Sunghyun Lee (*1995)
Suite Geometrica, for 16 players (2022, rev. 23)

00:00  I. Zigzag Toccata
08:16  II. Distorted Arabesque
14:36  III. Kinematic Sonata

Kamariorkesteri Avanti!
Bas Wiegers, conductor

Finnish Première, 30 June 2023, Avantin Suvisoitto '23

Avantin Suvisoitto '23

https://avantimusic.fi/suvisoiton-ohjelma

Suite Geometrica for 16 Players (2022, Rev. 23, Avanti! Festival Recording)

Recorded live July 14, 2024 at Kresge Auditorium by conductor Matthew Straw and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra

Co-commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony and the Interlochen Arts Academy

Growing up between the US and China, I always found the idea of home to be somewhat elusive. This was never truer for me than in 2022: I passed through more than 20 cities over an exhilarating nine months, teaching scores of students, working with orchestras, and composing frantically the whole time. As excited as I was to take in all the sights, sounds, and locales, I also began to feel profoundly lonely. Almost every aspect of my life - my community, my family, my faith - had undergone seismic upheavals in that same stretch of time and, as I introduced myself again and again to dozens of new people in dozens of new places, I started to feel as though my name was the only point of stability I had left. 

In the midst of all the flying, I began to consider the swallow: a small, common bird that makes its home on every continent. Their ubiquity has made them symbols of familiarity for cultures across the globe. For the ancient Romans, they heralded the arrival of spring; in Chinese folklore, the swallow (燕子 - yanzi) signifies the warmth of family due to their careful attention to their young; for European sailors, sighting one was as good as sighting home, as swallows rarely flew far off the coast even during their migratory season. In this time of travel, though, they still remain extraordinarily caring, continuing to feed their young mid-flight. I wondered if swallows were able to find a sense of home in the middle of transit, and soon started to wonder if the same might be possible for myself. Despite my locality continually shifting, I was still able to maintain a few anchoring relationships in my life that give me some measure of groundedness. 

These relationships provided the seed for Sighting the Swallow, a work of restless modulations and shimmering textures that is ultimately as much a journal as it is a tribute to my loved ones. The piece begins inchoate and sparkling as songful horns carry the main idea. Gradually, the ensemble’s swirling harmonies contract into a tightening spiral, flitting birdlike from key to key with increasing energy. Finally, the roving modulations stabilize, and the music, content, quietly returns to roost in the orchestra’s highest register.

Sighting the Swallow (WYSO), for symphony orchestra

Completed July 29, 2024
Premiered December 4, 2024 by the Attacca Quartet

Dedicated to the Attacca Quartet, whose omnivorous enthusiasm for music was as infectious as it was inspiring

When preparing to write a new piece for the incredible Attacca Quartet, I had to reformulate my attitudes toward music. Where other ensembles would specialize, Attacca approached a stunningly wide repertoire with wit, joy, and open-mindedness. For them, there could be no music too high or too low, too silly or serious, too old or new. Instead, any music could serve as its own justification. 

Loosely inspired by William Blake’s parallel poetry collections ‘Songs of Innocence & Experience,’ this piece is structured in two halves that correspond roughly to the titular themes. Blake completed Songs of Experience six years after Songs of Innocence, and he originally intended the former to be exclusively centered on adulthood while the latter concentrated on youth. By the time he finished the collections, however, neither half was purely innocent nor experienced. The two contained poems of the same subject matter, the same titles, and in some cases, the same content - Blake actually moved some of the poems in 'Innocence' to 'Experience' upon completion, suggesting a complex relationship between the halves. 

I reflected on the soundworld I had developed over the six years or so since I started composing: a music of rushing motion, extended techniques, and mischievous self-awareness. This style stood in stark contrast to the first few pieces I had written: pop-like chord progressions, simple melodies, emotional transparency to the point of embarrassment. I decided I would set these old, ‘naive’ ideas in conversation with my current musical language. 

I hope that by juxtaposing and interweaving these musics that I can cast some doubt upon the linear narratives of growth we often feed ourselves. Sometimes, perhaps, one must double back to go forward.

Music of Innocence and Experience, for string quartet

beautiful performance by the wonderful pianist Richard Casey recorded by Steve Plews (prima-facie)

nagahama fragments (2012) 

(twenty fragments for piano)

a piano fragment written each day during a summer spent in Hiroshima, Japan. August 6th is the day in 1945 when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15am. “Little Boy” is the name given to the bomb by the servicemen aboard the Enola Gay.

