photo credit: Omar Costa Hamido/Alex Lough
Program will be streamed at https://www.facebook.com/SPLICEorg/live_videos/
Concert 4 Program
Nick Vasallo : The Doorway
Duo Charango:
Ciyadh Wells, guitar
Jamie Monck, guitar
Ralph Lewis : Can't Take You Anywhere
Stephen Marotto, cello
Splice Institute, recording and videography
Ashley Floyd : Totems
Andrew Stephens, bassoon
Alex Lough : Assemblage #4 (flicker)
Alex Lough, electronics
Omar Costa Hamido, video
Alex Lough, recording and engineering
Andrew Noseworthy : Pull Up
Nicholas Suosso, soprano saxophone
Megan Elks : Woman Set Free
I. Woman Set Free
II. The Love You Deserve
Megan Elks, saxophone and vocals
Leo Chang : Solo for VOCALNORI
Leo Chang, VOCALNORI
SPLICE Festival IV is supported by a State-of-the-Art Conference Grant from the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.
Notes
Nick Vasallo : The DoorwayComposed in 2013 and 2015. "There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception." -Aldous Huxley back to program
Ralph Lewis : Can't Take You Anywhere
Can’t Take You Anywhere is written for (amplified) cello and triggered fixed media. It is inspired by traveling around with a particularly noisy crackle box. Its light sensors responded in particularly cantankerous ways when we were riding elevators in my building. Often engaged by curious elevator passengers, I found myself having to explain the goings on as if I were an embarrassed pet owner. The cello and electronics embody different moments, patternings, and realizations found throughout this process. back to program
Ashley Floyd : Totems Orchestration textbooks often remark that the bassoon is the most versatile of instruments, proficient in both technical and lyrical styles and possessing a tone which blends with almost any other instrument. Totems takes advantage of all of these characteristics but makes a special point to emphasize the bassoon's ability to blend. The electronic part often mimics the live bassoon, growing from a small, nervous echo of the live bassoon into an aggressive choir of bassoon-ish sound which grapples with and eventually swallows up the live performer. Throughout the piece, the live bassoon struggles to maintain its independence. As part of these struggles the bassoon clutches to its opening sixteenth note motive as a totem while the electronics swirl and evolve around it. Totems was completed in the studios of the Dancz Center for New Music at the University of Georgia. Bassoon samples are courtesy of Cayla Bellamy. back to program
Alex Lough : Assemblage #4 (flicker) The 'Assemblage' series is an ongoing experiment in composing for improvisers. Rather than provide a "score" that prescribes sonic material temporally, the composer instead provides a custom collection of technology and found objects with a specific performer in mind. The form and content of the work is embedded in the limitations and affordances of each technological matrix. The performer realizes the work through improvisational play and discovery, developing and cultivating an intimate relationship with the system.
In Assemblage #4 (flicker) the performer explores the sonic architecture of resonant glass vessels with a custom feedback matrix and audio-reactive LEDs attached to speakers. All sound comes directly from the small speakers and is shaped by the resonant characteristics of the glass vessels; no external amplification is used. back to program
Andrew Noseworthy : Pull Up Pull Up is about the meaning behind vernacular language, specifically slang terms. Many words over time have lost their original meanings or taken on new ones, especially when transmitted orally. When language is manipulated or removed far enough from its original source, it may even take on the form of purely sound to a listener. At what stage does a word become recognized simply by its sound parameters? At a point of complete contextual disconnect or distortion, does language still retain its meaning?. back to program
Megan Elks : Woman Set Free I. Woman Set Free II. The Love You Deserve Woman Set Free is a collection of two songs written for a saxophonist/singer and loop station. The texture is produced by the saxophonist looping material to build chords, establish rhythmic pulse, or offer additional effects. The saxophonist is not required to double as the vocalist, though the piece is written with that intention.
Woman Set Free was largely inspired by my affection for genre-bending artists and indie classical music. My early introductions to music were through church choirs and jam sessions, but I slowly drifted away from singing publicly as I pursued saxophone. I composed woman set free as an opportunity to present some of my favorite styles, and re-approach singing for others. The set contains three songs, with relatively static harmonic progressions and emotionally dense lyrics. It also serves as an exercise in patience, in that the performer must move slowly for the desired feeling to be achieved. The lyrics are comprised from a variety of poems by r.h. Sin. back to program
Leo Chang : Solo for VOCALNORI VOCALNORI is a live performance and improvisation system that amplifies vocal sounds through Korean and Chinese gongs via electronic instruments. VOCALNORI is my attempt at learning about Korean and Chinese gongs in an improper way: through singing. With VOCALNORI, I am seeking a way of connecting with cultural artefacts without touching them; exploring my desire to understand an Asianness and Koreanness that complicates “tradition.”
