Wedneday, March 10th – 8PM

ISSUE Project Room

featuring five premiere performances by

Red Line Sax Quartet

Secret Corners – Baljinder Sekhon

Parallel Circuit – Matt Barber

dmhs – Andrew Colella

~INTERMISSION~

Red Bird – Robert Pierzak

Amalgamation – Andy Akiho

My piece, Secret Corners, is largely concerned with the spatialization of sound as the sax quartet and speakers are placed in a “ring” around the audience and treated more like an octet consisting of two quartets of homogeneous instruments rather than a sax quartet which is hierarchically superior to the electronics.  I imagine that each of the speakers in my piece are performers interacting with the quartet and offering a contrapuntal yet cohesive layer to the ensemble.  I designed my electronics the same way I designed the sax quartet parts; well, I deigned them together as they are really part of a singular idea.  There are patterns of spatialization and melodic fragmentation that take place throughout the piece and this occurs in an integrated way between the eight sound sources.  The piece behaves in an imitative way, with characteristics similar to a canon or fugue, but the imitation of “subject” and melody is fragmented and the fragments are imitated in different orders and transposition levels by each sound source…  often the imitation of a melodic fragment takes place up to 10 minutes after the initial statement.  The electronics make much of this possible as delays and oscillator banks are performing fragments the computer initially tracked from an individual saxophone.  In some sections of my piece, the four speakers can be thought of as performers who are improvising variations on the material first performed by the sax quartet.

Matt Barber’s piece, Parallel Circuit, uses the same programming environment as mine: Pure Data.  However, his goals are quite different and the resulting electronic component has very little similarities.  Matt’s piece is in 16 short, contrasting sections and requires a fifth performer to trigger a number of electronic events.  From Matt’s design of quarter tone voice leading to the ritualistic activity of each section being separated by the saxophonists striking suspended cymbals, this piece is a like a grab bag full of wonderful toys.  Each one is unique in its own way and you never know what you might get next…  impossible to pick a favorite and you’ll want to take them all home with you!  Matt writes of his piece:  “The electronics in Parallel Circuit serve several functions. I use synthesized sounds – bells, bowed metal, harp and hammered-dulcimer, and a sampled wind sound – to complement the sound world of the saxophone quartet, and the cymbals which punctuate each movement. In some of the sections the sounds of the saxophones are processed in order to have them play in harmony or counterpoint with themselves, or to achieve timbres that are not possible with the saxophone alone.”  One would probably never guess that our pieces are designed in the same programming environment as they both reflect different compositional interests and creative approaches.  For me, this is part of the elusive beauty of electronic music; the medium provides composers with a limitless “ensemble” to compose for, with constraints completely created by the composer and his intuition and not by the physical possibilities of an acoustic instrument.  The difference between the use of electronics between my piece and Matt’s is especially interesting to me since I learned everything I know about Pure Data from Matt and, using my own creative interests, designed something quite different than he did.

dmhs, by Andrew Colella, was designed in an environment called MAX/MSP that is conceptually the same as Pure Data.  However, once again, Andrew’s piece offers a fresh use of electronics which includes interactive audio and up to three videos!  Using a variety of filtered videos, the sources of which are not decipherable, and four-channel sound processing, Andrew creates visual and aural environment that provokes the audience member to make internal connections and associations based on the “baggage” they bring into the concert hall….   much like putting together an abstract piece of art work in your mind as you experience it.  It will be interesting to discuss this piece and how you experienced its meaning during intermission.  This is the only work on the program that employs the use of video and I can’t wait to experience this in the IPR environment.

Robert Pierzak’s piece is among the most subtle, gentle and beautiful musical experiences I have had in a long time.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from him, since the last several pieces of his were all so different from each other yet part of a large cycle of works entitled “Endangered Banana”.  These ranged from a work for any number of saxophones to a work for vocalist and timpani (please check out the YouTube video of Pierzak premiering this work, if you haven’t yet!).  However, this new work Red Bird is certainly my favorite Pierzak yet!  The piece is relatively long (in clock time) but the experiential time is very misleading…  I knew this was in excess of 20 minutes the first time I sat to listen to it in rehearsal but during the performance I became captured by the beauty and whispering melodic qualities it offers and was surprised that it seemed to end so quickly…  I could stand to listen to it over and over again.  As you relax and think about the inspiration for this piece, a 1964 painting of the same name by Agnes Martin, savor what Pierzak is giving us because you may never want it to end.

The program is sure to end with an explosive event as Andy Akiho’s Amalgamation is on fire from the beginning to end.  This piece uses electronics to magnify the percussive characteristics of the saxophone and truly features Red Line’s technical virtuosity.  About nine months ago, I sat in a studio with Red Line and took sample after sample of saxophone sounds.  I sent these unedited to Akiho and a few months later he sent along the electronic portion of his piece…  a complex and driving blend of twisted and magnified saxophone sounds that sound closer to a drum set from another galaxy than a saxophone quartet.  The acoustic sax quartet paired with the electronic drumming of saxophone sounds created a unique and excited texture that will blow the roof off of the IPR.

We are all greatly looking forward to presenting these new works to everyone and hope we will have a chance to spend some time talking with everyone after the concert.  See you on Wednesday night!

-Baljinder Sekhon, Curator/Composer

Web Resources

MATA Interval 3.2 – poweRed Line

Red Line Sax Quartet

Andy Akiho

Matt Barber

Andrew Colella

Robert Pierzak

Baljinder Sekhon, II

Issue Project Room

(scroll down to view bios and multimedia work samples)

Andy Akiho is an award winning composer and performer with a broad range of interests that stretch from steel pan to western classical music.  Akiho was recently featured as a composer on PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” and as a percussionist at Carnegie Hall in New York City.  His compositions have been recognized by numerous organizations including ASCAP, Meet the Composer, and Bang On a Can.  Recent commissions include those for string quartet from ETHEL, a duet for violin and viola from Katherine Fong and Dov Scheindlin of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and a new chamber work entitled No one To kNOW one for The Playground to be premiered at The 2010 Mile High Voltage Festival.  Akiho recently studied composition at MSM with Julia Wolfe, and percussion with Jeffrey Milarsky and John Ferrari.  He currently studies composition at Yale University School of Music with Christopher Theofanidis and Ezra Laderman.

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Akiho: Work Samples

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21 – Perc, Cello, Electronics (below)

21

Vick(i/y) – solo piano (below)

Vick(i/y)

to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem (below)

to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem