# 10 Living Composers talk to TC



## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

10 Living Composers talk to TC

I guess this is a first on TC.
During the last 12 months I have corresponded intensively with some of my favorite contemporary composers and selected 10 to initiate a thread that involves them.
So first of all, I would like to thank the composers who were so kind, generous and enthusiastic to participate in this project.
I asked them to select a highlight work and to comment on it. We exchanged about the 5 other works and all of the works were personally validated by the composers.
These shortlisted works and the comments related to them are meant to present a balanced overview of the composer’s repertoire, considering both time lines and genres.
Whenever possible links to videos or audio are provided.
It has been an avowed objective to select composers from different parts of the world and to give women composers an equal share of voice.
There is one initiator’s post per composer so that members can comment on each composer separately.
At the end there is a general comment post where members can give more global comments on the thread.
I fully realize the scope of this thread and the risk that it might scare off some listeners. Bear in mind that you can listen to one piece at a time and come back whenever you feel like it on your voyage of discovery. There are only 60 pieces in total and you will like some and dislike others. The only guarantee I give you is that the 10 are great composers.
Looking forward to your active participation. JK


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Who are the ten?

There might be an existing thread within the 'Composer Guestbooks' area.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

List of abbreviations:
YT YouTube
SC Soundcloud
AT Another Timbre
Spot Spotify
SQ String quartet


1 Chaya Czernowin 1957

Bio
Czernowin was born in Haifa in 1957 and studied there until the age of 25. Then she moved to Germany to continue her studies and subsequently spent some time in Japan and again in Germany on fellowships or grants.
She also studied with Ferneyhough and Reynolds in San Diego in the early nineties.
Czernowin was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Composer’s Prize in 2003.
It is difficult to find enough adjectives to define her work. Here are some: visceral, wild, sensual, dark, analytic, multi-sensory, sonic, concerned (with the world she is living in).
Themes like lockdown and death (Atara), the difficulty to love or to connect (The Heart Chamber) are just examples of the multitude of themes her great mind is eager to tackle.
She is known to be interested by ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), proprioception, phenomena that exist in our world but are difficult to perceive and of course psychological and physical actions or reactions of human beings.
She likes to express her musical intentions metaphorically.

1.1 Highlight: Atara Vocal YT 2020-2021
Chaya’s words:
At the beginning of 2020, right before Covid hit, I had a clear concept for the orchestra piece, as follows: Crude: large blocks of orchestral mass, drifting into and apart from each other moved by momentous forceful, and unpredictable energies. This piece was to be a lament to the hubris of humans thinking that we can control the forces around us and a reminder of these unknown forces which move us and our environment. Little did I know that in March 2000 our world will stop and indeed our loss of control vis a vis nature would be so staggering.
During the 2020 Corona lockdown, I came upon a poem written by Zohar Eitan. The poem was new and was written during the lockdown. It describes the atmosphere and feelings of the lockdown and death.
Zohar is an Israeli poet/musicologist/composer, a long-term friend with whom I collaborated extensively.
I read the text and instantly knew it belongs in this piece. In this piece, the orchestra moves slowly and forcefully in huge independent blocks. As opposed to this the singers and their chamber instrumental formation are fragile, lost in the huge sudden spaces opened by the orchestra.
1.2 The Quiet Orchestral YT 2010
The Quiet is part of a trilogy of orchestral works (with Zohar Iver and Esh) in which Czernowin explores the possibilities of transcending language and attempts to create music that can be touched and felt through the ear.
It is a turning point, a new orientation in her career.
Heavy sections of material oppose lighter strands in The Quiet.
Czernowin is concerned with physics and the interactions and motions of atoms, energy, matter and other particles.
She is seeking a third realm; situated between our senses and our mind, one that is on the fringe of our consciousness.
Her whole oeuvre is a search for unknown territory, physical or mental and each work of the Trilogy is a powerful part of that quest.
1.3 Afatsim Ensemble YT 1995
Czernowin’s sound occupies a unique world and often many instruments become one composite instrument.
Afatsim is composed for an ensemble of 9 players who are spaced apart and subdivided into four groups.
The composer manages to obfuscate the groupings and the sound sources, except for a bass clarinet, are not recognizable.
First there is considerable restraint, followed by nearly inaudible passages, expressed in whispers and sighs.
Progressively the work attains real solidity and unity to find a sense of momentum which ends with a deep growl and a little grunt.
A strange, intriguing piece full of fascinating sounds.
1.4 The Guardian Concertante YT 2017
Infinite Now, the opera preceding the Guardian turned out to be darker than expected and the cello concerto is a request for some power to guard us.
Like a dream that combines waking reality with figments of our imagination
Czernowin expresses fragments from the natural world through her own voice.
The piece is a kind of exchange between the cello and the orchestra.
The cello emerges from the orchestra, but then pulls away. Wind instruments create breathy tones to resemble the sound of a bow and a string, which makes the orchestra sound like a cello.
The cello is amplified, while extended techniques add shade and color to the orchestra.
There is a solo cello after the introduction and a cadenza near the end. But don’t be fooled. This is nothing like a traditional concerto, as the cadenza is not a synthesis of the piece but rather a new place where the despair becomes transparent.
Finally, the whole orchestra crashes in all at once to end the piece.
1.5 The Hour Glass bleeds still for string sextet YT 1992/1999
This sextet is about motion and time and the music deals with phenomena that are on the threshold of hearing, speech and motion.
The multitude of timbres tends to decouple the sound from the instruments that create them.
As there is no explicit narrative, one experiences various states of multiplicity and inherent fragility.
Blood is like a pulse that affects the perception of reality and time, as well as the rhythm of our body and life.
Like in many of her other works, Czernowin uses a central idea that she distills throughout her piece.
1.6 Heart Chamber Opera DVD 2017-2019
After her remarkable first 3 operas, the emotional Pnima, the bold Zaide-Adama and the darkly majestic Infinite Now, Czernowin delivers a new kind of opera with Heart Chamber.
She wrote the libretto herself, made use of microphones that play back pre-recorded singing and videos so that the stage becomes a visualization of an internal landscape. Her orchestral writing is luminous and is boosted by ravishing electronic enhancements. A small chorus of voices in the pit binds the work together.
There is no flowing narrative, but eight close-ups define the action. It all starts with a chance encounter wherein a woman walking up the stairs drops a honey jar which is picked up by a man and returned intact to the woman.
A short dialogue ensues which sets possibilities of a love relationship in motion.
The fluid form adopted by Czernowin runs parallel with a love connection of which the outcome cannot be predicted and there is no real closure at the end.
The two characters have an alter-ego voice that describes their inner feelings and thoughts.
The opera has 5 modalities which are connected to different groups of instruments:
-Close ups that enact the plot
-Sound floods or surges that flood and saturate the concert hall
-ASRM Episodes which mimic small movements of mouth or body
-Dreams which relate to the social pressures connected to a love story
-Forests. Invisible forests, forests of muscles and veins, a forest of hair
All this sounds quite complex and the opera requires several viewings in order to be fully appreciated as the precision of the writing, the attention to details and the various expression modes of the voices are mind-boggling.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