I am interested in finding varying degrees resonances from VOCALNORI, within and among the limitations the instruments involved impose on one another: My vocal sounds are filtered through, and limited by, the physical properties of the gongs. The gongs are in turn never struck percussively, but electronically stimulated by my voice, as well as being dampened by the transducer that connects my voice to the gongs. The electronic instruments are limited by the capacity of the transducers, which influences their size, shape, volume and frequency range, and determines how much it dampens the gong. back to program
Bios
Bay Area native Dr. Nicholas Vasallo picked up the electric guitar while in high school and formed Antagony, later credited as birthing a popular subgenre of metal music called “deathcore”. A graduate of California State University, East Bay, Vasallo completed his doctorate at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where in 2010 he was given the President’s Dissertation-Year Fellowship Award – the first arts student to receive that honor. Other honors include the American Prize, International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition, MACRO composition award, and the San Francisco Choral Artists New Voices award. He has helped make Diablo Valley College “California’s finest community college for music” and a top 10 Music Industry School in California. Dr. Vasallo created the music composition programs at Diablo Valley College and Cal Poly Pomona. He has also taught at UC Santa Cruz, CSU East Bay, and Gavilan College. His students have went on to have successful careers as media composers, concert music composers, and graduate students at prestigious composition programs throughout the Unites States. Dr. Vasallo is the recipient of the San Francisco Classical Voice Music Educator Award 2013. His music is published by Santa Barbara Music Publishers and available on Innova Recordings and Unique Leader. Vasallo is also a passionate martial artist, he practices Jiu Jitsu and teaches Muay Thai Kickboxing at Danville Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, and Kickboxing. He is a CMAT (Certified Martial Arts Teacher), creator, and head instructor of the Muay Thai program at Global Martial Arts University. He lives in Danville, CA with his wife, Denise, and their two children: Madison and Lucas. back to programDuo Charango, half Ciyadh Wells, half Jamie Monck, is a guitar duo aimed at challenging the notion of what a “classical” guitar duo can be. Ciyadh and Jamie unofficially formed while the pair was studying at the University of Louisville, where they received coachings from Dr. Fred Speck. They officially became Duo Charango in 2018, and gave their first performances in the summer of 2019.
The repertoire Duo Charango explores is part music written for the classical guitar by composers such as Clarice Assad and Eduardo Angulo, part transcriptions of works by Arvo Pärt and Julius Eastman and part works for two electric guitars. One of Duo Charango’s most exciting ventures is their Neoteric Guitar Project, a commissioning project intending to expand the repertoire of the electric guitar duo. The project will be premiered as soon as Coronavirus allows. back to program
Ralph Lewis is a composer whose works seek meeting points between sonorous music and arresting noise, alternative tunings and timbre, and the roles of performer and audience. Lewis’s music has been selected for and presented at festivals and conferences including Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), SCI National Conference, International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR), Boston Microtonal Society, College Music Society, SCI National Student Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, MOXsonic, N_SEME, Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp, CHIME Festival, New Music on the Point, Thirsty Ears Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Etchings Festival, and the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival, as well as on radio broadcasts throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Currently a doctoral candidate at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he also works with All Score Urbana, a community engagement composition workshop.
