Our third concert will be a live broadcast from Town Hall Seattle. SMO will present a kaleidoscope of sound and drama in works for duo, trio, and quartet ensembles, featuring works by Alvin Singleton, SMO co-Artistic Director Jérémy Jolley, Chen-Hui Jen, Helena Tulve, and Christian Wolff. A selection of pieces that focus on the qualities of sound through rich resonances and explorative performance techniques; all of which express a reflection of our inner experience.
Blog
Chen-Hui Jen on across & between II: into the chasm
Our third concert will be a live broadcast from Town Hall Seattle. SMO will present a kaleidoscope of sound and drama in works for duo, trio, and quartet ensembles, featuring works by Alvin Singleton, SMO co-Artistic Director Jérémy Jolley, Chen-Hui Jen, Helena Tulve, and Christian Wolff. A selection of pieces that focus on the qualities of sound through rich resonances and explorative performance techniques; all of which express a reflection of our inner experience.
Full Concert Information
GET YOUR TICKET – $10
Your receipt will include the link and passcode to our Crowdcast Digital Stage for this performance. The performance will be available for 7 days after air date.
Helena Tulve on lumieux/opaque
As part for our third concert, SMO will be a live broadcast from Town Hall Seattle on January 31, 2021. We will present a kaleidoscope of sound and drama in works for duo, trio, and quartet ensembles, featuring works by Alvin Singleton, SMO co-Artistic Director Jérémy Jolley, Chen-Hui Jen, Helena Tulve, and Christian Wolff. A selection of pieces that focus on the qualities of sound through rich resonances and explorative performance techniques; all of which express a reflection of our inner experience.
Full Concert Information
GET YOUR TICKET – $10
Your receipt will include the link and passcode to our Crowdcast Digital Stage for this performance. The performance will be available for 7 days after air date.
2020-2021 SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT PRESS RELEASE
SEATTLE, WA – Seattle Modern Orchestra will produce its eleventh season with six ambitious commissions and six concert broadcasts. The lineup of composers includes Iranian composer Anahita Abbasi, Cornish faculty member Tom Baker, saxophonist and composer Darius Jones, cellist and composer Ha-Yang Kim, Brown University assistant professor Wang Lu, and SMO co-artistic director, Jérémy Jolley.
This season is flexible by design in order to ensure the health of our musicians and community. Each program is centered around commissioned works that can be performed socially distanced on stage or remotely. The decision of whether each individual event will take place in person or virtually, as well as the full program for each performance, will be made based on evolving community health guidelines throughout the season.
“New compositions have always been created for their contemporary technologies and spaces. While the current performance paradigm is new, the creativity and humanity of the artists will explore, challenge, and bear witness to today’s experience,” noted SMO co-artistic director, Jérémy Jolley.
SMO 2020-2021 SEASON
Virtual Concert #1 – Tom Baker’s Simultaneously Solitary (Shendos No. 14)
Friday, Oct. 23, 2020 @ 7:30pm
Our first virtual concert of the season will include the world premiere of Tom Baker’s Simultaneously Solitary. The work is No. 14 in his series of compositions titled Shendos, which explore a graphical notation system that provides a framework for improvisation. The performance features stellar musicians versatile in both the jazz and classical music realms such as James Falzone (clarinet), Raymond Larson (trumpet), Maria Ritzenthaler (viola), Abbey Blackwell (bass), and Bonnie Whiting (percussion). The concert will also feature solo and duo works by SMO ensemble members.
Virtual Concert #2 – This is Beethoven: Farrin, Wang, & Kagel
Dec. 16-19, 2020
Our second concert will be a part of a city-wide Beethoven Festival, curated by Emerald City Music, celebrating the 250th birthday of this iconic classical composer. SMO will present music as revolutionary, critical, and responsive in our time as Beethoven was in his time. The program includes Mauricio Kagel’s Ludwig van (1970), a tribute to Beethoven on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth. The indeterminate “meta-collage” of Beethoven’s music challenges the performers not only in their technical virtuosity but also their ability to recreate music as composers themselves. The concert will also feature a new work by Chinese composer and pianist, Wang Lu. Wang, Professor of Music at Brown University, has received many awards including the Berlin Prize in Music Composition, 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation and the Fromm Foundation. This new work will explore Wang’s personal relationship with the music of Beethoven and is a response to its ideals using her own aesthetic and musical language. The concert will open with American composer Suzanne Farrin who disrupts the romantic idealization of Petrach’s sonnet on Apollo and Daphne in her work for viola and percussion, uscirmi di braccia (leave my arms).
Virtual Concert #3 – Jeremy Jolley’s (contro-)clessidra I, III, IV.
Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021 @ 7:30pm
Our third concert will be a live broadcast from Town Hall Seattle, featuring SMO’s own co-artistic director, Jérémy Jolley, in his new work (contro-)clessidra I, III, IV. The work explores the tension between “being together” and “being apart,” individualities and community, listening and being heard. The (contro-)clessidra series, (reverse-hourglass), is a set of duets (violin and electric guitar; piano and fixed media; cello and percussion) that are composed independently but can be performed all at once, separated, or dove-tailed in any order. The concert will also include Chen-Hui Jen‘s Across & Between II and Alvin Singleton‘s Greed Machine.
