Tuesday Night New Music

SangUn Kang | Air (2020)

This piece is structured into four parts, A-B-C-D.
     A is the improvisation part of the 32nd note that moves relatively freely.
    On the other hand, B shows relatively slow movement and a sustained G sound.        
    The C part is a movement to return to the previous textures, and the density of notes gradually increases.
    The D part moves with irregular, fast ostinato, which gradually decreases in density and ends.
The general characteristic of this piece is that a short extended technical passage interrupts between the longpassage                                        

– SangUn Kang

Kurt Vetterlein | Tectonics (2020)

When composing Tectonics I wanted to bring out the unique qualities of the tenor trombone: primarily the color changes that can be achieved in different registers combined with the instrument's agility and wide range of articulations. The title comes from seemingly static moments that shift and collide with different ideas and in the process release bursts of energy.                 

– Kurt Vetterlein

Lars Halldin | No More to be Grieved (2020)

Based on Sonnet 35 by William Shakespeare and using his poem as the libretto, this piece for baritone voice and acoustic guitar, explores the sonnet’s themes of decay hidden by beauty - perfection marred by failings of the human heart and spirit, and decline into desperation and madness brought on by infidelity. The narrator alternately asks the person whom he loves and who has betrayed him to forgive him for his imperfection and blames him for his current state. The piece starts beautifully and slowly devolves, mirroring the author’s breaking apart with grief and into madness. This is the first of a three-piece series.                                               

– Lars Halldin

No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
(Thy adverse party is thy advocate)
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an accessary needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 35

Ian Wiese | The Gatekeeper (2020)

I wrote The Gatekeeper as a way to explore not only the range of the flute but the inherent separation of sound in the wide range of the flute. The idea of a gatekeeper is someone who watches over the gate or barrier of entry and ensures only that which is supposed to have access may enter. This manifests in the sound where the high and low range of the flute are separate for most of the length of the piece before coming together in the middle and end, rising from the lowest note of the flute up through to nearly the highest possible note. Suffice to say, this piece is a tour de force for a flutist.                                                                                                           

– Ian Weise

Delfina Cheb Terrab | How-Who-Which (2020)

Some answers I have questions about (in a different order)            

– Delfina Cheb Terrab

Yunqi Li | Typhoon (2020)

This piece was written in 2020 fall. In the past few months, my hometown Changchun experienced a typhoon, and I recorded the phenomena through flute solo so the goal of my piece is to imitate the typhoon. As far as I am concerned, I discover that the rain comes before the typhoon so the first character of my piece is the raindrop sound. Then, suddenly the second character, a strong wind, comes with a powerful sound. After the wind is gone, the rain comes back and fades away, reflecting on the structure of my piece. From the composition-technique point of view, I utilize the key clicks and whistle tones to imitate the “raindrop sound” and I use multiphonics to imitate the “strong wind sound”, bringing out the contrasts between the two different characters by using the articulations and dynamics.

– Yunqi Li

Robin Meeker-Cummings | The chamber where a dreamer slumbers (2020)

The only survivor from an apocalyptic eclipse dozes in a deserted theater on the beach, recalling his final dream before the disaster. After a long and tortuous waiting, a revelation happens in front of him.                           

– Robin Meeker-Cummings