Night of the Living Composers

PRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN
REVIEW QUOTES "One of the most stalwart contemporary music groups in the nation." San Jose Mercury DiscPick: "With a set list that includes some of the most challenging and interesting works of our young century.one of the region's greatest artistic assets.a testament to the instrumental prowess of the collective." Peter Koht, Good Times ".ear-expanding ensemble." Richard Scheinin, San Jose Mercury ".New Music Works is about the active, engaged, enquiring mind." Scott MacClelland, Santa Cruz Metro "West coast composers at the top of their game.nontraditional approach to new classical work." Graham Haworth, Santa Cruz Sentinel INTRODUCTORY DESCRIPTION PLAYLIST BACKGROUND ON NEW MUSIC WORKS AND NIGHT OF THE LIVING COMPOSERS The double compact disc, Night of the Living Composers, by New Music Works is a collection of exciting and diverse new chamber music by nine influential and innovative composers of the West Coast and Pacific Rim. New Music Works Ensemble and an auspicious line-up of celebrated guest artists present premiere recordings by Henry Brant, Jack Body, Philip Collins, Fred Frith, Hyo-shin Na, Paul Nauert, Jon Scoville and Allen Strange, along with a stellar revival of the late of Lou Harrison's Concerto in Slendro (1959). A wide range of musical climates are created by NMW Ensemble and such renowned guest artists as conductor/composer Fred Frith, pianist Thomas Schultz, guitarist David Tanenbaum, and percussionist William Winant, CD I 1-3 LOU HARRISON, CONCERTO IN SLENDRO (1959) 10:07 Cynthia Baehr, violin; William Winant, percussion; NMW Ensemble, Philip Collins, conductor 4 PAUL NAUERT, SUBTEXT (1998) + 6:59 David Tanenbaum, guitar 5 FRED FRITH, SCREEN (from STONE, BRICK, GLASS, WOOD, WIRE) + (1968-96) 3:40 NMW Ensemble, Fred Frith, prompter 6-10 JACK BODY, TRIBUTE TO THE BLUES (2005) +* 22:19 NMW Ensemble, Philip Collins, conductor 11 HYO-SHIN NA, 3 AND PIANO (2003) 12:07 Philip Flavin, shamisen Philip Gelb, shakuhachi Shoko Hikage, koto, Thomas Schultz, piano 12-21 PHILIP COLLINS, REQUIES RANARUM (1999) + 20:58 Colleen Donovan, soprano Charles M. Bogert, narration NMW Ensemble, Philip Collins, conductor CD II 1-7 JON SCOVILLE, LES MYSTERES DU CHATEAU DU DE (2001) +* 17:28 NMW Ensemble, Philip Collins, conductor 8 ALLEN STRANGE, KING OF HANDCUFFS (Ragtime for Harry) (2000) +11:16 Brian Staufenbiel, tenor 9-11 PHILIP COLLINS, AIRS (1995-2002) 9:35 Bruce Foster, clarinet 12 FRED FRITH, LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL (2001) + 6:14 NMW Ensemble, audio playback, Fred Frith, conductor 13 HENRY BRANT, GLOSSARY (2000)+* 31:14 Marie Bafus, soprano; NMW Ensemble, Philip Collins, conductor += premiered by New Music Works *= commissioned by New Music Works ABOUT NEW MUSIC WORKS and NIGHT OF THE LIVING COMPOSERS The music on this collection comes from repertoire performed at New Music Works concerts between 1997- 2005. Most of the works were premiered by New Music Works, and some of them commissioned by us as well. It's a "favorites list" of intended variety, with works by eight composers that showcase New Music Works Ensemble and our guest artists in an extraordinary range of contexts. Although several of the musicians featured on this recording have performed with New Music Works for 20 years or more, the eleven-piece chamber group known as New Music Works Ensemble, didn't formalize until 1997. Since that time New Music Works Ensemble has premiered 26 commissioned works by composers Henry Brant, Fred Frith, Pablo Furman, Hyo-shin Na, Amy X Neuberg, and Jon Scoville, among others. At last count, New Music Works has presented 148 different performance projects, featuring over 691 different pieces by 342 composers, with 337 world premieres. The title Night of the Living Composers has been haunting the South Bay Area music scene since 1988. Tim Bell suggested it as an alternative to Composers' Showcase, and it's been a fixture of New Music Works' seasons ever since. It seems a fitting title for the present package