Veils
for voice, flute, clarinet, violin and percussion | 2021

Written for and performed by TAK Ensemble
Recorded by David Bird at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
Mix and Mastering by Murat Çolak


Text
Trim November light rakes across the fields,
Veils itself within a… 
Its calm ruffled by a light breeze. (Digenis Akritis)
Never a glimpse of unplumbed depths. (Auerbach, Mimesis)

Veils (2021) / TAK Ensemble

Palimpsest Ensemble

Sasha Ishov, flutes
Emilia Lopez Yãnez, oboe
Myra Hinrichs, violin
Peter Ko, cello
Matt Kline, bass
Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, percussion
Kyle Adam Blair, Piano

Steve Schick, conductor
Madison Greenstone, clarinet

March 4 2022
UCSD Experimental Theater

Brian Ferneyhough: La Chute d'Icare

Ecstatic Music: Tak Plays Brook

Five Weather Reports - I

Bethany Younge is a composer and performer whose work plays with anti-irony, nonsense as spiritual awakening, and the place between situations and theater. She builds incredibly individualized works, often simultaneously centered in the physiological dramaturgy of performance. 

On this episode, Laura and Charlotte of TAK talk to Bethany about her new piece “at midnight i walked into the middle of the desert” which TAK will premiere on December 14th at St. Mary’s Harlem. 

Bethany's website - http://www.bethanyyounge.com/

Info about the December 14th premiere - https://www.facebook.com/events/712511089258696/

Composer Sivan Cohen Elias website - https://www.sivancohenelias.com/

001. Bethany Younge

Brandon Lopez is a New York-based composer and bassist working at the fringes of jazz, free improvisation, noise and new music. His music has been praised as “brutal” (Chicago Reader) and “relentless” (The New York Times). 

On this episode, Ellery and Madison of TAK talk to Brandon about his new piece, "Empty and/or Church of Plenty," which TAK will premiere on December 14th at St. Mary's Harlem.

Brandon's website - https://www.brandonlopez.nyc/
and Bandcamp - https://nevernotagravedigger.bandcamp.com/

Info about the December 14th premiere - https://www.facebook.com/events/712511089258696/

Anner Bylsma playing J.S. Bach Cello Suite 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTVqjD4Yigg

Cecil Taylor live in Munich in 1984 - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL0cqbWZYsE

002. Brandon Lopez

David Bird is a composer and multi-media artist based in New York City. His work explores the dramatic potential of electroacoustic and mixed media environments, often highlighting the relationships between technology and the individual, and has been performed internationally by some of the best performers working in the field of contemporary music. He also happens to be director of Creative Research with TAK Ensemble, and a founding member of the group. 

On this episode, Marina Kifferstein and Ellery Trafford of TAK speak to David about his piece "Series Imposture," featured on TAK's recent album Oor. 

To stream and purchase Oor: http://takensemble.bandcamp.com

To learn more about David's music: http://davidbird.tv

To watch the Adam Curtis documentary The Trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGJqU-JpbXw

To learn more about Lewis Nielson's music: http://www.lewisnielson.com/

003. David Bird

Ann Cleare is a composer whose work explores the static and sculptural nature of sound, probing the extremities of timbre, texture, colour, and form. She creates highly psychological and corporeal sonic spaces that encourage a listener to contemplate the complexity of the lives we exist within, exploring poetries of communication, transformation, and perception. 

On this episode, Laura Cocks and Charlotte Mundy of TAK speak to Ann about her piece “unable to create an offscreen world (c),” featured on TAK’s recent album, Oor.

To stream and purchase Oor: http://takensemble.bandcamp.com

To learn more about Ann’s music: http://annclearecomposer.com

Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hyperobjects

Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett: https://www.dukeupress.edu/vibrant-matter

The photography of Andreas Gefeller: http://www.andreasgefeller.com/

004. Ann Cleare

Ashkan Behzadi’s music combines a miniaturist lyrical craft with an aim to invoke the collective-memory of folklore music through the use of allusion and pastiche. The question of genre-identity and genre-blurring and, in particular, the relationship between modern lyric and contemporary music is at the core of his aesthetic and artistic research. 

