Program Notes and Bios

Program Notes and Bios for The Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble’s 12/4 concert:

Robert Fleisher • “I Speak of New Cities and New People” from Prairie

Robert Fleisher is professor of music at Northern Illinois University (DeKalb). His music has been performed in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and throughout the USA; recordings appear on Centaur and Capstone.

Program Note for “I Speak of New Cities and New People”: This selection is from a collection of Sandburg settings for soprano and piano, included on the new Society of Composers CD, Portraits (Capstone).

Alan Shockley • cold springs branch, 10 p.m. from Warm Springs, Georgia

Raised in Warm Springs, Georgia (population <475), Alan Shockley holds degrees in composition and theory from the University of Georgia, The Ohio State University, and Princeton University (Ph.D.). He’s held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Centro Studi Ligure, and the Virginia Center for the Arts, among others. These days his works are often experiments in musical form–attempts at tailoring the form to the material, resulting in a unique shape for each piece, and hopefully one that “works” in a strange and individual way. He’s currently Assistant Professor of Composition/Theory in the Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach

Program Note for cold springs branch, 10 p.m.: This selection is from a series of character pieces for solo piano. The pieces were composed in Athens, Georgia in 1991, and several movements were subsequently revised in Whitewater, Wisconsin in 1996. I conceived of these miniatures as snapshots—tiny stills of images of my minute hometown. But they’re faulty memories, false Kinderszenen from a misremembered childhood. Partially this is because they contain compositional “artifacts” having been written by a young composer trying his hand at elements of various musical languages. This falseness is also caused by the quantizing nature of memory itself—remembering is by its nature fictionalizing; we fill the gaps with our imaginations.

Martin Schmid • leaving

Martin Schmid was born 1971 in Switzerland, where he lives with his wife and his two sons. After retreating into silence for more than ten years to find his own style of music, he chose the year 2008 to go public with his work. In America, his music has been performed by the New York Miniaturist Ensemble.

Program Note for leaving: In leaving, you find the theme of light and darkness for example in the simple fact that a soprano, a light voice, sings a relatively dark text. The sounds of the piano add a dark background, while the few “normal” piano sounds are like sudden appearances of light

Andrián Pertout • Ein Deutches Engima

Andrián Pertout was born in Santiago, Chile, 17 October, 1963, and lived in Gorizia, Northern Italy for several years before finally settling in Melbourne, Australia in 1972. In 2007, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at the University of Melbourne on Tweddle Trust, Australian Postgraduate and Melbourne Research scholarships, studying composition under the guidance of Brenton Broadstock. Composition awards include the Dorian Le Gallienne Composition Prize, Betty Amsden Award, Louisville Orchestra Prize (USA), Oare String Orchestra Judges’ and Audience Prize (UK), Michelle Morrow Memorial Award, and the Zavod Jazz/Classical Fusion Award. He is currently the Australian delegate of the ACL (Asian Composers’ League), secretary of the Melbourne Composers’ League, Honorary Fellow at the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne and on the Board of Directors at the AMC (Australian Music Centre).

Program Note for Ein Deutsches Enigma: Ein Deutsches Enigma or A German Enigma is a musical portrayal of the tragic story of Kaspar Hauser, and within its confined melodic space of Giuseppe Verdi’s Scala Enigmatica, as well as the brevity of the adventure presented by the very nature of its miniature form, attempts to travel the psychological byways of Kaspar’s inner being. The cautious first steps become increasingly daring, and on the surface, the arrival to higher ground deceptively radiates stability, although behind the façade is actual instability and emotional turmoil. His enormous vulnerability is then ultimately manifested in the last pizzicato passage (a timbral variation on a fragment of the opening theme), where Kasper Hauser is yet again dealt the black card of life.

Otto Muller • Et in Arcadia Ego

Otto Muller (b. 1981) is a young American composer whose concert music and collaborative media projects draw a heavily mediated expressivity from the structural integration of referential materials. He received his PhD in Composition from the University at Buffalo (SUNY), where studied with David Felder as a Presidential Fellow; other teachers have included Amnon Wolman, Azio Corghi, Amy Williams and Jay Alan Yim. A summa cum laude graduate from Northwestern University (2003), Muller has also attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy (2006) and the Zvuk i Vryska (Sound and Relation) festival in Sofia, Bulgaria (2007), and has received awards and accolades including the 2007 BMI Student Composer Award.

Program Note for Et in Arcadia Ego: Et in Arcadia Ego for solo violoncello has been performed in Buffalo, NY (2005), Siena, Italy (2006) and Sofia, Bulgaria (2007). It is a collection of miniatures (all under 100 notes) and an epilogue (which is not). Every miniature is a different approach to or attitude on mortality (thus leaning toward the darker side of the spectrum). The fragments or miniatures can be played in isolation if one or two strike your fancy or as a suite.

Reynold Simpson • Carousing in Sin

Reynold Simpson teaches music composition and theory at the Conservatory of Music and Dance of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Juilliard, and Princeton University where he studied with Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, and Morris Moshe Cotel. His music has been played by various ensembles, including the American Brass Quintet, the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Ear Play, and the American Composer’s Orchestra.

Program Note for Carousing in Sin: Carousing in Sin is an expression of my thoughts and feelings when reading the following poem by Stephen Crane:

I stood upon a high place

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

One looked up, grinning,

And said, “Comrade! Brother!”

