SPLICE Institute 2022 Concert 2 Program
featuring
Pianist Vicki Ray
Tuesday June 28, 2022
7:30pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)
download program pdf (does not include notes/bios)
Fay Wang : Parabiosis (2018)
Seth Shafer/Martin Herman : Blue Sky Catastrophe (2020)
Ben Phelps : Sometimes I Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long (2018)
with Adam Vidiksis, crotales
Notes
Fay Wang : ParabiosisParabiosis refers to the anatomical joining of two individuals, and is inspired by artist couples who create and perform together, and influence each other. If references such couples as Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Bjork and Matthew Barney, and also my personal and artistic life with my husband. The piano and the tape are like two individuals tangled around each other, growing and changing together into single, new unit. The piece reflects one’s life together, starting from a simple figure, adding elements, textures, and layers to create a twin body, and building up to a colossal life form that connects with a chaotic world.
back to program
Seth Shafer/Martin Herman : Blue Sky Catastrophe
Blue Sky Catastrophe for piano, live computer processing, and 8 channel sound, is based on performer-driven generative musical processes. Musical phrases are algorithmically generated live by the computer and the performer is asked to sight read them. The computer then assesses the performance and generates the next phrase of music for the pianist – either more or less difficult based on the pianist’s performance. The pianist is asked to read the music accurately while also being given latitude to influence the computer’s musical decisions and pace. Therefore, the score of the work is entirely performer-driven, different in every performance. The computer is set up to react not only to accuracy but also to aspects of the playing that will control live generated electronics such as harmonic attractors and spatialization. The performer and computer are engaged in a feedback loop that explores degrees of stability, periodicity, non-periodicity, mirco-tuning, and quirky, chaotic potential.
back to program
Ben Phelps : Sometimes I Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long
Sometimes I Feel Like My Time Ain't Long is an exponentially expanding, time- stretched set of variations. The solo piano accompanies a wax cylinder recording from the Alan Lomax collection of American Folk Music held at the Library of Congress. The source material is a simple gospel tune sung a cappella. What begins as a 20 second verse is eventually stretched into a 15 minute movement. As the original recording is stretched over longer and longer periods of time, what originally sounded as a single note becomes complex multitudes of pitches. We start to notice all the microtonal imperfections in the original performance: the tension between the microtonal complexity of the vocal lines and fixed equal-temperament of the piano are explored, as is our very perception of musical time.
back to program
Bios
Vicki Ray
Described as “phenomenal and fearless,” Grammy nominated pianist Vicki Ray is a leading interpreter of contemporary piano music. Known for thoughtful and innovative programming which seeks to redefine the piano recital in the 21st century, Vicki’s concerts often include electronics, video, recitation and improvisation. As noted by Alan Rich, “Vicki plans programs with a knack for marvelous freeform artistry…what she draws from her piano always relates in wondrous ways to the senses.” As a founding member of Piano Spheres, an acclaimed series dedicated to exploring the less familiar realms of the solo piano repertoire, her playing has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for “displaying that kind of musical thoroughness and technical panache that puts a composer’s thoughts directly before the listener.As a pianist who excels in a wide range of styles Vicki Ray’s numerous recordings cover everything from the premiere release of the Reich You Are Variations to the semi-improvised structures of Wadada Leo Smith, from the elegant serialism of Mel Powell to the austere beauty of Morton Feldman’s Crippled Symmetries. Recent releases include David Rosenboom’s Twilight Language on Tzadik Records and Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet with the Eclipse Quartet on Bridge Records. Her 2013 recording of Cage’s The Ten Thousand Things on the Microfest label was nominated for a Grammy.
Ms. Ray’s work as a collaborative artist has been extremely diverse and colorful. She was the keyboardist in the California E.A.R. Unit and Xtet. Her chamber music contributions to the vibrant musical life in greater Los Angeles include frequent performances on the Dilijan, Jacaranda and Green Umbrella Series. She performs regularly on the venerable Monday Evening Concert series and was featured in Grisey’s Vortex Temporum on the 2006 celebration of the re-birth of the series. Vicki has been heard in major solo roles with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the German ensemble Compania, and the Blue Rider Ensemble of Toronto, with whom she made the first Canadian recording of Pierrot Lunaire.
