Screeching Violins and Raspy Cellos: Some Alternative Favorites

An Evening of Today is a collective creative event in which young professional composers collaborate with the musicians of the Nieuw Ensemble to offer an evening of musical diversity. Through musical and visual means, lighting, and theatrical elements, the composers and production team work together to present an evening of live and immersive contemporary music, offering to the audience an exciting glimpse of the contemporary new music scene.

An Evening of Today

Yoshiaki Onishi - Works (2009–present)
All live recordings

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Tramespace, diptyque pour grand ensemble (2012~15)

0:00~15:12: Tramespace I (2012~2013)
15:12~32:58: Tramespace II (2013~2015)

Tramespace I:
Study Score: www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product…mespace-I.html

Asko|Schönberg Ensemble
Clark Rundell, cond.

Geertekerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013, Opening Concert
September 2, 2013

Live recording made by Richard de Gruyl for Concertzender/VPRO during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013

Tramespace II:
Study Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2065_Tramespace-II.html

Ensemble Intercontemporain
Pablo Heras-Casado, cond.

Kölner Philharmonie, Köln (Cologne), Germany
Acht Brücken 2015
May 9, 2015
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Départ dans... (2010) for five players
Wet Ink Ensemble, Yoshiaki Onishi, cond. 
Recorded January 25, 2012 
Issue Project Room, New York 
Gaudeamus/New York Festival
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Parti... (2012~14, rev. 2015)
-- Linda Jankowska, violin

Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1901_Parti---.html
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Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) (2009, rev. 2010)
JACK Quartet
Recorded July 23, 2010
Orangerie, Darmstadt, Germany
Internationale Ferienkurse für neue Musik Darmstadt

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Envoi II (2016) for string trio
Momenta Quartet
(Alex Shiozaki, violin; Stephanie Griffin, viola;  Michael Haas, violoncello)
February 19, 2017
Scandinavia House, New York

Remastered by Yoshiaki Onishi

Score: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2213_Envoi-II.html
Parts: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2278_Envoi-II.html
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Tr (épilogue) - for violoncello solo (2012, rev. 2014)
Recording of the new, definitive version

http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1903_Tr---pilogue-.html

Kevin McFarland, violoncello
Ryan Streber, recording engineer

Columbia Composers Concert
Cary Hall, DiMenna Center (New York)
April 14, 2014
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Gz - A Vuza Canon for tenor recorder and shakuhachi (2017)
Tosiya Suzuki, recorder
Tadashi Tajima, shakuhachi
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Envoi I - for violoncello solo (2015) 
Two diff. performances:
Kei Yamazawa, violoncello
Anssi Karttunen, violoncello

Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2062_Envoi-I.html
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Spargens (2012)
for trombone solo
William Lang, trombone

Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1902_Spargens.html
December 12, 2012
Roulette (Brooklyn, New York)
Columbia Composers Concert
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Envoi III - twelve micro-strophes for ondes Martenot solo (2017)
Takashi Harada, ondes Martenot
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Palinody - for fourteen players (2010)
Wet Ink Ensemble
Yoshiaki Onishi, cond.
Recorded December 11, 2010
St. Peter’s Church Chelsea, New York, NY
Live Recording (Ryan Streber, recording engineer)

[Yoshiaki Onishi in nearly 3 hours]

Study Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1918_Tramespace-I.html

Asko|Schönberg Ensemble
Clark Rundell, cond.

Geertekerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013, Opening Concert
September 2, 2013

Live recording made by Richard de Gruyl for Concertzender/VPRO during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013

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Tramespace is a hybrid word composed of two French words, “trame” (woof, or weft in English), meaning the crosswise threads on a loom over and under which other threads (the warp) are passed to make cloth, and “espace” (meaning space). The metaphorical loom is a context from which the musical materials are woven. Just as each thread is carefully placed and integrated to create a textile, each sound gesture, each musical impulse is threaded with precise intention. As the musical filaments are carefully interlaced – heterogenous, yet collaborating to become one – the surface becomes rich with patterns while depth is made by the multitude of interacting strands. At times, the weave is loosened and a thread becomes entangled, exposing the threads as merely threads just momentarily and no longer as fabric, shifting perspective and seeing things anew, even altered once the yarn becomes rejoined.

