SPLICE Institute 2023 Participant Concert 4 Program
featuring
SPLICE Ensemble
Sam Wells, trumpet
Keith Kirchoff, piano
Adam Vidiksis, percussion
Saturday July 1, 2023
7:30pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
(NOTE: the first piece on the program will be in the Multimedia Room)
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)
download program pdf (does not include notes/bios)
NOTE: the pdf does not reflect the final concert order
In the Multimedia Room:
Colton Arnold : Journey (2023)
Myra Hinrichs, violin; Colton Arnold, electronics
In Dalton Recital Hall:
Susanna Payne-Passmore : I sing water into the root-hairs (2023)
Dana Jessen, bassoon
JURAKHAN : CITY YOU (2023)
Kathryn Sloat, harp; JURAKHAN, electronics & vocals; Poem by Mark Bias
Ethan Chambers : I'll Be (2023)
Dana Jessen, bassoon and Alexey Logunov, piano
Per Bloland : Los murmullitos (2018)
Alexey Logunov, piano
Thomas Rodriguez : sand clock.... (2023)
SPLICE Ensemble and Kathryn Sloat, harp
Neda Nadim : Singularity (2023)
SPLICE Ensemble
Maura Drinkert : For Felix (2023)
SPLICE Ensemble and Pilar Flores, soprano
Ashlin Hunter : dawn place (2023)
SPLICE Ensemble
Notes
Colton Arnold : JourneyGoing up and down is how every journey goes. The path is never going to be easy, it's not always smooth, and sometimes it'll hurt. But there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
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Susanna Payne-Passmore : I sing water into the root-hairs
The title of this piece comes from Wendy Battin's poem "Frog. Little Eden”. In this poem, she invokes the tree frog as a sort of ethereal water shaman, willing moisture up from the soil into the topmost branches with its song. Of course, the tree frog’s “song” is a raucous affair, perhaps not-so-songlike to us. And while this power to call water with the voice may seem unlikely, so does the tree frog's ability to be at ease among radically different habitats, from pond to shore to airy forest canopy. What else can we learn from one who sings with unselfconscious abandon and inhabits different spaces with such fluidity?
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Per Bloland : Los murmullitos
Los murmullitos, for piano and electronics, is based on a highly influential novel from the 1950s: Pedro Páramo, by the Mexican author Juan Rulfo. The electronics for this piece were generated using a physical model of the Electro-Magnetically Prepared Piano – a device consisting of a rack of twelve electromagnets that can be installed on the frame of any grand piano. The EMPP is somewhat like an EBow in that the electromagnets cause the strings to vibrate. However, because the electromagnets receive audio signals from a computer, there is a much higher degree sonic variability. The physical model of this device, called the Induction Connection, was developed during an Artistic Research Residency at IRCAM in Paris. The Induction Connection is currently built into IRCAM’s software Modalys.
The novel Pedro Páramo is the surreal tale of a man’s return to the town in which his parents lived, long after that town has fallen into decay. Comala is now populated more heavily by the dead than the living, and exists in a blurred twilight realm in which such distinctions are meaningless. The descriptions of the environment are exceptionally vivid, often invoking the four elements to transition between the past and the present, and between the living and the dead. The original title of the novel was Los murmullos, a reflection of the murmuring and whispering of the dead heard at various points throughout. Contrary to the gentle implications of the word, it is the intensity of these murmurs that overwhelms and suffocates the protagonist just over half way through the narrative.
Los murmullitos is dedicated to Keith Kirchoff.
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JURAKHAN : CITY YOU
CITY YOU
A bit gray today.
Hard to sit still. I used to sing and loved
the way these streets moved.
I used to love, you know. So sure
the way it moved and came through
the cracks like air. I bit the gray off the day
and couldn’t sit still.
Now it’s coming through the cracks as
color like all good music. But stings this time. It used to sting
when it moved through me like air. I used to be one
with the noise. The fire and crackle all the same.
But I cracked open
and what fell out wasn’t love but music.
A bit gray, you’d say, the streets bustling with song.
The air singing. I used to know love. I used to sit still and watch
something like fire. What parts it touched and
what colors it made. But all music turns to air.
All good music becomes noise, fire turns gray. I used to love the way
these streets moved. The music they made.
- Mark Bias
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Ethan Chambers : I'll Be
I started writing I'll Be at a point in my life where much of what I had come to see as normal was changing, and changing beyond my control. Throughout writing this piece, I've come to experience this sensation more and more, leading me to explore further what it means to me to be changing; if things can be so steady and then change so quickly, what will I, or any of us, be five or ten years from now? I've been learning to tell myself that I can just be, that I can just live, but it's hard to listen sometimes.
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Thomas Rodriguez : sand clock....
sand clock.... is inspired by a hike I took in the millenia-old Tolleston Dunes of Indiana Dunes National Park, and is also inspired by ideas of time being both a linear continuum of instant moments and a measure of duration. The music attempts to synthesize these inspirations by presenting moments of repeated aleatoric musical cells, interspersed by more deliberate non-aleatoric sections of music. The sand component of the piece is up to interpretation, depending on how much time one has to think about it.
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Ashlin Hunter : dawn place
dawn place represents a collection of my musical curiosities from the past two years. Since returning to electronic music in 2020 after a several year hiatus, my creative practice has been undergoing a reconciliation and transformation. Writing this piece for the SPLICE Ensemble allowed me to explore several facets of my compositional process, including hybridity and generative processes.
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Maura Drinkert : For Felix
In dedication to Felix Moy (2002-2023), a gifted percussionist from the MSU percussion studio and a wonderful person who is missed by many.
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Neda Nadim : Singularity
Astrophysics and cosmology refer to the singularity as a point where the laws of physics break down at a particular point in space-time. Located at the center of a black hole, it is known as a singularity, where the gravitational forces become infinitely strong and matter is compressed to an infinitesimal point. This point is known as a singularity. The intention of this piece was to create a chaotic atmosphere by creating a dense texture. When it reaches its most chaotic point, there is nothing but peace.
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