Virtual Concert #4 – Ha-Yang Kim’s the day is burnt, the night is calm
Sunday, Mar. 14, 2021 @ 7:30pm
Our fourth concert, also a live broadcast from Town Hall Seattle, features the local multifaceted cellist, composer, and improvisor, Ha-Yang Kim. Kim creates her own music based on a unique musical language of extended string techniques which she developed. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz and improvised music, to non-western musical sources. This new work, composed for violin, viola, cello, bass, harp, and electric guitar, explores the sonic wonderland of microtuning.
Virtual Concert #5 – Darius Jones’ World Premiere
Saturday, May 1, 2021 @ 7:30pm
Our fifth concert returns to the artistic collaboration between SMO and experimental saxophonist and composer, Darius Jones. After the powerful performance of his LawNOrder last fall as part of the Earshot Jazz festival, where SMO’s performance was described as “delectable, eclectic” by Paul de Barros in Downbeat magazine, we will continue our musical partnership by commissioning a brand new work for SMO, to be streamed live from Seattle’s beloved Royal Room. Jones’ music embraces individuality and innovation in the tradition of African-American music and is at times dramatic commentary on social justice and American politics. This new work will coincide with May Day and represent the voices of the people.
Virtual Concert #6 – Anahita Abbasi’s World Premiere
Sunday, June 6, 2021 @ 7:30pm
Our final concert of the season highlights the up-and-coming Iranian composer, Anahita Abbasi, whose music has been played by prominent ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien musicians, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. SMO will premiere a new “game piece” further exploring her 2017 work Enigma Patterns which is a tribute to the brilliant and intelligent women in Bletchley, England, who cracked the German code using telex-machines during WWII. The new work will consist of different types of packs of “cards,” which can be performed in a different order each time.
SMO Virtual Season Pass: $50 / Single Tickets: $10
For more information, please visit: www.seattlemodernorchestra.org.
Founded in 2010, Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) is the only large ensemble in the Pacific Northwest solely dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Led by co-artistic directors Julia Tai and Jérémy Jolley, SMO commissions and premieres new works from an international lineup of composers, in addition to presenting important pieces from the contemporary repertoire that are rarely if ever heard by Seattle audiences. The ensemble “operates at that exciting cusp between old and new, between tradition and innovation” (Vanguard Seattle) curating new sounds and experiences for concert goers in the region.
SMO provides audiences with performances of the best in contemporary chamber and orchestral music, and develops blog posts, lectures, and other forms of community engagement in an accessible and inviting format all designed to expand the listener’s appreciation and awareness of the music of today.
COMPOSERS BIOGRAPHIES
Anahita Abbasi, Composer
Anahita Abbasi’s music has been commissioned and performed by distinguished soloists and ensembles such as Mahan Esfahani, Steven Schick, Ensemble Modern, Mivos Quartet, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and has been showcased at festivals all around the world including Mostly Mozart Festival, The Kitchen, Kennedy Center, Lincoln center, Time Span, Soundnow festival- Bent Frequency, Mise-En festival (USA), Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Germany), Ircam – Manifeste Academy (France), and many others.
A recipient of a 2015 Morton Gold ASCAP young composers award, Ms. Abbasi was also nominated in 2017 at the Cairo Contemporary Festival as one of the “women composers of our time” alongside Kaija Saariaho and Isabel Mundry. Aside from teaching composition and giving lectures and workshops on fundamentals of creation, she is also the founding member of Schallfeld Ensemble in Graz, Austria as well as IFCA (Iranian Female Composers Association) in New York City where she is curating concerts, creating platforms and advocating for young composers, acting as their ambassador in presenting their music to others.
Anahita Abbasi was born and raised in Iran. In 2005 she moved to Austria and pursued her undergraduate degree at the University of music and performing Arts Graz, where she studied music theory with Clemens Gadenstätter and Christian Utz and composition with Beat Furrer and Pierluigi Billone, while working closely with Georges Aperghis, Franck Bedrossian, and Philippe Leroux. Abbasi is currently residing in San Diego and finishing her Ph.D. in composition under the supervision of Rand Steiger at the University of California San Diego.
Tom Baker, Composer/Guitarist/Improviser/Electronicist/Educator
Tom Baker has been active as a composer, performer, and producer in the Seattle new-music scene since arriving in 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers’ Salon, co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO), an advisory board member of the Washington Composers’ Forum, founder of the new-music recording label Present Sounds Recordings, and is currently professor of composition at Cornish College of the Arts.
Tom has received awards and grants for his work from many organizations, including Meet The Composer, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, 4Culture, and Artist Trust. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and the Montalvo Arts Center in California. His works have been performed throughout the United States, in Canada, and in Europe.
