Mark Applebaum
Sock Monkey
Innova 706
1. Magnetic North 2006 (14:18)
brass quintet, percussion, soloist
Meridian Arts Ensemble
Mark Applebaum, solo mouseketier
sound-sculpture
2. The
ComposerÕs Middle Period
2007 (3:25)
oboe, bass clarinet, trumpet,
trombone, violin, cello
sfSound
Christopher Jones, conductor
3. Theme
in Search of Variations I
2004 (3:46)
percussion trio
Florian Conzetti, Christopher Froh,
Terry Longshore, percussion
Christopher Jones, conductor
4. Theme
In Search of Variations II
2007 (4:39)
clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, cello
sfSound
5.
Theme In Search of Variations III
2008 (4:33)
flute, trumpet, piano, percussion
Beta Collide
6. Variations
on Variations on a
Theme by Mozart 2006 (6:09)
18 prepared pianos
Mark Applebaum, prepared piano
7. Entre FunŽrailles I 1999 (2:21)
solo trumpet
Brian McWhorter, trumpet
8. Martian Anthropology 7 4:21
9. Martian Anthropology 8 4:39
10. Martian Anthropology 9 5:03
2006 (14:03)
crackleboxes, samplers, electric guitar,
bricolage drumset, violin, bass clarinet
Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic
Band
11. On the Nature of the Modern Age
2005 (8:53)
piano duo & live electronics
duo runedako
12. Sock Monkey 2007 (9:22)
orchestra
Stanford Symphony Orchestra
Jindong Cai, conductor
Magnetic North: 86 Public and Consensual Rituals
Meridian Arts Ensemble
Jon Nelson, trumpet
Brian McWhorter, trumpet
Daniel Grabois, horn
Benjamin Herrington, trombone
Raymond Stewart, tuba
John Ferrari, percussion
Mark Applebaum, mouseketier electroacoustic sound-sculpture
and live electronics
When we say ÒnorthÓ our tendency is to presume that we are talking
about one thing. But in fact there
are three versions of ÒnorthÓ (including magnetic north), each a vector—a
meridian—that resides on a different line leading to a different point on
the globe. Specialists use these
terms deliberately, but laypersons are content with one generic usage. Similarly there is a common presumption
that music is one thing, made one way.
The stylistic and idiomatic plurality that describes our current
cultural landscape is widely acknowledged and celebrated, but the divisions of
labor between the composer and performer, the relationship of the audience, the
function of the score, the very purpose of music, the presumption that
performance fidelity invites exactitude over spontaneous invention, and related
issues typically lie beyond the publicÕs conscious scrutiny. Indeed it takes a specialist—and
usually only an experimentally or philosophically oriented one—to search
for, accept, value, or promote alternative musical approaches.
Magnetic North is a piece that aspires—with enthusiasm, absurdity, and
maybe even some belligerence—to remind us that there are many ways to
make music. A quick perusal of the
score reveals a plethora of notational constructs, including reference to
custom-made wristwatches (worn by the ensemble) whose second hands are
consulted as they pass over hermetic notational symbols. The piece includes ritualistic, dadaist activities that seem to serve arcane purposes
alongside traditional ÒcomplexityÓ textures made up of rigorous
counterpoint. At various times
individual players are asked to stand for no apparent reason. One measure is repeated x+1 times where
x is the number of times it takes two players to stop playing in protest. In accompaniment of certain solo
passages the brass quintet is asked to tap bottles with chopsticks, tear pieces
of paper, and drop ping-pong balls.
At one point in the piece the horn player, located stage right, removes
a length of aluminum foil from a roll and sets it at the foot of the trombone
player. Later the trombonist will
wad the foil into a ball and roll it to the tuba player who, minutes later, places
it into a paper bag. The bag is
left at the foot of the second trumpet player who eventually staples the bag
shut and leaves it for the first trumpet player, located stage left, to later
sign and, checking his watch, date; this assembled object is then employed as a
Òbag muteÓ in the trumpet passage in the subsequent measure.
Recent irreverent musical traditions are briefly referenced in the
piece (e.g. John ZornÕs improvisational game piece Cobra), alongside concise ironic
chorale settings. In fact, the
hectic, mercurial, compressed nature of the discourse is chief among Magnetic NorthÕs procedural
attributes. The virtuosity
necessitated by the piece (and demonstrated handily by Meridian) has to do not
only with conventionally demanding licks, unreasonable extended techniques,
near-impossible ensemble coordination, and the typical chamber music subtleties
that embody great musicality: a mellifluously blended tone, synergistic
ensemble articulation, communal rhythmic nuance, and a kind of telepathic
empathy that defies definition.