2 Lei Liang 1972

Bio
Lei Liang was born in Tianjin, China in 1972 and moved to the US for further studies in 1990.
He obtained degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and a Junior Fellowship and Ph.D from Harvard University.
He studied composition with Birtwistle, Czernowin and Davidovsky.
Lei Liang is currently professor of music at the University of San Diego, California.
He won several prizes, including the Grawemeyer Award in 2020.
His music is a mix between East and West and he does not forget his Chinese roots from which he often seeks inspiration.
Lei Liang is very much involved in ecological topics and even tackles the subject with scientists.
His music is hauntingly beautiful and can shift from imperceptible sounds to expansive orchestral music.
It includes a catalogue of more than 100 works with a recent focus on opera.

2.1 Highlight: A thousand Mountains … a million Streams Orchestral YT 2017
Lei’s words:
I always wanted to create music as if painting with a sonic brush. I think in terms of curves and lines, light and shadows, distances, the speed of the brush, textures, gestures, movements and stillness, layering, blurring, coloring, the inter-penetration of ink, energy, breath, spatial resonance, spiritual vitality, void and emptiness.
A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams meditates on the loss of landscapes of cultural and spiritual dimensions. The work implies an intention to preserve and resurrect parallel landscapes-both spiritual and physical-and sustain a place where we and our children can belong.
2.2 Luminous Ensemble YT 2014
Luminous is a bass concerto written for the innovative improviser Mark Dresser.
The rich spectra evoked by the bass embody voices that encompass extreme opposites, like light and darkness, paradise and inferno.
What is remarkable is that these voices are unified by a singular vibrating body.
They are explored in a few large sections starting with bowing on one string, double-stop bowing and pizzicato.
At the end of the piece the performer even bows multiple strings simultaneously.
2.3 Verge Ensemble YT 2009
Verge for 18 solo strings was composed around the birth of the composer’s son Albert and his name asserts itself in different configurations and disguises.
The 18 strings are taken full advantage of in their timbre and potential for sound.
Technically the composer borrows from the convergence and divergence of musical voices found in traditional Mongolian music.
The strings are divided into antiphonal groups and diverge into sub-ensembles and quartets, but also appear as 18 soloists who converge into a singular voice at the end.
2.4 Gobi Gloria for SQ Chamber YT 2006
This string quartet belongs to a series of compositions that grew out of the composer’s admiration for Mongolian music.
In his childhood in China, he often heard Mongolian melodies arranged for the erhu, but the discovery of the recordings of the legendary Mongolian fiddle player Serashi transformed his musical language.
Lei Liang found a magical range of expression encompassing solitude, timelessness and a vastness of space.
This spirit is captured here in the ornamental and often independently moving and layered lines moving throughout the piece.
2.5 Garden Eight Piano YT 1996
Lei Liang has composed a series of pieces entitled “Gardens” as a tribute to the Ming Dynasty Yuen Yeh, the earliest and most exquisite Chinese horticultural treatise.
In the Chinese mind, the garden is seen as an extended environment, a visual world as well as a world of senses.
Passing of clouds, far-away mountains, the ringing of ancient temple bells, the transience of seasons all become part of the extended space.
Garden eight is a musical garden and to perform it is to walk through a garden of sounds.
Descalzo’s fabulous performance adds an extra dimension to the piece as the delicacy of sounds reach incredible levels in the eight miniatures.
2.6 Inheritance Opera YT 2018
Inheritance tells the bizarre life of Sarah Winchester, the widow and heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune.
She is believed to have sought shelter in a labyrinthine mansion to find refuge from the spirits of the people killed by the weapons that gave her so much wealth.
Lei Liang juxtaposes the historical story with the present complex questions about complicity, atonement and gun control.
It exemplifies the composer’s endeavors to delve into contemporary social, ecological and political issues.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

3 Zibuokle Martinaityte 1973

Bio
Martinaityte was born in 1973 in Lithuania where she studied composition at the Lithuanian Music Academy.
She attended New Music Summer Courses in Darmstadt and also studied with Ferneyhough, Lindberg, Murail and Harvey.
In addition to acoustic music she developed an interest in electronic music.
Her music seeks to revive the essential aesthetic category and revolves around the notion of beauty with a particular fascination for timbre and texture.
She is presently based in New York.

3.1 Highlight: Saudade Orchestral YT 2019
Zibuokle’s words:
Saudade in Portuguese means a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.
According to the writer A.F.G.Bell, the famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.
In my personal experience this notion of Saudade symbolizes the stratum of multiple yearnings that have started layering with the “blue period”-death of my father and immigration to USA. For the last decade this thread of longing has been woven into my life coloring all experiences with the myriad hues of blue.
3.2 Sielunmaisema for cello and orchestra Concertante YT 2019
Sielunmaisema is a Finnish word that refers to a soul-landscape, a place which is valued by an individual who often returns to it in memory.
This concept word is dear to the composer who explores issues of identity and place, due to her 2 cultural identities: Lithuanian and American.
Martinaityte uses the 4 seasons as 4 movements and as a cherished memory of her early life. One can hear the nostalgia for the past and for the landscape that is no longer the same due to global warming.
The cello is the ideal instrument to express this nostalgia.
3.3 Ex Tenebris Lux String orchestra YT 2021
From Darkness comes Light is a piece that is influenced by the current pandemic and that is meant to encourage us to face an uncertain future with courage and determination.
Of course, darkness is always part of the rhythm of our daily lives.
Paradoxically we need it to perceive light, whether as a reality or as a metaphor.
In her piece Martinaityte achieves multiple gradations of darkness which are explored through dense musical textures.
The individual instruments are often condensed into a monolithic sound and are only differentiated when a state of light is reached.
3.4 In Search of Lost Beauty Chamber YT 2016
In what is probably her greatest achievement to date, Martinaityte develops an hour-long sequence of audiovisual moments on the elusive subject of beauty.
There are 10 sections which are united into a structural coherent whole.
They are an invitation to see the beauty in commonly seen and familiar phenomena, which most of us would usually not pay attention to.
The piece is also a reaction against speedy screen images that make us forget the beauty of our surrounding world.
This search for beauty forces us to slow down, operate less automatically and discover true moments of being.
3.5 Solastalgia Chamber SC 2020
This combined word finds its origin in the concepts of solace and desolation as algia denotes suffering.
To the composer it means that you feel homesick although you are at home which is caused by environmental changes and global warming.
It is an additional layer of nostalgia, which is an essential component in Martinaityte’s oeuvre.
3.6 Impulses Piano YT 2007-2008
There are many beautiful moments in these 6 miniatures that resemble drawings on the water which disappear before they can be perceived.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/zibuokle%2Fsolastalgia