Tom is also active as a performer and improviser, specializing in fretless guitar and live-electronics. He has recorded seven albums, including two solo records. Triptet, a trio with Michael Monhart and Greg Campbell, recently released its third album, Figure in the Carpet, on Brooklyn-based Engine Records. Tom has worked with many innovative musicians, including Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, Christian Asplund, Chinary Ung, Ellen Fullman, Matana Roberts, and Henry Threadgill.
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.
Jeremy has been awarded the Brechemin Scholarship in Music, the William Bergsma Endowment for Excellence in Music Composition, and a residency in the 2008 Jack Straw Artist Support Program for his work in the improvisation and experimental ensemble, Unused Lexical Variable. 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.
Darius Jones, Alto saxophonist/Composer
Over the past decade, Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of African-American music. “Jones’ concept is proudly his own,” writes Philip Clark in The Wire. “[His music] poses big questions about the relationship between the African-American tradition of spirituals, blues and gospel, and now.” With New York City as his base since 2005, Jones has brought his unique sound to dozens of cities around the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Jones early on established himself as a powerful voice in the jazz community and was nominated in 2013 for Alto Saxophonist of the Year, and for Up & Coming Artist of the Year two years in a row for the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards. More recently The New York Times named Jones among the Best Live Jazz Performances of 2017 for his Vision Festival performance with Farmers by Nature.
Jones has collaborated with artists including Gerald Cleaver, Oliver Lake, William Parker, Trevor Dunn, Branford Marsalis, Steve Lehman, Sun Ra Arkestra, and many more. Signed to AUM Fidelity records in 2009, Jones has released a string of diverse recordings which comprise his Man’ish Boy Epic, featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism. Darius’ 2012 release, Book of Mæ’bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) was listed among NPR’s Best Top 10 Jazz Albums of that year.
Jones graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Bachelors in Jazz Studies in 2003, earning a Master’s Degree in Jazz Performance/Composition from New York University in 2008, where he also taught New Music Improvisation for a year as an adjunct professor. Jones taught saxophone and improvisation at Columbia University in 2017.
Ha-Yang Kim, Cellist/Composer/Collaborative Artist
Drawing from a breadth of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, electronic, noise, avant-improv, to non-western sources (Balinese, South Indian, and Korean), 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. The diverse range of artists Kim has worked with include Meredith Monk, Terry Riley, Alvin Lucier, 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.
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 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.
Wang Lu, Composer/Pianist
Composer and pianist Wang Lu writes music that reflects a very natural identification with influences from traditional Chinese music, urban environmental sounds, linguistic intonation and contours, and freely improvised traditions, through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities.
She is currently the David S. Josephson Assistant Professor of Music at Brown University, after receiving her doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University and graduating from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. Wang Lu’s works have been performed internationally, by ensembles including the Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Alarm Will Sound, American Composers Orchestra, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Aizuri Quartet, violinist Jennifer Koh, and many others. Wang Lu has received the Berlin Prize in Music Composition (Spring 2019 residency), was a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and has received commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress and the Fromm Foundation at Harvard.
In 2019, her music was featured on portrait concerts at Miller Theater with ICE and Yarn/Wire, with Ensemble Recherche in Paris, and with Ensemble Mosaik plus soloists Ryan Muncy and Wu Wei in Berlin. Some of Wang Lu’s recent compositions include a brass fanfare Code Switch for the opening of the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW 2019-20 season, a flute and electronic piece for Claire Chase’s Density 2036, and a new work for the Talea Ensemble commissioned by the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University. Wang Lu is the next Vanguard Emerging Opera Composer at the Chicago Opera Theatre, and her residency will conclude in 2022 with a full-length opera produced by the Chicago Opera Theatre.
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Horvitz’s 188 Sullivan: Varèse meets Bird
On February 24, 2020, Seattle Modern Orchestra premiered a work by composer and pianist Wayne Horvitz, 188 Sullivan: Varèse meets Bird. In this blog post, Horvitz shares a few words about the piece.
The Meeting
Long thought to be an admirer of Varèse, Parker met with him several times in 1954 at his residence at 188 Sullivan Street to discuss the possibility of lessons. “Take me in as you would a baby,” Parker implored of Varèse, “and teach me music. I only write one voice. I want to have structure. I want to write orchestral scores.” Parker himself had been influenced by the tumultuous music of Stravinsky and had a dream to unify jazz and classical music into a new genre; he loved the idea of playing with a string section and recorded Charlie Parker with Strings, a session of six ballads recorded with chamber and jazz orchestras. Varèse recalled that “[Parker] was so nice, and so modest, and he had such a tone. You could not know if it was an angelic double bass, a saxophone, or a bass clarinet … I promised myself I would try to find some time to show him some of the things he wanted to know.” Unfortunately, the lessons never occurred: Varèse returned to Paris to complete work on his piece Desèrts, and Parker suffered a heart attack and died of complications prior to Varèse’s return in 1955. While we may never know what collaborations may have arisen from their lessons, Varèse continued to be influenced by jazz throughout the remainder of his career, and attended jazz sessions with Charles Mingus, Art Farmer, Teo Macero, and other illustrious contemporaries of Parker.