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A native of Norwalk, Connecticut, Stephen Marotto has received a Bachelors degree with honors from the University of Connecticut, and Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Boston University. Stephen’s formative teachers include Michael Reynolds, Kangho Lee, Marc Johnson, and Rhonda Rider. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Stephen plays regularly with groups such as Sound Icon, Callithumpian Consort, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and also performs on various new music concert series in the Boston area and beyond. Stephen has attended music festivals at the Banff Centre, Cortona Sessions for New Music and SoundSCAPE festival in Italy, and the and the Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. Stephen has a wide range of musical interest that include contemporary chamber music, improvisatory music, and electroacoustic music. As a soloist, Stephen has commissioned several new works for the instrument, and is concerned with expanding and augmenting the tonal pallet of his instrument both with and without technology. Stephen can be heard as a featured artist on Mode Records. In his spare time, Stephen is an avid hiker and outdoorsman. back to program
Ashley Floyd (b.1982) is a Georgia based composer and music educator. His works have been performed across the United States and Europe, by musicians and ensembles such as the Lydian String Quartet, Bent Frequency, flutist Angela Jones-Reus, and the East Coast Composers Ensemble. Recent notable performances of his music occurred at the World Saxophone Congress, the Charlotte New Music Festival, and the SoundNOW Atlanta Festival. In 2019, his concerto for alto sax and wind band was named a finalist for the American Prize. He has received additional awards and commissions from the Southeastern Composers League, Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity, as well as school and community bands and ensembles. Floyd earned his DMA in music education at the University of Georgia where he was awarded the John Corina Scholarship in Composition. He holds degrees in composition from Brandeis University (MFA) and the University of Georgia (BMus). His instructors have included such composers as Leonard V. Ball, Adrian Childs, David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, and Yu-Hui Chang. back to program
Andrew Stephens is in his second year at the University of Georgia pursuing a doctoral degree in bassoon performance. He enjoys a wide range of music (from jazz to progressive metal) and spent a large portion of his masters at the University of Kansas studying the work of Radiohead. Andrew is a huge proponent of new music and is excited for any opportunities to perform new pieces for small chamber ensembles and is always active in expanding the bassoon repertoire. back to program
Alex Lough is a composer, performer, and sound artist. His work focuses on implementing experimental technology in order to discover new performance contexts with particular attention given to the body and the physicality of sound. His research is primarily concerned with the new taxonomic distinction of "performed electronics" and embodied performance practices as an electronicist. He is currently a PhD candidate at UC Irvine in the Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology program where he studies with Mari Kimura, Nicole Mitchell, Simon Penny, and Chris Dobrian. back to program
The work of composer-guitarist-arranger Andrew Noseworthy (he/him/his) reflects upon the acceptance/rejection of “locality,” drawing from experiences while living in Labrador West, St John's(Newfoundland) and New York City. His music aims to address the contextual space and dissemination for underrepresented musical voices. With composer/guitarist Aeryn Santillan, he is the co-founder of experimental hardcore duo this place is actually the worst and DIY label people | place | records, both projects that connect communities existing on the fringes of “new music” and “hardcore/electronic” realms. Andrew’s multifaceted work also includes collaborations with performers/organizations such as Contact (Toronto), Evan Ziporyn, Tim Brady/Bradyworks, Andrea Lodge and Din of Shadows, choreographers/dancers/filmmakers Angie Moon, Abraham Texidor and Norberto Collazo, and composers Yaz Lancaster, Saman Shahi and Bekah Simms. Andrew's previous mentors include Michael Gordon and Andrew Staniland. He is currently a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Western University, studying with Paul Frehner. back to program
Saxophonist Nick Suosso enjoys a career as a performer, educator, and clinician in Northern Colorado. A dedicated performer, Nick has presented solo and chamber recitals at the Mostly Modern Festival, Penn State Single Reed Summit, Music by Women Festival at the Mississippi University for Women, and the New England Saxophone Festival. An advocate for new music, Mr. Suosso has premiered works by Guggenheim Fellow Felipe Salles and Christine Delphine Hedden and been a commissioning member of works by Gillian Rae Perry, Shelley Washington, and Andrew Noseworthy. As a clinician he has led clinics across New England and Colorado. His mentors include Jonathan Hulting-Cohen and Nathan Jorgensen. back to program
Megan Elks is a saxophonist and composer currently based in Austin, Texas. She is pursuing a MM Performance at the University of Texas at Austin, with a certificate in Arts and Cultural Management and Entrepreneurship. Megan is an avid performer, and was recently featured in the world premiere of Roger Briggs’s Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Wind Ensemble with the University of Texas Wind Ensemble. She has performed at conferences including the 2017 and 2020 US Navy Band Symposiums, the 2020 Society of Composers Inc. Conference, (Region VI) the 2017 North American Saxophone Alliance Region VI Conference, and the 2018 NASA Biennial Conference. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where she completed a BM Performance in the spring of 2019. Her teachers include Taimur Sullivan, Dr. Connie Frigo, and Dr. Stephen Page. back to program
Leo Chang is a composer, improviser, and performer currently living in New York. Born in Seoul, Leo lived as an expat in Singapore, Taipei, and ultimately, Shanghai during his formative years. The tensions between assimilation, rootlessness, and constructing decolonial identity inform his artistic practice and research. Leo’s work currently emphasizes graphic and text-based scores, free and structured improvisation, electroacoustic composition and instrument-building, ritualized group performances, and cross-media installations. Leo strives to make music with people with disparate trainings and backgrounds: from ensembles, other experimental musicians and artists, to students, friends, children, or anyone who is curious enough to work with him in a creative capacity. Leo has presented his music and research at various conferences and festivals: notably the Ostrava Days New Music Festival, International Computer Music Conference, the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States National Conference, and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. back to program