Here the players are called upon for much more: to engage in a
constantly changing musical ontology mediated by a dynamic relationship to the
score. The enterprise of how and
why sound is made changes throughout the piece and even includes the tracking
of contingency. For example, there
is a four-second solo toward the end of the work. In this recording it is played by the trombone; however,
this assignation varies from performance to performance according to which
playerÕs wristwatch second hand passes over a star located at the 12 oÕclock
position during a particular measure played minutes earlier.
Despite the superhuman mental demands required to intermingle a
theater of esoteric rites with a profuse miscellany of instrumental techniques,
Meridian manages to play and not perform the piece. This is a recent concern—the rehabilitation of playing (as children do) in place
of performing (a decidedly adult
enterprise).
A soloist is invited to join MeridianÕs play, to spontaneously
embellish the narrative during improvised cadenzas. Alternating with the brass quintet, these cadenzas are of
prescribed duration, lasting from two seconds to two minutes. Any instrument may be employed in the
solo capacity and Meridian has performed the piece with extra-ordinary
artists. In this recording I
perform the solo part on my mouseketier electroacoustic sound-sculpture with
live electronics, an original instrument made of junk, hardware, and found
objects mounted on soundboards and tapped, plucked, scratched, and bowed with
chopsticks, plectra, wind-up toys, knitting needles, brushes, and violin
bows. The mouseketierÕs already
idiosyncratic sounds are further warped through live electronic
transformation. MeridianÕs
percussionist, John Ferrari, improvises an optional percussion accompaniment, a
sort of ÒghostÓ part that floats around the discourse, making use of his
talents as an improviser. But in
performances in which I or another soloist is unable to join Meridian, the
piece becomes a concerto for drums, Ferrari undertaking the soloist role at the
drum set. In this manner the piece
is a very versatile one in terms of both personnel and sound.
The ComposerÕs Middle Period
sfSound
Kyle Bruckmann, oboe
Matt Ingalls, bass clarinet
Tom Dambly, trumpet
Toyoji Tomita, trombone
Erik Ulman, violin
Monica Scott, cello
Christopher Jones, conductor
The extraordinary Bay Area new music ensemble sfSound commissioned
twenty composers to write three-minute works to be paired with WebernÕs Concerto op. 24 in a concert called Small Packages. As it was my first piece completed after receiving tenure at
Stanford University I settled on this sardonic yet optimistic title, a
designation that is irreverently misleading because the workÕs aesthetic and
compositional method embody no particular fissure with immediately prior works.
The work consists of five materials that each repeat five times
(albeit on different durational scales): a literally repeated ensemble outburst
notated graphically; a continuous narrative in which moments are the
transformed consequence of immediately prior ones (in Òexquisite corpseÓ
style); a glissando passage; a section of dense, polyphonic counterpoint made
up of overlapping augmentation canons; and a solo violin explosion. The five sections are repeatedly
interrupted by yet another ensemble narrative running at a slightly faster
tempo. None of this is
particularly helpful information.
The point is probably more succinctly put thus: various materials of
contrasting character reappear at unpredictable tempi and for unexpected
durations.
Theme in Search of Variations I
Florian Conzetti, Christopher Froh,
& Terry Longshore,
percussion
Christopher Jones, conductor
Theme in Search of Variations II
sfSound
Matt Ingalls, clarinet, bass clarinet
Christopher Froh, percussion
Christopher Jones, piano
Graeme Jennings, violin
Monica Scott, cello
Theme in Search of
Variations III
Beta Collide
Molly Barth, alto flute, concert flute, piccolo
Brian McWhorter, trumpet
David Riley, piano
Phillip Patti, percussion
Although they are autonomous pieces that may
be performed on their own, the three Theme in Search of Variations invite
musical responses in the form of other pieces—variations that might be
performed in succession on a given concert. Being too long, too rich, and too expressively saturated,
these works are probably not ideal Òthemes.Ó Instead they might be more accurately thought of as provocation
pieces in search of response pieces.
The first Theme, a
percussion trio, was composed as a challenge to the students of my composition
seminar at Stanford University, composers who then wrote individual
pieces—variations—of their own. The subsequent pieces—all strikingly divergent in
style and artistic obsession—were later performed together in concert,
the theme presented first and later reprised at the end of the concert.