The Piece
Charlie Parker was perhaps the greatest icon in the history of American jazz music. Brilliant and controversial, an inordinate amount of attention was paid to his excesses in lifestyle and the blazing tempos of his improvisations. This belied what we know of him from many accounts — his deep intelligence and intellectualism, his broad taste in music and art, his brilliant wit, and his keen observation of the world and its inhabitants.
Parker’s musical influence on improvisers in the jazz idiom was almost inexplicable. As brilliant as he was, it was not as if he wasn’t surrounded by wildly inventive peers and elders. For every alto player who aspired to become the next Johnny Hodges, thousands more imitated Bird. I assume there are multiple factors, including some degree of serendipity. Some have suggested that Parker’s innovations were not easy to imitate, but perhaps easier to analyze. From a musicological perspective, Parker’s approach to resolving to chord tunes, his use of leading tones and “enclosures” wasn’t that far from melodic devices found in Mozart — much like Coltrane shared approaches to intervals also found in Messiaen, Stravinsky and Schoenberg.
In addition, Charlie Parker died just as the idea of a formal jazz pedagogy began to emerge — and a tremendous amount of that pedagogy was based directly on the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic approaches that emerged from be-bop.
Of course, the idea of Jazz Education holding equal status with European traditions has been the victim of historical racism, and still is today. We still see music departments divided in two, and fundamental attitudes about jazz, and even improvisation, persist. Even the notion of Parker knocking on Varèse’s door to study with him creates the wrong impression. Igor Stravinsky went to hear Charlie Parker play, Varèse was stunned to find this genius pursuing him, and Toru Takemitsu famously stated “my teachers are Duke Ellington, and nature”. With the possible exception of Schoenberg and the Viennese school, almost all the seismic changes in 20th century Euro-centric music were a result of non-European influences, many of them related to jazz and Afro-centric American idiomatic forms.
To me, the story of Varèse and Charlie Parker is really the story of urban America, and especially New York City. Who wouldn’t you go see the premiere of an experimental composer at 7:30 and then go to the Five Spot later that evening? I know I would have! The institutions may have been slow to change, but this was the story of human beings — actual musicians with deep passions and curious, open minds. Varèse meets Bird, Gunter Schuller champions Ornette, and Charles Mingus and Earle Brown are hanging out in a loft in lower Manhattan, working out graphic scores and structures for improvisation. The rest is just left to the squares.
Parker was famous for his catholic taste in music. It not only came as a surprise to some that Parker was engaged with 20th century new music, but also that he loved the Tommy Dorsey band. And by all accounts he was a fan of Hank Williams. Why would that be a surprise? What sort of soul wouldn’t love Hank Williams? Parker was an extremely literate musician, he appreciated great musicianship, and great artistry. Despite some revisionist history, Charlie Parker with Strings was not a record company’s attempt to increase sales, but Charlie Parker’s idea (Mitch Miller was the producer, who had also produced Hank Williams). And he plays like an angel, soaring above the Jimmy Carrol arrangements.
Analysis:
I: The first movement is directly inspired by Charlie Parker with Strings, and the initial four-note motif is the opening melody to “Out of Nowhere”, the famous ballad performed so elegantly on the original recordings. Hints of percussion and electronics are my way of imagining New York City at that time, and the incredible concurrence of sound in the music and on the street.
II: Is inspired by the dramatic changes in the tempo of life in urban America, and the tempo of be-bop.
III: This takes the famous first 16 bars of Parker’s solo on his composition Anthropology and reimagines it rhythmically and harmonically. The form on the clarinet solo is, like Anthropology, based on the changes to George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm”. I have kept the root motion, and the harmonic rhythm, albeit with a much slower tempo and very different harmonic structures. Plus a hint of Bernard Herrmann, the remarkable film composer.
IV: The subtitle of this movement is “995 Fifth Avenue”, which was the address of the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter — Charlie Parker’s great patron, friend, and confidant. As Parker became ill, “Nica” insisted that he come to her apartment, and summoned her Upper East Side physician. Parker died shortly thereafter. Her neighbors were so outraged that a black man died in her apartment, as was the press and the rest of “high society”, that the baroness was forced to move.
V: Is inspired by Varèse’s “Ionisation.”
VI: As mentioned above, Parker may have expanded some of the pitch choices considered acceptable in the standard repertoire of chord changes, but above all he was a superb melodist, and capable of breathing new fire into long-practiced approaches to melodic lines. The theme explores some of those approaches in a less tonal context, as befits the spirit of this evening.
VII: The final movement is subtitled “Electronic Poem” as in Varèse’s completely revolutionary composition Poème Électronique. I only wish Varèse had collaborated with Parker. I would have liked to hear Charlie Parker play with Hank Williams! There is a story that Bob Dylan sat in with Cecil Taylor once! These are the reasons I love music.