Lansing McLoskey • lux.5

Lansing McLoskey came to the world of composition via a somewhat unorthodox route. The proverbial “Three B’s” for him were not Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, but rather The Beatles, Bauhaus and Black Flag. His first experiences at writing music were not exercises in counterpoint, but as the guitarist and songwriter for punk rock bands in San Francisco in the early 1980’s. It was actually through these years in the visceral world of punk that he first developed a love for classical music (but that’s another story). Since then he’s received over two dozen national & international awards and dozens of commissions and grants, including from the N.E.A., Fromm Foundation, Meet The Composer, ASCAP, the Barlow Endowment, and many others. Yadda yadda. His music is released on Albany, Wergo Schallplatten, Capstone, and Tantara Records.

Program Note for lux.5: lux.5 was originally written for solo piano (under the title lux, meaning “light”) and was subsequently recorded and released on Tantara Records (An audio sample is available here). lux.5 is a version orchestrated for violin, viola, 2 cellos, and bass, especially for the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble.The piece was written to accompany a painting by New York painter Steven Moore, called corner grid. To see the painting, follow this link and scroll down.

Eric Malmquist • The Clouds Are Made of Yellow and White

Eric Malmquist is a young composer who has moved from his small hometown to live, study, perform and compose in Chicago, Illinois. Currently pursuing an M.M. in Composition at Roosevelt University, he received his B.M. in Composition from Illinois Wesleyan University. He is a founding member of the Chicago-based Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles (SEMC) New Music Trio, performing on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as composing for the ensemble.

Program Note for The Clouds Are Made of Yellow and White: The title is enough for me.

Eduardo Vinuela • The Days are Dark and Dreary

Eduardo Vinuela Gomez was born in Mexico City, Mexico, where he attended the Course of Contemporary Music at the Superior School of Music. He has been developing a technique of composition with the use of mathematical theories like theory of groups, theory of graphs and Lattices and topology. His music has been performed by the Faculty of the National University of Mexico, the French Institute for Latin America, the J. S. Bach Academy of Music, Palace of Fine Arts of Mexico City, Museum of the Moving Image in New York City, and by the New York Miniaturist Ensemble.

Program Note for The Days Are Dark and Dreary: The work explores the “dark” through Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s text by and the instruments, while the soprano tries to find the “light” with an ascending chant. Each time the soprano develops her chant, it is interrupted by the instruments. At the end, the soprano makes a descending chant, vanishing in the dark

Yehuda Yannay • Nächtliche Stunde (Hours of the Night)

Yehuda Yannay is a composer, conductor and visual media artist. Yehuda Yannay retired in 2004 from his position of Professor of Composition at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. There, he was founder of the Music From Almost Yesterday concert series at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, now celebrating 37 years of new music performances. A winner of international and national composition awards, Yannay served as guest-professor at the Staatliche Hochschulen für Musik in Stuttgart and Hamburg. Yannay is a prolific and versatile composer, conductor, film maker, and performance artist whose list of more than a 120 works include music for orchestra, electronic, live electronic and synthesizer pieces, environmental compositions, film, music-theater, and a large body of vocal and chamber music pieces. Considered an international figure in contemporary music, his contributions to new ideas in 20th century music are listed in articles, textbooks and encyclopedias of music. His music is recorded on Innova, Electronic Music Foundation, Albany and Vienna Modern Masters CDs.

Program Notes for Nächtliche Stunde (Hours of the Night)

The Hour of the Night
A nocturnal hour passes me by
as I consider, weigh and ponder,
this night is already yonder.
Outside a bird announces: it is day
A nocturnal hour passes me by
as I consider, weigh and ponder,
this winter is already yonder.
Outside a bird announces: it is spring

A nocturnal hour passes me by
as I consider, weigh and ponder,
this life is already yonder.
Outside a bird announces: it is death
– Karl Kraus (Translation by the composer)

I encountered this poem by Karl Kraus (1874-1936), the most prominent public intellectual in Vienna in the first third of the last century. He was a journalist, satirist, playwright, critic and the publisher of a widely read independent magazine critical of the culture and politics of the declining Habsburg Empire. I encountered this poem while I was recovering from a life-threatening illness. It had, naturally, an immediate emotional resonance with me. Later, I discovered that this poem was set to music by Ernst Krenek (my former teacher) and Eugen Auerbach, a prominent Viennese cabaret pianist and composer, who performed in Kraus’ public readings and solo theatrical performances.

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst • shade

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst received a BM in horn performance from Ithaca College and completed the A.M. and Ph.D. in music composition at the University of Chicago. Her principal composition teachers have been Shulamit Ran, Marta Ptaszynska, Greg Woodward and Dana Wilson. Her music has been performed at numerous festivals and conferences, including a Summer 2007 residency as an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center of the Arts. Michelle’s work has been performed by such ensembles as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Old Bridge Chamber Orchestra, the Pacifica String Quartet, eighth blackbird and the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. Her work …sky is falling in… for flute, horn and percussion was recently released by horn player Kent Leslie on his CD With every leaf, a miracle. She has taught at the University of Chicago, Oberlin Conservatory and Concordia University (River Forest, IL), and is currently on the faculty of Daley College in Chicago. Michelle is a founding member of the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble and has has received several ASCAPlus Grants. Her work is published by JOMAR Press.

Program note for shade: While thinking about the “chiaroscuro” theme we established for this concert, I began to think about alternative interpretations. Because musicians often refer to lightness or darkness with reference to timbre, the idea of writing a piece dealing with subtle timbral shadings appealed to me. The wordless soprano line plays with phonemes which serve to brighten or darken the vocal timbre, while the string players concern themselves with subtle shifts in vibrato and bowings.

