I performed in this concert as part of Trevor New’s and Bryan Reeder’s String Quartet/Piano Quintet.  Check it out here, applicable quotes below:

The evening kicked off with Trevor New’s “Sloan”, a piece written for string quartet, with a viola soloist. The strikingly surreal and melancholic viola melodies were complemented by a crescendo of rising and uplifting pulses that evolved into a sad and beautiful harmony. “Sloan”, which featured some ambient bow noise and pizzicato violin, elegantly combined influences that spanned several centuries. The inclusion of an electric bass was a unique addition to the traditional string quartet.

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Bryan Reeder’s “Piano Quintet” was an impressive piano piece that featured a string quartet. Reeder conducted his own piece, the complexity of which was apparent in Schoenberg-like leaps in melody and dynamics. The string quartet held together a tight and cohesive ambience, while the piano interlude featured the sparse, spacious, subtle dissonances that gave the composition it’s own distinct flavor.

The project I was working on all spring with my composer collective Circles and Lines and Cadillac Moon Ensemble was reviewed by online publication Feast of Music.

Eric Lemmon’s unfinished version of Canis Major, acelestial saga that combined a broad range of extended techniques and complex rhythms to create both a creepy and beautifully ethereal nebulousness of sound. Flutist Roberta Michel performed her atmospheric effects particularly well (such as circular breathing, whistletones, and slap-tonguing), greatly heightening the piece’s effectiveness.

Circles and Lines is interviewed by Melanie Wong of Feast of Music.

“In preparation for their upcoming concert, composer collective Circles and Lines—Angelica Negron, Eric Lemmon, Dylan Glatthorn, Noam Faingold (via Skype), Conrad Winslow (absent)—and contemporary chamber group Cadillac Moon Ensemble—flutist Roberta Michel, violinist Patti Kilroy, cellist Meaghan Burke, and percussionist Sean Statser—sat down with FoM to discuss contemporary music and their unique collaboration.”

Sheesh, such a busy spring! But exciting, with tons of press!

Tune in tomorrow from 10:00-12:30 to hear Circles and Lines with Cadillac Moon Ensemble! Some of the clips you hear on WRIU 90.3 will be a sneak peak at the program from our upcoming concert Cadillac Moon Ensemble and Circles & Lines: A Friendly Collaboration. May 17th, 5:00PM.

Tune in here:

http://www.wriu.org/listen.html

I’ll be talking about some of the inspirations of my new work Canis Major, and some of the structural considerations that went into the 2nd movement of my 1st String Quartet.  Hope you all can tune in!

Here is the recording of the Live Stream Cadillac Moon and my composers group Circles and Lines put on.  My segment is at the end, and I hope you enjoy!  During the course of the rehearsal, Meaghan (Cadillac’s cellist) asked me why I had chosen to use dashed bar lines in the score.  After the short rehearsal I thought on the question more and I remember that as I had begun to write the movement a|STL: Wormhole.  I imagined it was originally to exposit in a far more free way, much like the very beginning (which you hear).  Time signatures were to be non-existant and gestures were supposed to be quasi-aleatoric in their temporal execution (after all time and space warp in wormholes!).

Eventually though, I found the material that I was bringing in from other movements demanded a more rigid structure for practical purposes.  For example, the fast leggiero section from the last movement would be silly to represent in a dashed bar line setting without time signatures, so I threw in double bar lines to demarcate the major section and put in time signatures to make it easier to read.  It turned out I had to keep returning to this kind of scoring to the point that having dashed bar lines in an attempt to elegantly convey the freeness of the movement and gestures became meaningless.

Live Stream of Cadillac Moon Ensemble and Circles and Lines in Open Rehearsal at NYU, April 14th, 2013 from Circles and Lines on Vimeo.