I would like to thank Julia Tai, the Seattle Modern Orchestra and all the musicians, James Falzone, Angela Brown, Seattle Opera for this evening’s concept and their continued support, the folks at KNKX, and the amazing D’Vonne Lewis and his incredible band. And as always, the staff at the Royal Room.
I hope you enjoy the music.
Wayne Horvitz
Seattle, WA 2020
Here begins the sequence of sequences – Sanguineti verses to Berio’s Sequenzas
Verses written for the individual Sequenzas were written by the Italian author Edoardo Sanguineti in 1994 and 1995. In our performance, each verse will be recited before the respective Sequenza by Stefano Catalani
Stefano Catalani, Executive Director of the Gage Academy of Art
Intro
Incipit sequentia sequentiarum, quae est musica musicarum secundum lucianum
Here begins the sequence of sequences, which is the music according to Luciano
Sequenza I for flute (1958, rev. 1992)
e qui incomincia il tuo desiderio, che è il delirio del mio desiderio:
la musica è il desiderio dei desideri
And here begins your desire, which is the delirium of my desire:
Music is the desire of desires:
Sequenza II for harp (1963)
ho ascoltato catene di colori, muscolosamente aggresivi:
ho toccato i tuoi ruvidi rumori rigidi:
I have heard chains of colours, muscularly aggressive:
I have felt your rough and rigid noises:
Sequenza III for voice (1965)
voglio le tue parole: e voglio distruggerle, in fretta, le tue parole:
e voglio distruggermi, me finalmente, veramente
I want your words: and I want to destroy them, in haste, your words:
And i want to destroy myself, me, finally, truly:
Sequenza IV for piano (1965)
mi disegno contro i tuoi tanti specchi, mi modifico con le mie vene,
con i miei piedi: mi chiudo entro tutti i tuoi occhi
I draw myself against all your many mirrors, I transform myself with my veins,
With my feet: I shut myself up inside all your eyes
Sequenza VII for oboe (1969)
il tuo profilo è un mio paesaggio frenetico, tenuto a distanza
è un falso fuoco d’amore, ché è minimo: è morto
Your profile is one of my frenzied landscapes, held at a distance
It is a false fire of love that is insignificant: it is dead
Sequenza VIII for violin (1976)
ho moltiplicato per te le mie voci, i miei vocaboli, le mie vocali
e grido, adesso, che sei il mio vocativo
For you I have multiplied my voices, my words, my vowels
And now I cry out that you are my vocative
Sequenza IX for clarinet (1980)
sei instabile e immobile, mio fragile frattale
sei tu, questa mia infranta forma che trema
You are unstable and immobile, my fragile fractal
It is you, this fractured form of mine that trembles
10 Things You Need to Know About Berio
10 Things You Need to Know About Berio
1. A hand injury from World War II led him to pursue composition instead of piano. During the Second World War, Berio was drafted into the army and injured his hand in basic training. This injury prevented him from pursuing his studies in piano at the Milan Conservatory, so he switched his focus to composition and the rest is history.
2. He was heavily involved in the world of electronic music. In 1955, Berio, along with Bruno Maderna, founded the Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Radio Milano, a leading facility for experimentation with electronic composition. Later, from 1974-1980, Berio ran the electro-acoustic department of Paris’ IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music.
3. His music brings together a variety of techniques and influences. From his early interest in serialist composition to later explorations in electronic and aleatoric (chance-based) techniques, Berio was always seeking new ways of integrating various musical elements. One of his most well-known works, Sinfonia, for eight amplified voices and orchestra, showcases a myriad of musical and literary influences in the 3rd movement which layers quotes from Bach, Debussy, Stravinsky and more over an arrangement of the Scherzo from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.
4. He was married to Cathy Berberian, virtuoso vocalist and composer. Berio composed many works to be performed by his first wife, Cathy Berberian, including Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), which was one of the earliest works to feature electronic elaboration of the human voice, and Sequenza III, a challenging solo work from his series of Sequenzas.
5. Berio taught at several American institutions, including Juilliard and Harvard. His first teaching position in America was at Tanglewood, followed later by Mills College, Juilliard, and Harvard. While he was at Juilliard, he founded the Juilliard Ensemble, which specialized in contemporary performances.
6. Steve Reich and Phil Lesh were among his many students. Steve Reich, one of the first minimalist composers, studied under Berio at Mills College. Phil Lesh, founding member of the Grateful Dead rock band and bass guitarist, also studied with Berio at Mills College at the same time as Reich.
7. His work O King pays homage to Martin Luther King Jr. Written in 1968, shortly after MLK’s assassination, Berio’s O King for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, uses MLK’s name as the text for the work, starting with the vowels and then slowly adding in the consonants to reveal the full name. This work was later rewritten for orchestra and amplified voices as part of Berio’s larger work, Sinfonia.
8. In addition to his original compositions, Berio produced many arrangements and transcriptions. From Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata to Folk Songs and Beatles arrangements, Berio’s talent for reimagining the music of others reflects his masterful craftsmanship and passion for a diversity of musical genres.
