On Friday April 5th at 8:00pm, West 4th New Music Collective will present New Music for Old Instruments, a concert for baroque ensemble featuring contemporary music, at Brooklyn’s South Oxford Space, 138 South Oxford Street. The ensemble includes sought-after performers in both new and old music: vocalists Mellissa Hughes and Kirsten Sollek, Doug Balliett and Dan McCarthy on violas da gamba, cornettist Benjamin Grow, harpsichordist Karl Larson and baroque violinist Francis Liu. Sam Nester appears as guest conductor.
Premiered works include music from W4 co-directors Matt Frey and Molly Herron as well as Doug Balliett and Caroline Shaw. Also included on the program is Talking about Dancing by Timo Andres and Tristan Perich’s Dual Synthesis for harpsichord and four-channel one-bit electronics.
I’m very excited to announce that I have been picked as a 2012/13 Con Edison Composer-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy. I’m so thrilled and honored to have this opportunity!
Elizabeth Woodhouse of BYCA, Gabrielle Herbst another residency recipient and moi
September 22nd at Exapno (33 Flatbush Ave) W4 is hosting our 2nd annual End of Summer Concert – This program is comprised of four sets that adventurously explore the world outside of genre categorization. My new piece ‘Scavenger’ for flute, alto sax, violin, viola and cello is featured on the 9pm set
October 4th – 6th at Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave) W4 is working on a collaborative project with the dance company BODYART for their new work entitled LOFT that will feature premieres by Matt Frey, Ruben Naeff, Tim Hansen, Leaha Maria Villarreal and myself performed by PUBLIQuartet.
performed by the JACK Quartet on May 1, 2011 at the Frederick Loewe Theater at NYU’s Steinhardt School
Ari Streisfeld, violin; Christopher Otto, violin; John Pickford Richards, viola; Kevin McFarland, cello
An open system in physics is one that is available for interaction with its environment. It has a great potential for change and reaction.
This piece is structured to depict atoms and their whirling electrons being affected by an increase in energy, like an object being heated by an outside source. Rhythmic and harmonic groupings represent atoms, which interact with each other differently depending on their electric charge. As electrons jump between energy orbitals in distinct stages, sound waves produce harmonics in distinct ratio relationships. Most of the notes in this piece are derived from the open strings and their partials.
Metaphorical open systems are present as well: each string instrument, complete in itself but effected by its three companions, the artist in continuous interaction with his or her environment, and a piece of music available for constant interpretation and reinterpretation by its audience. Throughout the piece the harmony of a dominant seventh chord with the fourth scale degree substituted for the fifth is used.