Aug. 1st	0’:00”	mangetsu (full moon)
Aug 2nd	1’:08”
Aug 3rd	3’:45”
Aug 4th	5’:04”
Aug 5th	6’:11”
Aug 6th 	6’:48”	little boy
Aug 7th	8’:38”
Aug 8th	9’:03”
Aug 14th	10’:30”
Aug 15th	11’:56”
Aug 17th	12’:18”
Aug 18th	13’:17”
Aug 19th	13’:44”	umi (seto nai kai) – the inland sea
Aug 20th	14’:54”
Aug 21st	15’:00”
Aug 22nd 15’:20”
Aug 23rd 16’:21”
Aug 24th	16’:56”
Aug 25th	17’:58”
Aug 26th	18’24”

nagahama fragments

"Victory leads to hatred
for the defeated suffer.
The peaceful live happily
Beyond victory and defeat."

Dhammapada, verse 201

released November 19, 2014

beyond victory and defeat piece

Full  track: https://crashensemble.bandcamp.com/album/friendly-piece


Friendly Piece: Excerpt

National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland conducted by Hannu Lintu

The True Truths (2012)

In response to Toni Berger's painting, 'Brooklyn Harbor.'

IV. Brooklyn Harbor

Original texts from Dúchas collection            https://www.duchas.ie/en

English translations

All three singers:

"This is the place of your resurrection"

Soprano 1:

Once upon a time a body of soldiers launched a furious raid on Baile Bhuirne and they were busily plundering about them until Saint Gobnait stopped them. She had bees and she sent them after the army. She made soldiers of the bees and they launched a wholesale slaughter on the plunderers.

Informant: Micheál Ó Loingsigh Collector: Seán Ó Cróinín
Location: Ballyvourney, Co. Cork, 1928


Soprano 2:

Once upon a time thieves came to steal the cattle of Baile Bhuirne. The thieves found the animals, gathered them together and were ready to drive them westwards. When Gobnait found out, she sent the bees in pursuit of the thieves. The bees attacked them. Injured and scarred the thieves escaped without so much as a single cow. Every cow and calf was brought back to their rightful owners.

Gaelscoil Uí Ríordáin's Art Project 

Mezzo-soprano:
Finín Ó Donnchadha of the Glen and his soldiers went to Baile Bhuirne once on a cattle raid. They reached Baile Bhuirne in the dead of night and immediately started gathering all the animals. It so happened that the locals woke up and they countered the raiders. Finín and his men were too strong for them so they took the animals with them westwards towards the Glen.
The people of Baile Bhuirne put their heads together to find a solution and finally they decided to ask Saint Gobnait to rescue them because at that time she was creating wondrous things with the blessed bees.
Their chief was a pagan and he didn’t want to seek her help but he had no choice. Saint Gobnait promised to return their animals to them on condition that he became a Catholic, which he did. Saint Gobnait went westwards in pursuit of the raiders, barefoot with the beehive in her hand. She caught up with them on the border of the two counties, she shook the beehive in the air and the bees came out. She made soldiers of them. There was a terrible fight between the two groups and in the end the raiders were chased away.
The bees then went back into the beehive and Saint Gobnait went back to Baile Bhuirne with the plunder.

Informant: Pádruig Ó hÉaluigh
Location: Cluain Chaoin, Gleann Fleisce, Cill Airne, Co Chiarraí

Íocón Beiche  (Bee Icon)  - workshop recording

Quatuor Bozzini (https://quatuorbozzini.ca/fr/)
recorded live at
Time:Spans Festival (https://timespans.org/)
NYC, August 2019

string quartet no 4 (2019)

Completed August 30, 2020
Premiered May 6, 2022 by Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra as part of the 2022 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute

Remember to Have Fun began its life as a mixed quintet written for conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz. Started in the midst of an existential funk early 2020, the piece was intended to remind myself that I should, in all things musical, have fun. After all, the reason I had taken to music in the first place was because I had discovered in composing a wholly unique kind of fun that I could not find anywhere else. 

Cast in three continuous movements, Remember to Have Fun is best understood as a triptych recontextualizing a handful of simple motifs into three different kinds of fun: I. ‘Master of None’ is overly excitable, interrupting and tripping over itself as it tries to decide where to go with its cellular, half-step dominated main idea. II. ‘Think About What You’ve Done’ picks up the pieces after its exhausted predecessor, initially introspective but growing, with a twinkle in its eye, increasingly quirky and mischievous. III. ‘Remember to Have Fun,’ spurred on by the music’s increased confidence, takes the first movement’s main idea and sprints at breakneck tempo toward a rip-roaring, frenetic finish. 

The majority of the work on this piece was completed during a particularly dour and sedentary year. With all the loneliness, anxiety, and pessimism floating about, I wanted to create a piece that would be characterized by the exact opposite of all those emotions. The piece’s prosaic title ends up being many things: a title, yes, but also a word of advice to the conductor, an expression marking for musicians, a reminder to myself as an artist, a small instruction for listeners, and maybe even a bit of hopeful inspiration for you, the reader.

string quartet no 4 (2019)

Michael Oesterle

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