9. He spent the last years of his life in his home country of Italy. Berio passed away in 2003 at the age of 77 in Rome, after serving for 3 years as the President and Artistic Director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.
10. His Sequenzas were written during a span of over 40 years. Berio’s Sequenzas are a set of highly virtuosic solo works for a variety of instruments, and they were composed from 1958-2004. Seattle Modern Orchestra will be hosting a Sequenza Marathon on Saturday, February 15th at the Chapel Performance Space.
GET YOUR TICKETS to our Berio’s Sequenza Concert on February 15.
Violinist Eric Rynes on “Inside-out”
Our January 24th concert at the Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum Library Library is an evening of chamber works curated by our violinist, Eric Rynes. Eric has been a violinist in the ensemble since our very first concert 10 years ago! Here’s what he has to say about how he came up with this kaleidoscopic program:
“The centerpiece of the evening is Arcipelago Möbius by the Italian composer Ivan Fedele, whose works are virtually unknown here; I was riveted when I saw his music performed in Europe, and we’re so excited to bring this piece to a Seattle audience! The piece was inspired by the geometric Möbius strip, so all the musical motives are played forwards and backwards, some parts “above” and the others “below” and later flip over. While we progress through it, Fedele also asks us to evoke traces of lightning, a volcanic eruption, and in a particularly gorgeous and soothing section, a rainbow.
After the words “inside-out” came to me while thinking about the Möbius strip, I looked for musically complementary pieces that tie in with these words in some way. For the opening neoclassical aperitif, Court Studies from The Tempest, Thomas Adès arranged fragments featuring minor characters in his opera The Tempest; it’s “inside-out” because it’s out of sequence of the opera, ending with “The King’s Grief” from Act 2, despite the king in Act 3 being happily reunited with the son he thought had died. Tristan Murail’s meditative Stalag VIIIa surges three times with quotes from the Quartet for the End of Time, which was composed inside the WWII camp by Olivier Messiaen who, like the Quartet itself, eventually got outside and became hugely influential.
Anthony Cheung‘s Elective Memory sounds like hazy recollections of Beethoven’s op. 96 violin & piano sonata. It builds to high drama and a mischievous scherzo before concluding with a twinkling nocturne that evokes—blink and you’ll miss it—a shooting star at the end. Alfred Schnittke‘s Hymn II conjures a monumental edifice that then seems to focus on a lone soul inside it, maybe at first questioning, then pleading with, but ultimately praising, a higher power. Its ending has kinship with the “rainbow” section near the end of the Fedele, which completes a beautiful cycle for the concert.”
We can’t wait to see you there!
GET CONCERT INFORMATION AND TICKETS HERE
Seattle Modern Orchestra is fiscally sponsored by Shunpike
SEATTLE MODERN ORCHESTRA CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY WITH 2019-20 SEASON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2, 2019
SEATTLE MODERN ORCHESTRA’S 10TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT
SEATTLE, WA – Seattle Modern Orchestra’s co-artistic directors, Jérémy Jolley and Julia Tai, are thrilled to announce its 10th Anniversary season, an ambitious celebration of SMO’s well-earned reputation. The season will feature ten concerts in ten venues, cross-genre collaborations, and the world-class premieres and performances the city has come to expect from this intrepid ensemble.
“We’re so excited to celebrate our 10th Anniversary! We’re making it a really special year by collaborating with several partners in the city – Earshot Jazz Festival and National Nordic Museum, as well as mounting our first chamber opera – Ipsa dixit by Kate Soper at Base: Experimental Arts + Space. We have concerts all over the city – Folio Library, Chapel Performance Space, Foster/White Gallery, Fremont Abbey, and the Royal Room. The culminating highlight of the season will be our 10th Anniversary concert at the newly renovated Town Hall, bringing back our first Seattle Premiere, Tehillim by Steve Reich, and past SMO commissions by Kate Soper and Tom Baker. We will also present the world premiere of our first Koussevitzky Music Foundation commission – Huck Hodge’s New work for solo percussion and ensemble. It’ll be a monumental season for us!” – Co-Artistic Director, Julia Tai.
Concert 1: Earshot Jazz Festival
Oct. 15, 2019 | 7:30 pm | Town Hall Forum
Earshot Jazz presents an exceptional meeting of local jazz and classical artists exploring the freedom and complexity of the two genres. This all-star collaboration includes Darius Jones, and Wayne Horvitz leading SMO musicians in the premiere of his new work, Vagabond. Expand your ears and mind with innovators who merge chamber music with improvisation, scored and experimental jazz, and open form composition.
Anthony Braxton: Composition No. 56
Earle Brown: Oh, K
Wayne Horvitz: Vagabond: Constructions for Chamber Orchestra and Improvisers [commission/World Premiere]
Darius Jones: LawNOrder
George Lewis: Artificial Life
Concert 2: Norwegian Odyssé
Nov. 3, 2019 | 1:30 pm | National Nordic Museum
Step into the mystic sounds of Norway with a chamber music collaboration between SMO and the Bergen-based Valen Trio. Through five U.S. premieres, explore how talented Norwegian composers across generations are continuing and reinterpreting the rich history of Nordic culture through sound.
Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi: Barnet som blev osynligt (The child who became invisible) for soprano, percussion and electronics [US Premiere]
Anders Torgunrud Røshol: Livorno Fragments [US Premiere]
Lasse Thoresen: Hagen (The Garden) [US Premiere]
Knut Vaage:Odyssé for sinfonietta [US Premiere]
Knut Vaage: Svev for piano trio [US Premiere]
Concert 3: Inside Out
Jan. 24, 2020 | 7:30 pm | Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum Library
Art can turn our viewpoints inside out, bringing to light deep human experiences, and urging us to reexamine our reality. Opera becomes chamber music, revealing both beauty and tragedy in miniature; finite geometry inspires wild virtuosity; and captivity and grief bring transcendence. Join SMO for this intimate journey set in one of Seattle’s most cherished cultural and civic gathering places.
Thomas Adès: Court Studies from “The Tempest”
Anthony Cheung: Elective Memory
Ivan Fedele: Arcipelago Möbius
Tristan Murail: Stalag VIIIA
Alfred Schnittke: Hymn No. 2
Concert 4: Sequenza Marathon
Feb. 15, 2020 | 8:00 pm | Chapel Performance Space
Luciano Berio’s fourteen Sequenzas span more than forty years, an essential catalogue of twentieth-century performance. Each work is an astonishing exploration of the experimental potential of modern instruments and places Olympian demands on the performer. In this marathon of ten Sequenzas, witness incredible feats of musical athleticism that push the boundaries of virtuosity and possibility.
Luciano Berio
Sequenza I for flute (1958, rev. 1992) | Sarah Pyle, flute
Sequenza II for harp (1963) | Sophie Baird-Daniel, harp
Sequenza III for voice (1965) | Maria Männistö, soprano
Sequenza IV for piano (1965) | Cristina Valdés, piano
Sequenza VIII for violin (1976) | Michael Lim, violin
Sequenza IX for clarinet (1980) | Angelique Poteat, clarinet
Sequenza XIV for cello (2002) | Ha-Yang Kim, cello
Concert 5: Celebrating 10 Years of SMO
Mar. 27, 2020 | 8:00 pm | Town Hall
Join SMO in a joyful celebration of its tenth anniversary in the newly-renovated Town Hall. The ensemble revisits some of its most memorable performances, local collaborators, celebrated composers, and Seattle “firsts.” The program includes SMO’s first commission (Baker), an environmental piece for ensemble and tape (Cage), the ensemble’s nationally noted vocal collaboration/arrangement (Soper), a revival of Steve Reich’s seminal work, Tehillim (premiered in Seattle by SMO), and a world premiere by Huck Hodge featuring SMO’s tour-de-force percussionist, Bonnie Whiting.
John Cage: Etcetera
Tom Baker: Shendos No. 12
Huck Hodge: New work for solo percussion and ensemble
Kate Soper: Now Is Forever for soprano and chamber orchestra
Steve Reich: Tehillim
Concert 6: The Stories We Tell
Apr. 26, 2020 | 7:30 pm | Foster/White Gallery
Rich traditions of storytelling span across cultures and time, transporting us through fantastical fairy tales or taking us into the truth of lived experience. With a backdrop of dramatic contemporary art, SMO ventures through mythology and folklore, contrasted with more Earthly tales, including a commission by local composer/cellist Ha-Yang Kim.
Marcos Balter: delete/control/option for alto flute and cello
Ha-Yang Kim: New work for flute, cello, harp [commission/World Premiere]
Murray Schafer: The Crown of Ariadne, suite for solo harp, percussion, and tape
Freya Waley-Cohen: Skye for solo harp
Concert 7: Parts of the Whole
May 14, 2020 | 8:00 pm | Fremont Abbey Arts Center
A showcase of young compositional voices, SMO explores the artistic process of rearranging, reversing, or combining parts of a whole idea. Through experimental textures, fragment combinations, and live performance choices, composers take us through the complexities of dreams, human relationships, and time, including a commission/world premiere by Seattle composer Jérémy Jolley.
Anahita Abbasi: Faab IV / a femme fatale
Chen-Hui Jen: Across & Between II
Marisol Jiménez: Bestiario Onírico III – Ciudadela [US Premiere]
Jérémy Jolley: (contro-)clessidra I, II, III, IV (2020) [commission/World Premiere]
Fausto Romitelli: Professor Bad Trip – Lesson I
Concert 8: Ipsa Dixit
Jun. 5 & 6, 2020 | 8:00 pm | Base: Experimental Arts + Space
A “twenty-first-century masterpiece” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit is a semi-staged, evening-length chamber music theatre work for voice, flute, violin, and percussion exploring the intersections of language and music, emotion and meaning, expressivity and truth. SMO welcomes notable local director Bobbin Ramsey in her operatic directorial debut, to help bring to life a staged performance of this moving work for Seattle audiences.