Tom Peterson • Postcard

Tom Peterson is a composer, conductor and performer from Phoenix, Arizona, now studying at the Royal College of Music in London. Last summer he studied with Martin Bresnick at the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium and with Brian Hulse at the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival in Cortona, Italy. Both festivals saw performances of his piano work, Sonatina. His work for organ, Ballade won the 2007 Beethoven Club Composition Contest and was featured at the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival in Memphis, and the ASU Symphony Orchestra premiered his work, Monolith, as the winner of the ASU Orchestral Competition. In 2006, he was the only undergraduate invited to have work performed at the Society of Composers National Conference in San Antonia, and his work has thrice been selected for AMEA’s Young Composers Concerts.

Program Note for Postcard: I wrote Postcard as a going-away present for a friend who was joining the touring fiddling group, Barrage. As such, I tried to weave some fiddling influences into this short-fused, energetic piece.

Luca Vanneschi • Microscore 3

Luca Vanneschi (b. 1962 in Montepulciano) received a diploma in flute at the “Morlacchi” Conservatory of Music in Perugia, where he studied under Roberto Fabbriciani. He then studied composition with Detlev Glanert, Carlo Alberto Neri, David Graham, and Dinu Ghezzo. He has written many works for orchestra, chamber groups and soloists, as well as music for theatre scenes, sound tracks, and musical commentaries for TV and radio programs. His music had been performed in Italy, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxemburg, Moldova, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Peru, Canada and the United States of America, and broadcast by RAI (Italy), BBC (Great Britain) and ZDF (Germany). His recordings are featured on such labels as Agenda, Athena Records, CENNY, LGNM Editions and Pentaphon. Mr. Vanneschi has been composing the music for the plays put on by the “Compagnia del Teatro Povero di Monticchiello” since 1991. Mr. Vanneschi has received numerous international awards for his compositions. He was elected Fellow of the North American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.

Program Note for Microscore 3: Coming Soon!

David Heinick • Scherzolinetto

David Heinick was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1954. At age four, he began piano study with his father; subsequent piano teachers included Peter Carpenter, Wilbur Hollman, and Barry Snyder. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Catholic University of America. His composition teachers were Samuel Adler, Wayne Barlow, Warren Benson, Joseph Schwantner, and G. Thaddeus Jones. Heinick is a professor of composition and theory at the Crane School of Music of SUNY-Potsdam, where he has taught since 1989. He is the composer of over sixty works for a variety of media, ranging from unaccompanied flute to symphony orchestra; these include fifteen commissioned works. His music is published by SeeSaw Music, Dorn Publications, Nichols Music, and Kendor Music; it has been performed throughout the United States, and broadcast on National Public Radio and the CBC. His Shakespeare Songs appear on the compact disc Noises, Sounds, and Strange Airs on the Clique Track label, and his Sonata for cello and piano is forthcoming on an Albany Records CD.

Program Note for Scherzolinetto: It shouldn’t take longer to read a program note than to listen to the piece it describes. Scherzolinetto is a wee little scherzo. Please read quickly.

Philip Tietze • There’s a Certain Slant of Light

Philip Tietze is Professor of Viola and Director of String Chamber Music Studies at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Previously, he has taught on the faculties at West Virginia University and Wichita State University. He has performed solo recitals and appeared in chamber music concerts in venues across the country, including the Phillips Collection Recital Series in Washington, D.C., the University of Michigan, the Cincinnati Conservatory, and the University of Texas at Austin. He has also enjoyed a distinguished career as an orchestral musician, having been a member of the Denver Symphony, Wichita Symphony, The American Sinfonietta, and the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra. As a composer, Mr. Tietze is committed to expanding the literature for viola through the composition of solo and chamber music works for that instrument. Two of his recent works for solo viola have been selected for feature review in the next edition of the Journal of the American Viola Society, and one of those works, Yamim Noraim, Reflection for Solo Viola, will be published in that edition.

Program Note for There’s a Certain Slant of Light: Based on a poem by Emily Dickinson, the piece is meant to be performed in the style of a recitative, with a certain flexibility and rubato in the tempo. The singer is meant to deliver the text in a sort of declamatory fashion typical of baroque and classical period opera, with the viola providing the instrumental punctuation in the form of melodic fragments and double stopping. For the definition of a “note”, I am utilizing the following parameters. Each vocalized syllable constitutes a single note. However, if the same pitch is repeated over three or more syllables, that fragment of the music is to be considered as a single “note”. This being a recitative, the music in the viola part serves more as an accompaniment to the vocal line; specifically, a harmonic accompaniment. I interpret all the melodic fragments that constitute most of the viola part as being melodic spellings of chordal harmonies, and I am considering these “chords” as single notes. Therefore, using this guideline, I am (admittedly very loosely) interpreting every entrance of the viola part in the piece to be a single note event. Within these parameters, the piece consists of exactly eight nine “notes”!

Claudio Gabriele • Selections from L’âge de la Lune
II. Dans six mille ans
V. L’âge de la lune
VII. Etoile filante

Claudio Gabriele completed his studies at Conservatory “Santa Cecilia” in Rome, where he obtained degrees on Composition, Electroacoustic Music, Conducting, Piano, Organ, Harpsichord and Gregorian Chant. In 2003, he won First Prize in the International Electroacoustic Music Contest “Musica Nova” of Prague with the composition Ombra nell’azzurro. His music for solo, ensemble, large symphony orchestra and musical theatre is performed worldwide by leading musicians. Gabriele is currently Professor of Composition, Analysis and Electroacoustic Music in the Department of Music and New Technologies at the State Conservatory of Benevento (Italy).

