Composed 2016-18 on original texts

 EXAUDI vocal ensemble:
Emma Tring & Cressida Sharp, soprano
Lucy Goddard, mezzo-soprano
Tom Williams, countertenor
David de Winter & Stephen Jeffes, tenor
Michael Hickman & Simon Whiteley, bass

James Weeks, director

World premiere performance recorded May 16, 2022 
Milton Court Concert Hall,  London UK

Cicada June | Geheimlicht

Completed September 14, 2022
Premiered June 3, 2023 at Current Space by Danielle Williams (cond.), Mind on Fire, and recorded live by Jason Charney

Supported by New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund for 2022-23
Commissioned by Mind on Fire

Original text:

Movement I - The apparition of these faces in the crowd...

worn-down, faded bench 
companion to weary travelers 
catching their breath between stations
we sat together
laughing into each other’s shoulders
as we ducked beneath neon-singed clouds 
of rush hour smoke
rolling, tumbling down
old-town alleys turned glass walkways 
noodle bars turned Apple Stores

Taoist temples turned shopping malls 
teeming 
thrumming
into the night
our hands nearly touched 
amidst the rhythms of the crowd 
as indefinite and fleeting
as the skyline around us 
my train arrives
I rise to leave
looking back through tinted plastic, I wonder 
in this city of forgetting
will you remember me?

Movement II - ...petals on a wet, black bough.

when I returned
the bench was no longer there 
they turned it into 
a Starbucks
the largest in the world 
I went in
a ghost among the rows of emptied Gravitas blends 
silhouetted against the Roastery Bar’s harshly gilded tones 
floating up the escalator past smoky mocha updrafts 
and glimmering Tom Dixon fixtures
when through a tinted mezzanine glass panel -

I see us
          past coffee-stained mugs and soft curls of wispy steam 
     together, sitting
undisturbed by the surrounding rush 
of raindrops and unfilled orders
the moment suspended
     a gentle warmth about us
unconcerned, content
as we laugh, sip, and remember -
hazily I saw their outlines rise
the pair evaporating with the last of the moisture 
into the crowd, out the doors
as a gust of smog blew in 
and filled their void

they built a bigger Starbucks in Chicago.

Large Ensemble

Nanjing West Road, for soprano, mixed ensemble, and fixed media

BREAD [2021], from "interbeing"

score: www.wubbelsmusic.com/bread_score.html

written for and performed by TAK:
Marina Kifferstein, violin
Laura Cocks, flutes, wine bottle
Madison Greenstone, clarinet
Charlotte Mundy, voice, wine glasses, beer bottles, autoharp
Ellery Trafford, mixing bowls, beer bottles, wine glasses, autoharp

BREAD [2021], from "interbeing"  (w/ score)

Michael Hersch 
one step to the next, worlds ending - seven songs after texts of Jan Zwicky
for soprano, flute, oboe, clarinet, chamber organ, violin, and double bass
Ah Young Hong, soprano
Jürg Henneberger, conductor
Ensemble Phoenix Basel 
live performance
December 2, 2022 - Gare du Nord - Basel

TEXTS
I
I was alive,
one step to the next …
… It arrives. 
The far dream that terrified us …
… one step to the next, worlds ending.
… The far dream that terrified us …

II
Near is the hard grief, the grief
from the pit, whose hands shake
… from the pit … the pit whose hands shake,
which cannot find the knife,
which cannot stand, or kneel, or lie, 
the grief that is tearless, that gags.

… a loose stink that lifts and settles in our mouths.
Did you raise your hand? 
Did you say something? 
… settles in our mouths. 
Did you say something? 
Louder. Louder.

… tearless, that gags.

III
And the dust. What of the dust?
… worlds ending.

IV
… they make a nurse dig out
the shaft grave underneath
the slumped pulp of the head.
The heart still beating faintly.
It goes on.

They make a nurse dig out the shaft grave underneath …
It goes on … 
The heart still beating faintly.

V
…And I … And I … And I … And I …
… the sharp edge … 
… shadows blurring, deepening.

… And I remembered that other spring:
the world was ending then, too …

VI
Earlier each day comes the light
and our appetite, the terror that we are,
shines darkly in every living thing.

… appetite … terror …

… slumped pulp of the head.
The heart still beating faintly.
It goes on.