Kate Soper: Ipsa Dixit
Bobbin Ramsey: Director
Concert 9: Digital Humanity
Jun. 14, 2020 | 7:00 pm | The Royal Room
The complicated political and social environment of today inspires three provocative works by young composers. Wang Lu and Seattle-based Kaley Lane Eaton delve into our deeply problematic relationship with the digital realm. Turkish composer and Seattle resident Yigit Kolat brings us back to reality to face the very real humanitarian crisis of immigration.
Kaley Lane Eaton: New work [commission/World Premiere]
Yigit Kolat: Tierra Arrasada (Scorched Earth) [commission/World Premiere]
Wang Lu: Cloud Intimacy
Concert 10: Secret Free Show!
Coming July 2020
Programs and scheduling are subject to change.
PURCHASE TICKETS:
Online: https://www.seattlemodernorchestra.org/concerts/
About SEATTLE MODERN ORCHESTRA
Founded in 2010, Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) is the only large ensemble in the Pacific Northwest solely dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Led by co-artistic directors Julia Tai and Jérémy Jolley, SMO commissions and premieres new works from an international lineup of composers, in addition to presenting important pieces from the contemporary repertoire that are rarely if ever heard by Seattle audiences. The ensemble “operates at that exciting cusp between old and new, between tradition and innovation” (Vanguard Seattle) curating new sounds and experiences for concert-goers in the region.
SMO provides audiences with performances of the best in contemporary chamber and orchestral music and develops radio talks, lectures, and other forms of outreach in an accessible and inviting format all designed to expand the listener’s appreciation and awareness of the music of today.
Press Contact:
Clarisse Benson, Communications & Operations Manager, clarisse.benson@seattlemodernorchestra.org
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Seattle Modern Orchestra is fiscally sponsored by Shunpike.
Shunpike
815 Seattle Boulevard S, Suite 215
Seattle, WA 98134
About Shunpike:
Shunpike is the 501(c)(3) non-profit agency that provides independent arts groups in Washington State with the services, resources, and opportunities they need to forge their own paths to sustainable success.
The Gift of Erin Gee
The Gift of Erin Gee
By Jonathan Shipley
Seattleites will get to hear the music of Erin Gee for the first time on June 15 at the Chapel Performance Space as the cap of Seattle Modern Orchestra’s concert season. Erin Gee is an American composer and vocalist who is currently an Assistant Professor of Composition at Brandeis University. She recently sat down with Seattle Modern’s Orchestra’s social media lead, Jonathan Shipley, to discuss bird species that don’t exist, the International Phonetic Alphabet, and the Cocteau Twins.
JS: What were your first tastes of music as a child?
EG: My family was very musical. My mother was an ardent arts supporter. We had musical instruments all over the house. She played “Fur Elise” on the piano. She could play the flute, the guitar. She could sing. She wrote songs for fun. And my grandmother. She played a lot of Chopin. She wrote poetry. She painted. She composed, too. She had one published – a piece of 1940s music.
JS: What did you listen to in your teenage years?
EG: Throwing Muses. The Cocteau Twins.
JS: What got you interested in playing music yourself?
EG: My family. I played violin at 4 and started playing piano at 5, though I wanted to play sooner. I liked Tchaikovsky. What child doesn’t like ‘The Nutcracker’? My mother said I’d sit at the piano for hours.
JS: When did the human voice catch your attention? Why?
EG: I came into it very late. I didn’t start composing until very late into my college career. I was in a Gregorian Chant choir in college but that was it. My undergrad was in piano performance. I wasn’t trained in voice but I was in a class in grad school. “Words and Music.” The final project was that I had to compose a piece for solo voice. It really got me thinking. I tape recorded. I wrote a list of everything I could do with my mouth. I was very influenced by John Cage at the time. I was getting more interested in non-semantics. That piece became the first of my ‘Mouthpieces.’
JS: How do you compose something like this?
EG: I use the International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised as a standardized representation of the sounds of all the spoken languages. Where the lyrics go – I put in the text there.
JS: Are your ‘Mouthpieces’ driven by what you want to see what the voice can do? Or are they based on specific themes that you want to explore?
EG: Both. Some are connected to certain themes. For instance, corporeal empathy. How can we have empathy for another species not our own? I studied bird song. I came up with 28 new bird species, singing as if them. I, myself, became new birds.
JS: Do you plan on continuing writing ‘Mouthpieces’?
EG: There are always new areas of research. There is always something I haven’t explored enough. I can dig deeper and deeper and I can branch out. The concept, itself, is quite flexible.
JS: What are the limits for the human voice? How much further can you go?
EG: We search for ways to express ourselves in this world. My definition of art is that found compassionate connection to others. I do that through my music. I go on stage with a gift. And I give my gift. The human voice? It seems infinite. The voice will always be changing with us.
Seattle Modern Orchestra is fiscally sponsored by Shunpike.