SPLICE Institute 2024 Participant Concert 4 Program
Saturday June 29, 2024
7:30pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)
Matt Fountain : L.R.C. Asked Me If I Was Ok Once; Stages Of Acceptance (2024)
SPLICE Ensemble
Kerrith Livengood : Waiting For The Sirens (2024)
Tyler Harper, bassoon
Ethan Chambers : The Wear (2024)
SPLICE Ensemble
Tyler Harper, bassoon
Steve Kemper : Shipherd (2024)
Nik Hooks, bassoon
Jordan Weir, bassoon
Mickie Wadsworth : I am Hypatia of Alexandria (2024)
SPLICE Ensemble
Dana Jessen, bassoon
Mickie Wadsworth, voice
Notes
Matt Fountain : [L.R.C. Asked Me If I Was Ok Once; Stages Of Acceptance
A long time ago, when I was in undergrad at WMU, my private lesson instructor at the time asked me if I was OK. I had presented a piece to her titled “Stages of Rage.” While, yes, I was mostly alright, I think about this interaction often, and how my pieces over the years started to reflect different outlooks I have started to have on life. Self mental health care, coming to terms with aging, coming to terms with where I am at in my life and in my career, and accepting that my path is different than that of my former classmates, colleagues and friends.
I am OK. I’m more than OK. I have a supportive loving family, and amazing friends. I get to make art in one of the coolest cities in the world. This piece is all those thoughts and feelings that I am trying very hard to type out here. I’ll let it speak for itself, I majored in writing music, not words.
Most importantly, I will keep being OK.
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Kerrith Livengood : Waiting For The Sirens
At the heart of Waiting For The Sirens is a field recording of the monthly tornado siren test in Urbana, Illinois (made at the Arboretum on a chilly spring morning). This amateurish field recording creates a virtual sonic space for Dana Jessen, bassoonist, to "do her thing" (in my sketch notes it says in big block letters "LET DANA DO HER THING"), which (I think) is improvising based on score snippets cued by the programming environment and code SuperCollider. There's also live processing on the bassoon in SuperCollider: pitch tracking that generates shifting wind sounds, some weird delay, etc. Later in the piece, the sirens go off. Trust me, you'll notice when that happens.
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Ethan Chambers : The Wear
The Wear was written as an exploration of stasis and chaos. The piece utilizes individual audio-reactive live electronic components for each performer. Much of the electronic materials were inspired by the teachings/tutorials of Taylor Brook and the writings on Max/Msp by Graham Wakefield and Gregory Taylor.
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Steve Kemper : Shipherd
Shipherd is based on ambisonic field recordings from Oberlin’s Shipherd Circle
neighborhood. Having recently moved from suburban New Jersey to rural Ohio, I
was interested in how this change in soundscape would impact my experience of
place. Two sounds were the most notable: my neighbors’ goats, which evoked the
pastoral landscape I had always associated with Oberlin, and the loud mechanical
hum of a methane recycling plant that opened a month after I moved to town, which did not.
Shipherd begins with natural ambience recorded in my backyard, followed by the bassoons providing a “spectral” accompaniment to the methane plant’s drone. This is followed by a minimalistic-pastoral quotation from Mussorgsky’s art song The Goat, which transitions into the sounds of goats clomping around. Finally, the listener is immersed in a surround sound recording of goat bleating echoed by bassoons.
Shipherd is the fourth work in my Rhythmanalysis series for acoustic instruments and field recordings. Philosopher Henri Lefebvre developed the concept of Rhythmanalysis to analyze how the periodic sounds of urban spaces relate to the experience of a place.
Special thanks to bassoonists Dana Jessen and Drew Pattison, as well as Erin and
Jesse Jones for letting me record their goats.
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Mickie Wadsworth : I am Hypatia of Alexandria
I am Hypatia of Alexandria honors a forgotten historical figure whose startling achievements and life have been lost in history. Hypatia of Alexandria was taught the sciences by her father at a young age. She quickly surpassed her teachers and went on to make several discoveries, including a more efficient form of long division. She was a neoplatonist, believing that music, math, astrology, and the universe were interconnected. She was highly respected at the time of her life with many traveling across Europe to learn from her genius. She was an incredibly remarkable person during her time, and should be common knowledge today. Eventually due to miscommunication and hasty actions of a government official, she was brutally murdered by a christian mob. None of her original words, teachings, or documents, have survived the trials of time. The only evidence of her existence are writings of her former students, or justifications of her murder by the church. The poetry for this piece honors and gives voice to Hypatia of Alexandria. It exposes and allows us to mourn the fact that even the most remarkable marginalized people are often forgotten from written western history. The poetry for this piece is written by Canadian poet Angela Rebrec.