VII
Near is the hard grief, 
the grief from the pit,
whose hands shake, …
I was alive, …
…one step to the next …
… and what of the dust …
… they make a nurse dig out 
the shaft grave underneath
the slumped pulp of the head.
… And I remembered that other spring:
The world was ending then, too …
… one step to the next, worlds ending.
… that other spring …

- All texts by Jan Zwicky (b.1955)

one step to the next, worlds ending - seven songs after texts of Jan Zwicky

Ex-Sentia Ensemble live in Bern, Switzerland

https://joshuamastel.com/Replica/

Replica (passage iv)

live at km28 (Berlin)

live recording of the premiere of "deep terrane (earth dreams itself, sweating)," which overlaps with "nestbuilder" (nestbuilder begins around 25:20)

with MAM.manufaktur für aktuelle musik & Ty Bouque:
-Ty Bouque [voice: dt + nb]
-Gregor Schulenburg [flutes: dt; glass: nb]
-Heni Hyunjung Kim [contrabass clarinet: dt; glass: nb]
-Sarah Saviet [violin: dt; glass: nb]
-Paul Hübner [trumpet: dt; glass: nb]
-Simone Beneventi [prepared bass drum: dt; glass: nb]
-T McCormack [prepared bass drum: dt; glass: nb]

more info:
https://www.timothy-mccormack.com/earth-dreams-itself
https://www.timothy-mccormack.com/nestbuilder
https://www.timothy-mccormack.com/deepterraneproject

[photo credit: Hang Su, @oliver_espace]

deep terrane (earth dreams itself, sweating) /  nestbuilder [2023]

performed by:

Elijah Spies – viola
Francesco Palmieri – guitar
Jacob Mason – piano
Mikołaj Rytowski – percussion

recorded by Santiago Villar Martín
mixed by Isaac Roth Blumfield

recorded Nov 30, Klaus Linder Saal, Musik Akademie Basel

Underglow | for viola, guitar, piano, percussion, feedback network, and electronics (2022-23)

A Roaring Flame by James Dillon

ABOUT RUBY FULTON

I write music which invites listeners to explore non-musical ideas through sound. My musical portfolio includes explorations of mental illness, Buddhism, philosophy, psychedelic research, addiction, and chess strategy; and profiles of iconic popular figures like the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and musicians Syd Barrett and Whitney Houston. I have collaborated on interdisciplinary projects with thinkers and makers in the sciences and literary, movement and visual arts. 

I'm a multi-instrumentalist, performing on and writing for violin, trumpet, and keys. Much of my work falls into the category of concert music, written for ensembles ranging from duos and trios to full orchestras, choirs, and wind ensembles. I also write music that I perform myself, using loops and samples to become a one-person orchestra. Whatever musical genre or instruments I choose, my music reflects the rhythms and pulses of daily life, and the world around me. My music has been performed by the Boulder Philharmonic, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Holland Symfonia, Volti, and Newspeak; and programmed on the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Guadeamus New Music Festival, and the SONiC Festival. 

I teach composition and music theory at the University of Idaho Lionel Hampton School of Music. I hold a doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, with additional degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Boston University. 

WEBSITE: www.rubyfulton.com

ROAD RANGER COWBOY
Live recording by Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Vladimir Kulenovic, conductor

Road Ranger Cowboy is an imaginary take on the larger-than-life perspective of a cowboy whom I encountered in real life at a truck stop in Waterloo, Iowa. He was a thin, elderly man with long white hair, dressed from head to toe in ornate western cowboy clothing, complete with a ten-gallon hat and a shining set of spurs. Since we were in a fairly urban area, just off a busy interstate, with no horses in sight, I wondered why he might be wearing such a costume, and I invented the narcissistic character of the Road Ranger Cowboy. I researched
the effect which severe narcissism has on the processes in the brain, and learned that the narcissistic mind blocks out the majority of sensory input, filtering out everything except the information which bolsters their fantastical self-image. My piece begins with a simple country western tune, which represents a "normal" view of life. Gradually, the music is pulled apart and distorted, as only a few pitches are selected by the cowboy's narcissistic
system. Although the tune is in A Major, the cowboy's filter eventually plucks out
the notes of a B-Flat Major scale, just in time for a grandiose version of the tune, which is reality as seen through the cowboy's perspective. The piece ends with a solo flute, representing the loneliness of this dystopian American hero.

Road Ranger Cowboy

Klaus Lang -Die drei Spiegel der schönen Karin

From a live performance on FB through the Social Distance Sessions page. My own arrangement. The audio quality is a bit strange, but what can you do? The internet is weird.

https://tricentricfoundation.org/

Anthony Braxton: LM+Compositions 227(4)+255(I)+227(III)+345(I)+228(III)+228(V)+LM+367B

Will Yager

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