possession (by a zār, called a jinni in the Quran), is considered an affliction, one that occurs most frequently among Hofriyati women.  The afflicted must be cleansed through a ritual that may involve dance, trance, animal sacrifice, and feasting. The trance-inducing chants invoked by the musicians in their efforts to coax individual spirits are called “threads,” which are “pulled” when they are sung.  Mackey’s usage of this imagery from Boddy’s fieldwork is strikingly evident in the excerpted passage from the poem “Hofriyati Head Opening.” Red Wind takes its title from the Arabic name for a particular zār spirit that bothers the possessed, rīh al-ahmar or “red wind.”

The narrative of Red Wind begins at the gaming table of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi.  The “caught strings” evoke this romantic setting of “A Night in Jaipur,” Blue Fasa’s opening poem.  The themes of trance, dislocation, and multiple identities are highlighted in lines like “Insofar as there / was an I it wasn’t hers.” This thematic material is echoed in the second excerpt from “Hofriyati Head Opening:” “I was possessed. I wasn’t there.” Boddy finds a paradoxical aspect of the Hofriyati spirit tradition intriguing.  The possessed are simultaneously themselves and alien beings.  I have chosen to set passages that deal with this multiplicity of identity.

In their inclusion of elements of blues, bossa nova, jazz, and ragtime, "Anabatic Jukebox" and "Rag" allude to Mackey’s constant process of signification, of reference to other cultural, musical, and poetic traditions.  The penultimate movement, "Anacoluthic Light," highlights the theme of multiple identities by juxtaposing the soprano, who represents the world of the spirits, and the narrator, representative of our own world.

Mackey employs Rasta-influenced terminology in Blue Fasa, which “runs claim and qualm as one, nomination and agnosis as one, proposing a subjunctive, qualified I, an alternate, unmortared I.  Such a self, speaking or singing with a torn voice […] laments cosmic dislocation, social disability, sexual distress, and other afflictions.” These societal afflictions are referred to by the Hofriyati as the “illness older than books.” This imagery is present in the last excerpt of my final movement, "Rag," where the narrator is prevented from seeing the “light” by his own conflicting identity—the manifestation of which takes the form of books old and new.  I interpret the ending of the excerpt as a commentary upon the problematic nature of societal conflict and the difficulties of confronting issues of identity and social status.  "Red Wind" reflects the contingency of our own reality upon one that is inherently other, and aims to demonstrate the possibility of coexistence between the two realms.
 
- Sid Richardson

Red Wind II. Head Opening

Zlatomir Fung, cello
Janice Carissa, piano

Recorded at Skillman Studios in Brooklyn, mixed by Ted Moore in Chicago

Program note: Prelude is a duo for cello and piano that was written to precede attacca into the Brahms e minor cello sonata without pause (though it may also be performed alone) and is affectionately written for and dedicated to Zlatomir Fung and Tengku Irfan.

Prelude

Live performance at Oberlin 2.26.19
Oberlin New Music Ensemble
Conducted by Tim Weiss at the Oberlin Conservatory Warner Hall

Lyric Rivera, fulte/alto flute/piccolo
T. Colton Potter, oboe/English horn
Caleb Rose, clarinet I
Alex Abreu, clarinet II
Brian Geise, bassoon/contrabassoon
Nicholas Ginsburg, horn
Sam Friedman, trumpet
Evelyn Proffit, trombone
Carson Fratus, percussion I
Eli Geruschat, percussion  II
Amanda Lubin, piano
Esther Roestan, violin I
Simone Hammet-Lynch, violin II
Corley Friesen-Johnson, viola
Luka Stefanovic, cello
Matthew Frerck, contrabass

About the work:

In Spanish there are two verbs for the English verb “to be”, one is ser (to be) and the other one is estar (to be). The difference between the two is the quality of permanence: estar is a transitory state, an accidental element of being, while ser is permanent, ex. I am (ser) a human being, I am (estar) tired. The Spanish word esencia (essence) is descriptive of the ser verb form, the true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory (Merrian-Webster).

I find myself thinking about this a lot in times of change. Living in another country demands an immense effort for adaptation, in which one of the dangers -and almost unavoidable stage- is the feeling of losing oneself. Being at a distance with all the elements that made me myself: my culture, my family, my mother language, made me value all the small-things, those moments, places, persons that have now became lucid memories that I jealously treasure. And, aren’t we all just memories? Those instants that we chose to keep at the surface, and even the ones that remain deep inside, hidden, they shape our being, our feelings, our responses, they become our essence.

Esencia - Oberlin New Music Ensemble, conducted by Tim Weiss

Those who may be interested in seeing video documentation of this piece can do so here:
https://youtu.be/IEkX5UdHtNA?t=1 
Seven performers:
1 - any hammered dulcimer (cimbalom in this recording)
2 - tabletop 6-string acoustic guitar
3 - electric lap guitar
4 - tabletop 6-string electric guitar with whammy bar and nut extender
5 - tabletop 6-string baritone electric guitar with whammy bar and nut extender
6 - tabletop 7-string electric guitar and amplified piano played inside
7 - live processing and mixing

Sound Icon + Gleb Kanasevich
Play it loud, at the very edge of comfortable.

Found Objects (2018-19)

performed by the Tanglewood Music Center Fellows
at Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox, MA
14 July 2019

Nathan Aspinall - Conductor

Johanna Gruskin - Flute
Matthew Griffith - Bass Clarinet
Julianne Mulvey - Basson/Contrabassoon
Esteban Garcia - Horn
Ole Heiland - Tuba
Jonathon Wisner, David Riccobono - Percussion
Shelley Ng - Piano
Evan Bish - Double Bass

asestarse (2018, rev. 2019) | for 9 players

ONE FOOT IN THE DARK for Viola, Cello, Piano Trio

Live Performance on August 4, 2019
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood Music Center

Performed by:
Sam Pederson, Viola
Sonia Mantell, Cello
Christine Wu, Piano

© 2019 Harriet Steinke

2019-08-04 1000AM SUN CD1

One Foot in the Dark (for viola, cello and piano) / Live at Tanglewood Music Center

Performed by Elise Kuder, Anna Takeda, Mike Kelley, and Rupert Anthony Thompson

String Quartet

for clarinet trio
B-flat Clarinet: Amy Advocat
Violin: Lilit Hartunian
Piano: John McDonald

Red Wind II. Head Opening

Sid Richardson

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