The
second work, composed several years later for sfSound and heard here in a live
recording of the premiere, reflected a new wrinkle: my students were given
exactly one week to compose their responses, a ruthless but pedagogically
efficacious challenge that stands in stark contrast to the typical multi-month
(and often multi-year) creative ambitus that they find most familiar. (I too composed the theme in one
agonizing week.) These remarkably
diverse works were completed in a timely manner and performed in a concert
entitled ÒThe Double Barline Fire Drill.Ó
Theme
in Search of Variations III, composed for Beta Collide and engendering
yet another set of eclectic student responses premiered at Stanford, consists
largely of colorful and frenetic, yet intimate and quiet, Òsound
constellations,Ó frequently constituted by abundant noise components (as
distinguished from focused pitches).
The percussionist, in particular, is called upon to navigate an enormous
battery of instruments. (A map of
the percussion setup appears on the following page.)
Musical
events in Theme in Search of Variations III occur
in three types of sequences: events that are unpredictable in nature (Òwhat
will be next?Ó) and temporality (Òwhen will it be?Ó); unpredictable in nature
but predictable in time (occurrences at a regular rhythmic interval); and predictable
in nature (a repeated sound object) but unpredictable in time. Four interruptions of contrasting
material appear, the first featuring solo alto flute, the next a duo of flute
and trumpet, the third a trio of flute, trumpet, and piano, and finally a
quartet of piccolo, trumpet, piano, and vibraphone. These interruptions share a common harmonic reservoir (a
particular palindromic canon) and progress from monophonic to highly
polyphonic, contrapuntal settings.
Variations on Variations on a Theme by Mozart
Mark Applebaum, prepared pianos
Variations on Variations on a Theme by Mozart, commissioned by the Third
Practice Festival for the Everglade Records audio DVD [re], is a piece in which new
music is bred from an existing muscular intelligence. As the name implies, the piece borrows from Mozart—his
variations on the French melody Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman. The new piece is a densely layered barrage of 18 pianos all playing MozartÕs exact pitches and rhythms. As such, this is genuinely a work by
Mozart, one that preserves every level of form, from the global sequence of
variations down to the note level.
And yet because the 18 pianos have been painstakingly prepared in ways
that radically alter—that vary—the timbre of the instrument (as well as its harmonic
spectrum and, at times, the resulting dynamic), the listener often struggles to
divine Mozart in the fracas. The
new variations, then, are timbral and spectral ones, a Viennese classical world
acquiescing to the intrusion of modern bric-a-brac (bolts, wooden dowels,
aluminum foil, paperclips, and rubber mutes) that, through transcription of
data, spawn a thoroughly new and alien sonic patina. It should be noted that no synthesis or sound processing is
involved; Variations
is merely a spatialized
recording of a purely acoustic, multi-piano piece.
From the performerÕs point
of view, chief among its attributes is its economy: the hands already know the
Mozart source, nothing new in the way of musical technique or repertoire has to
be learned. (In my own private
creative taxonomy I identify the piece as a musical collision through transcription of the subset collisions through
neuromuscular economy.) But the listener,
when sporadically aware of the pieceÕs historic source colliding with the
contemporary instrumentation, perceives a genealogic abrasion, a collision
embodied in the transformation of history. Variations on Variations on a Theme by Mozart distorts an antique and is
ticklish because of anachronism, revisionism, and rehabilitation.
Entre FunŽrailles I
Brian McWhorter, trumpet
Brian FerneyhoughÕs FunŽrailles for seven strings and harp requires that its two versions be
performed on the same concert but not consecutively. In this regard my series of solo works, Entre FunŽrailles, are hypothetical
interludes to his two versions; as autonomous compositions, they may also be
performed independently. These
pieces are a sort of dual homage and whimsical aesthetic intrusion.
Martian Anthropology 7¥8¥9
The Paul Dresher Ensemble
Electro-Acoustic Band
Karen Bentley Pollick,
amplified violin
Joel Davel, mallet sampler
and data controller, cracklebox
Paul Dresher, keyboard
sampler, electric guitar, cracklebox
Marja Mutru, keyboard
sampler, cracklebox
Peter Josheff, amplified
bass clarinet
Gene Reffkin, bricolage
drumset, cracklebox
Martian Anthropology began as a thought experiment, a game that I would play with my
students. The premise, set in the
future, is as follows:
Humankind has obliterated
itself in a nuclear apocalypse.
Everyone and everything was instantly and thoroughly annihilated. All records
of our ever having been here—buildings, artifacts, the
tiniest scraps of evidence—have disappeared. Martian archeologists later visit the Earth and discover
three exceptions, three exclusive objects. From these three objects their anthropologist colleagues
will speculate on our culture, our values, traditions, and customs, leisure
activities, intellectual disciplines, artistic and scientific accomplishments,
and so forth. In the same way that
we construct Òdaily lifeÓ museum exhibits of early and prehistoric cultures on
the basis of a few cave paintings, shards of Minoan pottery, or stone tools, so
too must the Martian anthropologists create an ÒEarth MuseumÓ solely on the
basis of these three found objects.
The game invites the
players to choose the three objects and to imagine—with delight and
horror—what these objects would tell alien observers. For example: the objects might be a
copy of the Gettysburg
Address, a
recording of the Abba song Mama Mia, and an unopened can of clam chowder. Or instead it could be a deck of tarot cards, the ownerÕs
manual for a toaster oven, and a tube of Chapstick. It might be a partly erased hard drive, a business card for
an escort service, and a wheelchair.
It might be an angry e-mail message you once sent, a cancelled check
that you wrote for a purchase long ago, and the last voice mail message you
left a friend. Perhaps it could
even be the remains of Jimmy Hoffa, a city map of Atlantis, and the Holy Grail.
The three objects form a
surreal triangle. They tell a
peculiar story, individually and through collective synergies.
The things we do, make, and
consume leave a record of who we are.
For the artist this game suggests a special meaning about making works
of art. It invites us to assume or
ignore a weighty, if conceptual, responsibility about what our work might say,
not only to our present audience, but to ones that are
distant and almost unimaginable.
Martian Anthropology
7¥8¥9, commissioned by the Paul
Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band, is the third collection of Martian
discoveries. The first discovery
(Movement I) is a mercurial and highly virtuosic duo for violin and bass
clarinet bounded by outbursts from a quartet playing crackleboxes—hand-held
portable electronic glitch instruments whose wheezes and sputters are generated
by unpredictable circuit-bending.
The second find (Movement II) is an atmospheric duo for electric guitar
and MIDI controller: the guitarist chooses pitches improvisationally from a
non-symmetric matrix of possibilities (chords made up of 2-7 notes) while the
controller operator transforms the guitarÕs timbre by changing values on a
signal processor improvisationally in real time. The final discovery (Movement III) features improvised
cadenzas on an amplified bricolage drumset in which drums and cymbals have been
replaced by pizza boxes, egg cartons, bits of aluminum foil, plastic bags,
etc., and is accompanied by temporally determinate outbursts whose sounds are
arbitrarily selected from a reservoir of 70 recorded household sounds and
paired with amplified violin and bass clarinet utterances; thrice during the
movement the full ensemble comes into coordination and repeats a mantra-like
articulation at regular intervals that are subject to rhythmic
deformations—the directive to individual players to attack the note
slightly early or slightly late in order to suggest shifts in the viewing perspective
of a complex object.
Instead of worrying about
the coherence of this multi-movement work, I obsessed over creating a kind of
meaningful incoherence. The music
aspires always to delight, baffle, and engage the audience. If successful, the experience of its
diverse juxtapositions will be slightly weird (Òwhat the hell was that?Ó) but
also one of fascination (Òcan I hear more?Ó).
On the Nature of the Modern Age
duo runedako: Ruth Neville & Dan Koppelman, piano
duo and live electronics
On the Nature of the Modern Age, for piano duo and live electronics, was commissioned by duo
runedako—Ruth Neville and Dan Koppelman. The work lovingly remembers John Silber who passed away in
2005, a UCSD professor of music, intrepid experimentalist, and compassionate
mentor to me, Ruth, Dan, and countless other lucky students. John taught me how to improvise
courageously, invited me to perform in his idiosyncratic and reflective operas,
gave me deep insights about what it means to be an American experimentalist,
and provided the model for much of my own teaching. And, during the rough times when the authorities didnÕt
ÒgetÓ my work, John got it.
It is always a treat to
compose for good friends like Ruth and Dan, comrades who are brilliant and
daring musicians. They requested a
piece that incorporates live sampling, hence the work
is built on the accretion, transformation, and subsequent attrition of
sounds. Ruth initiates these
sounds from the inside of the piano—in an order and rhythm of her
choice—and they are electronically looped and spatially diffused. (Although presented here in stereo, a
multi-channel version for audio DVD appears on Everglade Records.) I also chose to take advantage of DanÕs
keen abilities and affinities as an improviser, giving him a solo cadenza built
on motives from a rigorously disciplined four-hand keyboard theme played
previously and reprised subsequently by the duo. During DanÕs solo the score invites Ruth to transform the
electronic soundscape in an indeterminate manner using digital signal processes
selected by the performers. On the Nature of the
Modern Age is thus
a very open work capable of producing a near-infinite number of possible
realizations while remaining rooted in modest sound sources and scrupulously
disciplined actions, a tribute to a few of the wide-ranging qualities that made
John Silber a treasure.
Sock Monkey
(Transcription of a
Little Girl Running Around the House)
The Stanford Symphony
Orchestra
Jindong Cai, conductor
Sock Monkey was composed for Jindong Cai and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra during a
particularly focused two-week period straddling the end of 2006 and the
beginning of 2007. I attempted, at
first, to compose a short, five-movement work constituting autonomous, concise,
aphoristic orchestral statements.
Soon it became clear that these movements wanted to be connected into a
single continuous discourse, with three primary sections (I, III, & V)
joined by two ÒbridgeÓ ones (II & IV). The logistical circumstances of the composition involved
many pieces of paper on many tables in many rooms of my house. Wherever I would relocate in order to
concentrate on the project, my 18-month old daughter Charlotte would follow
peripatetically; occasionally she would sit quizzically/inquisitively on my lap
while I composed, but more often she would bounce off the walls in her
characteristically exuberant, playful, and mercurial manner. Her energetic
ÒdistractionsÓ—far more entertaining than my music—were always
accompanied by her ubiquitous pink sock monkey.
Mark Applebaum (b. Chicago, 1967) is Associate Professor of Composition at
Stanford University where he directs [sic]—the Stanford Improvisation
Collective. He received his Ph.D.
in composition from the University of California at San Diego where he studied
principally with Brian Ferneyhough.
His music has been played at numerous prestigious festivals in rigorous
places like central Europe, and commissioned by fancy, impressive A-list
players and ensembles—prominent ensembles. Some of
his music is composed according to painstaking and thorough, if dreary,
techniques defended by sober, sensible, and defensible logic resulting in
characteristics like authenticity, integrity, depth, merit, and seriousness,
qualities that tend to make modernists happy, or at least comfortable. And awards: there are some awards. Blah, blah.
Recent works, however, tend increasingly toward absurdity. In retrospect (or historical revision)
ApplebaumÕs aesthetic relies on acts of musical collision. ÒCollisions of MediaÓ include his Concerto for Florist and
Ensemble, as well
as his penchant for tap dancing while playing jazz piano. ÒSensory CollisionsÓ include his piece Tlšn for three conductors and no
players, and his obsession, since 1990, with building electroacoustic
sound-sculptures out of junk, hardware, and found objects, instruments intended
equally for their visual allure.
ÒCollisions of Notational ConstructÓ include 56 1/2 ft. for chamber orchestra, a
piece which rapidly vacillates among a plethora of determinate and
indeterminate specifications, Wristwatch: Geology in which players tapping stones read from custom watches by
following the second hand as it passes over glyphs, and S-tog in which players
meticulously consult the Copenhagen subway map and timetables. ÒCollisions through TranscriptionÓ
include That
Brainwave Chick in which neural data taken live via EEG is transformed into
sound, and Go,
Dog. Go! for percussion duo in which ÒimpossibleÓ metric modulations
are accomplished through mental association with tempi established
authoritatively in popular music recordings. ÒGenealogic CollisionsÓ include his various remixes, such as
the Janus ReMixes: Exercises
in Auto-Plundering that mine past recordings (in a brutal ritual of narcissism and
self-loathing). ÒCollisions of
IdentityÓ include his Pre-Composition for 8-channel tape in which eight composers (inner ÒvoicesÓ)
debate about an 8-channel tape piece to be written, and Asylum for nonet and percussion
soloist in which 22 psychological disorders are illustrated in sound. The taxonomy of collisions continues,
but the aforementioned examples are sufficiently tedious.
His music can be heard on CDs on the Innova, Tzadik, Capstone,
SEAMUS, and Everglade labels. From
the liner notes to 56 1/2 ft. he writes:
Lewis Rowell, in his mostly
clever book Thinking
about Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, argues that Òa musical
composition is more likely to deserve a rating asÉless than excellent
if—it resists perception as a unified, coherent structure; its structure
is obscure or disproportionate; it is incomplete and unfulfilled; it is
unhierarchical; it is unfocused; Éit is self-contradictoryÉÓ. Indeed his assertion is probably true
for many listeners of classical music.
