fl. - ob. - str. qrtt. - piano - perc. (vib. - crotales - glock.)

2022 Ensemble Prisme commission
2nd prize - SOCAN Young Composers Award (Chamber Music)

Souffle is the first of a series of chamber music pieces inspired by nature elements, in this case the element of air. It seeks to invoke in the listener the feeling of infinite space in which forms freely come and go. Through cyclical motifs and ideas, it also mirrors the various cycles which punctuate our lives ; the winds of change bringing a sense of familiarity along with memories... and yet uniquely different every time. Composed in the dormant months of a frozen lake, it also draws from the contemplative spirit of winter, where cold air and silent space can most powerfully be felt.

Souffle

fl. cl. bn. percs. pno. vln. vla. vc. and optional live electronics

2022 Ensemble Prisme commission

Vidéo : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_Yf511PYQ

Marées is the second piece of a cycle of four pieces inspired by the elements (water, earth, fire, air). It evokes water’s sensuous, everchanging and reflective nature. It initially plunges into the abysmal womb, source of infinite potential, from which emerge the main motives which shape and shift through the various succeeding moments, before ultimately arriving at its final luminous rest.

Marées

DUOLOGUE for violin and piano

Inversion Da Capo; Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon, director
Saturday January 21, 2023
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas
Maureen Broy Papovich & Katrina Saporsantos, soprano soloists
Brendan Fairleigh, clarinet; Joseph Choi, piano

Text:
Arthur Rimbaud, musical trans. Steven Sérpa

I.
On the calm black water where the stars sleep
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
–You hear in the distant woods the sound of the hunt.

 For more than a thousand years the sad Ophelia,
She passed, a white phantom, down the long black river;
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness,
It murmured its romance to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils softly cradled by the waters;
The trembling willows weep on her shoulder,
Over her wide dreaming brow the reeds bend down.

The ruffled water lilies sigh all around her;
At times she awakens, among the sleeping branches,
Some nest, from which escapes a slight rustle of wings;
–A mysterious song falling from golden stars. 

II.
O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes, you died child, carried off by a river!
–The falling winds in low voices
Spoke to you of bitter freedom;

 It was a breath, twisting your great hair,
That bore strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to Nature’s song
In the complaints of trees and in the sighs of the night;

 It was the voice of mad seas, a great noise,
That broke your child’s heart, too human and too soft;
It was a knight, so handsome and pale, a poor fool,
Who, one April morning, sat mute at your knees!

 Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, you poor, mad girl!
You melted to him as snow does to fire;
Your great visions strangled your words
–And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eyes!

III.
–And the Poet says that under the stars’ rays
You come at night looking for the flowers you picked;
And that he saw on the water, lying in her long veils,
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Ophelia Floats - IE 2023 premiere

Ophelia Floats, for solo soprano and SSA chorus with clarinet and piano (2020/2022)

Composers Note: “The Red Wheelbarrow,” an innovative environmental/imagist poem I first read as a teenager, struck me as an alluring and joyful means to immerse in a commission by Austin's Inversion Ensemble for their Planet Home project. The score blossomed during a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a pastoral setting that nurtured embracing the poem’s vivid landscape. The piano provides a repeating foundation over which the choir playfully evokes the spare text, using variations of the initial theme throughout. There is a contemplative moment midway, then the pulse resumes, concluding with a gleeful repetition of the last line.

"The Red Wheelbarrow is a wonderfully approachable and fun piece of music. The singers of Inversion had a blast working through the rhythmic lilt and subtly beautiful harmonies, so often found in Rich Campbell's music. The clever musical interpretation brought out the wry humor of the text, which helped to set a relaxed atmosphere for the rest of our concert. It was exactly the opener we needed!"
-Trevor F. Shaw
Artistic Director, Inversion Ensemble

Rich Campbell

The Red Wheelbarrow by Rich Campbell — world premiere

Performance at the Grand Teton Music Festival

CLARINET QUINTET "Paisajes" (Landscapes)

In the final episode this season we are thinking about all the little gender games played in Art Song, look at what kinds of gender bending transgressions (if that’s what they are) are considered fine in performance and pick at the invisible rules and underlying anxieties that gatekeep what is seen as unacceptable. In particular we explore men singing “female” songs, talk about how Fach and gender are linked, and converse with emerging and established queer and trans voices in the field to see how their transitions have had to be negotiated in a variety of ways for both opera and song. Shout out to my heros this episode, Roderick Williams, Emma Rothmann, Holden Madagame, Aiden Feltkemp 

Related links: 
Forget me not Projekt: https://www.forgetmenot-projekt.de/ 
Anthology of New Music: Trans & Nonbinary Voices, Vol. 1 https://newmusicshelf.com/product/trans-nonbinary-v1/ 
Aiden Feltkamp: https://www.aidenfeltkamp.com/ 
Emma Rothmann: https://emmarothmann.com/home-page 
Holden Madagame: https://holdenmadagame.com/ 
Roderick Williams: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Williams 
Lucia Lucas: https://www.lucialucas.com/ 