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

4 Hector Parra 1976

Bio
Parra was born in Barcelona in 1976. He studied with Padros and Guinovart at the Barcelona Conservatorium, with Harvey, Ferneyhough and Manoury at Ircam in Paris and with Jarrell in Geneva.
Parra won the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize in 2011.
He is a pianist, who has also benefited from his immense experience at Ircam.
Like many of his top Spanish colleagues he is fascinated by early life, biology, science and physics. On top of that he is influenced by the work of visual artists like Soulages, Tapies and Plensa. The famous poet Paul Celan has been an inspiration for a few of his works.
Since a few years he devotes a lot of time to lyrical compositions and his operas Hypermusic Prologue, Das geopferte Leben, Wilde and les Bienveillantes have been widely acclaimed.
Parra lives in Paris since 2002 and teaches at Ircam.

4.1 Highlight: Inscape Orchestral YT 2017-2018
Hector’s words:
Inscape for an ensemble of 16 soloists, grand orchestra and electronics, intends to develop a psychoacoustic journey to the limits of the known world to dive virtually in a universe which is way beyond our sensorial experience. We will make a utopic journey through a giant black hole.
All starts in a sonorous world made of small sound bits, nearly vocal, where the whispers of the public, the instrumental sounds and the physical space form a coherent and organic unit.
Bit by bit, the growing power of the orchestra and the instrumental soloists, activated by developing electronics, propels us into zones of very high energy, which distort the perception of the musical space-time, transforming the initial fragility in rough and deformed energy. It is time now to dive into the horizon of events in the rotating acoustic black hole.
We are crossed by powerful gravitational waves made of electronic sound. Its spectrum and changing density beats to the rhythm of the spectral compression and the spatialisation that transforms the perception of the physical space of the hole, which dilates and retracts cyclically while following the rhythm of these waves.
Surviving the extreme experience, we are led to a new universe, through the annular worm hole we go through without being damaged by the incredibly powerful gravity here.
How will this new paradise be? Presently we can only explore it with the music that is being written.
4.2 La Mort i la Primavera Ensemble YT 2021
Parra uses 2 ensembles and 2 conductors to narrate a hallucinant vision in his tone poem consisting of six movements.
His work is inspired by the unfinished and posthumous novel of the Catalan writer Mercè Rodoreda. It is a dark novel, inhabited by fear and death, which tells the story of an adolescent who seeks deliverance from a dystopic, brutal and cruel society through suicide.
The composer musically represents cruel rituals, permanent danger, hostility to a harmonious human life and rebellion through the dominant use of cello and contrabass (particularly in the last two movements).
His refined lyrical writing for flute occasionally brings in some relief.
It is a sacred dance, a ballet without dancers, an opera without voices that reminds us of the distant Rite of Spring.
4.3 SQ 3 Aracne for SQ Chamber SC 2015
Parra is on a quest to a hypersonic reality, a kind of stirring of instrumental material inspired by “The Spinners”, a masterpiece by Velasquez.
The composer links the dramatic art of his quartet to the painting as the performers start in a traditional way and then progressively the instruments and the players morph into spinners and finally into spiders.
To achieve this, they attach a silk thread, that acts as a fifth string, to their instruments, which enables them to obtain the most diverse sounds like: a bird’s song, a swarm of bees, thunder rolling, the creaking of a door or a saw, the gallop of a horse.
The silk thread is not a lucky find. It is linked to the compositional gesture and to the special timbres achieved by the Tana Quartet with incredible colors and sonorous saturation.
4.4 Limite les rêves au-delà Cello YT 2017
Parra’s fascination for black holes is well known and he invites us to an interstellar musical voyage.
His work is a psychoacoustic experiment that goes far beyond the limits of the world we know and exceeds our previous sensorial experiences.
There is a constant dialogue between natural and artistic phenomena, from confrontation to fusion, which slowly develops into a cosmological symphony.
The audience is confronted to the abyssal violence of physical forces which are brilliantly recreated by Arne Deforce and his cello. The endless varieties of the vibrations of his strings are amazing and are augmented by the excellent sound engineer Thomas Goepfer.
The music is an invitation to explore the indomitable energy of the universe.
4.5 Au Cœur de l’Oblique Piano SC 2016-2017
Claude Parent and Paul Virilio were the architects who worked on the oblique function, their innovation through the continuity of the inclined plane, which led to the construction of the Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay Church.
Parra’s piece is an homage to Parent and questions some of the most intimate and essential principles of musical architecture.
In the first movement the pianist draws power from the chord with the nails, the palms and the finger tips gaining energy until he/she reaches a psychological limit.
In the second part inspired by Parent’s church with its great sobriety and massive body the pianist slows down by combining chords played on the keyboard with sounds extracted from the strings.
The musical structure accelerates towards an undulating, fluid, virtuoso piano language.
4.6 Hypermusic Prologue Opera Spot 2008-2009
Parra’s opera is performed by a soprano and a baritone, supported by 10 musicians and a conductor
The subject is about the physics of extra dimensions and Parra was inspired by professor Lisa Randall’s book “Warped Passages” and asked her to write the libretto for his opera.
The two characters interact day to day, but the soprano longs to explore higher dimensions while the baritone is satisfied with a static world.
At the end he is forced to make the leap to the so-called fifth dimension and follow her in order to save the relationship.
Musically the composer expresses this fifth dimension as an extended musical concept through electronic manipulation, distortion of the voice and extended vocal techniques.
The audience clearly experiences the conflict between the lovers and their ultimate reconciliation through Parra’s glittering, jarring often electronically generated sounds.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/quatuortana%2Fhector-parra-aracne-string-quartet-n-3-2015-live


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/h-parra%2Fau-coeur-de-loblique-2016-17-maroussia-gentet-piano


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

5 Egidija Medeksaite 1979

Bio
Medeksaite was born in Lithuania in 1979.
She obtained a PH.D from the Durham University in England and studied composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and at the Stuttgart Academy with her teachers Marco Stroppa and Caspar J.Walter.
She also studied with Harvey and Manoury in Metz.
Her music is more of a meditative flow than a structured construction.
There is a strict organization of musical parameters based on predefined patterns which work as the background.
Indian music, particularly Ravi Shankar’s, and textile patterns are major influences in her compositional practice.

5.1 Highlight: Akasha Orchestral SC 2015
Egidija’s words:
This score is based on textile patterns. I have created continuous interwoven sonic entities, which gradually are changing timbre. My intention was to develop from one noisy material into seven independent timbral layers, later transforming into one monolithic soundscape.
5.2 Scintilla Orchestral SC 2008
Scintilla denotes a spark in Latin but in English its meaning is more in the sense of a shine, a hint or a trace of something that barely suggests its presence.
Medeksaite’s orchestral composition has a corpus that is made up of six notes.
It is her Master’s work and she set herself the task of sticking to these six notes so that there would be enough for all the included harmonies and micro melodies, for the slowly widening and contracting shine of the elements of sound.
5.3 Malakosha Ensemble YT 2018
Malakosha is a work for ensemble whose structure is based on a repetitive textile weave which is progressively augmented up to a length of 24 measures.
Melodic patterns and change within these patterns go along with the structure of the weaving pattern.
The title of the piece is derived from the pentatonic raga on which the harmony and the tonal range of the music are based.
Each section expands and more notes are added to the repetitive melodic patterns.
There are some noisy patterns in the background which gradually becoming part of a louder soundscape with the instruments.
The piece shows some similarities with minimalist works by Steve Reich.
5.4 Megh Malar for SQ Chamber YT 2016
In Sanskrit Megh means cloud and Megh Malar is an Indian classical raga whose aim is to produce the effect of thunderstorm and rain. This raga is also believed to make wonders and influence clouds in time of drought.
The composer’s intention is to use the raga so that it might resemble the illusion of sparkling dew, in which each droplet reflects the microscopic world of the rain.
The fragile sound is maintained through various thrills performed in very slow tempo by each string player.
Medeksaite weaves the raindrops or dew into one fragile and transparent pattern.
The beauty of the string quartet lies in its fragility.
5.5 Textile I Piano YT 2006
Textile 1 for two pianos was written at the time when Medeksaite discovered the technique of translating textile patterns into musical structures.
Every cell of the pattern corresponds to a sixteenth note; the lines of black and white cells correspond to the formation of the notes, similar in nature but in opposition to one another.
5.6 Oscillum for cello and tape SC 2009
The texture of Oscillum is made up of 13 prerecorded melodic lines on cello, while the fourteenth is played live.
Initially all the lines move down, from the middle some begin to ascend and others to descend even further. The longer notes seem to be mistakes in the textile and are stretched out because of the different lengths of the overlays, so that the threads which seem to be too long finally become supplementary elements in the beauty of the textile and the music.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/egidija_medeksaite%2Fakasha


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/egidija_medeksaite%2Fscintilla


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## Hogwash (5 mo ago)

Very cool  thanks for doing this. I'll be following with interest.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/egidija_medeksaite%2Foscillum


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

6 Marina Khorkova 1981

Bio
Khorkova was born in Russia in 1981, studied composition at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow between 2000 and 2005 and then received fellowships that enabled her to continue her studies in Stuttgart.
Two semesters at the Basel Music Academy in 2014 allowed her to work on her artistic research with the reputed Professor Caspar Johannes Walter.
She constantly explores tonal properties and frequently uses unusual playing techniques, like for example with her self-constructed multiphonic keyboard, which allows her to form multi-layered soundscapes.
She used Cage’s piano preparations from “Sonatas and Interludes” for her early compositions and subsequently worked out her own systems.
Khorkova lives and works in Moscow and Berlin.


6.1 Highlight: Drei Miniaturen Keyboard YT 2019
Marina’s words:
In 2016 I acquired a piano from the 19 th century, which distinguishes itself by its special construction. All sides are stretched parallel to each other, so that room for preparations and open knot points of additional sounds are doubled.
Whereas the usual construction of one side in traditional pianos often features disturbing beams, the sides of the multi-phonic piano are uncluttered.
The multi-phonic piano consists of the interior of a piano without keyboard and keyboard lid and features horizontally aligned sides.
Only the strings and the resonating deck remain.
The performer plays on the sides with hammers or hammer-constructions, with the nails, with E-Bows (an electronic device for playing string instruments) and with different objects.
What is special is that this instrument can be played from four sides which facilitates the combination of different sounds.
I developed two designs for playing: one with stretched tapes and lines and another with a hammer-like construction for the performance of multi-phonics in the bass register.
I have many ideas to improve the quality of the sound of the instrument and will continue to develop its construction.
6.2 Collision Ensemble SC 2015
As you may well have surmised “Collision” pushes the envelope up to breaking points, when the developed material reaches a barrier and provokes a reversal among sonic states.
The diversity of the instruments from trumpet, trombone, percussion, prepared piano to electric guitar and cello allow for sophisticated noise effects.
Khorkova uses special techniques including overtones through electric bows equipped with small metal plates whose slight shifts alter the sound of the drones.
Her sonic landscape is poetic and fragile, but also dominated by metallic severity, raw and threatening noises.
6.3 SQ 1 Chamber SC 2010
Khorkova retunes the four string instruments in order to achieve a broad range of overtones. In turn this allows her to develop iridescent clusters of harmonics.
Three sonic elements dominate: the harmonics, stopped notes and sophisticated noise-like sounds.
There is a network of subtle vibrations and frequencies in which rhythmic gestures take only temporary form and musical time is represented by free sound-shapes.
Disorderly rhythms invoke visions of disruption.
6.4 A priori for flute and cello Chamber YT 2013
In her chamber works Khorkova grants the performers leeway to explore open-ended processes so that their creative energy is boosted during the performance.
“A priori” is a kind of search for inner origins.
During the composition there was an ambivalence between free original ideas and the more conscious compositional interventions.
The end result is a piece that emerges from and returns to silence.
The opening is meditative, whereafter two instruments go inter higher gear with compressed sonorities, savage glissandos and death-rattles from the flute before the piece quietens down into isolated percussive jabs.
6.5 Installationen Organ YT 2011
In “Installationen” the composer has worked with partial registers. Each register can be elevated to the fifth position and each position creates different complex spectra which are not so stable. Therefore, the composer has tried to fixate the position through graphic notation. She experimented with the instrument almost every day for three months, finding accurate ways of notating special registrations.
The piece is about creating new sounds through the use of several intersecting spectra -harmonious or inharmonious, very unstable and noise-like.
6.6 Not me Vocal YT 2019
“Not me” is composed for choir, based on the concept of deformed reflections.
The sound situations mirror each other, from which a row of intertwining block sounds is created. The inspiration for this is a look into the mirror which reflects a strange self-image.
The piece symbolizes the dialog with the strange self and leads us to self-discovery and understanding of one ‘s own identity.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

