Teresa McCollough
Hammers and Sticks
Innova 630
Alex Shapiro
At the Abyss
1. Observe
2. Reflect
3. Act
Alvin Singleton
4. Greed Machine
Steve Mackey
5. Busted
Belinda Reynolds
6. Play
Joseph Harchanko
7. Heavy Circles
Zhou Long
8. Wu Ji
1-3.
Alex Shapiro
At the Abyss
As
I composed this music, threatening and violent events throughout the world
offered proof of the fragility of humans and of our planet. Politically.
Ecologically. Ethically. I titled this piece At the Abyss because as members of
a species which remains too savage for its survival, we're staring directly
into a crevasse that is our future. We are poised to plummet to its depths if
we do not react accordingly. Observe. Reflect. Act. My three-step approach to
life... and hope. This work was
written for Teresa McCollough, who recorded my Sonata for Piano so beautifully
and continues to be an inspiration for my muses.
Alex Shapiro (b. NYC, 1962) is a
familiar face in southern CaliforniaÕs new music community, as a well known
composer, activist and event moderator. Published by Activist Music, her works
are heard weekly in concerts and broadcasts across the U.S. and abroad, and can
be found on the Cambria Master Recordings, Innova and Oehms Classics labels.
Educated at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music as a student of
Ursula Mamlok and John Corigliano, Ms. Shapiro has received honors and awards
from The American Music Center, ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Mu Phi
Epsilon, The California Arts Council and The MacDowell Colony, among others.
Alex resides in Malibu and Santa Barbara, California, and when she's not
sailing or exploring the tide pools, she updates her website,
www.alexshapiro.org, with concert information and audio clips of her pieces.
4.
Alvin Singleton
Greed Machine
Greed
Machine is a mysterious, Zen-like work for vibraphone and piano, featuring the
Singleton signatures of extreme contrasts, quiet drama, repetition, and great
economy of means. Long silences follow loud outbursts and long-held chords
alternate with quicksilver scampers. In spite of the relative simplicity of
materials, the composer's obvious joy in playing with and against listener
expectations and his well-known gift for timing render the work highly
suspenseful.
Alvin
Singleton has emerged over the last two decades as one of the most accomplished
and sought-after American composers of symphonic and chamber music. Born in
Brooklyn, New York, he attended New York University and Yale. As a Fulbright
Scholar, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia Nationale di Santa
Cecilia in Rome. After working for more than a decade in Europe, Singleton
returned to the United States to become Composer-in-Residence with the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra (1985-88). He subsequently served as Resident Composer at
Spelman College in Atlanta (1988-91), as UNISYS Composer-in-Residence with the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1996-97), and was the 2002-03 Composer-in-Residence
with the Ritz Chamber Players of Jacksonville, Florida. In addition, he served as Visiting
Professor of Composition at the Yale University School of Music.
His
awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis by the
City of Darmstadt, Germany, twice the Musikprotokoll Kompositionpreis by the
Austrian Radio, the Mayor's Fellowship in the Arts Award by the City of
Atlanta, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Singleton
has composed music for the theater, orchestra, solo instruments, and a variety
of chamber ensembles. His Music is published by European American Music
Corporation and Musica Mista and is recorded on the Albany Records,
Elektra/Nonesuch, and Tzadik labels.
—Carman Moore
5.
Steve Mackey
Busted
Busted
begins by exploring two elements: a loose, relaxed gesture of dropping the
mallets on the drumhead and allowing them to bounce, contrasted with taut,
tense, forceful attacks. These
elements unfold in an odd, bumpy 7/4 time, which flirts with an elusive groove. The forceful attacks gradually take
over with an increasing sense of desperation and "bust" through the
complex patterns to a funky 4/4
groove (albeit with a subtle subtext of "7-ness"). The title first occurred to me when I
felt the need to derail a runaway groove with a police whistle. It also seemed appropriate to the way I
imagined Peggy busting through the drumheads with primal two-fisted attacks.
Steven
Mackey was born in 1956. His first musical passion was playing the electric
guitar in rock bands based in northern California. He later discovered concert
music and has composed for orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance and opera.
Since the mid 1980Õs he has resumed his interest in the electric guitar and
regularly performs his own work, including two concertos as well as numerous
solo and chamber works.