You have forgotten
Ξεχάσαμε (We forgot)
I can only teach you
if you remember
Ξεχάσαμε (We forgot)
Truth is a point of view
and so
is changeable
I influenced the thought of our times
and yet…
…και ακόμη (…and yet)
I failed
to influence
the times that have followed
Aπέτυχα (I failed)
You have forgotten
my teachings
forgotten
the sound of my voice
Nα θυμάστε (Remember)
Truth is changaeble
…και ακόμη, (…and yet)
you can only learn
if you remember
Aπέτυχα (I failed)
Remember me
because
I failed to impress
eternity
Είμαι η Υπατία της Αλεξάνδρειας (I am Hypatia of Alexandria)
Σε έχουμε ξεχάσει (We have forgotten you)
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Bios
Ethan Chambers is a composer and saxophonist based in Southwest Ohio. He is currently a third-year student at Miami University, where he studies with Dr. Per Bloland and Dr. Eric Sheffield. Ethan loves exploring the world of timbre and sound with his electroacoustic and electronic compositions, drawing heavy influence from themes of identity, nature, love, and addiction. With ties to visual art, he loves spending his time crafting/engraving handwritten scores, using notational explorations to influence composition, and vice versa. Graphic scores, paired with experimental improvisation, is a huge area of interest for him.
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Matt Fountain is a composer and euphonist from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He graduated in May of 2015 from Western Michigan University with a Bachelors of Music Composition, and from Brooklyn College in Spring 2019 with a Masters of Fine Arts in Media Scoring. He has studied with composers Christopher Biggs, Lisa Coons, Jonathan Zalben, and D.D. Jackson.
Matt writes music that combines elements of popular culture, film music, and classical art music, with the goal of creating pieces that are fun for a variety of listeners, and are challenging/enjoyable for performers. This includes a number of chamber works, large ensemble pieces, and chamber works featuring live, and fixed electronics. As a euphonium player, he is a huge advocate for new music for the instrument(especially works featuring electronics) and has written a number of pieces featuring it, in addition to commissioning new works involving the instrument.
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Tyler Harper
Growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, I come from a working class family, far from the world of art and culture. My mind was occupied in curiosity, spending my time learning about space and invested in a track to academia. Space has always provided me with a sense of awe and wonder at the scale and diversity of our universe. Quasars, super massive black holes, millions of billions of stars larger than I can even perceive. The massive nature of our universe and the bodies within it provides me with the closest proximity to apotheosis I can imagine. This drive to find out the nature of the gods propels my creative mind today, pushing me towards a sound that pays homage to the scale of the gods.
My artistic approach employs multimedia and multimodal expression to deepen appreciation for the world's beauty and grandeur. Electroacoustic processing of bassoon and other winds, reactive video, and dynamic performances themed around nature, space, and the built environment constitute my practice. Termed ""landscape music,"" my work explores metaphorical connections between sight and sound, aiming to evoke wonder and curiosity about the mechanisms shaping our world.
In the past year, my focus shifted towards a more accessible and relevant presentation style for classical and electroacoustic performances. I seek to update the traditional concert format, which often alienates audiences with its stringent rules. As the 2024 Artist-in-Residence at the Reef DTLA Galleries, I experiment with unconventional venues and multimedia technologies to bring our artistic presentations into the 21st century. My goal is to break down barriers and make the experience inclusive, especially for those who, like me, come from non-traditional backgrounds.
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Bassoonist Nik Hooks enjoys a varied career as a chamber, orchestra, and solo per-former. As an orchestral bassoonist, Mr. Hooks has performed with such ensembles as Fort Worth Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, The Knights and the Princeton Symphony, throughout renowned venues such as Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, and Boston’s Symphony Hall. Comfortable per-forming a wide range of genres, he has been proud to share the stage with artists such as Sandeep Das, Anthony Roth Constanza, Steven Banks, and The Afield.
