HENRY THREADGILL Sixfivetwo (2018) for string quartet – Seattle Premiere
About the work: Henry Threadgill composed Sixfivetwo, a 12-minute work for string quartet that includes opportunities for players to improvise. “The improvisational component is very important,” he said in an interview while describing his philosophy which guided the creation of this piece. “Kronos knows it’s important and I know it’s important. It’s a shame that the classical concert world doesn’t understand how important it is… Everything is about exploration. We get to where we are because of exploration. That’s why improvisation is so important… We won’t improve anything unless we have an improvisational approach to life.”
“This piece was commissioned for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, a project of the Kronos Performing Arts Association. The score and parts are available for free online at kronosquartet.org.”
Composer bio: For over forty years, Henry Threadgill has been celebrated as one of the most forward-thinking composers and multi- instrumentalists in American music. The New York Times has called him “perhaps the most important jazz composer of his generation.” Threadgill is a recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music for In for a Penny, In for a Pound. Threadgill is an early member of the AACM.
VIJAY IYER Mutations IV, VI, and VII for string quartet, piano and electronics (2005)
About the work: A major piece built out of cells and fragments, [Mutations] veers through many atmospheres, from moment to moment propulsive, enveloping, lyrical, luminescent, and strangely beautiful. Through thematic interactivity, the interweaving of acoustic and electronic sound-textures, and some decisive improvisational interventions in notated music, Vijay Iyer has created a multi-faceted suite whose very subject is change. Iyer gives a positive value to the concept of ‘mutation’ in this music, and variously appears in it as an interpreter of notated elements, as an improviser, and as “a sort of laptop artist, mixing in noise and different sounds,” encouraging the transformative processes. – ECM Records
Composer bio: Described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway,” Vijay Iyer has carved out a unique path as an influential, prolific, shape-shifting presence in twenty-first-century music. A composer and pianist active across multiple musical communities, Iyer has created a consistently innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last twenty-five years, earning him a place as one of the leading music-makers of his generation.
He received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, the Alpert Award in the Arts, and two German “Echo” awards, and was voted Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times in the last decade. He has been praised by Pitchfork as “one of the best in the world at what he does,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.”
Iyer’s musical language is grounded in the rhythmic traditions of South Asia and West Africa, the African American creative music movement of the 60s and 70s, and the lineage of composerpianists from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen. He has released twenty-four albums of his music, most recently UnEasy (ECM Records, 2021), a trio session with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh; The Transitory Poems (ECM, 2019), a live duo recording with pianist Craig Taborn; Far From Over (ECM, 2017) with the award-winning Vijay Iyer Sextet; and A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM, 2016) a suite of duets with visionary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith.
Iyer is also an active composer for classical ensembles and soloists. His works have been commissioned and premiered by Brentano Quartet, Imani Winds, Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and virtuosi Matt Haimowitz, Claire Chase, Shai Wosner, and Jennifer Koh, among others. He recently served as composer-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall, music director of the Ojai Music Festival, and artist-in-residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A tireless collaborator, he has written big-band music for Arturo O’Farrill and Darcy James Argue, remixed classic recordings of Talvin Singh and Meredith Monk, joined forces with legendary musicians Henry Threadgill, Reggie Workman, Zakir Hussain, and L. Subramanian, and developed interdisciplinary work with Teju Cole, Carrie Mae Weems, Mike Ladd, Prashant Bhargava, and Karole Armitage.
A longtime New Yorker, Iyer lives in central Harlem with his wife and daughter. He teaches at Harvard University in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies. He is a Steinway artist. website: vijay-iyer.com management: musicandart.net
HA-YANG KIM Lens for cello and pedals (2006)
About the work: A structured improv for amplified solo cello with wah wah and distortion pedals, Lens uses standard rock pedals to draw out the vast inherent sounds of the cello, exploring the lush complex sound worlds of the instrument with an array of extended string techniques. – Ha-Yang Kim
Composer bio: Drawing from a breadth of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, electronic, noise, avant-improv, to non-western sources (Balinese, South Indian, and Korean), Ha-Yang Kim’s music is inspired by acoustic phenomena, ritual ceremonial processes, and characterized by an organic visceral lyricism of sound influenced by the East Asian sense of space and emptiness. She developed a unique signature language of extended string techniques and has also composed music for film, dance, and multimedia. Her current practice involves explorations in tunings, and researching acoustical and spatial phenomenology of resonance-amplification-feedback.