Program Note for L’age de la lune: This series of miniatures for piano is inspired by several naïf and imaginative haiku, kind of short poems from old Japanese literature, written in the XVII century by important authors, like Basho, Issa, Shiki. “The age of the moon? I would say 13 years old, more or less.” (Kobayashi Issa). Music is a mirror of these intense and concise images.

Alexander Nohai-Seaman • Night Songs

Alexander Nohai-Seaman is currently an Instructor of Music at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island, where he teaches Music Theory and directs the SCCC Contemporary Music Ensemble. Alex previously taught at Carroll University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His 53’ Requiem on a text of Rilke, for soprano and chamber orchestra, was premiered in March 2007 in Madison, WI. The concert served as a fundraiser for Face AIDS, an international non-profit organization, for which he raised over $2000 to support the construction of an AIDS treatment clinic in sub-Saharan Africa. His works are regularly performed at national and regional conferences of the Society of Composers, the College Music Society, and at new music festivals throughout the United States. Alexander’s compositions have also recently been performed by the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble, the Third Chair Chamber Players, sopranos Mimmi Fulmer and Elaine Niu, and ensembles at Rice University, Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Iowa Center for New Music, and the University of Minnesota among others. Alexander holds a DMA in Composition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied with Stephen Dembski, Laura Schwendinger, Joel Naumann, David Brackett, and Fred Thayer.

Night Songs was composed for Soprano Elaine Niu in October 2008. Each of the five songs are miniatures using 100 or fewer notes. The texts are my English translations of the work of some of my favorite German poets: Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Georg Trakl. The first song, Night Song and the last, On the Edge of an Old Water borrow harmonic materials from one another. The second song, Nearness, is a canon, which continually descends. The long static chords of Silence are offset by the nervous energy of Nocturnal Beeches.

Simon Hutchinson • Through Frozen Fields

Simon Hutchinson is an American composer pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Hutchinson’s portfolio spans several genres, and many of his works integrate music of different styles and cultures, informed by his studies of jazz and the indigenous musics of Japan and Korea.

Program Note for Through Frozen Fields: “Through frozen fields, moving slowly on horseback, my shadow creeps by.” – Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

Andrew Helberg • Pure Light

Andrew Helberg is an Australian composer living in South Korea. A self-taught composer, he has had a life-long interest in writing music, and has had a number of works premiered in Australia. He also has a keen interest in Asian language and cultures. Currently he is working as a middle-school English teacher, and composers much of his music between classes.

Program Note for Pure Light: Pure Light is a simple miniature constructed from three sources: (1) a text by Chinese poet Li Po (701-762 A.D.), translated into Vietnamese, (2) the six tones of the Vietnamese language, and (3) the word “Light” expressed in Morse code. The text was taken from Li Po’s poem Bathed and Washed:
Knowing the world
fears what is too pure,
The wisest man
prizes and stores Light!”

These words are spoken in English, and sun in Vietnamese. There are six tones in Vietnamese, and the melody was devised by following the tonal patterns of the Vietnamese text. The rhythmic patterns of the piano part are based on the Morse code spelling of the word “light”.

David Drexler • Lux Aeterna

David Drexler‘s music has been performed on three continents by groups such as L’Ensemble Portique, The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Synchronia, Sound-The Alarm!, The Dutch Tuba Quartet, the May in Miami Festival, and the EmergOrchestra, and has been broadcast on Wisconsin Public Radio and many new-music radio shows around the country. He has received grants and commissions from the Oakwood Chamber Players, Music St. Croix, the Madison Chapter of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, the Wisconsin Arts Board, and others. His work Liberal Media was recorded by the Oakwood Chamber Players and appears on their CD Scenes.

Program Note for Lux Aeterna: Perhaps the shortest piece on this evening’s concert, this miniature consists of a single line of text: “Lux Aeterna luceat eis” (“Let eternal light shine upon them”). The text is rendered in a tender chant-like fashion by the soprano and is counterbalanced by dramatic outbursts in the piano.

Ray Leslee • A Work of Art

Ray Leslee received the 2008 Fellowship in Music Composition from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His music for the theatre has been produced by Playwrights Horizons in New York, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Shubert Organization, The Vienna Chamber Opera, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Kennedy Center, The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, The New Haven Symphony Orchestra and many others.

Program Note for A Work of Art: This miniature sets a quote from George Inness, who was born in 1825 in Newburgh, NY and began his career as a Hudson River School painter. His own late paintings were not literal transcriptions of nature but evocations of spiritual truth. Inness’s appreciation of paint as a vehicle for personal, complex emotional expression was years ahead of its time. His work has been considered a precursor to the painterly, process-oriented art of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Even though considered one of the greatest painters of the 19th century, his great regret was that he was limited to paint. “If only I could paint it without paint!” was his lament.

The following is a list of program notes and bios from our September 2008 concert.

Paul Burnell • Kiss

Paul Burnell was born in 1960, Ystrad, South Wales and now lives and writes in London, UK. His music often utilises relentless repetition and pulse within a structure that can be easily perceived as a process. Sometimes humour and spoken word elements are featured in his pieces.

Program Note for Kiss: “Keep it simple.”