Mr. Hooks has had opportunities to train with esteemed pedagogues at major orches-tras, most recently Gina Cuffari, Principal Bassoonist of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He holds a performer’s certificate from the Colburn School and a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory where his teachers included Richards Beene, Ranti, and Svoboda. Additional training from Tom Novak, Ashley Heintzen, and Randy Doo.
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Hailed as a “bassoon virtuoso” (Chicago Reader) and 2023 Cleveland Arts Prize winner, Dana Jessen tirelessly seeks to expand the boundaries of her instrument through original compositions, improvisations, and collaborative work with innovative artists. Over the past decade, she has presented dozens of world premiere performances throughout North America and Europe while maintaining equal footing in the creative music community as an improviser. Her solo performances are almost entirely grounded in electroacoustic composition that highlight her distinct musical language. As a chamber musician, Dana is the co-founder of the contemporary reed quintet Splinter Reeds, and has performed with Alarm Will Sound, Amsterdam’s DOEK Collective, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Tri-Centric Ensemble, among many others. A dedicated educator, Dana teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has presented masterclasses and workshops to a range of students from across the globe. More at: www.danajessen.com
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Composer Kerrith Livengood’s works have been performed at the SEAMUS Conference, KISS 2018, ACO’s SONiC Festival, June in Buffalo, Bargemusic, CCM’s MusicX festivals, the North American Saxophone Alliance annual conference, the Atlantic Music Festival, the Contemporary Undercurrent of Song series, the Cortona Sessions, and Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s Conductors Festival. She has written works for the JACK Quartet, Third Angle Ensemble, Duo Cortona, Altered Sound Duo, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie and pianist Adam Marks, soprano Amy Petrongelli, and the h2 Quartet. Her music features complex grooves, lyricism, noise, and humor. She is also a flutist, drummer, technologist, and improviser, who performs experimental works created by herself and others. She received her doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, and previously taught theory and composition at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). Kerrith is also Assistant Director of the New Music On The Point Festival, a summer festival for young composers and performers. www.kerrithlivengood.com
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Robin Meiksins is a flutist and improviser focused on collaboration with living composers and music performance through the internet. Chicago-based, she uses online media to support and create collaboration, as well as more traditional means of performance. Robin’s biggest creative platform is YouTube. On her channel she is most known for her long term collaborative projects, the first being 365 Days of Flute in 2016-2017. Robin has since completed 5 more long term Youtube projects. Most recently, Robin completed two projects highlighting improvisation and Chicago beer and breweries. Robin has premiered over 200 works written by living composers. In September 2022, she premiered two works for woodwind trio for Arc Project’s “Three Winds” project. She has performed at the SEAMUS national conference, EMM, SPLICE Institute and Festival, and Oh My Ears festival, among others.
Robin holds a masters degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music where she studied with Kate Lukas and Thomas Robertello. Robin received a Bachelors of Music with Distinction from University of Toronto, having studied with Leslie Newman.
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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. 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.
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Mickie Wadsworth is a composer and conductor based in Upstate New York. Much of their work focuses on the human experience, and the complexity of our emotions. Their discography mostly consists of vocal, electro-acoustic, fixed media, and large ensemble pieces. As a musician, they are dedicated to creating a welcoming community that celebrates new music from diverse voices. Outside of being a musician, they spend much of their time hiking in the adirondacks, working at Bitchin’ Donuts (living that barista life), or hanging out with their cat Norma. Mickie is happy to answer both compositional or coffee related questions. They received their M.M. in Composition and their M.M. in Conducting (Wind Track) from Ohio University, and their B.M. in Music Composition from SUNY Fredonia.
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Jordan Weir thrives in the musical community with a curiosity that compels her to explore music of the past, present, and future. Currently an undergraduate studying bassoon performance with Nicolasa Kuster, she is a member of the 28/78 New Music Ensemble, University of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and the University of the Pacific Wind Bands.She has previously performed with the Pacific Repertoire Orchestra, Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra, North County Winds Community Band, and the Folsom Lake Symphony.
From performing works by Vivaldi to Dai Fujikura, Jordan shows an extensive interest in the full spectrum of bassoon repertoire, and is exploring the practices of free improvisation and electroacoustic performance. As part of her contemporary music endeavors, she often collaborates with student composers to perform their works for new audiences.
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