Music used in this episodes: 
- Benjamin Britten/ Henry Purcell: “Man is for the woman made” from The Mock Marriage.  Stuart Jackson & Jocelyn Freeman
- Richard Strauss: Octavian “Wie du warst, wie du bist” from Der Rosenkavalier. Elina Garanca, Metropolitan Opera
- Richard Wagner: Mime “Zwangvolle plage!” from Siegfried. Adrian Dwyer, Longborough Festival Opera
- William Bolcolm: “George”, Joan Morris & William Bolcolm
- Thomas Yee: "The Smoke Curls Into the Sky"

Concept & Narration: Chanda VanderHart iwk.mdw.ac.at/chanda-vanderhart/
Sound and Editing: Bill Lloyd www.linkedin.com/in/bill-lloyd-40…inalSubdomain=uk
Sponsored by the Stabstelle Gleichstellung, Gender Studies und Diversität and the Department of Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI) at the mdw - University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna www.mdw.ac.at/imi/too-many-frocks/

S2E9 Queering The Lied

Composed in 1910 (at the age of 19 y.o.) by Luíz de Freitas Branco (1890-1955), "Paraísos Artificiais" is one of my favorite pieces of all time. I post it here to divulge this piece and composer. 

The piece is inspired by Thomas De Quincey's book "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" (1822), as adapted by Baudelaire in "Les Paradis Artificiels" (1860).

Here played by Ireland's RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Álvaro Cassuto.

Painting by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (titled "Nocturne in Grey and Gold: Chelsea Snow"). This painting accompanied this piece on a YouTube video I watched, and from which I downloaded this mp3. It feels appropriate to accompany this piece, the man approaching a pub (the lit windows suggest to me a pub) on a lonely winter night. Gold versus Grey.

(Incidentally, recall that Debussy composed 3 nocturnes inspired by 3 of Whistler's "nocturne" themed paintings.)

Luíz De Freitas Branco - Paraísos Artificiais (Artificial Paradises)

Meltdown Festival Program 23 June - 1 July 1995 (England)
Saturday 1 July 
Queen Elizabeth Hall
8pm

THE SONG
Part 3
Glad to be Unhappy

-June Tabor
-Elvis Costello
-Jeff Buckley 
-Steve Nieve
-Marc Ribot

... "The tone of Part 3 is defined by the Rodgers and Hart song Glad to be Unhappy, epitomising the beautiful melancholy of this final set".

1. The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
2. Grace
3. Corpus Christi Carol
4. Dido's Lament

Ian Bolton, violin
Philip Shepard, cello
Catherine Edwards, piano

Jeff played the last day of the festival.

Garage band exports

Jeff Buckley Meltdown Festival 1995 (full show)

WDET-FM is a public radio station in Detroit, Michigan. 
In October of 1994, Ann Delisi interviewed Jeff Buckley and he performed in WDET studios. That day he performed “Last Goodbye”, “So Real” and “Lover, You Should Have Come Over,” from his only studio album– Grace.  Ann re-aried this interview for the first time on November 19, 2016 to mark Jeff Buckley’s 50th birthday.  She shares her thoughts about what happened in the studio that day.

Tracklist:
01 - Retrospective Intro
02 - Show Intro
03 - Last Goodbye
04 - Interview
05 - So Real
06 - Interview
07 - Lover, You Should've Come Over
08 - Interview (Show End)
09 - Retrospective Outtro

Jeff Buckley Interview 1994 at WDET-FM (to Ann Delisi)

Composed by: Luis de Freitas Branco (1910)
Performed by: RTÉ Irish National Symphony Orchestra directed by Álvaro Cassuto

Possibly the first Portuguese Modern classical symphonic piece performed in Portugal.

The painting is by Odilon Redon (1840-1914).

Luis De Freitas Branco - Artificial Paradises (1910)

Steven Sérpa is an award-winning whose works have been performed by the Austin Symphony, Tucson Symphony, the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, as well as being part of the American Composers Orchestra EarShot emerging composer program. His one act-opera Thyrsis & Amaranth has had over a dozen production and was praised by critics as a "truly beautiful… magnificent little story jammed full of thought and feeling and meaning" with “gorgeous music and wrenching lyrics.” Recent premieres include a choral oratorio on HIV stigma with Inversion Ensemble in Austin and a micro-opera responding to the Pulse nightclub tragedy with Thompson Street Opera in Chicago and Opéra Queens in Montréal. Steven earned his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. He makes his home in Austin, TX with his partner and their rescue dogs, and he works as co-director of Fast Forward Austin, producing inventive, forward-looking music experiences for local audiences and communities. www.serpamusic.com

Ophelia Floats, for solo soprano and SSA chorus with clarinet and piano (2020/2022)

Steven Sérpa

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