Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation for the Talea Ensemble.

First performance on 14 December, 2012, by the Talea Ensemble, conducted by James Baker. Mannes College of Music, New York.

SynchroniCities (2012) for 8 musicians, 1st mvt

Otherness - by Fernanda Aoki Navarro

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sIEUBEJaEA

Talea Ensemble
flute: Daria Binkowski
clarinet: Rane Moore
piano: Yegor Shetsov
percussion: Alex Lipowski
violin: Yuki Numata
viola: Elizabeth Weisser
violoncello: Chris Gross
sound technician: David Adamcyk
conductor: Eduardo Leandro

Performance: August 24th, 2014 at Harvard University, Paine Hall, Cambridge, Boston, US.   




Otherness

A sneak preview of my upcoming string quartet, Overshot. 

Overshot (String Quartet) II.Chariot Wheel (2015)

for Ensemble and Tape 
Premiere: Talea Ensemble, 23.08.2014, Harvard Summer Composition Institute

A.Q.A.R. (2014)

0:00-1:04    IV. No sap chantar qui so non di(pp. 74–79, mm. 44–78)
1:04-2:17     V. A penas sai commensar (pp. 86–88, mm. 1–24)
2:17–4:06    I. Farai un vers de dreyt nïen (pp. 10-15, mm. 64-122)

PERFORMED BY
Susan Narucki, soprano
Talea Ensemble

ABOUT
Farai un vers de dreyt nïen:
non er de mi ni d’autra gen,
non er d’amor ni de joven,
ni de ren au;
Qu’enans fo trobatz en durmen
sobre chevau
— Guillame IX (1071-1126 A.D.)

I’ll make a poem of sheer nothingness:
not of me nor of any other,
not of love nor of youth,
nor of anything else;
Because it was composed while dreaming
on a horse.
— Translated by Aaron Helgeson

Commissioned by Grammy-winning soprano Susan Narucki, "Poems of sheer nothingness" is a song cycle on ancient troubadour texts that speak of songwriting itself. All were originally sung. All were subsequently silenced by centuries of dust, their music lost and their native tongue of Occitan (an early ancestor of modern French) nearly forgotten. Some are explanations of the poet’s craft. Some are apologies. Some are pained second thoughts. Some are warnings for those who would try and follow suit.

Written in 2012-2013, my setting proceeds from a simple question: How would I set these texts if I had written them today? This involved consulting the University of Toulouse about pronunciation and meaning of the troubadour texts, speaking with French composer Philippe Manoury whose mother is a native speaker of Occitan, and consulting with early music specialist Jordi Savall on his own historically informed recreations of troubadour songs. The sounds, rhythms, and phrasing of the language were then combined with my own musical vocabulary by recording sung improvisations and instrumental sounds, and transcribing them in the five settings.

The five songs found here are not “settings” in the traditional sense. Nor are they recreations. They are encounters between two imaginations, separated by nearly a millenium. They are beguiling, but also revealing (e far l’ai tal que sen sela — “I’ll make it such of sense concealed,” but also “I’ll make her song such that its sense is hers“). Above all, they ask a simple question: If music could speak to language, what would it say? When words encounter other sounds, what secrets do they keep from each other? How can they talk at all when one seems concrete and the other abstract? When one seems so close to meaning as to be indistinguishable, and the other seems so far from it that it constantly threatens to disappear into the fog of ineffability? Over such a great distance, what kind of poetry would music write to the words it sets? Would it ask forgiveness? As a preliminary repentance? An apology for singing? Perhaps. For we who make song must remember that we sing to the ears of others. That the price of being listened to is being heard. That we must be careful when we whisper nothings, for they are not always so sweet as we'd wish them to be.

Poems of sheer nothingness (selections)

Glass Stratum [2011]
for piccolo &amp; violin
Talea Ensemble [Alice Teyssier, piccolo; Alex Woods, violin]

More info <a href="http://www.timothy-mccormack.com/glassstratum" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.

Image: Robert Smithson, "Glass Strata"

Glass Stratum [2011]

桑原ゆう｜三つの聲 (2016) for violin, viola, and cello
written as part of Academy Voix Nouvelles 2016 at Fondation Royaumont
recorded live at Abbaye de Royaumont on September 9, 2016
premiered by Talea Ensemble｜Yuki Numata Resnick (violin), Elizabeth Weisser Helgeson (viola), Chris Gross (cello)
The recording+score video is available on the Score Follower channel: https://youtu.be/maphPICGEvQ

Three Voices

Three Voices (2016) for violin, viola, and cello

Altered States is new five-movement contemporary classical work for solo cello, performed by Chris Gross of the New York's Talea Ensemble.