In tandem, the concept of space and its elusive quality is something Onishi became interested in during conversations with close friend, composer Mahir Cetiz, most notably regarding the “compositional space” in his work, Départ dans… As space is inexorably tied with time, with an elapsing sense of immediacy and memory, the awareness of physical and metaphysical space is fluid. As music passes with time, it fills a space, interacts with it and leaves it. It makes you aware of the room you are sitting in, yet your sense of inner space has expanded limitlessly. For Onishi, “…it lingers to the territory of the unknown…” and for him, this piece “is, in a sense, an attempt to circumscribe this metaphysical space using the sound that is developed over time.” His work is also informed in part from the philosophical discussion of “self” that is put in the context of the world as a space by Japanese philosopher Shizuteru Ueda in his “Two-Fold Being-in-the-World.”

Tramespace I was commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek as a result of receiving the Gaudeamus Prize in 2011. Tramespace II, still a work in progress, is commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris.

Tramespace I and II can be played separately, although playing them together forms a coherent whole as a diptych.

- Program notes by Michelle Lou

Tramespace I (2012-13)

for Contrabass-Clarinet, Cello, Prepared piano and Percussion
Carol McGonnell, Contrabass Clarinet
John Popham, cello
Russel Greenberg, percussion
Chris Goddard, piano

Inhibited Momentum

Note: video footage of this performance can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/89395213

Nieuw Ensemble
Yoshiaki Onishi, cond.

An Evening of Today II
January 16, 2014
Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Départ dans... (2010, rev. 2013)

Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?language=en&info=p1903_Tr--epilogue-.html

Recording of the new, definitive version

Kevin McFarland, violoncello
Ryan Streber, recording engineer

Columbia Composers Concert
Cary Hall, DiMenna Center (New York)
April 14, 2014
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When I wrote my Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) for string quartet in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write a cycle of compositions for string quartet and its subsets.

Tr (épilogue) marks the second piece that I completed in this cycle. Its title has a precursor; Tr for violoncello and piano, of which I took the formal scheme as a point of reference for the solo piece. I took the duo piece, stripped away the piano part, and enlarged the piece by adding musical commentaries.

As the title may suggest, I intend that this piece conclude the cycle. In the spirit of concluding the cycle, my focus in this piece was to illuminate the gestures and situations of ‘farewell,’ in the sense that the envelope of the phrases has the conscious trajectory of fade-out.

Many thanks to Patrick McGuire who, in the symposium Creative Dialogue V, premièred the work-in-progress version as a part of Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Also thanks are due to Anssi Karttunen and Magnus Lindberg, whose commentaries and feedbacks were crucial to the development of the piece. For the revised version, a rather extended coda (Coda (à Séverine)) was added. I am indebted to Séverine Ballon, who kindly demonstrated a technique utilized in this coda.

Tr (épilogue) is dedicated to Pierre Morlet and Mark Andre.

- Yoshiaki Onishi

Tr (épilogue) - for violoncello solo (2012, rev. 2014)

NOTE: The work "Tramespace" as a diptych has not yet been performed, but the two works that make up the diptych have now been performed. I have put the two recordings together, so as to form an impression of the diptych. 

Many excuses for the drop in the quality of the sound recording in "Tramespace II," as the sound becomes monophonic.
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0:00~15:12: Tramespace I (2012~2013)
15:12~32:58: Tramespace II (2013~2015)
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Tramespace I:
Study Score: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1918_Tramespace-I.html

Asko|Schönberg Ensemble
Clark Rundell, cond.

Geertekerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013, Opening Concert
September 2, 2013

Live recording made by Richard de Gruyl for Concertzender/VPRO during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013
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Tramespace II:
Study Score: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2065_Tramespace-II.html

Ensemble Intercontemporain
Pablo Heras-Casado, cond.

Kölner Philharmonie, Köln (Cologne), Germany
Acht Brücken 2015
May 9, 2015

Tramespace, diptych for large ensemble (2012~2015)

Is Cuimhin Liom (I remember). Performed by Nieuw Ensemble, Sarah Jeffery (tin whistle/low whistle) and Darragh Kearns-Hayes (tin whistle) conducted by Gregory Charette at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ on February 18th 2016.

Is Cuimhin Liom

(British premiere)

Linda Jankowska, violin
University of Huddersfield (Huddersfield, England)
September 15, 2017

Parti… for violin solo (2012~14, rev. 2015)

28/78 New Music Ensemble
	Andrew Lu, flute
	Scott Pastor, clarinet
	Thomas Hubel, trumpet
	Joshua Dunsford, trombone
	Tyler Golding, percussion
	Diego Bustamante, piano
	Sabrina Boggs and Micah Vogel, violins
	Anne Plescia, viola
	Malcolm King, violoncello
	Tristen Collinsworth, electronics

Yoshiaki Onishi, cond. 