Chiayu • “Ox” from Twelve Signs

Chiayu was born in Banciao, Taiwan. She was the winner of the 7th USA International Harp Composition Competition, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Awards, the Maxfield Parrish Composition Contest, the Renée B. Fisher Foundation Composer Awards among others. Her work has been performed by Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and Prism Quartet. Prior to entering Duke University, she studied at Yale University School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Program Note for “Ox” from 12 Signs: ” ‘Ox’ is the second movement of my solo viola piece, 12 Signs. The whole piece is based on the Chinese Zodiac, which is a cycle of twelve years. In Chinese astrology, the twelve animal signs represent twelve different types of personalities and the full piece has twelve movements which correspond to each sign. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, followed by the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar. Although the twelve animals have their own characteristics, they can be classified into four trines based on thematic similarities. The animals of the second trine, the Ox, Snake, and Rooster, are described as philosophical, patient and meditative. These three movements will be characterized by a freer tempo and more abstract tonality. The piece also incorporates various timbres and techniques which correspond to the five elements of the Chinese Astrology.”

Jana Cole • September

Jana Cole is a native Californian, attended U.C. Berkeley where she studied theory, and eventually earned her M.A. in Traditional Composition and Piano Performance from New York University. She has previously written music for numerous short films. Her music activities since have been focused on music education, teaching classroom music in the San Francisco Bay Area and teaching piano privately.

Program Note for September: “This bit of music has been lying hidden and dormant, unwritten, for many years. Why it was born now and not sooner is unclear, but certainly, for the composer it is the first episode of a new style and approach which should prove to be worth the wait. Smooth, long melodic lines, subtle changes in color and gently accentuated rhythm characterize this episode.”

David Drexler • Tiny Cheesehead Music Under the Stars

David Drexler‘s music has been performed on three continents by groups such as L’Ensemble Portique, The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Synchronia, Sound–The Alarm!, The Dutch Tuba Quartet, the May in Miami Festival, and the EmergOrchestra, and has been broadcast on Wisconsin Public Radio and many new-music radio shows around the country. He has received grants and commissions from the Oakwood Chamber Players, Music St. Croix, the Madison Chapter of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, the Wisconsin Arts Board, and others. His work Liberal Media was recorded by the Oakwood Chamber Players and appears on their CD Scenes.

Program Note for Tiny Cheesehead Music Under the Stars: David Drexler continues his Tiny Cheesehead Music series with a piece written specifically for Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble. In this enigmatic piece, a soloistic viola line emerges from the shimmering texture of string harmonics.

James Falzone • I Love Beauty Truth Wisdom

Chicago based clarinetist, composer and improviser James Falzone’s diverse career, which includes a graduate degree from New England Conservatory’s innovative Contemporary Improvisation Department, exists at the intersection of a multitude of musical styles and traditions. His current projects include his own ensembles Allos Musica and Klang as well as performances with the acclaimed French music ensemble Le Bon Vent and Dutch saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra’s Flatlands Collective. James is on faculty at Columbia College Chicago where he teaches courses in New Millennium Studies and Music and has presented workshops at institutions across the US, Canada and Europe.

Program Note for I Love Beauty Truth Wisdom: “When put through the following classical numerological table, the phrase I Love Beauty Truth Wisdom comes to equal 100 (9+3645+251327+29328+591464).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A B C D E F G H I

J K L M N O P Q R

S T U V W X Y Z

My piece, structured in five movements, is intended as one flowing narrative, held together by lingering sound. The individual movements reflect their namesake in both mood and sum, containing the prescribed number of pitches corresponding to the schemata above (nine in I, eighteen in Love, etc.) Thus, at the conclusion of the piece, exactly 100 notes will have sounded (the ten pitches of Beauty each have a corresponding harmonic).

Note: Stealing being the ultimate form of flattery, I would be remiss in not pointing out hints in the pitch material of I Love Beauty Truth Wisdom of a tone-row and its manifestations composed by my friend Ken Vandermark in his tune Swiss Logic.

Frank Felice • “Strange”, from Two Quarks

A composer of many styles and genres, Frank Felice’s works have been performed extensively in the U.S. as well as garnering performances in Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation, Austria, the Phillipines, the Czech Republic and Hungary. His commissions have included funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Omaha Symphony, the Indiana Arts Commission, The Indiana Repertory Theatre, Dance Kaleidoscope, Music Teachers National Association, the Wyoming State Arts Board, the Indianapolis Youth Symphony, Kappa Kappa Psi/Tau Beta Sigma as well as many private commissions. A recording of electronic and electro-acoustic music entitled “Sidewalk Music” is available on Capstone Records. Scores and other performance materials can be obtained from MMB Music or Mad Italian Bros. Ink Publishing. Frank currently teaches as an associate professor of composition, theory and electronic music at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. In addition to musical interests, he pursues his creative muse through painting, poetry, cooking, home brewing, paleontology, theology, disc golf and basketball. He is very fortunate to be married to mezzo-soprano Mitzi Westra.

Program Note for “Strange” from Two Quarks: “Wondering what all of the ballyhoo was about, one summer I purchased and read a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. The book was fascinating: an overview of some of the most current views on quantum physics told in a manner that even laypersons like composers can read and understand it! What struck me the most was that a bunch of scientists got together once upon a time and decided to name the smallest subatomic particles ‘Quarks.’

It’s fitting that the word originates from Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, because they went on to name the separate quarks: Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Top and Bottom. (And you thought that scientists were all serious people!)

These short pieces for violin grew out of what were going to be character pieces for piano. They retain the same characteristics as the original piano counterparts, though some idiomatic violin writing crept in and modified the originals a bit. I later transcribed them for viola, and they’ve become more popular in this version than any of the previous ones. Violists rock.”

