Residency Concert: The Music of Fay Victor

Fay Victor | Road Trip to Somewhere

Survivors Breakfast

Ariel Vera, voice
Seth Goldman, bassoon
Christopher Ferrari, soprano saxophone
Mattias Kaufmann, accordion
Álvaro Emiliano López, electric guitar
Grant Beale, 8-string electric guitar                                     
Alexander Matheson, piano
Alex Yoo, drums
Anthony Coleman, director
 

Fay Victor | Breathe Them In

composed for Eden MacAdam-Somer

Eden MacAdam-Somer, voice, violin

Program note

Breathe Them In is a piece about climate change, specifically how we will lose trees around the planet, how we need to value the now when we can still see and breathe intrees. The text is used in a number of ways throughout the piece which is clear in score (broken down below as well). Please experiment with the parameters in play aswell as suggest ideas/approaches that will work. The text never has to be completelyused in any of the open/improvised sections unless the player desires to do so.                                         
– Fay Victor

Improvisation | Across the Chasm

Emily Mitchell, voice
Moyu Zhang, piano

Program note

The beginning represents unsurpassable distance and the turmoil of loneliness.  The chaos of life then begins to fade as a small whisper is heard, clearer and clearer.  The way becomes known and the divide is broken, a bridge forms over the chasm.  The other side is peaceful and every need is supplied; there is perfect contentment and abundant joy.  The response is a constant striving to know in deeper and deeper ways the One who has rescued the heart that was once longing for and now overflowing with life.               
– Emily Michell, Moyu Zhang

Fay Victor | Call for Community & Time Waits.Not

Joe Morris Ensemble

Caleb Schmale, Sam Childs, soprano saxophone
Yoona Kim, ajaeng
Grant Beale, Olivia Becker, guitar
Adrian Chabla, piano
Solomon Caldwell, bass
Noah Mark, drums
Joe Morris, director

INTERMISSION

Improvisation | En Español

Delfina Cheb Terrab, voice
Álvaro Emiliano López, percussion, guitar

Program note

When I first moved to Boston eight years ago, my dad gifted me a cutout from an issue of Playboy magazine with the story “The Other” by Jorge Luis Borges on it. In a bench by the Charles River, a blind Borges serendipitously meets his “other” self. The “other” is younger, he speaks French, he is proud to live in exile, he speaks vigorously about politics, about God, about the Russians, even about himself. As they talk literature, philosophy, and geography, he realizes meeting “the other” is nothing but a metaphor for the uprooting of his own self. What does he sound like in French? How did he sound when he liked being himself in French? Why has that changed? Which one is the true Borges?                                                
– Álvaro Emiliano López

Emiliano and I became friends in Spanish. We started playing together and sharing meals and dancing and complaining and crying and laughing—all of it because of one thing: we felt the need to perform our Spanish-speaking selves as much as possible. We also observed each other perform our English, sometimes with enthusiasm, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes with hope, sometimes with discomfort. We saw each other perform our English at cafes, at parties, at poetry readings, at rehearsals, at airports, with teachers, with cops, with friends, with Americans, with foreigners, with ourselves, with each other. As I walk by the Charles River I think about el Rio de la Plata, about el Rio Magdalena and el Canal de Xochimilko and about all of the streams of water that have merged to create this sunny Tuesday at theConservatory’s cafeteria: “Delfi, encontre a alguien mas que habla español!” Emi tells me as he smiles.                                   
– Delfina Cheb Terrab

Fay Victor / SoundNoiseFunk | We’ve Had Enough

ContemporaryRock Ensemble

Kayden Carter, voice
Yoona Kim, voice, ajaeng
Weza Jamison-Neto, bass trombone
Moyu Zhang, piano
Álvaro Emiliano López, guitar
Karl Henry, bass
Noah Mark, drums
Lautaro Mantilla, director

Program note

This piece is a re-composition made by the Contemporary RockEnsemble based on material from the second album of Fay Victor’sSoundNoiseFunk Band. The sound exploration, form, and groove inthis piece is inspired by Victor’s methodologies of improvisation, her creative vocal experimentation and herartistic sensibility.

Fay Victor | Factions

CMA Chamber Ensemble

Litha Ashforth, Delfina Cheb Terrab, voice   
Itay Dayan, clarinet
Eden MacAdam-Somer, violin         
Yoona Kim, ajaeng
Roman Barten-Sherman, guitar
Jamie Eliot, electric bass
Solomon Caldwell, bass
Eden MacAdam-Somer, director

Herbie Nichols | Shuffle Montgomery

Fay Victor, voice
Anthony Coleman, piano
Solomon Caldwell, bass
Alex Yoo, drums

Billie Holiday / Herbie Nichols | Lady Sings the Blues

Fay Victor, voice
Anthony Coleman, piano

Fay Victor | Disintegration Scenario

Nikita Manin, Itay Dayan, clarinet
Michele Zimmerman, Carson McHaney, violin
Karl Henry, Hayley Yu Qin, cello
Mattias Kaufmann, accordion
Álvaro Emiliano López, Roman Barten-Sherman, guitar        
Agne Giedraityte, piano, voice
Solomon Caldwell, bass
Alex Yoo, drums