As always, remarkable and invaluable work, Justekaia! I'm going to start with Hector Parra


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/marina-khorkova%2Fcollision


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/marina-khorkova%2Fstring-quartet-2010-1


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

7 Clara Iannotta 1983

Bio
Iannotta was born in Rome in 1983.
She spent her childhood studying to become a flautist, but shifted to composition classes in 2003 and studied during 3 years with Alessandro Solbiati in Milan.
Afterwards her path crossed composers like Mark André, Bedrossian, Czernowin and Takasugi.
To her, music is an existential, physical experience that should be seen as well as heard.
After living and studying in Paris for 5 years she settled down in Berlin in 2013.
Although her strength seems to lie in string quartets, she also many ensemble and a few orchestral works in her repertoire.
In the quartets she extends the conventional sound farther by using electronics and found objects like bells, whistles, paper-clips and electro-transducers.
She was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize in 2018.


7.1 Highlight: Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar II for string orchestra YT 2016
Clara’s words:
Dead wasps in the jam-jar-like so many of Clara Iannotta’s pieces, its title a striking image taken from the poetry of Dorothy Molloy-began as a short piece for the violinist Yuki Numata Resnick. It was one of four new works commissioned to nestle among the four movements of J.S.Bach’s Partita no 1 for solo violin, and in this case Iannotta drew inspiration from the Double to Bach’s Corrente, draping a range of glissandi and other noise effects over a skeleton of the original. The idea has since expanded into a series of three separate works dead wasps in the jam-jar (ii) for string orchestra and electronics and (iii) for string quartet and electronics.
Molloy’s poem, Mother’s kitchen is like many of her poems, a tiny, painful snapshot, both everyday and awful: a kitchen, a child playing, and off-stage, a threatened suicide.
There are few programmatic connections to Iannotta’s music, however, and the composer is typically cautious about making direct links. The simple fact is, she says, no other poet inspires her sonic imagination in the same way.
In the end, while the influences of both Bach and Molloy are substantial, they rest only lightly on Iannotta’s piece. Dead wasps in the jam-jar (ii) sits at one further remove still: a great swelling of the violin solo expands its gestures and dwells longer in their consequences, augmenting the strings themselves with sine tones and a range of additional objects, including “gelinotte” birdcalls, bowed polystyrene blocks, and plastic containers rubbed on plexiglass.
The effect is like lifting a stone and discovering a whole world teeming beneath.
7.2 Moult Chamber Orchestra YT 2018-2019
Iannotta has a definite fascination for insects and aims to compare the evolution of a spider with the evolution of an orchestra.
When a spider moults it sheds its exoskeleton and renews itself but leaves an imprint of its body.
Spiders shed their skin in order to grow and allow their organs to do the same.
There is a moment of double temporality as the self is split across times.
In her musical work the composer imagines the orchestra as a spider; shedding pasts that continue to haunt the form of the piece.
7.3 Paw Marks in wet Cement Ensemble YT 2015-2018
The title refers to the last words of a poem by Dorothy Molloy that are a tribute to a lost pet.
The image is a way to register something and evoke a life that is gone.
Iannotta wants to lighten the history of the piano concerto and the prepared piano and the two percussionists playing it at times are never dominant.
The opening section introduces the main themes with string glissandi, strange brass sounds and muted piano parts. A central section develops the themes in more abstract ways.
The third spiritual section concludes the piece by avoiding any final climax, but introduces playful gelinotte bird-calls and the sound of a friction drum.
The composer seems to dwell on the music’s afterlife, showing us the mark it leaves.
7.4 Il Colore dell’Ombra Ensemble 2010
Iannotta used Ravel’s richly textured piano trio as a model. In order to achieve extreme registers of each instrument she intervenes on them.
The three instrumental voices are alternately detuned or muted.
She thus obtains a more natural resonance and invokes sounds that resemble the material characteristics of the instrument like wood, hair, metal or flesh.
The de-tuned strings vibrate loosely, while the piano is muted at precise points to emit a strange glow.
This process is combined with microtones and diverse bow articulations to bring out multiple shadings of sound colors thus achieving a rich texture like Ravel.
7.5 Earthing-Dead Wasps for SQ Chamber YT 2020
Iannotta has adopted Helmut Lachenmann’s position to treat instrumental acoustical music and noise equally.
The opening of the work is a mixture of noise and pitch, not really static but seeming to stay into place. One seems to be stuck somewhere with limited movement.
The extension of the opening is a complex soundscape full of gorgeous, strange and fleeting details that the ear has difficulties to follow.
Rhythmic regularity brings some clarity countered by the vagueness of the environment.
The end is ambiguous with a few glistening notes slowly fading out.
This is probably Iannotta’s best SQ to date and this in a type of musical composition in which she excels.
7.6 Limun for violin and viola Chamber YT 2011
The combination of violin and viola guarantees a work full of friction. The bows glide across the strings and create airy harmonics.
Expect also sharp stops and swift turns with unexpected changes of dynamics and timbre.
Limun means lemon in Spanish, a tree that can be in fruit and flower simultaneously.
The first half of the piece is forever turning on itself through different techniques, while the second half is a kind of response that brings conflicting forces to a certain feeling of relief.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

8 Christopher Cerrone 1985

Bio
Cerrone was born in NY in 1984, studied music composition at the Manhattan school of music and subsequently earned his Masters and Doctoral degree at Yale with famous teachers like David Lang, Theofanidis and Ingram Marshall.
He is known for his subtle handling of timbre and resonances and the shifts of his music from lushness to austerity, from immersive textures to intimate details.
What is certain is that he nearly always achieves tension, mystery and dramatic impact particularly in his operas like “In the Grove”.
He is however equally at ease in many other genres and his concertante works really shine.