Robert Fleisher • Rondo
Robert Fleisher is professor of music at Northern Illinois University (DeKalb). His music has been performed in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and throughout the USA; recordings appear on Centaur and Capstone.

Program Note for Rondo: “My Rondo was inspired by a recent call for miniature works issued by Levande Musik, a Swedish ensemble seeking live elevator music to perform during the Gothenberg International Book Fair (coincidentally, also this weekend). Though it is not one of the 11 works selected for that occasion (from the nearly 200 submitted!), my Rondo is very happy to participate in this inaugural concert of the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble.”

Claudio Gabriele: Selections from L’âge de la lune

Claudio Gabriele completed his studies at Conservatory “Santa Cecilia” in Rome, where he obtained degrees in Composition, Electroacoustic Music, Conducting, Piano, Organ, Harpsichord and Gregorian Chant. In 2003, he won First Prize in the International Electroacoustic Music Contest “Musica Nova” of Prague with the composition Ombra nell’azzurro. Gabriele is currently Proessor of Composition, Analysis and Electroacoustic Music in the Department of Music and New Technologies at the State Conservatory of Benevento.

Program Note for L’âge de la lune: “This series of miniatures for piano is inspired by several naïf and imaginative haiku, kind of short poems from old Japanese literature, written in the XVII century by important authors, like Basho, Issa, Shiki. “The age of the moon? I would say 13 years old, more or less.” (Kobayashi Issa). Music is a mirror of these intense and concise images.”

Jason Gregory • A Fiji Minute

Jason Gregory resides in Dekalb, Illinois. He is nearing completion of his undergradute degree in music composition, and hopes to continue composing for the rest of his life. In his city of origin, Virginia Beach, VA, he taught violin for nearly nineteen years. After meeting and marrying his wife Rachel, he came to Northern Illinois University to complete his undergraduate studies.

Program Note for A Fiji Minute: “A Fiji Minute is a reference to a parrolet named Fiji who resides with me and my wife in Dekalb. On one level, this work is a musical description of one small parrot’s ‘way’. On another level, it is a reflection on the intensities of human behavior.”

Ethan Frederick Greene • note-clap

Ethan Frederick Greene was born on October 10, 1982 in South Orange, NJ. He began composing as a young boy, extemporizing new melodies over the Jimi Hendrix songs his brother was learning on the guitar. Ethan holds a B.A. in Music from Amherst College, where he studied with Eric Sawyer, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Composition at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. A student of Kurt Stallmann and Karim Al-Zand, Ethan is interested in intersections—between speech and melody, organic and synthetic sound, art music and popular styles, the sacred and profane—and hopes to one day establish after-school music programs in inner cities.

Program Note for note-clap: “Composed on 8/8/08, note-clap uses each of the 88 keys of the piano once and only once. In addition, the pianist is directed to clap at various points throughout the piece. These claps, which most often coincide with the release of resonating pitches, are intended to grant the pianist a more overt control—albeit somewhat illusory—over her instrument’s natural decay.”

Kyle Gullings • Miniature Symphony 1 in D Major

Kyle Gullings is a versatile composer of stage, vocal, and chamber works. A 2008 ASCAP/SCI Regional Winner, he has received performances at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival and the John Duffy Composers Institute. Mr. Gullings is currently pursuing his DMA in Composition at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where in 2007 he was the first recipient of CUA’s new Stage Music Emphasis masters degree.

Program Note for Miniature Symphony 1 in D Major: “Miniature Symphony 1 in D Major compresses the traditional symphony format into a brief 90 seconds. Precisely 100 notes are sounded among all five instruments through four movements: a nine-measure sonata form, a theme with four variations, a 10-second Scherzo in ABA form, and a swift wisp of a Finale. Many thanks to the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble for hosting this call for scores!”

Ben Hjertmann • lunesleeves

Ben Hjertmann is a Chicago-based composer and performer of new music. He performs as a tenor, on baglama & guitar, and serves as Production Director for The Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles. He has been commissioned and/or performed by The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, The Conservatorium van Amsterdam Gamelan Orchestra, and The Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles. Hjertmann‘s work has also been awarded/selected for The Alicia and Hans Fuchs Scholarship, a grant from the Harry N. and Ruth F. Wyatt Fund, The CHASM Student Composer’s Competition, and The John Wesley Powell Research Conference.

Program Note for lunesleeves: lunesleeves is a short piece (100 notes exactly), scores for solo strings, written specifically for The Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble. For me, the somnolent harmonic resonance combined with the crisp movement in the violin is like a slow breath drank in from a cold pine forest. The piece is about 1’20”.

Simon Hutchinson • “Prayer for Strength” and “Prayer for Joy”, from Prayers

Simon Hutchinson is an American composer pursuing his PhD at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Hutchinson’s portfolio spans several genres, and many of his works integrate music of different styles and cultures, informed by his studies of jazz and the indigenous musics of Japan and Korea.

Program Note for Prayers: These brief duets for violin and viola reflect the composer’s diverse musical influences. We were struck by their refreshing immediacy.

Shigeru Kan-no • Mini Work VII, WVE-258a

Shigeru Kan-no is a composer and conductor in Fukushima, Japan who has studied with such luminaries as Helmuth Rilling and Helmut Lachenmann. A prolific composer, Kan-no has written for a wide range of genres, including film scores, electronic music, symphonies and opera.

