run away with me (2023) | ari sussman

emerald orbs and twinkle;
forget me not, my Daffodil, and
run away with me

Carina Yee, violin
Mark Stewart, guitar
Madeline Hildebrand, piano

Kathryn Vetter, audio

performed at MassMoCA during the Bang on a Can Summer Festival | North Adams, MA., 7.26.2023

"run away with me" - for violin, guitar, and piano - (2023)

This is an audio recording of the Bang On A Can All Stars with Pamela Z live at The Knitting Factory in New York at the 1998 premiere of The Schmetterling. 

In 1998, I was commissioned by the Bang on a Can “People’s Commissioning Fund” to compose a new work for the Bang On A Can All Stars. The Schmetterling is one of my earliest chamber compositions. At that time, the bulk of my composing experience was limited to works for my own solo voice and electronics. I was delighted and honored but also somewhat intimidated to be making a piece for such a celebrated and virtuosic ensemble and to be tasked with writing for instrumentation that was relatively new to me. But I took on the challenge with enthusiasm, and was quickly hooked on the colors and textures that it opened up for me. The Schmettering, which recounts the tale of an exotic lepidopteran, is in truth a strange sort of love song – inspired by an encounter with a charming German composer, and by the text of an endearing shaggy dog joke.

The Schmetterling (Bang On A Can Allstars Live wPZ, 1998)

pianist, banjoist, composer
PHL → BOS → A2 → PHL
👨‍🎓 NEC | UMich 
💼 WCUPA (Wells)

PAMELA Z is a San Francisco-based composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampling technology, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she creates solo works combining experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and new music chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet and the Bang on a Can Allstars. Her large-scale multi-media works have been presented at venues including Theater Artaud and ODC in SanFrancisco, and The Kitchen in New York, and her media works have been presented in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum (NY) , the Diözesanmuseum (Cologne), and the Krannert Art Museum (IL). Her multi-media opera Wunderkabinet – inspired by the Museum of Jurassic Technology (co-composed with Matthew Brubeck) has been presented at The LAB Gallery (San Francisco), REDCAT (Disney Hall, Los Angeles), and Open Ears Festival, Toronto. Pamela Z has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. She has performed in numerous festivals including Bang on a Can at Lincoln Center (New York), Interlink (Japan), Other Minds (San Francisco), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), and Pina Bausch Tanztheater Festival (Wuppertal, Germany). She is the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Creative Capital Fund, the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts, The MAP Fund, the ASCAP Music Award, an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the NEA and Japan/US Friendship Commission Fellowship. She holds a music degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. For more information visit www.pamelaz.com

New tracks tagged #bang on a can