Tuesday Night New Music: Ha, Wiese, Ma, Engelhardt, Bettany, Chen, Kim

Changjin Ha | Romance V (2022)

Program note

My Romance series is an endeavor to explore the ugly side of love: Romance I and II explore jealousy; III and IV tackle the struggles of a taboo relationship. Romance V and VI discuss a scene of limerence, slowly building to obsession and finally culminating in violence. Mirroring this chaos, the pattern of melody followed by coined tam-tam becomes irregular, with igniting emotion. However, as with all consuming passion, it eventually reduces itself back to ashes.
        The vibraphone melody refers to George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children, from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, titled “Bist du bei mir.”                   – Changjin Ha

Ian Wiese | Lyric Pieces for Solo Flute in C (2021)

Hesitating
Moving
Dancing
Stretching
Hurrying

Program note

Lyric Pieces for Solo Flute in C come shortly after the composition of The Selkie Child for flute, viola, harp, and narrator. In the process of writing the narrated trio, I had some leftover material, especially in the flute, that could constitute a piece of its own. Remembering that Mr. Heiss had composed a collection titled Four Lyric Pieces for Flute Alone when working with Darius Milhaud at Aspen Music Festival, I opted to take those leftover sketches and make my own set of lyric pieces for flute. These pieces follow in the same character vein of the Heiss original, although rather than being named for the tempo and interpretation markings of each of the movements, I opted to give each movement a title and character through said title. Being that the previous compositions I had written for solo flute also relied heavily on extended technique and not as much raw playing, I limited myself in each movement to a single extended technique that would complement what I had written, rather than relying on the extended techniques to make the color of the piece for me.
     The first movement, “Hesitating”, was the impetus of the collection and the one directly based off excess material from The Selkie Child. The main motif comes from an expansion I had written on the Scottish tune The Grey Selkie of Sule Skerrie, although the tune is no longer recognizable in both the interpretive context and in how the rest of the piece is composed. “Moving” became the immediate, gut reaction contrast to the first movement. “Dancing” echoes some of the energy from “Moving”, although it is far staider and in control, representing the grace of a ballet rather than the forward momentum that is uncontrolled motion. “Stretching” gives the flutist a break from the regimented sense of meter and time in the piece, being based entirely on gesture in an ametric movement. “Hurrying” ends the Lyric Pieces with a high energy blast, taking some minor inspiration from The Great Train Race by flutist-composer and extended technique pioneer, Ian Clarke.                                                      
– Ian Wiese

Lingbo Ma | Blurred Vision (2022)

Program note

A spontaneous little piece for violin.                                                                
– Lingbo Ma

Austin Engelhardt | Ebb and Flow (2021)

Stellan Connelly Bettany | Piano Prelude No. 2 (2021)

Linxi Chen | L'isle joyeuse - Island of Ecstasy (2022)

Program note

When fleeing into the extreme beauty after total darkness,
when secretly whispering the motherly words,
what revelation will the finale arrive?                                                               
– Linxi Chen

Dohyun Kim | String Quartet No. 1 (2022)

Moderato
Adagio
Allegro

Program note

This is my first string quartet.                                                            
– Dohyun Kim