Tuesday Night New Music

Austin Smith: looming crack no. 7 (for ned ludd) (2020)

This performance and the resulting music is a critique.                             

– Austin Smith

Kristian Josifoski: Significations (2020)

Significations is inspired by the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure theorized that language is an arbitrary system, that words are “signs” and that objects and ideas are “signifiers,” meaning, that the function of words are to point out objects or express ideas. The relationship between the sign and the signifier, word and object/idea, is arbitrary, therefore, there is no systematic or natural process involved in attaching signs to signifiers.

Though Saussure’s theory is flawed and discarded by modern linguists, it makes for a good musical inspiration. Significations relies on the crossfade as a metaphor for Saussure’s theory. The piece consists of a series of episodes crossfading into new sections of music, resembling the arbitrary-ness of Saussure’s theory. The score is one giant crossfade in that it is continuously morphing into a different sounding piece. On a microlevel, the musical elements, the sound objects of the piece, are crossfading in and out with varying different musical elements; crossfades within a crossfade.
– Kristian Josifoski
 

Wen Zhang: YUN (2020)

YUN is an important category in Chinese aesthetics, which refers to the aftertaste of an artwork. In this piece, it lies in tiny pitch variations and the delicate processing of time and space.

- Wen Zhang

Kurt Vetterlein: Songs of Joyce (2020)

Alone
All Day I Hear the Noise of Water
My Dove, My Beautiful One

This short song cycle contains three poems by the poet James Joyce which I was inspired to set to music. These specific texts were chosen for their inherent lyrical quality that they possess as well as the common theme of longing in its various forms. As we are all isolated in this difficult time Joyce's words seem particularly poignant, and his ambiguity allows the listener to draw what they wish from his words. I attempted to play into that ambiguity in my setting of his text. While composing these three short songs I found myself inspired by the songs of Ives. By using unconventional harmonic structures, I hope to allow the listener the chance to make their own interpretations of these wonderful texts          

– Kurt Vetterlein

Alone

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name— her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.
 

All day I hear the noise of waters

All day I hear the noise of waters
Making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is when, going
Forth alone,
He hears the winds cry to the water's
Monotone.

The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters
Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro.

My dove, my beautiful one

My dove, my beautiful one,
Arise, arise!
The night-dew lies
Upon my lips and eyes.

 The odorous winds are weaving
A music of sighs:
Arise, arise,
My dove, my beautiful one!

I wait by the cedar tree,
My sister, my love.
White breast of the dove,
My breast shall be your bed.

 The pale dew lies
Like a veil on my head.
My fair one, my fair dove,
Arise, arise!

James Joyce