Mackey
is Professor of Music at Princeton University where he teaches composition,
theory, twentieth century music, improvisation and a variety of special topics.
As co-director of the Composers Ensemble at Princeton he coaches and conducts
new work by student composers as well as twentieth century classics.
6.
Belinda Reynolds
Play
Play
is the first work of a suite for pianists Teresa McCollough and Kathleen
SupovŽ. For Play, I applied a process I use in teaching: make up music by
creating words from the music alphabet (A-G). In Play, the musicÕs two opening
themes come from the ÔwordsÕ C_A_B_B_A_G_E , B_E_D, and E_D_G_E. Resulting
variations evolve, with the words dispersing into new forms. Knowing Teresa's love of reading with
her daughter, Emma, I felt this would be a fitting way to create a piece that
reflects both her intellectual appetite and her sense of fun.
Raised
in a Texan Air Force family, Belinda Reynolds now considers herself an 'adopted
native' of California. She is an active composer, organizer, and teacher who
focuses on bringing new music to a variety of audiences and communities.
Her
music has been performed throughout the Americas and Europe by ensembles
including the Da Capo Players, The New Millennium Ensemble, WIREWORKS, ELECTRA,
and Ensemble Rosario. It has also been highlighted at the Spoleto USA Music
Festival, Lincoln CenterÕs Great Performers Series, the Portugal New Music
Festival, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
As
an organizer, Ms. Reynolds is Vice-President of the composersÕ cooperative,
Common Sense. Their award-winning CD, Shock of the Old, was released in 2002,
featuring works written for American Baroque.
Ms.
Reynolds is also very active in music education. Her work has been acknowledged
by the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the National Music Teachers
Association. Ms. Reynolds is the
Director of HeShe Music in San Francisco.
www.heshemusic.com
7.
Joseph Harchanko
Heavy Circles
Heavy
Circles was inspired by the Wassily Kandinsky painting by the same name. The
circles in the painting suggest a sort of playfulness against the very dark and
somber background, creating a dynamic interplay of fiery motion and forceful
gravity. Much of the material also exhibits a circular quality of ÒloopedÓ
segments repeating with slight variation and the overall form of the piece
suggests the arch of a circle. Heavy Circles was written as a tour de force for
the virtuosic abilities of Thomas Burritt, to whom the piece is dedicated.
Joseph
Harchanko has written extensively for traditional instruments, large ensembles,
and digital media. His music has been described as both Òexplosively dramaticÓ
and Òmystically alluring.Ó Although a cellist by training, his interest in
percussion music was sparked while working as a percussion mover to support
himself through graduate school. His works now include numerous compositions
for percussion that are available through Keyboard Percussion Publishing.
Originally
from Huntsville, Alabama, Joseph Harchanko is currently an Assistant Professor
of Theory and Composition at Ball State University in Indiana. He received his D.M.A. in composition
at the University of Texas and holds masters degrees in cello and composition
from Florida State University. He has been awarded fellowships from ASCAP, the
Aspen Music Festival, the Lilly Endowment, and UT. His works have been
performed across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
8.
Zhou Long
Wu Ji
Wu
Ji was originally composed for piano and tape in July of 1987. The title is extracted from ancient
Chinese philosophy:
"Wu" means 'nothing' or "the lack of...Ó "Ji"
means "polarity" or "the extremity." The use of the word
"extremity" here refers to "the infinity" which is beyond
time and space, its presence precedes that of anything in the universe.
The
version for Piano, Zheng and Percussion was completed at Yaddo during the fall
of 1991, premiered by Music From China in October 27, 1991, at Merkin Concert
Hall in New York City. It is available on CRI - CD679. The Piano and Percussion version was first written in
the summer of 2002, then revised for this recording, and premiered at Weill
Recital Hall in April 2004.
Zhou
Long (b. 1953, Beijing) is internationally recognized for creating a unique
body of music that brings together the aesthetic concepts and musical elements
of East and West. His creative vision has resulted in a new music that
stretches Western instruments eastward and Chinese instruments westward,
achieving an exciting and fertile common ground. Zhou Long is currently
Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
Conservatory of Music. In 2003 he was recipient of the Academy Award in Music,
a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters. His works have been
recorded on many labels, including BIS, EMI, and Teldec. His music is published
exclusively by Oxford University Press.