Altered States Talea Ensemble Live Mvt I

Sharon Harms, role of Hedwig
Michael Weyandt, role of Thomas Bernhard
Tulane University 4/4/18 live recording

The Voice Imitator,Scene: "In Rome"

Members of the wide-ranging Talea Ensemble (James Baker, conductor) perform searching, exploratory works for chamber ensemble by Grisey, Di Castri, and Haas in a concert at Reid Hall on October 4th 2018. 

This is an excerpt of Institute fellow Zosha Di Castri's work "La forma dello spazio", for violin, cello, piano, flute, clarinet (written in 2010).

Program:

Gérard Grisey: Talea (1986)
Zosha Di Castri: La forma dello spazio (2010)
Georg Friedrich Haas: new work

Recipients of the 2014 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Talea Ensemble has brought to life more than 30 commissions of major new works since it was founded in 2008. Partnering with institutions like the Austrian Cultural Forum or the French American Cultural Exchange, Talea has helped introduce NYC audiences to important works of such esteemed composers as Pierre Boulez, Georg Friedrich Haas, Beat Furrer, Pierluigi Billone, or Georges Aperghis.

Praised for their “verve and immaculate virtuosity” by the Washington Post, the Talea Ensemble is sought after both in the U.S. and Europe for its range, precision, risk-taking, and superior performance quality. Recent festival engagements include performances at Lincoln Center Festival, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, the Fromm Concerts at Harvard University, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Wien Modern, Chicago’s Contempo series, Royaumont Voix Nouvelles, Vancouver New Music, and many others. Talea’s recordings have been distributed worldwide on the Wergo, Gravina Musica, Tzadik, Innova, and New World Records labels, and been radio-broadcast on ORF (Austria), HRF (Germany), and WQXR’s Q2. Talea assumes an ongoing role in supporting a new generation of composers, and has undertaken residencies in music departments at Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, New York University, and many others.

***

Cosponsors: Fritz Center Reiner for Contemporary Music; Columbia Global Centers | Paris; Department of Music, Columbia University; Columbia University Club of France; and Columbia Undergraduate Programs in Paris

Columbia Sounds: Talea Ensemble Performs Works by Di Castri, Grisey and Haas (October 4th 2018)

Hakan Ulus is a German composer. He studied composition with Ernst Helmuth Flammer, Adriana Hölszky, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf and Tristan Murail at the Mozarteum University Salzburg (B.A. 2013, M.A. 2015), at the HMT Leipzig (Erasmus) and contemporary music at the HfMDK Frankfurt (International Ensemble Modern Academy, M.M. 2016). In addition, he studied musicology at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. Currently, he is a PhD-candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Huddersfield (Aaron Cassidy and Liza Lim). 
 
He attended various masterclasses with composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Chaya Czernowin, Dieter Schnebel, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Ming Tsao, Peter Ablinger, Dieter Mack and Pierluigi Billone and participated in several courses, e.g.  Next Generation Program of the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2011-2015, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music 2012, 2016, Harvard Summer Composition Institute Residency 2014, DRK International Young Composers Meeting Singapore 2015, ManiFeste Academy 2017 and Kalv Academy Sweden 2018.
 
Ulus won several stipends (e.g. composition competition of AuditivVokal Dresden 2019, Artist-in-Residence in the Thomas Bernhard House in Ottnang 2019, Berlin-stipend 2017/18 of the Academy of Arts Berlin, Artist-in-Residence Istanbul 2017 of the Art-Foundation NRW , International Ensemble Modern Academy 2015/16, Harvard Composition Institute Residency 2014, DRK International Composers Residency Singapore 2015, I-Park Foundation Residency 2015, Turkish Cultural Foundation 2014, Arbeitsstipendium Salzburg 2014, EMAS 2014), prizes (e.g. impuls competition 2017) and got commissions (e.g. Klangforum Wien impuls 2017, AuditivVokal Dresden 2019, Ensemble Francaix of the ANAM 2017, IEMA 2016, City of Munich 2014, Ensemblia Festival 2013). 
 
