ECU NewMusic Camerata March 17, 2012, 3:00 pm A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall Urban Funk (2011) Britton Theurer (b. LOSI) Britton Theurer, trumpet Signs, Games and Messages (1989-97) (selections) Gyorgy Kurtag (b. 1926) Aria (1996) Kenji Bunch (b. 1973) Ara Gregorian, violin Music for Hi-Hat and Computer (1998) Cort Lippe (b. 1938) Chris Nappi, percussion Luciano Berio (1925-2003) Sequenza VI (1967) Melissa Reardon, viola Serenade for Twelve Instruments (2002) Michael H. Weinstein II]. Allegro (b. 1960) Wind Ensemble Chamber Players Scott Carter, Director Notes on this afternoon’s music Urban Funk is a tribute to my Motor City roots and the time | spent as a student plaving with an R&B/Funk band. Although angular and atonal, tt has several recurring motives and a steady pulse peppered with syncopations and loud; pregnant rests to keep the listener alert. Throughout the introduction, main theme, development, recap, and coda, the trumpet doubles as drummer and “horn” section. Rests highlight the urgency of increasingly wide leaps that seem to pit high and low registers against each other. This is a stylized, slow motion battle that reaches a peak of fragmented motivic and rhythmic intensity before the main theme returns punctuated by longer rests that now 1 2 1 ee . . : 7 serve to defuse the accumulated momentum. This short piece invites bolder listeners to entertain the possibility of an imagined or real desire to dance. —BT Music for Hi-hat and Computer (1998) was commissioned by the American percusstomst ]. Landy Cosgrove, and premtered in Denmark in March of 1998. The electronic part was created at the Hiller Computer Music Studios of the University at Buffalo, New York using the software Max, which was developed by Miller Puckette, whose technical support helped make this piece possible. The computer tracks parameters of the hi-hat, such as pitch, amplitude, continuous pitch change, rests, articulation, timbre, tempi, etc., and uses this information to continuously control and influence all the electronic sounds via compositional and 4 igital synthesis algorithms. lime-stretching, granular sampling, FF T-based cross-synthesis, and analysis /resynthesis using an harmonizing, oscillator bank, as well as more standard signal processing such as phasing, spatialization, etc., are employed. 4 degree of interactivity between tl The intent ts to create a certain he serformer and the computer in which the performer tnluences the computer f { output based on aspects of the musical expressivity of his/her interpretation of the score. Much like chamber music plaving, in which individual expressivity has a fundamental influence on the entire ensemble; the feedback loop between the performer and the computer should have a positive influence on the final musical result. Some of the sounds in the electronic part come directly from the composed hi-hat part, ana are tra nsformed by the computer in real time during the piece. Sound material from other than the hi-hat part ts also manipulated. Thus. in certain cases, the musical and sound materials for the instrumental and electronic parts are one and the same, while at other times the parts differ. This instrument/ machine relationship moves constantly on a continuum between the poles of an extended solo and a duo. Musically, the computer part Is sometimes not separate from the hi-hat part, but serves rather to amplify the hi-hat in multiple dimensions and directions; while at the other extreme of the continuum, the computer part has its own imdependent musical voice. Music for Hi-hat and Computer ts recorded on the ICMA/ICMC 2000 CD Berlin, by J. L. Cosgrove; and by Diego Espinosa and the Electronic Hammer on the EMF label. —CL Sequen za VI for viola, written for a modern soloist in the widest and most responsible sense of the term, is a piece of great virtuosity ( a very indirect homage to Paganint’s Capricc’) where the same basic harmonic sequence ts continuously repeated, developed and transformed. It is a formal study on repetition, on the relationship between often repeated modules and modules appearing only once. In later vears Sequenza VI has also become a mould for other works such as Chemins IT (for viola and nine instruments ) and Chemins IIT (for viola and orchestra), both of which, while keeping intact the solo part, further expand the relevant harmonic characters and articulations of the original piece. Sequenza VI may thus be regarded as the central element of a triple-faced idea. Sequenza V1] was written in 1967 for Walter Trampler. nh The Serenade for 12 Instruments was commissioned by “The Frank L. Battisti 70th Birthday Project,” a consortium of twenty groups brought together by Dr. Frederick Harr of the Massachusetts Institue of Technology in celebration of Franks many contributions to the field of music and especially to the development of the wind ensemble and its ever expanding repertoire. The ptece was completed in February 2002, and was premiered in October, 2002. The work ts traditional in structure with a fast-slow-fast sequence of three movements; The third movement, heard this afternoon, is a Rondo-based form. Most of the melodic and harmonic matertal ts derived from four different 12-note rows which are treated in tonally “referential” manner. The piece Owes its existence to mv life-long love of Dvorak’s Op. 44 Serenade in D minor which | first performed as a student at the Pre-=College Division of the Juilliard School. For many vears I had wanted to compose a companion work to this masterpiece, having been fascinated by the orchestration possibilities of this unigue ensemble. Mv own work is also centered on D, treats the tnstruments in the best “Bohemian” fashion, and in : : ; : its last few measures gives a direct reference to its famous antecedent. —M\ Wind Ensemble Chamber Players Scott Carter, Director OBOE HORN Margret Amy Gabriella Gunther Danielle Wilson Alex Williams Peyton Chadwick CLARINET Wesley Rhodes CELLO Laura Turkal C.J. Collins BASSOON CONTRABASS Christina Rekeibe Chris Buddo Elizabeth Bennett CONTRABASSOON Jenna Franks CD-11918 insert