Program Note for Mini Work VII, WVE-258a: This pointillistic work consists of exactly 100 notes. A twelve-tone row is cycles through the work eight times, and there are four “noise notes”. Fans of symmetry will enjoy the fact that the work is also arranged into a perfect palindrome.

Steve Kornicki • Horizontal Color Forms No. 22

Composer and musician Steve Kornicki has been involved in many aspects of the music business since 1985. He has composed concert pieces for orchestra and chamber ensembles and for electronic, jazz and commercial media. His concert pieces have been performed throughout the United States and several of these pieces have been published. He has arranged for instruments and voices, and his original music has been produced on numerous CDs since 1991. Steve’s music has been featured on television around the world (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Mexico and Canada), on International Public Radio as well as on radio stations in the U.S., Europe and Japan. He has also scored music for film, video, theater, music libraries and various media productions. His orchestral piece, “Morning Star Rising”, was recorded by the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and released in 2005 on the international CD label, ERM Media.

Program Note for Horizontal Color Forms No. 22: “This work’s four parts consist of sustained pitches in repeating patterns. The rhythms and dynamics are exactly the same in the four parts, measure by measure, throughout the duration of the work with changes only in the pitch structure.”

Keeril Makan • mu

Keeril Makan writes music that challenges description and thwarts assumptions about what is beautiful. His commissions include ones from the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Kronos Quartet, the Paul Dresher Ensemble and Carnegie Hall. He has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP. Makan’s work has been featured at the Other Mind Festival in San Francisco and the MATA Festival in Nework, and internationally at the Gaudeamus Festival in the Netherlands, Le Domaine Forget in Canada, and Voix Nouvelles in France. The first CD of his music, In Sound, was released on the Tzdik label in June 2008 with performances by the Kronos Quartet and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. Current projects include commissions from the Calidornia EAR Unit and the American Composers Orchestra with electric guitarist Seth Josel.

Program Note for mu: This brief work for solo violin explores the unexpected timbres created by “preparing” the violin strings with paper clips.

Mark Mantel • Piece for Peace

Mark Mantel (b. 1961 in Milwaukee, WI), got his Ph. D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo. David Felder, Burt Levy, and Lejaren Hiller were his primary composition teachers. In addition, his contact with Morton Feldman at SUNY Buffalo has had a significant influence on his musical thought. Mantel’s music explores the creation and layering of dense musical materials derived from physical models, text-driven and real-time live electronic elements, “found-objects”, theatre and theatrical elements. Significantly, the works of many writers and painters serve as points of departure in much of his music as an attempt to explore artistic processes closely associated with other disciplines. Improvisation, formally, spontaneously, and structurally, play a substantive role in defining his music.

Program Note for Piece for Peace: “ I am indebted to the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble for their inclusion of this work on their program. It is a work of relevance and meaning, even in its brevity. It was originally written for filmmaker Rebecca Glottfelty for her documentary film involving the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, as a gift to the musicians in the West Bank. I understand it was played on all sorts of indigenous instruments; I wish I had been there! Subsequently, we have performed it a number of times, always in conjunction with a Peace activity, or Green event. It was also performed in conjunction with the Daniel Pearl Harmony for Humanity worldwide musical celebration during my time in Petoskey. All performances are different, vibrant, and exciting!”

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst • skulk

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst received a BM in horn performance from Ithaca College and completed the A.M. and Ph.D. in music composition at the University of Chicago. Her principal composition teachers have been Shulamit Ran, Marta Ptaszynska, Greg Woodward and Dana Wilson. Her music has been performed at numerous festivals and conferences, including a Summer 2007 residency as an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center of the Arts. Michelle’s work has been performed by such ensembles as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Pacifica String Quartet, eighth blackbird and the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. Her work …sky is falling in… for flute, horn and percussion was recently released by horn player Kent Leslie on his CD With every leaf, a miracle. She has taught at the University of Chicago, Oberlin Conservatory and Concordia University (River Forest, IL), and is currently on the faculty of Daley College in Chicago. Michelle is a founding member of the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble and has has received the ASCAPlus Grant for four consecutive years. Her work is published by JOMAR Press.

Program Note for skulk: “Like many ideas worth remembering, the opening gestures of skulk came to me in the shower in the days leading up to our finalizing the program for this first concert of the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble. My main goals of this piece were to create a musical equivalent to the sideways glance I get from my dog when I scold him; and to feature ensemble member Andrew Harmon, whose bass stylings needed just one more workout to balance this concert.”

Timothy Melbinger • V., from Delicacies

Timothy Melbinger lives with his wife and children in Altoona, Pennsylvania. His music can be heard on Centaur, Albany and Nine Winds Records. Performances throughout the United States have featured such ensembles as Speculum Musicae, Alea III, the Radius Ensemble, Time’s Arrow and Auros Group for New Music, and soloists Ingrid Gordon, Andrey Kasparov and Joanna Kurkowicz. His accolades include an Aaron Copland Award, Alea III Competition finalist, a Massachusetts Music Teachers Association commission, an SCI commission and a California Octagon Prize. He earned a Ph.D. in composition/theory at Brandeis University, where he studied with Martin Boykan, David Rakowski and Yehudi Wyner. He also holds degrees from the University of California at Irvine. He has taught a variety of music courses at Harvard, Boston and Brandeis Universities, Providence College, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Program Note for Delicacies: “This work was completed in the summer of 2005 at my home in Natick, Massachusetts. An ad hoc trio of Biliana Voutchkova, Mark Berger and Ivan Lalev gave the premiere at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in May of ’06. It is cast in twelve short movements, lasting only 10 minutes. I wrote the piece in response to a call for scores from the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, who only play works of 100 notes or less. Each movement is exactly 100 notes (not counting trills or tremolos). What I hoped to accomplish was not 12 fragments or just beginnings, but 12 complete pieces of varying affect, color and length. Perhaps as a result of these restrictions in place, compositional process was one of my most focused and enjoyable of my career.”