His works are performed by renowned ensembles such as Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble SurPlus, Klangforum Wien, ELISON Ensemble, Ensemble Aventure, Talea Ensemble, Hezarfen Ensemble,  IEMA-Ensemble, Trio Sostenuto, Ensemble Francaix and Ensemble mise-en at international festivals of contemporary music (e.g. Salzburg Biennale, ManiFeste Academy, Klangspuren Schwaz, KlangNetz Dresden,  ZKM Karlsruhe, Beethovenfest Bonn, Ensemblia Festival, KunstKulturKirche Frankfurt, Aventure Konzertreihe Freiburg, Harvard University) in various cities: e.g. Berlin, Bonn, Boston, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Freiburg im Breisgau, Hanover, Heilbronn, Hellerau, Huddersfield, Istanbul, Paris, Kalv, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Kempten, Leipzig, Melbourne, Mönchengladbach, Munich, Nürnberg, New York City, Salzburg, Schwaz, Singapore, Tolstefanz, and Vienna.
 
Ulus’ music was broadcasted in Austrian and German radio stations. Musicological publications in Musik & Ästhetik, MusikTexte, ÖMZ, Rombach Verlag and Wolke Verlag. He gave lectures about his music and about musicological topics e.g. at Harvard University, Salzburg Festival, International Mozarteum Foundation, Basel University, IRCAM Paris, Mimar Sinan University Istanbul, GEMA Berlin, Gesellschaft für Ekmelische Musik, HMT Leipzig, Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Huddersfield, Meetingpoint Music Messiaen Görlitz, National University of Singapore.
 
Since 2019, his works are published by Edition Gravis Berlin.

Fernanda Navarro is a composer, who works with acoustic and electroacoustic music, performance art and installation. For more info, please visit: www.fernandanavarro.net

Composer Aaron Helgeson (b. 1982, Eugene OR) uses transcription, adaptation, and collage to find new ways of engaging with old musical traditions.

Described by Cleveland Classical as "eerily beautiful" and the New York Times as "virtuoso display and engaging instrumental drama," Helgeson's music has received numerous awards and grants from institutions like the Aaron Copland Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, and American Composers Forum.

In 2016 he received an Ohio Arts Council Award for his Snow Requiem, an "anti-cantata" based on author David Laskin’s book The Children’s Blizzard about the Homestead-era snowstorm of the same name combining original transcriptions of Norwegian-American immigrant folk music with sonifications of weather data using orchestral tone clusters, wordless vocal chorales, and percussive noise.

His upcoming choral cycle The Book of Never, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Grammy Award winning chorus The Crossing, collages ancient hymns from the Novgorod Codex (a medieval book of Russian psalm chant overwritten hundreds of times with heretical sermons by an excommunicated Pagan missionary) with contemporary texts by writers in various states of exile.

Other recent projects include Poems of Sheer Nothingness commissioned by soprano Susan Narucki using fragmented realizations of ancient Occitan troubadour poems, Calls of Close and Away for Imani Winds on 19th-century French hunting calls and 20th-century American military signals, and Echoes of Always for Ensemble Dal Niente assembled from scraps of Baroque opera overtures and bits of Helgeson's own previous music.

With performances at venues including the Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, IRCAM’s Manifeste in Paris, the World New Music Days in Vienna, and the MATA Festival in New York, his music has been championed by such ensembles as the Arditti String Quartet, Yarn/Wire, Ensemble Reconsil, Uusinta, Argento Ensemble, loadBang, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Wild Shore, SONAR New Music, Les Cris de Paris, and the Formalist Quartet. Recordings of his music are available on Carrier Records, Oberlin Music, and Innova Recordings.

Also a dedicated teacher, Helgeson serves as Associate Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Montclair State University's Cali School of Music. Previously Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, he also taught as Assistant Professor of Composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, with other visiting appointments at the Hartt School of Performing Arts, University of Chicago, New York University, and the University of California Washington Center. In addition, he has given lectures and masterclasses at institutions like Northwestern University, Mannes School of Music, Stanford University, and the Internationale Musikinstitut Darmstadt. A former Fletcher Jones Dissertation Fellow, he holds degrees in music and theater from the University of California San Diego (PhD, MA) and Oberlin College (BMus, BA).

He currently resides in New York.

John Gentry Tennyson is an American pianist and composer living and working in Los Angeles, California.

Albums out on Another Timbre & KAIROS:

https://anothertimbre.bandcamp.com/album/mine-but-for-its-sublimation

www.kairos-music.com/cds/0018003kai

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