Tuesday Night New Music: J. Kim, Clarke, Johnson, Ha, Jia, Zheng, Chen, Carroll, D. Kim, & Muramatsu

Jaegone Kim | The Show (2021)

Please be advised that during the course of tonight's performance, audience members may be asked to turn their cameras on, to be visible onscreen by the rest of the audience. By willingly entering and participating as an audience member in tonight's concert, you, on behalf of yourself and any minor accompanying you (collectively, “you”) are consenting to be recorded via audio and video, and be included in a recorded livestream that will be broadcast on the internet.”

Program note

“There is something rather uplifting about watching animals go about their business, from penguins waddling and diving into their pools to adorable otters grooming one another, zoos and aquariums across the world are giving us all unique insight into the animal kingdom. So if you’re an animal lover or want to give yourself or the kids some entertainment, then sit back and enjoy these wonderful and insightful live zoo cameras across the world.”                   
– Ting Dalton from Armchair Travels, 04/13/2020

Brooks Clarke | The Persistence of Trees (2021)

The growth of a tree is not appreciated until it is cut down and forgotten as wood.                                                                                                                            
– Brooks Clarke

Owen Johnson | It Comes in Waves (2021)

Program note

This piece is based on the feeling of missing someone dear to you, a feeling that comes in waves. I wrote it at the beginning of the semester, when I was dealing a lot with those feelings. Composing this piece, in a way, helped me to come to terms with them. Throughout the piece, I aim to use the natural resonance of the violin, taking advantage of natural harmonics and open strings. This contrasts with more chromatic and driving passages, creating a push and pull in the piece. The piece opens slowly, with the open G and D strings, with a natural harmonic being added to the D string. This sets up the "open" feeling that will be explored in the rest of the piece. What follows is a section very high in the register of the violin, once again taking advantage of natural and artificial harmonics. Next, a flowing, grounded, melody low in the violin, different than what came before. The opening to the piece sets up the main contrasts that will be explored throughout: high and low, open and constricted, turbulent and tranquil. These contrasts are the "waves" of feeling that are constant yet  unpredictable.                                                                                             
– Owen Johnson

Changjin Ha | from Lost in Thought (2021)

III: About the right to cry

Program note

A person is not allowed to cry, but when triggered, a tear is the irreplaceable medium to release woes found deep in the abyss.

Wail, so as to recall the stronger man who you used to be                        
– Changjin Ha

Tianfang Jia | Kindertotenlieder (2021)

Program note

This is a documentary for a mother who just lost her only son. The music unfolds as a dialogue, which gets deep into the mother's subconsciousness in PTSD and flows with her memory embedded in the stream of consciousness. The dialogue, by nature, is montage-like and poly-layered. The mother constantly repeats the trauma she just experienced. In between the traumas, memories in the past 20 years are recalled, sketching pictures ages ago.

(... in memory of Tommy Zhu…)                                                                      
– Tianfang Jia

Haoyu Zheng | Supplicate: Rain (2021)

Program note

This is a tale of lost love, abandonment, and distraught. Dreams, hopes, all lost to the composer like raindrops collapsing from the dark clouds above. The world is an endless drizzle; sorrow and despair shrouded in the bleak autumn rain. “Although the love has abandoned me, I feel no hesitation in shedding my tears for you: as rain nourishes the soil for flowers to blossom, my tears will let me relive the memories of my unreachable past.”                                                                                      
– Haoyu Zheng

Linxi Chen | 2:30 p.m. Circulation (2021)

Program note

Change and stillness, the two seemingly conflicting concepts coexist in the span of time. As the subjective emotion constantly experiences changes, time regulates these changes into cycles, and these cycles eventually form a static identity. Throughout the piece, the relationship between these two conflicting concepts of time is transformed from a dissonant into a consonant one. It is precisely the change of detailed musical expressions over time that constitutes the overall identity of the sonic landscape. Through perception, the overwhelming momentum of the exterior environments, which imposes passivity onto the subjective emotion, is transformed into an experience of clarity and inner tranquillity.                                                                
– Linxi Chen

Marie Carroll | untethered (2021)

Dohyun Kim | Aberration of Starlight (2021)

Flickering
Signal
Mayday
Emit light
 

Program note

Two stars are flickering towards each other. Far away, they send signals. However, the signals are impossible to reach... The stars desperately emit powerful light energy hoping to communicate with each other.                                                
– Dohyun Kim

Ko Muramatsu | Gravity (2021)

Program note

Gravity is a piece exploring an equivocal correlation between objectivity and subjectivity in music. It is in the relationship between the ensemble and conductor or between the performers and listeners. The music is controlled in an extremely precise way on the one hand, but each gesture is, on the other hand, freed from inflexible temporal regulation that limits expressiveness.
        Gravity is ubiquitous.  On the one hand, it seems an objective axiom; yet, gravity is recognized only through our subjectivity. It takes a visible shape in the moments such as when looking at falling leaves or throwing a ball in the air. Not only in phenomena in nature, gravity may also explain an inclination. Take examples from music: lowered pitches heard in singing styles of folk, jazz, and some other musics: general contours of pitch, duration, or proportion in Western music. Those inclinations exemplify that there is a “comfortable” zone where one thing is pulled by another force as if it pushes the thing into the “right” place. In this case, gravity means the force that catalyzes the relationship. This brainstorming first forged the epicenter of the piece, and then shaped the form and gestures.              
– Ko Muramatsu

Personnel

Soyeon Park, clarinet
Yeonjo Oh, Karlee Kamminga, French horn
Justin Bean Park, trumpet
Changwon Park, bass trombone                                               
Jaewon Wee, Yulia Price, Hyeonah Hong, Chiung-Han Tsai, violin
Ayano Nakamura, viola
Seoyeon Koo, cello
Diego Martinez, double bass