And my first inclination is to agree, probably because I have been
brainwashed to celebrate the implied counter-virtues. But on second thought, I am struck by the fact that I
actually love all of these Òvices.Ó
Frankly, I try deliberately to build these qualities into my music. I generally find unified things to be
boring; coherence strikes me as unnecessarily restrictive; structural clarity
and proportion can be tediously mind-numbing and unimaginative while obscurity
and imbalance are usually stimulating and problematic (a good thing); completeness seems like
a cruel and unusual ideal, neither the essence of how I experience the natural
world nor a welcome panacea (the proper work of insulting political leaders and
religious zealots); hierarchy seems like a hegemonic, counter-revolutionary
plot; focus is overrated (the job of photocopiers); and self-contradiction, it
should be plain from all things paradoxical, inconsistent, anarchic, and/or
absurd in my work, is my most trusted gravitational center.
Meridian Arts Ensemble
For over twenty years,
Meridian Arts Ensemble has been one of the leading brass and percussion
ensembles in the world. Now as
faculty at Manhattan School of Music for its Contemporary Performance Program,
the band has brought its aggressive and ambitious musical approach to the
conservatory. Performing a living
room concert for Frank Zappa and winning his approval for their renditions of
his music was only the beginning of MeridianÕs ongoing quest to broaden the
scope of music for brass. They
went on to commission new works by Milton Babbitt, Su Lian Tan, Mark Applebaum,
Elliott Sharp, Tania Leon, Hermeto Pascoal, Nick Didkovsky, David Sanford, The
Common Sense ComposersÕ Collective, Stephen Barber, Ira Taxin, Kirk Nurock,
John Halle, and many others. MeridianÕs catalog now comprises ten critically
acclaimed CD recordings on Channel Classics and 8bells Records labels. More information can be found at
www.meridianartsensemble.com.
sfSound
sfSound is a collective that
creates and performs its own original music, commissions new work, performs
avant-garde repertory, and develops highly creative Òradical transcriptionsÓ of
modern masterpieces. Its roster of
virtuoso performer/composers has expertise in extended instrumental techniques,
performance art, electronic sound, computer audio programming, and free
improvisation. Since being awarded
a ÒVerge ResidencyÓ in 2005 from the ODC Theater, sfSound presents seven to
eight concerts per year in San Francisco featuring music by an extraordinarily
diverse range of composers, including premieres of over thirty new works
written specifically for sfSound.
In 2006 sfSound undertook their first national tour, performing at
Merkin Hall, New York City, and a three-day residency at Wesleyan College. With support from Meet the Composer,
Amphion, Argosy, and Zellerbach Foundations, the 2007 Season Finale epitomized
the mission of sfSound, a concert in which twenty composers were commissioned
to write three-minute pieces inspired by Anton WebernÕs miniature masterwork, Konzert, Opus 24. Many
recordings of past concerts, as well as featured works on upcoming concerts,
can be heard on sfSoundRadio through their website www.sfsound.org.
Christopher Jones
Christopher Jones is a
composer, pianist, and conductor dedicated to the creation of unusual
contemporary music. He has given
performances in North America and Europe including appearances at the Darmstadt
Ferienkurse, the Ictus International Composition Seminar, Brussels, Merkin
Hall, New York City, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Jones has given many premieres and enjoys working closely
with composers. He brings his
interests in composition, performance, and improvisation together through his
work as pianist, conductor, and co-director of sfSound, an innovative ensemble
and concert series that is redefining the boundaries of new music in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
Florian Conzetti
Florian Conzetti has performed as a percussion soloist, chamber
music collaborator, and orchestra member in Europe and the United States. He studied at the Konservatorium fŸr
Musik in Bern, Switzerland, the Eastman School of Music, and the Peabody
Conservatory where he earned a doctorate in music as a student of marimbist
Robert Van Sice and musicologist John Spitzer. He has appeared at Music@Menlo, the Stanford Lively Arts,
and Cal Performances, and performed with Alarm Will Sound, Meridian Arts
Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Bern Symphony
Orchestra. Conzetti has recorded
for Albany and Innova Recordings.
He is an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco.
Christopher Froh
Committed principally to
influencing and expanding the repertoire for solo percussion through
commissions and premieres, percussionist Christopher Froh is a core member of
the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Empyrean Ensemble, ADORNO
Ensemble, sfSound, and San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. His many guest appearances include
performances with Alarm Will Sound, the Honolulu Symphony, and Gamelan Sekar Jaya.
Known for his energized performances, FrohÕs solo festival
appearances stretch from Rome to Tokyo to San Francisco. He is currently on the faculty at the
University of California, Davis.
Terry Longshore is active as a performer,
composer, and educator of percussion, and has performed both internationally
and throughout the United States.
