SPLICE Institute 2022 Participant Concert 4 Program
featuring
SPLICE Ensemble
Sam Wells, trumpet
Keith Kirchoff, piano
Adam Vidiksis, percussion
Saturday July 2, 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)
Shawna Wolf: Red (2022)
SPLICE Ensemble with Dana Jessen, bassoon and Shawna Wolf, oboe
Ian Whillock: knot (2022)
Dana Jessen, bassoon
Sierra Wojtczack: Reflections on Wandering Fragments (2022)
SPLICE Ensemble
Marcin Pączkowski: Stretch it! (2022)
SPLICE Ensemble with Savannah Gentry, flute
Rachael Smith: Speak (2022)
Dana Jessen, bassoon; Micki Wadsworth, voice
Sarah Wald: Distorted Cogs (2022)
SPLICE Ensemble
Marcel Castro-Lima: Calunga (2022)
SPLICE Ensemble
Notes
Shawna Wolf: RedOften, we associate Red with anger or passion, overlooking the color's place in serene moments. My inspiration for this piece comes from flitting birds, fall leaves rustling in trees, fiery sunsets igniting the sky, small evening campfires, deep red auroras, and slow sunrises that melt the night away.
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Ian Whillock: knot
knot draws upon Argentinian artist Catalina Chervin’s “Darkness series”. In this collection, dense, black backgrounds of pen, pencil and charcoal, slowly morph into organic, lifelike textures. The knotted, tightly woven textures seem to shift and grow the longer one observes her works. In my work, a series of drones gradually become more texturized as the piece unfolds. The textures emerge from the natural mechanical properties of the bassoon, including be multi-phonic beatings, single key trills, idiomatic tremolos, and more. The electronics enhance the textures through processed, resyntheziezed bassoon samples and improvisations from no-input mixing providing the main source materials.
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Sierra Wojtczack: Reflections on Wandering Fragments
This piece seeks to capture several of my musical interests, both recent and established. These interests include live electronics, aleatory, graphic scores, rhythmic play, and Filipino percussion. The fixed media in this work was primarily made using samples of Filipino percussion instruments recorded by Susie Ibarra, whose global music studies have inspired me greatly. Many of the melodic and rhythmic motives I composed are derived from some of these samples and seek to expand them beyond their established keys/rhythmic patterns. The resulting music creates a variety of results ranging from floaty lines to organized chaos.
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Marcin Pączkowski: Stretch it!
In this piece I was interested in exploring the concepts of repetition and synchronicity in the context of chamber music. I am fascinated by interactions between musicians playing together, whether they perform music that’s written out, improvised, or that combines these approaches. The tension between performing together and independently is used as a structural backdrop for exploring the sonic textures which inspired the name of the piece – the sounds that are stretched in time. This transformation of live sound amplifies the trajectory towards spectrally inspired harmony. The live electronics part of the piece was realized in the SuperCollider environment. The piece was written for the SPLICE ensemble with support from the University of Washington’s DXARTS department.
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Rachael Smith: Speak
This piece pulls inspiration from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. In his preface Shaw claims that “lower class” people were ruining the English language and the English stage. This is in direct contrast with the two main characters Liza and Dr. Higgins. Higgins spends the play transforming the way Liza speaks in order to turn her into an upper class woman. His plan backfires when he realizes that Liza is not merely her voice and her appearance. This piece seeks to explore the overlap and the contrast of voice and identity by using a speak and spell as the primary electronic material. The bassoon and voice interact with the recording as both one instrument and three separate entities with the goal of blurring the lines between the presentation of the self and real identity.
“The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.” -George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion - Preface
LIZA: “Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn the machine on. It’s got no feelings to hurt.”
HIGGINS: “I can’t turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion - Act V"
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Sarah Wald: Distorted Cogs
Distorted Cogs draws its melodic and harmonic material from two alternating, dissonant chords. The piece is characterized by frequent repetition and motoric passages on the one hand, and by changing tempi, an asymmetrical groove, and quasi-aleatoric sections on the other. The visual component serves to amplify all of these musical elements.
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Marcel Castro-Lima: Calunga
Calunga, a Bantu word that translates literally to 'sea,' is the spirit that represents the force of nature, the sea, and death in Afro-Brazilian religions. It also names the black doll carried prominently in Maracatu parades, whose music this piece pays tribute to.
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Bios
SPLICE Ensemble is a trumpet, piano, and percussion trio focused on cultivating a canon of electroacoustic chamber music. Called a “sonic foodfight” by Jazz Weekly, SPLICE Ensemble works with composers and performers on performance practice techniques for collaboration and integrating electronics into a traditional performance space, and they were recently awarded a Chamber Music America grant for a commission of a new 25-minute work with composer Caroline Miller. The resident ensemble of both SPLICE Institute and SPLICE Festival, SPLICE Ensemble has been a featured ensemble at M Woods in Beijing, SEAMUS, the Electroacoustic Barn Dance, SCI National, Electronic Music Midwest, and New Music Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music 10. They have recorded on both the SEAMUS and Parma Labels.back to program