Concert 2 – therefore i was – Postponed
In light of the increasing numbers of COVID cases in our area, and in an abundance of caution, we have made the difficult decision to postpone our Feb 4th concert, therefore i was, to a later date to be announced. We will keep all of our patrons and supporters informed of the rescheduled date, reimbursement information, and any other changes to the remainder of the season.
SMO remains committed to keeping the safety of our musicians, staff, and audience as our first priority, as we continue to navigate these uncertain circumstances. All of our concerts for the remainder of the season will still be available virtually through live online broadcast, and we look forward to bringing new music to you in person when it is safe to do so.
PROGRAM:
R. MURRAY SCHAFER The Crown of Ariadne for solo harp (1979)
JÉRÉMY JOLLEY (contro-)clessidra III & IV for piano and electronics, and cello and percussion (2020-2021)
ASH FURE therefore i was (2012)
NEW DATE: This concert was scheduled previously on February 5, 2022, and now will take place on February 4, 2022.
SMO will return to the Chapel Performance Space for our second concert, featuring exclusively small chamber and solo works. The program includes Ash Fure’s piano trio therefore i was, world premieres by Jérémy Jolley for piano and electronics, and cello and percussion from his (contro-)clessidra series, and a remembrance of Canadian composer, R. Murray Schafer, with the performance of his virtuosic work for solo harp, The Crown of Ariadne. Performances will be given by pianist Cristina Valdés, percussionist Bonnie Whiting, cellist Ha-Yang Kim, and harpist Sophie Baird-Daniel.
SMO Single tickets: $25 General, $15 Seniors, $10 Students
SMO Digital Stage Single Tickets: $15
Safety Protocols
The safety of our musicians and audience is of top priority to us. We will continue to follow guidelines and recommendations from the CDC, King County, and the City of Seattle as we move forward this season. All of our performances this season will require masking and proof of vaccination. Details about Town Hall Seattle’s Covid-19 policy can be found here.
ABOUT OUR FEATURED COMPOSER:
Jérémy Jolley, Composer
French-American composer Jérémy Jolley was born in Lyon, France, and grew up in the French Alps where he played guitar in rock and fusion bands. He moved to Seattle in 1997 and pursued composition studies and received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Music degrees in Composition from the University of Washington. During these years, he studied composition primarily with Joël-François Durand, electronic music with Juan Pampin, and classical guitar with Steven Novacek.
His music has been played by celebrated contemporary music performers such as the Dutch pianist and ensemble ASKO|SHOENBERG member René Eckhart, cellist Séverine Ballon, violinist Graeme Jennings, and clarinetist Carol Robinson. He has attended master classes with Brian Ferneyhough, Chaya Czernowin, Pierluigi Billone, and Mark André at the Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkurse.
Since 2010, he has been the co-Artistic Director of the new music ensemble, Seattle Modern Orchestra. He has also been Associate Director of Artistic Collaborations at the Seattle Symphony since 2017, leading numerous community centered initiatives including community composition projects with Derek Bermel, Alexander Gardner, Charles Corey, Janice Giteck, Swil Kanim, and Paul Chiyokten Wagner.
Ash Fure, composer
Ash Fure is a sonic artist who blends installation and performance. Called “purely visceral” and “staggeringly original” by The New Yorker, Fure’s full-bodied listening experiences open uncommon sites of collective encounter. Operating outside language or story, Ash shapes charged multisensory atmospheres that listeners and performers navigate together. Recent immersive productions include Hive Rise: for Subs and Megas (2020), commissioned by Club TransMediale (CTM) and premiered in Berlin’s iconic Berghain club; Filament: for Trio, Orchestra, and Moving Voices (2018), commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered in New York’s Geffen Hall; and The Force of Things (2017), an installation opera, premiered at Peak Performances, that wrestles with the rising tide of climate dread inside us. Fure holds a PhD in Music Composition from Harvard University and is an Associate Professor of Music at Dartmouth College. A finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Fure is the recipient of two Lincoln Center Emerging Artists Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rome Prize in Music Composition, a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Prize, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant for Artists, a Fulbright Fellowship to France, a Darmstadt Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship from Columbia University.
R. Murray Schafer, composer
Canadian composer of interdisciplinary works that have been performed throughout the world; he was also active as a writer.
Mr. Schafer initially studied harpsichord, music theory and piano at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto from 1945–55. He then briefly studied composition with John Weinzweig, harpsichord with Greta Kraus and piano with Alberto Guerrero at the University of Toronto in 1954–55, from where he was expelled for insubordination. He obtained a piano degree from the Royal College of Music in London while still in Canada. He later taught himself journalism, languages, literature, music, and philosophy in Vienna and London from 1956–61, on a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. He received six honorary doctorates from universities in Argentina, Canada and France.
Among his honours were two prizes from the Fromm Foundation (1968, 1972), the Canadian Music Council Medal (1972), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1974), the William Harold Moon Award (1974), the Composer of the Year Award from the Canadian Music Council (1976), the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music from the Canada Council for the Arts (1977, for String Quartet No. 2, ‘Waves’), the Prix Honegger (1980, for String Quartet No. 1), the Glenn Gould Prize for Music and Its Communication (1987), the Molson Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts (1993), the Louis Applebaum Composer’s Award (1999, for his œuvre), the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts from the Canada Council for the Arts (2005, for his œuvre), the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2009), and the title of Companion of the Order of Canada (2013).
As a writer, he contributed articles to many publications and edited the collections British Composers in Interview (1963) and Ezra Pound and Music: The Complete Criticism (1977, W. W. Norton & Company). He wrote the books The Composer in the Classroom (1965), Ear Cleaning: Notes for an Experimental Music Course (1967), The New Soundscape (1969), The Book of Noise (1970), When Words Sing (1970), The Rhinoceros in the Classroom (1975), E. T. A. Hoffmann and Music (1975), Creative Music Education (1976), Music in the Cold (1977), The Tuning of the World (1977), On Canadian Music (1984, Arcana Editions), The Thinking Ear: On Music Education (1986), Patria and the Theatre of Confluence (1991, Arcana Editions), A Sound Education (1992), and Voices of Tyranny: Temples of Silence (1993). Among his other writings were the story Wolf Tracks, the novels Dicamus et Labyrinthos: A Philologist’s Notebook (1984, Arcana Editions) and Ariadne, the calligraphic stories The Chaldean Inscription and The Sixteen Scribes, and the autobiography My Life on Earth and Elsewhere (2012, The Porcupine’s Quill).
He was also active in other positions. He founded the series Ten Centuries Concerts in Toronto in 1962 and served as its director in 1962–63. He undertook research in the field of acoustic ecology and remained active as a researcher with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (formerly the World Soundscape Project), which he founded in 1970. He later co-founded with Diana Smith, Jerrard Smith and Thom Sokoloski the company Patria Music/Theatre Projects for the production of works in his cycle Patria in 1987.
He taught as artist-in-residence at Memorial University of Newfoundland from 1963–65, then taught at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia from 1965–75, where he founded the Studio for Sonic Research and Electronic Music.