Ivory Magnets

Grossman Ensemble
James Baker, conductor

LIVE recording
20 May, 2022
Chicago
———
no window without a wall pays tribute to late trumpeter/composer Jon Hassell, who passed away last year in Los Angeles. Embracing a style he termed "Fourth World," Hassell remixed African, Indian, and European concepts into a personal amalgam he called "a proposal for the coffee-colored classical music of the future." Drawing on years of studying Hindustani music with Pandit Pran Nath, Hassell conceived of his compositions as essentially reproducing the classical arrangement of soloist, tabla, and tanpura — in other words: line, rhythm, and harmony — while feeling free to augment those basic parameters with synth timbres, looped samples, percussion instruments drawn from multiple traditions, and the distinctive sound of an Eventide harmonizer that turned his restrained harmon mute lines into wide waves of parallel motion. A microtonal rendition of this effect can be heard about 5 minutes into no window without a wall, against a harmonic palette colored by the harp (with certain strings detuned by a quarter-tone) and bowed strings that buzz with aluminum foil, against the backdrop of a shifting arsenal of "exotic" percussion: tabla, batá, shekere, bongos, almglocken, and (later) berimbau. Interlocked polyrhythms, inspired by Cuban clave and African timeline patterns, are heard constantly throughout the piece, first in softly alternating brushstrokes that underpin a gradually emerging microtonal mode, fragmented melodies shared by horn and cello, then oboe d'amore and viola. Wind multiphonics and untempered piano harmonics lend a metallic glint to the modal lines that eventually align with a series of descending dense treble chords. A coda featuring a tuned gong, harp multiphonics, and the berimbau offers a brief glimpse of another "possible music" full of rebounding attacks and accumulating resonance. Despite the inescapable baggage of making "world music" as a white musician in the 80's, Hassell stands out in my view as a genuine polymath and an instinctive searcher, freely recombining from the traditions he inhabited and admired — an approach not so different from what I try to do in my own work...

no window without a wall (In Memory of Jon Hassell)

Szilárd Benes: Clarinet
Emil Kuyumcuyan: Percussion
Andreas Arend: Theorbe
David-Maria Gramse: violin I
Rebecca Beyer: violin II
Vladimir Waltham: cello 
James Banner: contrabass
Miguel Pérez Iñesta: conductor
A concert recording, RadialSystem Berlin (August 2022)

Fakelore Narratives, for clarinet, ensemble and electronics

Ensemble Resilience live from Gaudeamus festival, Utrecht, NL
11th September 2022

Younan's Journey for ensemble and electronics (2022)

different gravities
mov. II of IV

written for & performed by Longleash
recorded at the Loretto Motherhouse, Lebanon, KY

different gravities, mov. II

Four of a Kind: Naked

Atargatis is Syrian godess of fertility, often depicted as mermaid, who unintenitionally killed the man she loved. That is why this piece represents a sorrowful inner dialogue to her lost love. Very rich and expressive sonorities have been inspired by whale singing. The piece was premiered by Ensemble Recherche at Inselfestival Homroich 2016 near Cologne (Germany).

Atargatis

ManiFeste-2018
Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France,
Peter Rundel, conductor

Flucht for orchestra (2018)

Utku Asuroglu

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