The Phoenix Concerts

Timetable performs on the Pheonix Concerts.

PERFORMERS' NOTE

This concert is notable for TimeTable in that all of the music is really new, and it was all composed for the group. Getting a new piece from a composer is a little like opening a present and finding that some assembly is required. We received each of the works on this program with great excitement, then set about to discover their inner logics and bring them to life. In each case we have worked closely with the composers, sometimes through long e-mail exchanges, and ultimately in rehearsal. This program is especially exciting in that three of the works are premieres. The only exception is Giancarlo Vulcano’s Calder Pieces, which he wrote for us in 2003, and which we have performed several times since. TimeTable would like to thank each of the composers for their music and their collaboration.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The three words of MASK MEAN BUNDLE’s title were pulled from a book-length poem by Clark Coolidge called Geology. In each other’s presence, these words (do they functions as nouns? they could be something else) vibrate with associations, some hidden at the level of the phoneme. Their ordering is perhaps arbitrary (why not BUNDLE MASK MEAN?), but their placement within the poem feels exact and inevitable.

Calderberry Bush and Sea Scape are two movements from a four movement work inspired by the mobiles of Alexander Calder. With his playful wire and metal objects Calder draws three dimensional figures in space and creates ever changing harmonies between the moving parts of a sculpture. In these compositions, the players' steps are notated in musical durations to create a counterpoint between what they play and their rate of speed and location around the audience. Only three pitches are used — C, C#, E — creating an ever changing relationship between the major and minor thirds circling the listener. Each movement lasts as long as it takes the performers to travel around the hall, so the performance space exerts a unique influence on every performance. The Calder Pieces were composed in 2003 for TimeTable.

In Gather, energy is turned into space. The opening of the piece is dominated by silence, an empty space devoid of sound, but filled with potential energy. A ritualistic approach to the instruments focuses and amplifies the energies of the percussionists, which are then transformed into pulsations. The music that follows explores two complementary timbres, represented by drums and cymbals. As temporal space is filled with energy, the sounds of the percussion become an increasingly physical reality. The culminating saturation of sound and energy is the complement of the opening silence.

in red weather (2006) was written for TimeTable Percussion. The title voices the last line of Wallace Stevens' poem (Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock) , whose point of view urges a greater valuing of the imagination as a shaper even of our perceptions and assumptions. An interesting thing about this poem is how it elicits the very imaginary fantasies that it laments as being scarce, even in dreams. The piece includes use of brass bars, cut by the composer to effect a particular tuning; but the performance concept allows this element to be replaced by any percussion “instrument” with the same number of ordered metal elements--thus the specific harmonies heard in this performance do not delimit the piece in all of its possible renditions. This piece is in one continuous movement, in which shifting harmonic fields project distinct syntactic structuring, or rhythmic colorings.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

TimeTable is dedicated to bringing innovative music to as broad an audience as possible through performances, recordings, and education. Interested in music exhibiting the wide range of influences which inform today's composers, the group performs in both traditional and non-conventional venues and has been especially interested in category and discipline defying works. In addition to performing the major works for percussion of many established composers, TimeTable has worked closely with young and emerging composers to realize their visions for the possibilities of percussion music and to present this music in concert. Equally dedicated to the belief that music must have an active role in public life, the group has worked with students of all ages and backgrounds to incorporate music into their education. Since its inception in 1999 TimeTable has maintained an active performance schedule which has included producing its own series of concerts in New York City, performances at universities and colleges, collaborations with composers, appearances at new music festivals, and master-classes.

Brendan Connelly’s recent compositions include They don’t care about the details… (premiered at The Stone by percussion duo Hunter- Gatherer); Quintet 1 (performed by the SEM Ensemble); Signal 3 (performed at the Dartmouth New Music Series); Thousands Came Back to Work in Factories (for Alex Mincek and Sam Hiller, saxophones); and RomanHaubenstockRamatiRoman, part of a chamber opera project in collaboration with playwright Mac Wellman. Brendan is co-artistic director of the Theatre of a Two-headed Calf and has composed scores for all of it’s productions, including Tumor Brainiowicz, The Mother, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, and Major Barbara (all at La MaMa, E.T.C.), for which he received a New York Innovative Theater award for best original score. They are currently developing, through the HERE Artist-in-Residency program, Drum of the Waves of Horikawa, a 1705 Kabuki play. It will premiere at the Perishable Theater in Providence in April 2007. Brendan received a BFA in Music Composition from Tulane University and is currently pursuing his MFA at Bard College. In 2004, he received a Meet The Composer Creative Connections grant.

In 2007 Giancarlo Vulcano will travel to Berlin to attend the filming and to record sounds for the score of the upcoming feature film by Mexican director Jose Eduardo Villanuueva. For over a year the two have been developing a vocabulary that combines found sounds and musical material for their collaboration about the spiritual journey of a young German Jew traveling to Mexico. In 2004, Vulcano was asked by Belgian novelist Oscar Van Den Boogaard to create music for the exhibition "Rimbaud: Une Saison en enfer" at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The exhibition was open from March to May of that year. Before leaving to spend more time on his own music, Vulcano was musical assistant to Academy Award winning composer Howard Shore. This year he will release a debut CD of original material entitled Vetro and score an experimental short film by Paris-based artist Virginie Yassef.

The music of Keeril Makan has been described as "memorably explosive" (International Herald Tribune) and "arresting" (New York Times). He has received commissions from ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Paul Dresher Electroacoustic Band, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and the Del Sol String Quartet, and performances by the New York New Music Ensemble, California EAR Unit, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Continuum, and Ensemble Nomad. Makan has participated in the Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam, the Aspen Music Festival, Le Domaine Forget in Quebec, the MATA Festival in New York and Voix Nouvelles in Royaumont, France. He was invited back to Royaumont to participate in Le Grand Atelier, during which he collaborated on a new work for dance. Carnegie Hall commissioned him to write a work for the John Harbison/Dawn Upshaw Workshop for Composers and Singers. He has received prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and ASCAP, and commissions from the Gerbode and Hewlett Foundations of San Francisco and the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard. Recently, ODC Theater has commissioned him to collaborate with choreographer Benjamin Levy through a Meet the Composer/ Commissioning Music USA award. Makan received a B.M. in composition and a B.A. in religion from Oberlin, and a Ph.D. in music from the University of California at Berkeley. He is Assistant Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Elizabeth Hoffman is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic (computer generated) music, based in New York City. Recent pieces particularly explore heightened timbral and textural articulation. Various sorts of rhythm studies have inspired her percussion works, most of which are concerned with techniques for sculpting sound; for directing time non-linearly; and for inviting complex configurations of inter-subjectivity between the listener and the piece. She has been commissioned by the ICMA, DIFFUSION i MéDIA, American Composers Forum (Sonic Circuits Festival 2002), and performers, including Dominic Donato, Stephen Paysen, Glass Farm Ensemble/Yvonne Troxler, Abbie Conant, and Elizabeth McNutt. Recognition for her acoustic composition includes artist awards from the Seattle Arts Commission; and Bourges and Prix Ars Electronica recognition for electroacoustic music. Her music is available on Albany, Centaur, Neuma, and Empreintes digitaLes Labels. She is a faculty member at New York University.

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