PERFORMERS
Pianist
Teresa McCollough, has developed an international reputation for her dynamic
and expressive playing. As a
leading interpreter of contemporary music, she has premiered many new works for
solo piano, and piano and ensemble, and has commissioned new scores that
represent the very best music being written by todayÕs emerging and established
composers. Her solo CD Teresa
McCollough: New American Piano Music (innova 552), has received critical
acclaim and been played on radio stations around the world. In 2002 it was one of the top-selling
independent classical CDs on Amazon.com and was also voted ÒTop 5 CDs of the
Year—the TommiesÓ on Womanrock.com.
Dr. McCollough has performed around the world, and appeared on both
local and national television and radio.
She has appeared with orchestras across the United States, and in
festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, the New American Music Festival,
the Aki Festival of New Music,
April in Santa Cruz, the Festivale
Internationale di Cremona, Spoleto Festival-USA, and others. This most recent project, Music for
Hammers and Sticks, represents new commissions for solo piano and percussion
that reflect her own interest in that sound combination. McCollough writes,
ÒWhile there are many pieces for two pianos and percussion, there are not as
many for one piano and percussion, which led me to commission these new
works. The challenge of combining
piano with any combination of percussive instruments results in an exciting
pallette that is equal only to the diversity of the styles written for this
CD. It was an incredibly fun
project to work on, and it broadened my awareness of the sound possibilities
for those instruments.Ó
McCollough
has lived in the SF Bay area for the past 13 years where she is a frequent
performer in the new music scene.
She teaches piano and a variety of music courses at Santa Clara
University, where she is Associate Professor of Music.
Thomas
Burritt was born in 1971 in Buffalo, New York. He began his musical studies on
piano at the age of six, and percussion at the age of ten. He received degrees
from Ithaca College School of Music (BM – Education and Performance),
Kent State University (MM), and Northwestern University (DM).
Burritt
has presented recitals, masterclasses, and clinics throughout the United States
and abroad. He has taught at the
Chautauqua summer music program and is faculty at the Round Top Festival
Institute summer program. Burritt has appeared as marimba soloist and clinician
at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in 2000, 2001, 2003 and
2004. More recently Burritt has been active performing percussion concertos by
Steve Mackey, Joseph Schwantner, Michael Dougherty and James MacMillan.
Active
in the creation of new music for the marimba, Burritt has commissioned several
new works to the marimba repertoire by composers such as Stephen Barber and
Joseph Harchanko. Burritt is currently principal percussionist with the
Barbwire Music Ensemble, and has recorded for guitarist Eric Johnson and
recording artist David Byrne.
Dr.
Burritt is currently Assistant Professor of Percussion and Director of
Percussion Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Burritt is a clinician
for KP3 LLC/Malletech Instruments, Malletech Mallets and Zildjian Cymbals.
Peggy
Benkeser has been a catalyst for new music in Atlanta since her arrival from
Illinois in 1985. As co-founder
and artistic director of Thamyris, New Music Group from 1985 – 2000, she
commissioned and premiered over 85 new compositions for mixed chamber ensemble
and solo percussion from composers including Alvin Singleton, Steven Mackey,
Pauline Oliveros, Janice Giteck, David Liptak, Wendell Logan and Stephen
Paulus. Through her grant writing and leadership, Thamyris received funding for
performances and recordings from the National Endowment for the Arts, the
Copland Fund for New Music, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, the
American Composers Forum and numerous state and local funding agencies.
Ms.
Benkeser currently performs with Hammers and Sticks, is active as a performance
artist and writer, and is a teaching artist for the Georgia Council for the
Arts and Cliff Valley School.
She lives in Atlanta with her husband Paul, their three children, two
dozen goldfish and one happy dog.
CREDITS
Recorded, Edited, and Mastered by Tom Carr
All works except Heavy Circles were recorded June, 2004 at
the Center of Performing Arts Recital Hall, Santa Clara University, Santa
Clara, California
Heavy Circles was recorded in Wolfe Recital Hall, Delmar
College, Corpus Christy, Texas, by Paul Bissell
Edited and Mastered at The Annex, Menlo Park, California
Production assistance:
Trevor Hunter, Dustin Callahan
Marimba provided by KP3 LLC /Malletech Instruments
innova Director/layout: Philip Blackburn
innova is supported by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation. www.innova.mu