Jean Milew • Long Days, Short Years

Jean Milew holds a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Chicago and has taught previously at the University of Chicago, Concordia University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Program Note for Long Days, Short Years: “The way time passes while raising children…”

David Morneau • Chicago Miniaturist Blues

David Morneau does not compose his music with a ‘poetic power’ that emphatically discharges from his work enchanting you in a hallucinogenic state of borderline exaltation. He does not intensely attempt to infuse symbolism into his work and shows no melodic motivation whatsoever. This is not David. So you ask, “Well, then what does this so-called proclaimed musical talent propose to do?”

David is a composer of an entirely undecided genre. He works in a variety of media and has an affinity for creative collaboration. Among his diverse projects are A/Break:1 – an experimental music video for choreographer Amiti Perry, The Rhythm Variations – 12 variations on Gershwin for solo piano (winner of the 2004 Ruth Friscoe Prize in Composition), and The Clone Zone—a video game inspired dance theater collaboration with Anna Sullivan of Anatomical Scenario (winner of the Greater Columbus Arts Council 2008 Artist Excellence Award). David recently completed 60×365, a year-long podcast project for which he composed a new one-minute piece every day.

Program Note for Chicago Miniaturist Blues: “There are two things that come to my mind when I think about Chicago: pizza and blues. A little cliché perhaps, but I have only visited Chicago four times in my life, and only once spent the night there. My firsthand knowledge of this great city is unfortunately limited. These were the thoughts that came to mind while considering what to compose in celebration of the founding of the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble. I chose the blues for this piece. Being limited to 100 notes meant giving only an impression of this music, rather like my impression of Chicago itself.”

Adam Neal • Arachnida

Adam Scott Neal (b. 1981) is from Atlanta. He has two degrees from Georgia State University and is finishing one from Queen’s University Belfast.

Program Note for Arachnida: “This piece was written using probability: the notes of a C minor triad occur more often than the other diatonic notes in C Minor, which in turn occur more often than the non-diatonic notes. It is pizzicato throughout, sounding somewhat like spiders…”

Stephanie Pieczynski • Nervous

Bio and notes coming soon!

Nolan Stolz • The Summons

Nolan Stolz’s compositions have been performed in Europe, Canada and throughout the United States, including performances at the Extensible Electric Guitar Festival, Electroacoustic Juke Joint, Oregon Bach Festival, Music Today Festival, Las Vegas Music Festival and the Las Vegas International New Music Festival. His miniatures have been performed by the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Vancouver Miniaturist Ensemble, NEXTET (Las Vegas), Matrix Music Collaborators (New York), flutist Alisa Willis and cellist Katie Kennedy. Violinist Laura Martin (Cleveland Chamber Orchestra), the esteemed Yale Brass Trio, Synchronix (Las Vegas) and Fireworks Ensemble (New York) have performed his music. Stolz teaches private lessons to first-year composition majors at The Hartt School, where he is pursuing a doctorate in composition and theory. His previous composition teachers include Virko Baley, Robert Carl, David Crumb, Robert Kyr and Larry Alan Smith. As a drummer, Stolz appears on several commercial recordings, one of which includes several jazz legends such as Ron Carter, Phil Woods and Monty Alexander.

Program Note for The Summons: “This piece is a summer nocturne for solo cello interrupted by a knocking at the gate. The work is based on a haiku by Kyoroku: ‘Banked fires; night grows late –/then comes a rapping/at the gate.’ ”

Anne-Marie Turcotte • IV. from Cinque frammenti su Nuage gris

Anne-Marie Turcotte was born in Milan and studied Piano, Composition, Choral music at the “G. Verdi” Conservatoire of Milan. She has been a prize winner in national and international composition competitions, and her music has been performed by such orchestras as Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Milano Classica. She has served as Professor of Harmony and Counterpoint at Conservatoires of Music of Verona, Bari, Cuneo, Roma, Avellino, Milano, Palermo.

Program Note for Cinque frammenti su Nuage gris: The Cinque frammenti su Nuages gris for solo viola was composed for a technical purpose, the rapid shift from one musical figure and sonority to another. Each piece displays different kind of technical peculiarity of the instrument, and thus they are to be played as short études de sonorité. They are independent from one another and can be played separately. Each frammento is a variation of the main theme of the Liszt piano piece Nuages gris, to which is referred the title of the work.
Christopher Wicks • Ruminations

Christopher M. Wicks holds a M. Mus. in Composition from the University of Montreal and a M.Mus. in Organ from the University of Oregon in Eugene. He has composed five published works, with two more publications pending, and his compositions have been heard on such radio programs as WFMT-Chicago’s Music Through the Night and the evening programming of Portland Oregon’s “All Classical” station. His music has been chosen in calls for scores by the Washington Composers’ Forum; the Contemporary Music Orchestra in Daegu, South Korea; and five conferences of the Society of Composers, Inc.

Program Note for Ruminations for Solo Cello: “This work corresponds to the musings of a peaceful soul on a pensive day The governing pitch principle is the pentatonic scale, often transposed in a way which transcends a tonal center.”