New Solo Organ Work: Let Down the Scale of Music from the Sky

Let Down the Scale of Music from the Sky is a major new work for solo organ commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for the 2023 Ronald G. Pogorzelski and Lester D. Yankee Annual Competition, written to be premiered on the Pogorzelski/Yankee organ at Indiana University Pennsylvania.

Pogorzelski/Yankee organ at Indiana University Pennsylvania.

The Heav’ly Choir, who heard his Notes from high,
Let down the Scale of Music from the Sky.

Strange Machines premiere

Strange Machines, a new work for the Balourdet Quartet, will be premiered in the group’s 2022–2023 season, including a performance at Wigmore Hall. The work is commissioned with support from a Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant

Strange Machines imagines three quirky musical automata. In Alberti Machine we encounter a steam-punk music box, its buttons, levers and dials adjusting a familiar accompanimental pattern until the machine breaks. Bach meets Rube in Goldberg Machine, a contraption that careens between variations in a musical chain reaction. Mannheim Machine is a cliché-bot, an unhinged device that furiously spits out distorted musical tropes from the dawn of the symphony.

Loop Studies premiere

 
Loop Studies was written during the covid-19 pandemic for violinist Natalie Lin Douglas. Chamber music performances during the pandemic have often relied on asynchronous multi-tracking as a necessity. Loop Studies is a duet, but is playable in real-time by a single musician with the aid of a loop pedal.

violinist Natalie Lin-Douglas

Each of its four studies uses an idiosyncratic musical fragment that is played, recorded and repeated. The first study, Berceuse, is a lullaby based on a gentle, rocking, cross-string figure. Lines is a short set of variations on a fragment by Luigi Dallapiccola, an improvisatory fantasy over a chromatic accompaniment drawn from the composer’s Quaderna Musicali. Straw Man Parade has the violinist using in turn various coloristic effects: pizzicato, harmonics, bowing near the bridge of the instrument—all heard over a bouncing figure performed with the wood of the bow. Tone Up/Tone Down features a syncopated, irregular groove underlying a vigorous and “athletic” foreground part. Natalie Lin Douglas will premiere Loop Studies in the 2022–2023 season in Boston and Houston.

Merz Trio to premiere new work for Columbus Chamber Music and Chamber Music Houston

A new piano trio, Lines in Motion, will be premiered in the 2022-2023 season by the acclaimed Merz Trio. The work is commissioned by Columbus Chamber Music (as part of their 75th Anniversary season) and by Chamber Music Houston.

Merz Trio (photo by Dario Acosta)

Merz Trio is a dynamic young ensemble “praised for their “fresh and surprising interpretations,” … their passionate playing and uniquely artistic programming style, interspersing classic trio works with interdisciplinary elements and their own arrangements. The Trio have made a sweep of recent US chamber awards, taking top prizes at the 2021 Naumburg, 2019 Concert Artists Guild, 2019 Fischoff, and 2018 Chesapeake Competitions. Upcoming debut appearances include performances at NYC’s Merkin Hall, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.”

Lines in Motion for violin, cello and piano, explores the relationship between music art, and is inspired by three striking line-drawings from the early 20th century: On the Open Sea [En pleine mer], a 1921 woodcut by French artist René Quillivic, Amerika [America], a 1922 line drawing by Flemish artist Frans Masereel, and Rhythms, a 1922 woodcut by American artist Wharton Esherick. The distinct technique used for each black and white illustration creates form and shape through linear motion: sweeping curled lines, dramatic vertical lines, and the sinewy lines of the human body. The three movement of Lines in Motion aim to project a similar effect in their musical character and atmosphere.

René Quillivic, Frans Masereel, Wharton Esherick

En pleine mer [On the Open Sea]. Amerika [America], Rhythms