He completed his doctoral degree at the University of California, San
Diego where he studied under percussion virtuoso Steven Schick. He has studied
Indian classical music extensively under tabla maestro Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri
and sitarist Kartik Seshadri. He
performs regularly as a soloist and with several ensembles: Skin & Bones,
Caballito Negro, Sonoluminescence, Conundrum, and Alba Flamenca. Longshore serves as Associate Professor
of Music, Director of Percussion Studies, and Chair of the Department of Music
at Southern Oregon University. He
is a Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist endorser for Remo drumheads, Vic
Firth sticks and mallets, and Zildjian cymbals.
Beta Collide
Beta Collide is a
leading-edge new music organization based in Oregon. Directed by Molly Barth (formerly of eighth blackbird) and
Brian McWhorter (of Meridian Arts Ensemble), Beta Collide focuses on the
collision of musical art forms—from new complexity to ambient; lowbrow to
highbrow; radically extended technique to site-specific improvisation; popular
music to the academy. Each Beta
Collide concert features distinguished guest
artists from a broad variety of backgrounds. Recent projects include collaborations with theoretical
physicist Amit Goswami, sound artist Stephen Vitiello, improvising saxophonist
Scott Rosenberg, and pianist, inventor, and composer Mark Applebaum. On this recording Beta Collide includes
Grammy-Award winning flutist Molly Barth, experimental trumpeter Brian
McWhorter, virtuoso pianist David Riley, and percussionist/nascent
viticulturist Phillip Patti. More
information appears at www.betacollide.com.
Brian
McWhorter
Brian
McWhorter is Assistant Professor of trumpet at the University of Oregon and
Professor of Contemporary Music at the Manhattan School of Music. He has worked primarily in new music
with groups such as Meridian Arts Ensemble, Beta Collide, Renwicke, Sequitur, Ne(x)tworks, and Ensemble Sospeso. He received degrees in music from the University of Oregon
and The Juilliard School. McWhorterÕs discography spans many genres from
contemporary chamber to orchestral, improvised music to pop and rock. More information appears at
www.boiledjar.com.
The
Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band
The
Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band was formed in 1993 to offer chamber
music composers an ensemble that is able to integrate traditional acoustic
instruments with the rapidly evolving advances in electronic music technology,
and whose musicians possess the ability to perform music rooted in the
contemporary classical traditions, rock and roll, jazz, and world music. The bandÕs goal is to expand the limits
of what is considered chamber music, challenging the boundaries that separate
ÒseriousÓ and ÒpopularÓ culture, and drawing on musical styles with origins in
diverse cultures and aesthetics.
The groupÕs six musicians have been joined by soloists including
pianist-composer Terry Riley, cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, violinists David Abel
and Tracy Silverman, and pianist Lisa Moore. The ensemble has commissioned or premiered works by John
Adams, John Luther Adams, Mark Applebaum, Dan Becker, Eve Beglarian, Martin
Bresnick, Jay Cloidt, Cindy Cox, Alvin Curran, Anthony Davis, Paul Dresher,
Mark Grey, Bun Ching Lam, David Lang, Keeril Makan, Steve Mackey, Ingram
Marshall, James Mobberley, Roger Reynolds, Terry Riley, Neil Rolnick, Carl
Stone, Lois Vierk, and Randall Woolf.
Many of the bandÕs performances appear on New Albion, New World, Minmax,
Tzadik, Sri Moonshine, CRI, and other labels. More info can be found at their website
www.dresherensemble.org.
duo
runedako
duo
runedako is dedicated to exploring and expanding the repertoire for multiple
keyboard instruments. From traditional literature for two pianos and
piano four-hands, to interactive works for electronics and computer, the duo
presents a wide spectrum of concert music. Pushing the boundaries of
contemporary music and pulling from classical, jazz, and electroacoustic
traditions, duo runedako often blurs the lines between musical
styles. duo runedako has toured extensively
throughout the United States and in Europe and has presented innovative
programs in Finland, Ukraine, and the Netherlands. In residence on a 2008
Fulbright Scholarship Award, the husband and wife team will tour Ukraine with a
series of concerts devoted to the music of American composers. Active in commissioning and premiering
new works, duo runedako presented David GillinghamÕs Interplay:
A Concerto for Piano Four Hands and Orchestra in Prague with Vladimir Valek conducting the
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
KoppelmanÕs research on the development of a new tactile performance
system for electroacoustic music has led to residencies at the Studio for
Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam, the Institute of Sonology in
The Hague, and the Center for Research in Computing in the Arts (CRCA) in La
Jolla, California. Neville and Koppelman have recorded with the SONOR
Ensemble for CRI, with George Lewis for New World Records, and for Celestial
Harmonies, Neuma Records, Capstone, Everglade Records, and C74.