In this episode, Marina Kifferstein and Charlotte Mundy of TAK speak to Ashkan about his piece “Az hoosh mi..” for the violin and soprano, in which the musical dimension of the text, an erotic post-language Persian modern poem, expands in the texture of the music to create an elaborated heterophonic relationship between the voice and violin. “Az hoosh mi…” is featured on TAK’s recent album, Oor. 

To stream and purchase Oor: takensemble.bandcamp.com

To learn more about Ashkan’s music: https://soundcloud.com/ashkan-behzadi

005. Ashkan Behzadi

Erin Gee is a composer and vocalist who has created, in her Mouthpiece series, an ephemeral world that expands the possibilities of the voice, leaving behind the constrictive structure of language, and replacing histrionic female vocals with a virtuosic mouth and a tabula rasa for an emotional palate. Begun as one piece for solo voice in 2000, the list of Mouthpieces has grown to over 30 works for orchestra, opera, vocal ensemble, large chamber ensemble and string quartet, which have been performed internationally with some of the top ensembles for new music. 

On this episode, Ellery and Charlotte of TAK talk to Erin about her piece Mouthpiece 28, featured on TAK's recent album, Oor.

To stream or download Oor: http://takensemble.bandcamp.com

For more about Erin Gee: http://www.erin-gee.com/

To watch TAK's music video of Mouthpiece 28: https://youtu.be/NqZY9q0R3tE

The Albertine Workout by Anne Carson: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n11/anne-carson/the-albertine-workout

006. Erin Gee

Natacha Diels is a composer and performer whose work combines choreographed movement, improvisation, video, instrumental practice, and cynical play to create worlds of curiosity and unease. With a focus on collage, collaboration, and the ritual of life as art, her compositions have been described as “a fairy tale for a fractured world” (Music We Care About). She is a member of the composer/performer collective Ensemble Pamplemousse and the performance duo On Structure, and she teaches composition and computer music at the University of California, San Diego. 

In this episode, Laura Cocks and Marina Kifferstein of TAK talk to Natacha about “The Colors Don’t Match,” written for TAK and featured on their recent album, Oor. 

To stream and purchase Oor: http://takensemble.bandcamp.com

More about Natacha Diels’ music: http://natachadiels.ccom

Ensemble Pamplemousse’s quadruple album Lost at Sea: https://pamplemoussies.bandcamp.com/

Music video for The Colors Don’t Match: https://youtu.be/cpfwPgiJ7GY

007. Natacha Diels

Tyshawn Sorey is a multi-instrumentalist and composer born in Newark, New Jersey, known for his mastery and memorization of incredibly complex scores. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, John Zorn, Claire Chase, Evan Parker, and Anthony Braxton, among many others. 

He has been commissioned by The Spektral Quartet, Ojai Music Festival, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and more recently Carnegie Hall and Opera Philadelphia. He was awarded a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship. 

In this episode, Laura Cocks and Charlotte Mundy of TAK talk to Tyshawn about “Ornations,” written for TAK and featured on their album, Oor.
  
To stream and purchase Oor: http://takensemble.bandcamp.com

More about Tyshawn Sorey’s music: http://tyshawnsorey.com

008. Tyshawn Sorey

Regarded as “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), TAK delivers energetic performances "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex.” (WIRE Magazine). The ambitious ensemble “impresses with the organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity” (New Sounds, WQXR). Dedicated to the commissioning of new works and direct collaboration with artists working in a variety of disciplines, TAK promotes ambitious programming at the highest level. 
 The quintet has released four albums to critical acclaim, including Oor (2019), which launched their in-house media label TAK editions. This label creates broadly accessible platforms for audience engagement with a host of new music media with a focus on original TAK content. The ensemble's Youtube videos have been viewed 15,000 times, and the TAK Editions Podcast has received over 5,000 listens from across the globe.

'Love, Crystal and Stone' by Ashkan Behzadi out on TAK editions 5/10/22

•
TAK’s operations occur on Lenape lands—Lenapehoking; we acknowledge the Lenpae as the original people of this land and their continuing relationship with their territory.

Five Weather Reports - I

TAK ensemble