since a number of the pieces were premiered at Night of the Living Composers concerts. Henry Brant composed Glossary with the aid of an architectural draft of the UCSC Recital Hall's dimensions. He stationed ensembles in the four corners of the hall, and at mid-points along the walls, while soprano Marie Bafus walked the house aisles, vocalizing radiantly in "computereez." The live dopler effect of Marie's processional is evoked wonderfully in Larry Blood's recording, which mixed centralized overhead miking with stereo mikes at the front of the house. LINER NOTES ON THE MUSIC CD I CONCERTO IN SLENDRO (1961) LOU HARRISON The Concerto in Slendro was mostly composed in 1961 aboard the S.S. New York en route to Japan. It is filled with my eager anticipation of a first taste of the beauty and bustle of Asia. The title derives from the fine Indonesian theoretical term denoting any five-tone mode in which the "seconds" are roughly "major" (or large) and the "thirds" "minor" (or small). A complimentary term, "pelog," refers to the opposite kind of mode- "seconds" small and "thirds" wide. This Concerto uses two Slendro type modes only: the "Prime Pentatonic" (if you will) and it's associated "minor." These two modes are perhaps the most common and generally loved of all modes- the first is practically the "Human Song." I intended that the two modes be in correct "just intonation" on a general basis 25/24 below A440. Instrumentation of the Concerto in Slendro is for specially tuned celesta and two "tack pianos" similarly tuned, with two percussionists playing six triangles, six gongs, and four galvanized iron garbage cans (an American metal drum). In the slow movement, two keyboard players use claves and iron pipes, reverting to their keyboards in the final movement. SUBTEXT (1998) PAUL NAUERT Frequent hesitations and unpredictable shifts of color and character lend an improvisational quality to Subtext (solo guitar, 1998). The music is generally soft-spoken and lyrical, although two suddenly aggressive passages intrude, as do brief glimpses of a (fictional) jig, flamenco gestures, and other idiomatic references. These diverse musical characters are often partially submerged in the abstract discourse of the piece; they surface clearly at certain moments and are only subliminally present during others. Binding all of these musical images together is a consistent harmonic language based on a very slow-moving sequence of pitch fields, each one designed to accommodate one or more of the large chords that often punctuate phrases in the piece. SCREEN, from STONE, BRICK, GLASS, WOOD, WIRE (1968-96) FRED FRITH Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire is a series of photographs with minimal graphic additions that can be used as musical scores. Each image is accompanied by a set of instructions which the players may use as a guide. Some of these instructions are precise and involve following the 'score'. Others are more metaphorical - you can carry out the instructions without seeing the image, though the image may serve as an inspiration. You could also make up your own instructions if you wanted to. I don't have a problem with that! TRIBUTE TO THE BLUES (2004/5) JACK BODY Version for New Music Works Ensemble Although to the uninitiated, blues can sound formulaic and repetitive, in the hands of great performers the genre can express raw, deep emotion in ways that other musical styles struggle to do. These transcriptions of classic blues recordings try to recreate the individual character of three great blues musicians - Big Joe Turner, John Lee Hooker and Mary Lou Williams - as well as 'reinterpret' archival recordings made by Allan Lomax of blues and work-chants from prisons in the southern American states. 1. Big Joe's Moan 2. Prison Blues 3. John Lee's Pluck 4. Prison Worksongs 5. Mary Lou's Dream 3 AND PIANO (2003) HYO-SHIN NA A few friends and I came up with the idea of doing a concert to celebrate Yuji Takahashi's 65th birthday. Each one of us d

Number of Discs: 1

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