Kim’s music is performed throughout the US, Europe, Asia, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Bali, Cuba, and Canada. She has released 2 monograph albums on the Tzadik label: “AMA” in 2008, and “Threadsuns” in 2014. Performers of her work include the JACK Quartet, FLUX Quartet, flutist Claire Chase, violist Nadia Sirota, vocalist Hanna-Maria Strand, members of International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and Odd Appetite. In addition, the diverse range of artists Ms. Kim has worked with include Meredith Monk, John Zorn, Cecil Taylor, Terry Riley, Alvin Lucier, Louis Andriessen, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Evan Ziporyn, Yannis Kyriakides, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori, Miya Masaoka, Hahn Rowe, Bang on a Can All-Stars, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Kronos Quartet, indie-rock band The National, poet Anne Waldman, choreographer Douglas Dunn, video artist Ursula Scherrer, and pop superstar Beyoncè.
Kim has recorded over 25 albums, for labels such as ECM, Tzadik, New World, Cold Blue, Beggars Banquet, New Albion, Brassland, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records. Ms. Kim has been Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room and Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY, and done residences at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Brandeis Universities, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts College of Art, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Walden School for Young Composers. She has also given presentations of her work at MIT, Massachusetts College of Art, and the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag, Netherlands.
Dedicated to cross-cultural exchange, social transformation, and education, Kim has conducted workshops with Berber youth communities in Morocco, performed at youth detention centers in the Bronx supported by the Ford Foundation, performed alongside gamelan orchestras in Bali, and performed for the UN Humanitarian Aid Campaign.
Kim has received grants and awards from the Jerome Foundation, Van Lier Fellowship, ASCAP, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, Argosy Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Hemera Foundation. She’s also active as a curator of new music events, and has written an article for “ARCANA Volume III” (edited by John Zorn). Ms. Kim composed the original music score for the 2014 documentary film, DIOR AND I, which received worldwide critical acclaim.
Kim studied at the New England Conservatory where her mentors included Joseph Maneri, Lee Hyla, and Michael Gandolfi, and the application of Carnatic music concepts to contemporary music at the Amsterdam Conservatorium. Currently, she lives in Seattle, Washington, and is on the music faculty at the Cornish College of the Arts.
IANNIS XENAKIS Mikka (1971), Mikka «S» (1975)
About the works: One of many natural phenomena that fascinated Xenakis was randomness and the variety of random processes in nature. (How long you wait in line at the grocery is a different kind of randomness than the heights of the people in front of you; different equations apply.) The motion of a gas molecule within a large volume of gas can be modeled as a series of footsteps and pauses that make up a random “walk” in three dimensions. This was the inspiration for Mikka. Xenakis wrote a computer program that simulated this random motion in one dimension (for example, up and down), and printed out the locations it predicted for a gas molecule (its height in a room) as time elapsed. He then laid this graph of height vs. time onto music paper and traced out the pitches, forming a continuous “melody” in the process. To make the unfurling “melody” more compelling for listeners, he changed the size of the molecule’s “footsteps” during randomly-chosen periods of time by random amounts drawn from a different random process. Here is the beginning of the pitch vs. time “curve” that became the beginning of Mikka (taken from “Xenakis: His Life in Music” by James Harley, Routledge 2004):
And here is roughly the first half of the above excerpt in final form:
Xenakis added considerable drama to his piece by adding enormous changes in volume, both gradual and abrupt, and changes in tone color. He notated the contours of the curve with extreme precision (usually via pitches that land between the adjacent pitches on a piano), which enables two things in performance: accuracy (fidelity to his curve) and reproducibility (when different violinists play Mikka, you can tell it’s the same piece). He chose to write it for violin because violinists can slide continuously across wide ranges of pitches spanning, overall, over 4 octaves. Irvine Arditti, who premiered Xenakis’s violin concerto Dox-Orkh, said of Xenakis’s string writing: “There is nothing in the classical repertoire that could prepare us for this.” Those who learn to play Mikka often report an unexpected and unique musical satisfaction, and a deeper facility with the instrument that transfers to new and old works alike. Mikka «S» extends the language of Mikka into two curves flowing simultaneously, often in contrary motion, and ends with a violent barrage of tiny curves occasionally interrupted by stasis. Xenakis named the two pieces after his publisher, Mica Salabert; “mikka” also means “small” in ancient Greek, appropriate for these pieces whose durations are roughly 4 minutes each. – Eric Rynes
IANNIS XENAKIS Akéa (1986) (piano & string quartet)
About the work:The title Akéa means “cure”, [but also has the sense of “atonements” or “sacrifices”]. Although [many composers today have] written one or several string quartets, Xenakis [was] almost the only one who dared take up the typically romantic genre of the quintet for piano and strings. It is a less aggressive and perhaps more classical work than [his string quartet] Tetras and it also [is representative of his late period, likewise] exemplified in [his string quartet] Tetora. In the first of the five sections, rapid piano arpeggios alternate with held chords from the strings. In the second, the piano hammers out an ostinato in [sixteenth notes] centered around the notes G and E-flat, taken over by the strings, which dismember it in asynchronous polyphony. Flowing and nimble “aborescences” from the piano then move on to the strings, dominating the third section, to be gradually submerged by a denser polyphony in long note values. The fourth section first alternates chordal pillars with rapid scales, then brings in a piano solo with complex polyrhythms. The fifth section, a slow coda, is of harmonic character, and even offers an entirely “classical” string polyphony, such as one would never find in [his] older works. – Harry Halbreich, 1994, revised 2022 by SMO.
Composer bio: Iannis Xenakis was one of the leaders of modernism in music, a hugely influential composer, particularly in the later 1950s and 1960s, when he was experimenting with compositional techniques that soon entered the basic vocabulary of the twentieth-century avant garde.
Xenakis was born, not in Greece, but in Braïla, Romania, of Greek parents, on 29 May 1922. His initial training, in Athens, was as a civil engineer. In 1947, after three years spent fighting in the Greek resistance against the Nazi occupation, during which time he was very badly injured (losing the sight of an eye), he escaped a death sentence and fled to France, where he settled and subsequently became an important element of cultural life.
Xenakis was first active as an architect, collaborating with Le Corbusier on a number of projects, not least the Philips Pavilion, designed by Xenakis, at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. It was in the 1950s, too, that Xenakis’ compositions began to be published. In 1952 he attended composition classes with Olivier Messaien, who suggested that Xenakis apply his scientific training to music.
The resulting style, based on procedures derived from mathematics, architectural principles and game theory, catapulted Xenakis to the front ranks of the avant garde – although there was never any suggestion that he was a member of a clique or group: he was always his own man. He never, for example, embraced total serialism, and he also avoided more traditional devices of harmony and counterpoint; instead, he developed other ways of organizing the dense masses of sound that are characteristic of his first compositions. These stochastic, or random, procedures were based on mathematical principles and were later entrusted to computers for their realization.
But for all the formal control in their composition, Xenakis’ scores retain an elemental energy, a life-force that gives the music an impact of visceral effectiveness: works like Bohor for electronics (1962), Eonta for piano and brass quintet (1963-64), Persephassa for six percussionists, placed around the audience (1969), and the ballet Kraanerg, for 23 instrumentalists and tape (1969) all exhibit a primitive power that belies the complexity of their origins. The Sydney Morning Herald said of Kraanerg, for example, that it “remains staggeringly powerful and clamorous, an essay in constantly renewed energy that shows not the least sign of faltering.” Married with this primordial power is the composer’s fascination with ritualism, most often that of ancient Greece, finding fullest theatrical form in his setting of the Oresteia (1966).
Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
Performer Bios:
Eric Rynes, violin has performed in all 13 SMO seasons. Coached in Europe by Maryvonne Le Dizès (Ensemble Intercontemporain) and Irvine Arditti, he has performed hundreds of works from the past 100 years. He has performed at June in Buffalo, ICMC (Havana), the Rotterdam Music Biennial, Aspen, and other festivals, and in recital in Berlin, Barcelona, Stanford, and many other locations. His solo album on Albany Records was praised in The Strad and called “a marvelous CD [by] a marvelous musician” by Helmut Lachenmann. His 2022 performance of the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the NWSO drew a cheering ovation. More info: ericrynes.com.
Pamela Liu, violinist, has been in demand as a performer and pedagogue since returning to the Northwest twelve years ago. She received her Bachelors in Violin Performance at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and was a member of the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra in Taipei, Taiwan, before attending the University of Washington where she received a Masters Degree in Violin Performance.
A devoted mentor to young musicians, Ms. Liu coaches and teaches with Edmonds College, The Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestras, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras, and Musicworks Northwest. As an active performer, Ms. Liu appears regularly on the Music at the Museum series with the Cascadia Art Museum, as a section member of the Yakima Symphony, and in the violin-guitar duo, Tutti Dolce, with husband Chris Liu.
Alessandra Barrett is a performing violist, violin/viola teacher, and composer based in Seattle, WA. After receiving a B.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in violin/viola performance, she went on to study with Melia Watras at the University of Washington. There, she received an M.M. and a D.M.A in viola performance. Alessandra’s research is centered around the health and wellness of upper-string instrumentalists: through looking at practice habits that foster deliberate practice, self-regulation, and motivation, psychological factors that both enable and hinder musical progress, and physiological issues surrounding violin/viola playing. Through this interdisciplinary approach to her research, she is uncovering the tools that make for more resilient music learning, and is designing a method that builds both psychological and physiological strength in musicians. In alignment with this research, Dr. Barrett is a certified yoga instructor and earned a certificate in the essentials of performing arts health through the American College of Sports Medicine. She has performed in festivals and presented in conferences throughout the world.
Composer and cellist Ha-Yang Kim collaborates with artists and ensembles in festivals and venues throughout the world. Kim’s work is inspired by acoustic phenomena, ritual ceremonial processes, and characterized by an organic visceral lyricism of sound. Kim has released 2 monograph albums on Tzadik Records: “AMA” (2007), and “Threadsuns” for string quartet (2014), performed by JACK Quartet. Featured commissions and performances include Seattle Modern Orchestra, members of International Contemporary Ensemble, violist Nadia Sirota, and vocalist Hanna-Maria Strand. Kim is currently on the music faculty at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA.
Pianist Stephen Olsen has premiered dozens of new works for piano and performed with new music ensembles across the United States. He graduated with a Master’s degree in piano from The New England Conservatory and a Doctorate from Stony Brook University. He currently teaches piano in the Seattle area.
Greg Dixon works as Assistant Professor of Music and Sound Design at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA, where he teaches courses in game audio, audio engineering, sound design, and music composition. Greg holds a Ph.D. in composition with a specialization in computer music from the University of North Texas, where he worked at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI). His music has been released on labels such as Kohlenstoff Records, SEAMUS, Irritable Hedgehog, New Adventures in Sound Art, Vox Novus, Pawlacz Perski, winds measure, Flannelgraph Records, and on his own label, noxious fumes.
Greg has worked extensively on interactive audio systems for video games, installations, concerts, and other forms of interactive media. He has helped create hundreds of published recordings spanning many genres as a performer and technician; including extensive work as a recording, mix, and mastering engineer. Greg currently works as a sound designer and composer for the collectible card game, Runestrike, by Making Fun Games and also helps to create interactive voice-driven soundscapes for popular children’s books with Novel Effect. Greg also contributed music composition and sound design to three DigiPen games: Subray VR, Suara, and Reprise.
Greg currently serves on the committee for the Pacific Northwest Section of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and is the chair of the Game Audio Education Summit for GameSoundCon.