She is currently head of the piano department at the California Institute of the Arts, where she has been on the faculty since 1991. In 2010 she was awarded the first Hal Blaine Chair in Music Performance. For the past eight years she has served on the faculty at the Bang on a Can summer festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
For current information on upcoming concerts please go to: vickiray.net/concerts
Vicki Ray is a Steinway Artist.
back to program
Composer and performer Fay Wang’s work spans and draws on a variety of genres, including avant-garde concert music, theater, film, electronic music, Chinese folk music and indie pop. She is hailed as "rebellious” and “creative” by China Daily. Her music is described as “rambunctious and rocklike” by New York Times, and “mysterious”, “unusual”, “the great spirit and sense of rhythm” by European media. Wang is one of the co-founders of New York based composer/performer ensemble Invisible Anatomy, and has served as co-producer and composer on the RiteNow project. Wang holds degrees from the Central Conservatory of Music (BA '08) and the Yale School of Music (MM '10 / AD ’12) where she received the Ezra Laderman Prize and John Day Jackson Prize. She is a visiting professor at the Academy of Music in Krakow. Musikverlag Doblinger, Vienna publishes several of Wang’s pieces. Her music has been broadcast on China Central Television, Austrian National Broadcast and WQXR of New York.
back to program
Seth Shafer is a composer and researcher whose work hybridizes technology, new media, and art/science, with a specific focus on real-time notation, interactive music, and algorithmic art. Recent performances include the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2021 International Computer Music Conference (Santiago, Chile), 2021 New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2021 Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (Hamburg, Germany), 2021 SEAMUS Conference (Virginia), 2020 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (Montreal), 2019 Omaha Under the Radar Festival, Stonewall at 50 at La Mama (NY), 2018 Sound and Music Computing Conference (Limassol, Cyprus), and the 2015 Shanghai Conservatory Electronic Music Week (China). His sound installations have been shown at Kaneko (Omaha), the Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas), Long Beach Museum of Art’s Pacific Standard Time Exhibit, and the Long Beach Soundwalk. Seth is Assistant Professor of Music Technology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and he holds degrees from the University of North Texas and California State University, Long Beach.
As a performer, Seth plays live electronics and tuba, founded and directed several experimental technology-centric ensembles, and played in popular acts including a performance on the Grammy-winning Vampire Weekend album Modern Vampires of the City.
back to program
Martin Herman is a composer whose work explores algorithmic music with a particular interest in non-linearity, feedback, bifurcation and emergent form in live performer/computer interaction. Having explored non-linear feedback mappings in his music for some time, his recent work applies these principles to musical form and spatialization of sound in live performance. His acoustic and electronic works have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, most recently at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2021), Seoul Performing Arts Festival (2020), LaMaMa Theatre New York City (2019), and at conferences such as the 2021 Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation, Hamburg, Germany, and the 2020 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, Montreal, Canada. He has received fellowships, residencies, grants and commissions from the Camargo Foundation, Valparaiso Foundation, the Sanskriti Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Fulbright Program. Martin is Professor of Music Composition and Electronic Music in the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach. He holds degrees from Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, and UC Berkeley.
back to program
Called "feisty" and "impressive" by LA Times, Ben Phelps is a an active composer, percussionist, and founder of things. His music has been called "enchanting" (LA Weekly), "a riot" (LA Times), and has been praised for his "nuanced irony" (The Artificialist) and "Hindemithian seriousness" (LA Times). He is a managing director of What’s Next?, a leading post-classical new music event and performance collective in Southern California, and has performed and collaborated extensively with many of the country's leading composers and new-music musicians. In addition to championing experimental and ground-breaking music, he enjoyed a long collaborative partnership with multimedia puppeteering company Rogue Artists Ensemble, and has traveled the world as an assistant conductor to Lord of the Rings Live. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he is also an amateur satirist and urban planning enthusiast.
back to program
Adam Vidiksis is a drummer and composer based in Philadelphia who explores social structures, science, and the intersection of humankind with the machines we build. His music examines technological systems as artifacts of human culture, acutely revealed in the slippery area where these spaces meet and overlap—a place of friction, growth, and decay. Vidiksis is a sought-after champion of new works for percussion and electronics, performing as a featured artist in venues around the world. Vidiksis’s music has won numerous awards and grants, including recognition from the Society of Composers, Incorporated, the American Composers Forum, New Music USA, National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, and ASCAP. His works are available through HoneyRock Publishing, EMPiRE, New Focus, PARMA, and SEAMUS Records. Vidiksis recently served as composer in residence for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and was selected by the NEA and Japan-US Friendship Commission, serving as Director of Arts Technology for a performance of a new work during the 2020 Olympics in Japan. Vidiksis is Assistant Professor of music technology at Temple University and President of SPLICE Music. He performs in SPLICE Ensemble and the Transonic Orchestra, conducts Ensemble N_JP, and directs the Boyer College Electroacoustic Ensemble Project (BEEP). [www.vidiksis.com]
back to program