Yu-Fang Chen, violin
Peter Opie, cello
Live recording from Central Washington University New Music Festival,  October 6, 2023

Program Notes
Pali-pali is a common Korean expression, which is similar to ‘chop-chop’ in English but much more present, almost as a lifestyle – hard working AND efficient.  Many South Korean people seem to believe this to have played a significant role in South Korea’s rapid economic growth in the late 20th century. 
The title of this piece “Pali-pali!!” came from the situation in which I actually had to compose the piece very quickly, due to the last-minute commission.  I did not just accept but ENJOYED this challenge (all thanks to this Pali-pali spirit I inherited), by making this piece about a composer dealing with deadlines!
The opening of this piece is somewhat auspicious and contemplative, as when one begins a new composition project.  Then, the music becomes anxious, depicting the moment when the composer becomes aware of the deadline approaching but tries to stay calm and focused.  The music becomes tumultuous as the composer’s inner turmoil grows more frenetic and frantic, eventually to explode!  Will the composer make it to the deadline?  We will figure it out!

Concert Two

Texu Kim (b. 1980): Pali_Pali!!! for violin and cello (2018)

Music by Texu Kim
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 26, 2014

Bounce!!

Live Recording of 'Homage to Anonymous Ancient Fiddlers' (2015) for two violins
iN Festival
Ensemble iiiiiiiii, Ilshin Hall, South Korea

Homage to Anonymous Ancient Fiddlers

- revised version is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AE64dQ0lpI

Premiered at the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik 2016 by Curious Chamber Players 

Moa Bromander / Flute
Dries Tack / Clarinet
Martin Welander / Percussion
Frederik Munk Larsen / Guitar
Karin Hellqvist / Violin
My Hellgren / Violoncello
Rei Munakata / Conductor

Ringo for 6 Players (2016)

Texu Kim - Bounce!! - (2014)

Performed by the JACK Quartet
info & program note — https://louisgoldford.com/works/memoire-involontaire/

25 March 2017
DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York City
score: https://issuu.com/louisgoldford/docs/memoire_involontaire
watch on Score Follower: https://youtu.be/IdNrij6QK3A

Mixed by Louis Goldford
Mastered by Rebekah Wineman + Louis Goldford

Mémoire Involontaire (2017)

Sonata 46 for violin and classical guitar

Sandra Haniszewska - Violin
Tomasz Kandulski - Classical Guitar

I was attending music school as an undergraduate in 1998 at the University of Texas at Austin. At the time, Matthew Gould (of Duo 46) was attending as a Doctoral student in guitar and living in Austin with his partner, violinist Beth Schneider. They had started Duo 46 maybe a few years before this. I was hanging out with them a lot in those days - just going over to their apartment or whatever. One day, Matt said to me, "Hey man, why don't you write us a piece?", and I said, "Umm.. ok."

At this point, I don't think they expected much. They hadn't had that many pieces written for them yet, and I was just starting as a composer, only in my second year of school. I decided I wanted to write something that would really show off what they could do technically and musically, and that would leave audiences breathless.

Not knowing how to begin, I lifted a line from a piece that I had just written - a solo flute piece titled "The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi". That became the opening line of the piece. Then, inspired by the one movement sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, I wrote the piece based on that line. The piece is full of things that I was just discovering and becoming influenced by at the time: baroque sonatas, renaissance lute music (hence the "lute" tuning of the guitar), the tangos of Piazzolla as well as the ever-present rock and heavy metal that has always been part of my music. Since Duo 46 premiered the piece in 1999, Sonata 46 has become one of my most frequently and widely performed pieces.

Notes

Sonata 46 (Haniszewska-Kandulski Duo)

Decrescendo

Live Recording of 'Dusty Books' for string quartet and fixed media
Commissioned and premiered by 45th Parallel at Old Church Concert Hall, Portland, Oregon, 2/15/2019.
The piece is based on a poem with the same title by Micah Fletcher, the survivor of Max Stabbing in Portland, Oregon in 2017. It addresses his personal transformations after the tragic event through hypothetical questions.

Texu Kim - Dusty Books

45th Parallel Universe presented Pyxis Quartet and Micah Fletcher in this performance on February 15, 2019, at The Old Church, Portland OR. Their program was titled "Chrysalis".

5 - Dusty Books By Texu Kim

I. Drips & Drops
II. Floating City of Lake Texcoco –
III. Aqueduct Run

http://pronovamusic.com/notes/flow.html

instrumentation: 
1(=pc)22(cl,bcl)2(bn,cbn) - 2211 - Timp, Perc(3), Hp, Pno - Strings - flute soloist

Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, November 9-10, 2019 (live)
Iván del Prado, conductor; Alejandro Escuer, flute
     I–0:00 (improvised cadenza 3:54-4:27)
     II–7:25 (improvised cadenza 7:11-8:17)
     III–14:21

Program Note:

Composed for and dedicated to my good friend and long-time professional colleague, flautist Alejandro Escuer, FLOW is a concerto for flute and orchestra. One can imagine many things “flowing”: air, creating the flute’s sound; water traveling from here to there around this whole planet – giving us all life and a shared elemental experience; people, moving to and fro; and of course, music, especially music passing ideas back and forth among musicians or taking one or more motives on a journey across a piece of music lasting some 20 minutes, as in FLOW. Each of these examples of flow also involve transformation, in a process that might be circular, or perhaps never-ending.

While composing this concerto, I thought much about the flow of water, and even specifically, about the flow of and history of water in Mexico City, which of course was built upon a lake and continues to have challenges relating to water. Supplying fresh water to the population is not easy, and while extracting twice the amount of water as that replenishing the underground aquifers, the city continues to sink, such that the zócalo is now below the level of Lake Texcoco, which was the lowest point in the Valley of México.

The first movement is called “Drips & Drops.” Over the course of about six minutes the music gradually transforms from the opening single short note played by the flute into short motives and then longer lines and gestures; many of these descend in the way of water following gravity, not unlike the Aztec’s aqueducts. The slow central movement contemplates the shifting ground beneath the city afloat on the aquifers below lake Texcoco. Blocks of sound shift in relation to each other throughout, and the climax presents a large imposing structure arising and then sinking. The closing movement imagines water traveling the paths of the old aqueducts but is also inspired by the bustling activity and flow of people around the city.

For any theorists in the audience: some key melodic shapes are drawn from letters in Alejandro Escuer’s
name: AAEADD for his first name (L for the pitch A, or “La” in solfege; R for pitch D, or “Re”; I skipped
over j and o). Escuer translates as EBCCED.

Homage to Anonymous Ancient Fiddlers

Texu Kim

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