February 2, 2019
Stockton, California, United States

28/78 New Music Festival
Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific

Live Recording by Jeffrey D. Crawford (Owen Hall Recording & Video Studio)
Remastered by the composer

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I: L'antienne acoustique 1
II: Mouvements
III: L'antienne acoustique 2
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Antefenas is a spelling variant of an Old English word, antefn, meaning an “antiphon,” “anthem,” or a “hymn song sung in alternate parts.” No religious connotation is intended in this piece; however, throughout the piece I focus on the physicality of alternating sounds. In particular, I am interested in the kinetics of one sound responding to another, eventually forming the perception of a dialogue. Throughout the piece, dialogue is implied in various ways.

In the first part, L’antienne acoustique I (The acoustic dialogue I), an exchange between real and virtual acoustics takes place: the live musicians play short sounds through their instruments that would highlight the acoustics of the room or the hall where the piece is being played. The electronic part responds to these live instrumental sounds with sounds that are passed through impulse responses, artificially generated reverberations that simulate a “virtual” room. In the second part, Mouvements (movements), the electronic part is absent, and the focus is on the activities on the instrumental parts. “Movements” here refer not only to the fast passages that dominate this part, but also to the movements of the sounds that are exchanged from one instrumental group to another. The last part, L’antienne acoustique II, is essentially an inverse of the first part, where the live instrumental parts simulate the acoustics that the electronics produced in L’antienne acoustique I by producing the airy and hissing sounds that quickly decay in volume. The electronic part predominantly produces sounds with dry acoustics. New to the revised version, fast delays are added to the electronic sounds that bounce off left and right. Such sounds are put together with the live instrumental sounds to create a more immersive experience. The electronic part also plays a series of bell-like chords, which come from the residues of compositional materials that did not make their ways into the second part, Mouvements. I think of them as a signifier of the irreconcilable past. I find them particularly poignant, considering how turbulent the world has been for the past few years. Indeed, working on a now two-year-old piece makes the passing of time so visceral and palpable.

Antefenas-Studies was commissioned by and written for University of the Pacific’s 28/78 New Music Ensemble and Andrew Lu, in partnership with the Conservatory of Music. I dedicate this piece to Robert Coburn, in gratitude for introducing me to the world of Max/MSP while I was an undergraduate at the university, which has proven essential for creating the electronics component of this piece.

  --- Yoshiaki Onishi

Antefenas-Studies, for ensemble and electronics (2018)

Yoshiaki Onishi - Envoi II (2016) for string trio

live recording from 2018 Trieste Prima Festival
performed by Distractfold Ensemble:
Linda Jankowska - violin
Emma Richards - viola
Alice Purton - cello

Yoshiaki Onishi - Envoi II (2016) for string trio

Work commissioned by the Sheldon Arts Foundation in St. Louis, Missouri

Yoshiaki Onishi, bass clarinet
Leigh Muñoz, bassoon

March 6, 2020
The Sheldon Concert Hall
St. Louis Classical All-Stars

Yoshiaki Onishi - Gz III (2019-20) for bass clarinet and bassoon

Yoshiaki Onishi is a Japanese-American composer, conductor, and clarinetist. As a composer, he is interested in exploring a wide range of instrumental timbres and finding ways to incorporate them in musical syntaxes and forms that disrupt the sense of expectation. He has worked on commissions that have come from such festivals and organizations as Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Takefu International Music Festival, and Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and his music has been performed by ensembles worldwide, including New Japan Philharmonic, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Nieuw Ensemble, Distractfold Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Quatuor Diotima and JACK Quartet. He is the recipient of the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2018 Fromm Commission, and the Gaudeamus Prize 2011. Edition Gravis in Berlin, Germany publishes his music. As a conductor deeply engaged in promoting the music of today, he is Co-Director for the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and was one of the founding members of Ensemble Exophonie Tokyo. Other ensembles he has worked with as a conductor include Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, ECCE Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Columbia University Orchestra and the University Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Missouri. Increasingly active as a clarinetist and improviser, he has collaborated with composers George Lewis, Carolina Heredia, Oswald Huỳnh, Bret Bohman, and Andrew Crossley. Together with Santiago Beis, he plays in the Onishi-Beis Duo, an electroacoustic improvisation duo. Onishi received his doctorate in music composition from Columbia University in 2015. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition at the University of Delaware School of Music. 

Profile Photo © 2015 by Stefaren.