8.1 Highlight: The Air suspended for piano and orchestra Concertante YT 2019
Christopher’s words:
The Air suspended is the third in a series of concerti (the others being violin and percussion) wherein I tried to reimagine the relationship of the soloist to the large ensemble. Distinct from either the romantic concerto or baroque concerto grosso; I imagined the piano as the acoustical center of the work, wherein the orchestral part grows out of the resonance of the solo piano. In the Air Suspended, the orchestral strings play different kinds of roles inspired by electronic music: they act as reverb, delay, reverse, or a “freeze” of the soloist (wherein a note played on the piano is held endlessly).
8.2 Why was I born between Mirrors Ensemble YT 2019
The title refers to a phrase by Garcia Lorca, translated by Ben Lerner in his novel “Leaving the Atiocha Station”.
Thinking about the similarity between translation and transposition in music, Cerrone quickly realised that shifting a musical idea out of its original context can give surprising results especially if you use conventional sounds from a prepared piano and clay flower pots.
The piece takes place between mirrors as it begins and ends with a tremolo on flower pots. In between there is a section for prepared piano and a lamenting chorale wherein two notes try to connect to each other.
The sextet is harmonious, relaxing and well-balanced.
8.3 Can’t and won’t for SQ Chamber YT 2017
The title has several meanings, as the composer sets out to compose a song cycle based on Lydia Davis’ texts but never managed to finish the work. Instead he decided to use his musical material to write a string quartet, a series of songs without words, interspersed with one long dramatic movement.
Some tapping on the fingerboard followed by the bowing of the strings open the quartet, to reveal swirling harmonies. A long cello melody is abruptly cut off and the entire quartet bursts into a rhythmic passage.
Progressively the song material moves higher and higher, while the violent and rhythmic music descends to the lowest range.
The composer is influenced by his subconscious as he is in fact trying to find a place of composure in these chaotic times.
8.4 The arching Path Piano YT 2016
The title is inspired by the composer’s visit to the 2 km long modern “Bridge over the Basento river” in Potenza in Italy.
The first movement is named after the designer of the bridge Sergio Musmeci.
Vicky Chow plays many different rhythms upon each other imagining how they could represent different curves on the bridge.
The musical material, sharp and repetitive, draws inspiration from the concrete, molded to form 4 continuous arches.
The second movement imagines the view from the water. A single note seems to bounce across the sonic surface slowly changing from an attack into a sustained sound.
The bridge (repeating), the water (flowing) and a dissonant chord weave together in the final movement.
8.5 The Pieces that fall to Earth Vocal YT 2015
This great vocal piece was inspired by short poems by Los Angeles native, Kay Ryan.
Cerrone wanted to build a work with large-scale architecture and his settings therefore mirror his own readings of the poetry.
The composer intended to write a work for a soprano of dazzling dexterity and range and expanded his usual vocabulary towards the melismatic and the acrobatic to express the wide range of emotions and states of the poems.
The cycle of seven songs form a kind of monodrama and the expressiveness required from the soprano is very high.
The end result is a mesmerizing lyrical tone poem.
8.6 In a Grove Opera YT 2021
In our era of fake news and algorithms that lead to truth decay, Cerrone chooses a story that deals with the subjective nature of human experience.
The story is set in 1921 in a ghost forest in the mountains of Oregon and the audience is confronted with the testimony of seven witnesses who are potential perpetrators of a crime.
A young botanist and her husband are lured into a grove by a local vigilante and the husband is killed. It is not clear who the real culprit is.
At the end of the opera, a medium channels the dead man and reveals that his heart has always been weak. The dead husband is tormented by the idea that he allowed his wife to believe she killed him.
Cerrone transforms the voices electronically and distorts them using reverb, pitch-shifting and granulation in an effort to exemplify the flaws of remembrance.
His musical language is shimmering and he is inspired by artists like Fujiko Nakaya who sculpts with fog and James Turrell who alters our perception of light.
The opera is innovative and will reward many different aesthetic sensibilities.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

9 Joan Magrané 1988

Bio
Joan Magrané Figuera was born in Reus in Catalonia in 1988.
Ramon Humet, the well-known Catalan composer was his first composition teacher. Studies at the “Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya” in Barcelona were followed by courses in Graz with Beat Furrer and in Paris with Stefano Gervasoni.
His very developed cultural knowledge and love of nature are ideal sources of inspiration.
He is fascinated by Spanish poets (Ausias March, Francesc Garriga) and artists (Miro, Perejaune) as well as by Renaissance music (Desprez, de Lassus, Monteverdi).
Despite his young age he has built a repertoire that covers nearly all genres, including some short operas.
His colorful polyphonic style is ideally suited to vocal and chamber music.

9.1 Highlight: Marines y Boscatges Ensemble YT 2016
Joan’s words:
From its title onwards, “Marines I Boscatges” alludes to the luxuriance of life in the sea and in the forests and to its representation in the famous medieval tapestry of the Cathedral of Gerona (“Tapis de la Creacio”, a tapestry in circular form which illustrates the seven days of Genesis).
During the composition of this piece these two sources have been important: first to ignite the flame of inspiration and then to nourish it with its vividly poetic imagery through a musical approach of madrigalist perfume.
Indeed, certain compositional recourses used in the piece are quite evocative of the natural elements implicit in the title, in practice by exercising a figurative role.
The concatenation of several nearly periodical impulsions for example makes us think of the ocean waves.
In other respects, certain polyphonic patterns with a very refined use of timbre make one dream of a jungle full of birds.
In the middle of the piece, the most symbolic cultural reference emerges: one can hear a veiled citation-with celesta, harp, a small flute and the metallic percussions of the madrigal “The Silver Swan” (1611) by Orlando Gibbons.
Certainly, the swan as an aquatic bird, symbolizes a junction between the waters and heaven.
9.2 Obreda Orchestral SC 2020
Obreda is inspired by Perejaune’s poems on work in the forest.
The forest is the main part for the composer and it is surrounded by images that are related to it.
His inspiration comes from the Gothic and medieval eras and his fascination for triptychs which can be opened and closed, hiding or revealing images.
Plenty of musical ideas are blooming and go to new places that cannot be predicted.
9.3 Faula Ensemble YT 2017
Faula is inspired by the homonymous novel by the Mallorcan poet Jaume Pons Alorda.
Magrané uses the poet’s ideas and aesthetic world to conceive structure, texture and sound.
Alorda’s writing shifts from hectic to the contemplative. It is manifold, unpredictable and rich.
The composer is precisely interested by the richness which he seeks to translate into a play of contrasts, going from passion and animal energy to utterly and nearly excessive lyric, intense and concentrated fragments.
The four musical sections can be described as follows: impassioned, silent, bare and desolate, short and concentrated.
That is how Magrané transforms the fable into song, sound and vibrations.
9.4 Era Chamber SC 2018
Magrané’s third string quartet borrows its title from Jaume Pons Alorda’s poem.
The work alludes to the various meanings of the concept of being; the verb to be in the past tense, the passing of time and above all the work in the farms, which is perceived as a metaphor for the world of string quartets.
Formally Magrané establishes a resemblance with the poem through distinct sections which alternate until they close in a circle, where the final joins the initial.
The music is intense and expressive, ornamented as well as bare, while polyphony dominates.
9.5 Tombeau Solo YT 2018
Like in the great French tradition, Magrané has dedicated his work to a great master, namely Joan Guinjoan and draws his inspiration from the baroque “Viola de Gamba” which reveals his musical taste for the likes of Monteverdi or in this case Sainte-Colombe or Marin Marais.
In order to approach the sound of the viola da gamba with the cello Magrané turns to the scordatura in the 4th chord.
Tombeau is an elegiac piece whose main material is a chromatic descending line.
This delicious filigree shows that poetics and gestural line still have a place in contemporary music.
9.6 Abglanz Vocal SC 2021
Abglanz is a piece with neo-romantic and orientalist inspiration that can be seen as a contemporary version of Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony.
Two poems from “The Book of Souleika” from the Western-Eastern Divan by Goethe are presented without solution of continuity. The first is a song for soprano and orchestra, immediately followed by a kind of litany for choir and orchestra with the punctual intervention of the soprano soloist.
The solo part is always very expressive and has an emotionally strong content.
The choir has a more contemplative role, almost always maintaining a 8-voice division.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/user-246108618-853848361%2Fmagrane-era-string-quartet-to-diotima-quartet-fragment