The
Stanford Symphony Orchestra
On
December 16, 1891, two months after Stanford University opened its doors, the
first Stanford Orchestra was organized.
It consisted of eleven members.
More than a century later, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra has grown to
a 90-member organization. The SSO
is an on-campus student ensemble, supported by the Music Department and the
Associated Students of Stanford University. Membership is open to all members of the community, although
preference is given to Stanford students.
Every year, the SSO attracts a diverse membership ranging from local
computer scientists and aeronautics graduate students to English majors. The SSO rehearses twice a week and
presents approximately five concert programs on the
Stanford campus each season. Over
the years, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra has premiered the works of numerous
Stanford composers, formed the pit orchestra for many operas, and accompanied a
variety of artists, including internationally renowned jazz saxophonist Stan
Getz. The SSO has toured the
United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. An upcoming tour will take them to China where they will
perform at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Jindong
Cai
Jindong
Cai joined the Stanford faculty in 2004 as the
Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies Chair. He has held positions as assistant
conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He has also served on the faculties of
Louisiana State University, the University of Arizona, the University of
California at Berkeley, and the College-Conservatory of Music in
Cincinnati. Cai has guest
conducted the Arkansas Symphony, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the
Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Lexington Philharmonic,
the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Tucson Symphony, and at Lincoln CenterÕs
Mozart Bicentennial Festival in New York.
He maintains strong ties to his homeland and guest conducts several top
orchestras in China including the China National Broadcasting Symphony, the National
Opera and Ballet Theater of China, the Shanghai Symphony, and the Shanghai
Broadcasting Symphony. Together
with his wife, Sheila Melvin, he has co-authored several New York Times
articles on the performing arts in China and a new book, Rhapsody
in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese.
Magnetic North
commissioned by Meridian Arts Ensemble
recorded at PINK, February 22, 2008
Mark Applebaum, engineer
The ComposerÕs Middle
Period
commissioned by sfSound
recorded at PINK, September 23,
2007
Mark Applebaum, engineer
in loving memory:
trombonist Toyoji Tomita (1951-2008)
Theme in Search of
Variations I
recorded at the Braun Music Center,
Stanford University, November
22, 2004
Mark Applebaum, engineer
Theme In Search of
Variations II
live performance recorded at
CCRMA,
Stanford University,
November 13, 2007
Rob Hamilton, engineer
Theme In Search of
Variations III
commissioned by Beta Collide with
support by The Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts
recorded at PINK, March 2, 2008
Mark Applebaum, engineer
Variations on Variations
on a Theme by Mozart
commissioned by the Third Practice
Festival, University of Richmond, Virginia
recorded at CCRMA, Stanford
University, May 17, 18, & 22, 2006; Mark Applebaum, engineer
Entre FunŽrailles I
recorded at PINK, February 22, 2008
Mark Applebaum, engineer
Martian Anthropology
7¥8¥9
commissioned by The Paul Dresher
Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band
live performance recorded at
Theater Artaud, San Francisco, March 31 & April 1, 2006
Greg Kuhn, engineer
On the Nature of the
Modern Age
commissioned by duo runedako
recorded at PINK, July 23, 2007
Mark Applebaum, engineer
Sock Monkey
requested by the Stanford Symphony
Orchestra
recorded at Skywalker Sound, May 5,
2007
Mark Willsher, engineer
Tracks 1-11 edited/mixed by
Mark Applebaum
Track 12 edited/mixed by
Mark Willsher
Mastering: Bob DeMaa
Applebaum photo: Toni
Gauthier
Design, layout: Philip
Blackburn
innova is supported by an
endowment from
the McKnight Foundation.
Philip Blackburn: Director
Chris Campbell: Operations
Manager
www.innova.mu
SPECIAL THANKS:
Jenny Bilfield and the
Stanford Lively Arts, SiCa, Jindong Cai, Mark Dalrymple, Kristine Burns, Colby
Leider, Ben Broening, Paul Dresher, Christopher Jones, Ruth Neville, Dan
Koppelman, Brian McWhorter, Charlotte and Kitty, and my intrepid composition
students (who drive me crazy and renew me).
www.markapplebaum.com
Also on Innova:
Mousetrap Music
The Janus ReMixes:
Exercises in Auto-Plundering
The Apple DoesnÕt Fall
Far from the Tree
Intellectual Property
Martian Anthropology
Disciplines
56 1/2 ft.
The Bible without God
Asylum