Bent Frequency presents

Art imitates Life imitates Art

Tuesday, March 22nd, 7:30pm ____ GSU's Kopleff Recital Hall

The program includes:

Transparency by Josh Levine

The View from Dead Horse Point by John Drumheller

Awakeningby David Crumb

Back Jump by Ben Stonaker

A Dangerous Game of Hide and Seek by Hubert Ho

 

Transparency (Part 1) by Josh Levine

___solo percussion

___written in 2004_

_____________________________featuring Stuart Gerber

Notes from the composer

This is the first part of what was to be a four-piece cycle scored for four triangles, bass drum, maracas (absent in Part 1) and sandpaper. The title refers to a line in Octavio Paz's poem "Ustica":

Mortalidad es transparencia ("Mortality is transparency").

The focal point of the cycle is the bass drum. It serves as a site for musical action that often seems to want to transcend the instrument's typical character and limitations. Increasingly the player strives to delineate multiple timbres and musical layers, as if trying to teach the instrument to transform its body, to speak or even sing. The triangles, though at the other end of the piece's timbral spectrum, share the bass drum's persistent sustain and comparatively limited expressive possibilities. They, too, are eventually called on to engage in a more nuanced and "expressive" discourse than their ostensible nature might imply. They can be understood not just as the separate, strongly contrasting voice they appear to be, but also as another facet in the journey of a complex and evolving musical personality.

Transparency (Part 1) was written for the remarkable Aiyun Huang, who gave its first performance in September 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland. The music is lovingly dedicated to my mother, Gloria Levine. As I composed the piece, her mortality was becoming even clearer; her passing, shortly after the premiere of Part 1, in a sense completed the cycle before I had a chance to finish the other movements.

 

 

The View from Dead Horse Point by John Drumheller

___viola and electronics

___written in 2010

_____________________________featuring Tania Maxwell Clements

“The horse stood motionless as a rock. He looked like part of that burnt-out landscape. He looked like the steed of Don Quixote carved out of wood by Giocometti. I could see the blue of the sky between his ribs, through the eye sockets of his skull. Dry, odorless, still and silent, he looked like the idea-without the substance of a horse.”
- Edward Abbey, Desert solitaire

Written for violist Erika Eckert, The View From Dead Horse Point is inspired by the primeval landscapes of the desert southwest. Located northwest of the Island in the Sky area of Canyonlands National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park overlooks views of Arches National Park, the La Sal Mountains, miles of barren slick rock, and the Colorado River as it winds through steep, narrow canyons. In this piece, the sound of the viola is processed in real-time through a computer, using the SuperCollider language, resulting in sounds that are reminiscent of the vivid and psychedelic colors of the desert.

 

Awakening by David Crumb

_ trumpet and percussion

_ written in 2000

__ perf. by Amanda Pepping (trumpet) & Stuart Gerber (percussion)

Notes from the composer

Awakening, commissioned by the Dunn-Pennington Duo, was premiered at the University of Oregon in November 2000. When my colleague, Stephen Dunn, initially approached me about the project, I was immediately intrigued by the potential for dramatic interaction between the trumpet and a variety of percussion instruments. As I began composing, I was not disappointed by the range of expression and color available to my imagination. 
The work begins abruptly with a violent unison statement of the principal motive by trumpet and vibraphone. Out of the resonance, a muted trumpet emerges—a distant, solitary voice, as if from a dream. Eventually, an oscillating, organ-like music enters in the marimba. As this hauntingly beautiful music unfolds, the trumpet’s character transforms, becoming increasingly biting and sarcastic. [There are hints of Stravinsky’s Petrushka in this section.] Once the marimba music fades away, the opening unison gesture reappears, signaling the beginning of the movement proper. A primal, pulsating ostinato is introduced in maracas and tambourine over which the trumpet explodes into wildly ecstatic flourishes of running notes and syncopated gestures. Throughout this section, an intense development of motivic material leads to a point of ultimate climax marked by the trumpet’s arrival on a high “B” over an intense splash of color provided by the vibraphone. As this energy dissipates, the solitary muted trumpet of the opening reemerges. The piece ends with a reprise of the organ-like music over which a soulful melody unfolds.

 

Back Jump by Ben Stonaker

__flute, alto saxophone, and digital media

__written in 2009

__featuring Sarah Ambrose (flute) and Jan Baker (alto saxophone)

Notes from the composer

Backjump was completed in April of 2009 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was written for Dr. Eric Lau, professor of saxophone at the University of New Mexico. The work is for flute, alto saxophone, and digital media (two-channel audio playback) and was inspired by artwork from the Italian street artist known as Blu. When first introduced to his work, I immediately found the large-scale murals of images, figures, and cartoon-like creatures fascinating, somewhat disturbing, and incredibly beautiful. The title of the piece comes directly from the title of one of the artist’s exhibits in Berlin, 2007 – also named Backjump. My goal in this work became the challenge of realizing a sonic environment that would potentially invoke similar reactions and perceptions I had to the strange, unique work of this artist. The piece is divided into three main sections: an introduction that manipulates long tones, quarter tones, and carefully calculated frequencies in the audio part; a middle section that utilizes a relentless, nagging pulse that has an extremely dense climax; a coda that’s reminiscent of a jack-in-the- box under water.

A Dangerous Game of Hide and Seek by Hubert Ho

__soprano sax, trumpet, percussion, and piano

__written in 2006

__led by Robert Ambrose, featuring Jan Baker (soprano sax),

Amanda Pepping (trumpet), Stuart Gerber (percussion), and Peter Marshall (piano)

A Dangerous Game of Hide and Seek was composed in late 2005 to early 2006 at the behest of the 2006 Fulbright Berlin seminar, at which the premiere took place. The piece alternates between the highly structured and playful, as I filter ideas of time and pitch from such American luminaries as Carter and Babbitt. In this piece I also experiment with a type of musical theater which emphasizes the “musical” aspect of scene development.
 
This composition is dedicated to a Prague-resident cat named Nori, with whom I played many pleasurable games of hide and seek when I lived there. As such, I almost envision that the piece begins and ends in media res: “hide and seek” does not begin or end at any specific moment, as the sense of fun and games does not, and should not, ever dissipate from our daily lives.