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/joan-magrane-figuera%2Fabglanz-2021


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/joan-magrane-figuera%2Fobreda-obc-ono


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

10 Kory Reeder 1993

Bio
Kory Reeder was born in Nebraska in 1993.
He already holds a degree in composition from the University of Nebraska, a Master of Music in composition from Bowling Green State University and he is pursuing a PhD at the University of North Texas, where he currently resides.
Reeder’s music is meditative and atmospheric but does not owe anything to previous music currents.
Not surprisingly subjects that make us dream like the visual arts, nature, astronomy and history are major sources of inspiration for him.
His music is also lyrical, sensitive and emotive which fits in with the social aspect that is so important in his music-making. His recent marathon jam-sessions with his close friends also reveal a love for improvisation.

10.1 Highlight: A Timeshare for open instrumentation: Duration 9, 5 hours 2021
The whole work can be streamed from this link: A Timeshare, by Kory Reeder
Kory’s words:
I chose this work because I think it accomplishes what I feel is the most important aspect of our art: the social aspect. While I love talking about the construction of a work or the aesthetical /theoretical principles of a piece, I think we often forget that music is also a verb- it is a thing that we do. It is social, it has a context, it has a societal impact. To the folks that make even the most obscure underground/avantgarde work to commercial pop music. The personal bonds that come from making or listening and sharing music together form some of the core relationships in our artistic lives. A Timeshare is a calibration of that and an acknowledgement of the (perhaps, sometimes fleeting) intersections our artistic lives can have.
This piece was written with only chords/pitches and an indication to play 7 pages per-hour with no other instructions and was performed by myself and 4 of my closest musical comrades.
We come together as friends to simply spend musical time together, to be generous and empathetic in our musical relationships (for a significant amount of time). Sometimes there are a few sublime moments, sometimes there are rather dull moments, but we don’t need to worry about that sort of thing; perhaps this piece will never be performed again, but the fact that we spent that time together was life changing. I think an embrace of that radical naïveté can take us to amazing and unexpected places, and perhaps a calibration of these relationships can teach us something about each other and ourselves.

10.2 Walls of Brocade Fields Orchestral SC 2019
Walking through the Quilt museum in Lincoln, Nebraska the composer felt a sense of duality: the richly decorated patterns versus the nostalgic quality of the medium.
Fields of intricately designed flowers line the walls.
The musical piece has plenty of crossings and repeated patterns laid across each other, at times interacting, and sometimes more exposed.
The sounds can be encompassing and warm, wrapping the audience in a blanket of sound, while others are sparse and open.
Overlapping notes and phrases create subtle cadences and nearly tonal reminiscences.
There is however a unifying pulse, connecting the material and keeping the threads together. This feature is quite characteristic in Reeder’s oeuvre and gives it coherence.
10.3 Codex Vivere Ensemble AT 2021
A codex is an ancient manuscript text in book form.
Reeder has written three Codex works to date: Codex Praxis, Codex Vivere, Codex Symphony.
Vivere is in 9 parts and 2 of them (Parts 2 and 8) try to tell a story, while the other parts are an introduction, a long series of diversions and a fleeting apology at the end.
The composer likes to work in series and demonstrates an instance of “nested” series in the Codex series as he includes a movement of his Grid series in each Codex piece.
The music develops very slowly, while Vivere uses several notational strategies and each movement is an investigation into the different ways of navigating musical ideas and material through the lens of the composer’s aesthetic and formal interests and taste.
The end-result is a beautiful composition which includes a violin concerto, a piano concerto, 2 pieces for solo viola and 5 pieces for ensemble.
10.4 Don’t just sit there and pretend everything is fine Chamber SC 2017
Like many of his colleagues Reeder has taken an interest in translating visual art into musical mediums.
For this string quartet, he was particularly interested in the mathematical and rhythmic proportions found in the linear style of the High Renaissance, in particular Raphael’s Ansidei Madonna, which you can admire in the National Gallery in London.
The quartet is not really about this painting, but the composer listened to church music of the same period as a referential similarity to the visual style.
He also considered the time-ridden decay of the art works of that period as an interesting element in their structures.
In order to reconcile these ideas, Reeder wrote his own chant-style music using modern set collections, then stripped them down to their components and pushed them in the background as faded tapestries.
10.5 Adjacent Spaces for piano trio Chamber YT 2020
Adjacent Spaces is a trio that allows Reeder to explore cooperation, occupation of space and development of narrative unity.
It is a step higher than a duo and leads to togetherness.
Collisions, frictions but also compensation and protection against trouble become important in a trio.
The composer wants the three musicians to work together rather than providing a hierarchical relationship. Of course, this has to do with the high social value Reeder imparts to music making. To him the act of doing something is the thing that matters.
The piece is generally quiet with long notes, some short ones, many pauses and a specific harmonic framework.
10.6 Codex Symphonia Vocal AT 2022
Codex Symphonia is an extensive work for symphonic orchestra, choir, soprano, fixed media, small ensembles and soloists.
It flows from delicate sounds to large engulfing landscapes; from sparse, isolated tones to field recordings, various concert genres and notational methodologies to varying ensemble relationships.
Due to the importance given by the composer to physicality and social relationships in performances it is no surprise that the various parts feature solo works, trios, ensemble works and the utterly beautiful tutti where the musicians and singers pull out all the stops through a climactic density and an angelic libretto for voices.
The power of the individual performer triumphs in the plaintive piano solo in Epigraph.
A remarkable piece that reaches the high expectations put in a work that is a kind of synthesis of a first period in the composer’s oeuvre.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/kory-reeder-music%2Fwalls-of-brocade-fields


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

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https://soundcloud.com/kory-reeder-music%2Fdont-just-sit-there-and-pretend-everythings-fine


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)




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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Now this is a thread I can sink my teeth into!

