NEC Composers' Series Concert: Don-Paul Kahl, saxophones

John Mallia | Interzonal Hap (2009)

Program note

Interzonal Hap is modeled on the activity of the mind flitting between real, remembered, and imagined spaces. The coalescence of emotions conjured through the overlap and interaction between these zones has always fascinated me. Particularly, when physically moving through a given environment, and attention is carried out at least on the level of necessity, the pulling and divergence of multiple auxiliary strains of thought can simultaneously overtake one’s awareness and result in a visceral immediacy and sense of place induced by that which exists outside of their physical limits. 
        The premiere of this composition was given by Eliot Gattegno in 2009. I am most grateful to Don-Paul Kahl for preparing this work for performance on tonight’s program. Thanks for listening!                                                                            
– John Mallia

John Mallia lives and works in the Boston area and is a member of the Composition Faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music where he also directs the Electronic Music Studio. Additionally, he is a member of the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, as part of their low-residency M.F.A. program in Composition. His compositional process is informed by spatial constructs and concepts, and a fascination with presence, ritual, and the thresholds standing between states of existence or awareness.
        His music and multimedia work has been performed and installed throughout the U.S. and internationally by organizations such as Musicacoustica (Beijing, China), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), ConArte MediaMix (Mexico), L.A. Freewaves (CA), ZeroOne New Media festival (CA), Gaudeamus (The Netherlands), International Computer Music Association, SEAMUS, Hua xia Ensemble (Lincoln Center), Zeppelin Festival of Sound Art (Barcelona, Spain), Festival Synthèse (Bourges, France), Interensemble’s Computer Arts Festival (Padova, Italy), Yo-Yo Ma (Barbican Centre, London), and Medi@terra`s Travelling  Mikromuseum (Greece, Bulgaria, Germany, Slovenia). 
        He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI) at the University of North Texas (2004-5) and was composer-in-residence at the Institut de Musique Electroacoustique (Bourges, France; 1993, 2002).

BRIEF INTERMISSION

Robin Meeker-Cummings | Concurrence (2022)

Program note

"We have at our disposal the concept of simultaneity; and we owe this concept to our ability to perceive external flows of events either together with the flow of our own duration, or separately from it, or, still better, both separately and together, at one and the same time. If we then refer to two external flows which take up the same duration as being "simultaneous," it is because they abide within the duration of yet a third, our own. But, to be useable, these simultaneities of durations must be converted into simultaneities of instants; and this we do as soon as we have learned to spatialize time."                                                                                                  
– Henri Bergson

Robin Meeker-Cummings is a composer, sound artist, and improviser who studied Composition at New England Conservatory. They spent years active in the Philadelphia experimental and new music scenes organizing concerts and performing improvised electronics. At school, they have been writing electronic, electroacoustic, and acoustic classical music; many of these works have been performed at NEC. In the summer of 2018, they attended at 9-day program in the countryside near Barcelona which focused on sound art with found sounds. Robin has been performing improvised electroacoustic music using found objects, bells, and parts of wind instruments to create thick textures and pointillistic gestures with the use of live processing. Robin’s development in electroacoustic composition has been encouraged by attending the Splice festival, where they took classes about composing for electroacoustic instrumentation and had one of their pieces premiered. Robin has been working with multichannel spatialization and had a piece for 4.1 speaker orientation premiered at the ICMC in NYC in the summer of 2019. In the summer of 2021, the ensemble Sunono Giallo performed Robin’s electroacoustic trio as part of the ilSUONO composition Academy in Sansepolcro, Italy.

Katarina Miljkovic | If in a Winter… (2009-2023)

Program note

The title of the piece refers to Calvino's novel, If in a Winter's night a traveler...
        As with memories lost in the mistiness of time, the sound begins, then stops, again begins - stops, until it entirely dissolves in an undefined band of noise. Saxophone's role is to play through a blur of noise, a simple, barely perceptible collection of pitches evoking vague memories of utterances and tunes in a winter.                                                                                                             
– Katarina Miljkovic

Katarina Miljkovic investigates the interaction between science, music, and nature, through collaborative musical performance. This interest led her to the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot’s essay, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, and self-similar complex structures resulting in the cycle, Forest, (“…a dreamy piece, along the lines of Feldman or Brown…entirely captivating” Signal to Noise).  In collaboration with Wolfram Research, Miljkovic has been working on the sound mapping of the elementary rules from Stephen Wolfram’s New Kind of Science. She presented her exploration in this new field at Brown University, NKS conferences in 2004, Waltham, MA, Wolfram Technology Conference 2005, Champaign, Illinois, NKS 2006, Washington, D.C., NKS 2007, University of Vermont, 2011, The Musical and Scientific Legacies of Iannis Xenakis, 2006, Toronto, International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music, MCM 2007, and ECMST ~ MASA 2010, Berlin, EUROMicroFest 2017, Improtech Paris - Philly 2017, 2022 Earth Day Art Model Telematic and Media Festival, Boston Cyberarts festivals, Cambridge Science festivals, and Boston First Night. Her generative music has been described as “a refined, hypnotic dream” (Danas) “a work of musical and visual slow-motion with only a few delicately elaborated musical metaphors” (Radio Belgrade). 

Efstratios Minakakis | For Felipe M. (2021)

Program note

For Felipe M. is a love song to ephemeral things. 
        It is composed of material that engages the margins of auditory perception: islands of fragile sound between pockets of silence, quasi-subliminal signals that disappear in the distance, streams of seemingly interminable melodies, and static sounds of delicate polarities. These four sound types are arranged in an idiomatic “Lieder Ohne Worte” form composed of seven epigrammatic verses and two extended stanzas. If there is one common thread that permeates the nature of this material, it is the predilection for minuscule gradations, particularly evident in the nano-microtonal melodies and delicate nuances of breath tones, both of which the result of painstaking collaboration with saxophonist Don-Paul Kahl. By drawing attention to such esoteric nuances, the work aims to create an intimate space between performer and listener, inviting the latter to an inward journey of what the poet C.P. Cavafy calls “indistinct sensations.” 
        Felipe M. was a rescue cat that left too soon due to congenital heart disease. He was one of the most empathic, kind, and generous beings who, in the six short months of his life with us, blessed Dolores, Catalina, and Stratis with unconditional love and happiness.

This work was commissioned by Don-Paul Kahl and was premiered live on October 4th, 2021 at the Stretansky Concert Hall, Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA.

Stratis Minakakis is a composer and conductor whose creative work engages issues of memory, cultural identity, and art as social testimony; it also explores the rich possibilities engendered by the interaction between arts and sciences.
        As a composer, he has collaborated with leading performers and ensembles across Europe, North America, and Japan, such as The Crossing choir, the PRISM and Stockholm saxophone quartets, the Harry Partch ensemble, the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Counter)induction, Noh actress Ryoko Ayoki, recorder virtuoso Tosiya Suzuki, flutist Orlando Cela, and conductors Donald Nally and Rüdiger Bonn.
         As a conductor, he has directed and coached numerous chamber music and orchestral ensembles in contemporary repertory, including works by Milton Babbitt, Katherine Balch, Henri Dutilleux, György Ligeti, Fabien Levy, Eric Maestri, John Mallia, Katarina Miljkovic, Dimitris Minakakis, Joan Arnau Pamiès, Y. A. Papaioannou, and Iannis Xenakis.
         Also active in the field of music theory, his recent work focuses on interpretive analysis of the late string quartet manuscripts by Beethoven. This line of work builds upon the pioneering research of violinist Nicholas Kitchen on the expressive markings and articulations of Beethoven manuscripts. Other areas of interest include early Modernism, and the music of Xenakis and Ligeti.
        He is the recipient of numerous artistic prizes, grants, and academic awards from institutions such as the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, the New England Conservatory, the Takefu International Festival in Japan, the Fondation Royaumont in France, the Center for Mediterranean Music in Greece, the Greek Composers Union, and the International Society for Contemporary Music. Deeply committed to music pedagogy, he was awarded the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and the prestigious Louis Krasner Award at New England Conservatory. 
        He studied piano, theory, and composition at Atheneaum Conservatory (First Prize in Composition), Princeton University (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude), New England Conservatory (Toru Takemitsu Award in Composition, summa cum laude, Distinction in Performance), and the University of Pennsylvania (Nitze and Hallstead Prizes for Composition, Dean’s Scholar Award, George Crumb Fellowship). He currently lives in Sudbury, Massachusetts and teaches Music Theory and Composition at New England Conservatory.