A bunch of new composers to me. That's why I originally joined TC, to find new music. 

I will be doing a lot of listening to this thread over the weekend.

THANKS!


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

GENERAL COMMENTS
Plse post general comments about the thread here.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

@justekaia this is a neat thread, well done. I've only listened to Reeder's Trio and quartet above so far but thought it worth mentioning for any curious TC'ers that the trio is an easy, relaxing, concordant and friendly listen. The quartet in post 61 is also to my ears at least, user friendly. A little more gritty and esoteric in language than the trio, but still in the main, gentle and expressive until the climactic moments later on where dissonance and a timbral aggression become dominant. Even so, the music is easily comprehended and well worth a listen for adventurous yet still conservative ears imo.


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

justekaia said:


> __
> https://soundcloud.com/marina-khorkova%2Fstring-quartet-2010-1


Very creative ,I like it ,I'll have to listen more to her!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Thanks for this interesting thread. You've put a lot of work into this so I hope many here will take the time to read and listen. I started with Verge, for 18 solo strings by Lei Liang. I am a fan of this type of aggressive and exciting writing for strings so this piece is very much to my liking. I look forward to listening to more pieces by all of the composers here.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

justekaia said:


>


I've listened to Cerrone's 'The Air Suspended' this am.
I like the composer's concept drawn from techniques I recognise from using a DAW and its plug-ins. Although very straight forward and minimilist harmonically and rhythmically speaking, there is some striking invention. For example, the simple and much used G major to B minor harmony from 2'30" cf has a fresh sound thanks to some imaginative and quirky scoring. The C minor section at 12' came just in time for me as a balm to the agressive looping cresecendos of major seconds. Overall, an enjoyable and even memorable listen and the end climactic build was quite effective too.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

justekaia said:


>


More timbral imagination for some relatively simple pan diatonic -ish harmonic language. Having only heard two of his pieces so far, the emphasis on the timbral within this harmonic simplicity seems to be a trait. Minimalism is again in evidence with rhythmic repitition and although I'm personally not a total fan of lots and lots of repetition, I do like this composers dynamic and timbral contrasts which often hit suddenly and to good effect.
He also has a knack of making a major triad sound quite unique at times which is cool.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Kory Reeder's Codex Praxis (2019) played by Ensemble Kymatic in a live performance in Armenia.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

I had a listen to 'Scintilla' and 'Megh Malar ' by Egidija Medeksaite.
'Scintilla' had the approach of an orchestral New Age synth piece to my ears with some interesting textures. I particularly loved the change at around 4'50" which came just in time for me. The 4tet was texturally cool and from the programme notes quite a poetic and vivd imagining. Musically for me, the mostly static pan-diatonicism was a bit too long in both pieces, but that crescendo at the end of the 4tet was amazing and powerful, coming as it did from a very quiet and delicate place.
Although I don't particularly go for long looped and repetitive music, I can see the appeal of such techniques and these two works are very user friendly tonally speaking imo, especially if one is in a contemplative mood.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

This is a really cool thread, thank you. I'm familiar with Martinaitytė's work and Cerrone's work, but there's a few names I'm not as familiar with (including Reeder). Looking forward to taking a closer listen!


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

It's such a shame the OP is now banned, I enjoyed her curating and she introduced me to many new works and composers.


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## verandai (Dec 10, 2021)

Well, it's a little late now - but I also wanted to say thanks a lot!

I wanted to write a more refined response - but for that I would need more time (I'm quite a newbie at contemporary music). So far I just marked the pieces I found interesting and/or liked.

Thanks again! Hope they can work this one out somehow and undo the ban


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Fortunately I was able to express my gratitude for this thread and OP`s overall contribution to TC via PM. I don`t know if OP will be back or not but I know I`ll be coming back to this thread quite a lot in the future. 

A sad day for contemporary music lovers of TC...


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Highwayman said:


> A sad day for contemporary music lovers of TC...


Don't worry, it's not permanent. You can tell by clicking on his profile. If it's permanent, it will say "the page doesn't exist."


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

I hope it is a temporary ban and the project will continue. This thread is unique and very valuable for prominent contemporary composers share comments on their selected works, specially for TC.

My favorites so far among these composers are Medeksaite, Cerrone and Reeder (though I have not yet finished listening to the >9-hour long highlighted work, A Timeshare), and I am checking other composers' music. Joan Magrané Figuera looks very interesting. I like the music of his teacher Ramon Humet.

I love Medeksaite but Malakosha was surprising for the use of Russolo's noise instrument Intonarumori with the pleasant, Reich-like minimal ensemble. A wonderful piece.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> Don't worry, it's not permanent. You can tell by clicking on his profile. If it's permanent, it will say "the page doesn't exist."


Very good news!


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Breaks and breaks, a concerto for violin by Christopher Cerrone (1984).


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Lei Liang's Lakescape IV


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

justekaia said:


> Breaks and breaks, a concerto for violin by Christopher Cerrone (1984).


Just an FYI
When listened to this and posted it in the Currently Listening VIII thread I noted that it was fantastic!

I do enjoy these pieces you post here.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

eljr said:


> Just an FYI
> When listened to this and posted it in the Currently Listening VIII thread I noted that it was fantastic!
> 
> I do enjoy these pieces you post here.


On a personal note i thank you for your incredible support. I have worked very hard with the composers for one year to achieve my initial presentation. I will continue to present new works from the 10 selected composers, as this is the thread that is the closest to my heart. Each of these composers have an incredible catalogue (still developing), so I will present at least one additional work each week. I hope one day our members will realise what this thread means.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

justekaia said:


> I hope one day our members will realise what this thread means.


I would not hold my breath. Trying not to be negative, it frustrates me daily how "old school" most seem to be. 
Luckily we do have a few posters like yourself and @SanAntone who are true gifts to the forum. 

I think my good fortune and open ears in enjoying new pieces is a product of lack of classical exposure most my life. Also, by nature, in all facets of life, I am an early adapter.


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