Graeme Jennings – 21st Century Violin 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Hans Thomalla – Air (2018) Michael Jarrell – Prisme (2000) Liza Lim – The Su-Song Star Map (2017) Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh – Triumvir (2009) Mei-Fang Lin – Souvenir d’un Fée (2005)
Hans Thomalla – Air Hans Thomalla, is a German-American composer living in Chicago. He has written chamber music as well as orchestral works and a particular focus of his activity lies in composing for the stage (Fremd, Kaspar Hauser, Dark Spring). Thomalla is Professor of Music Composition at Northwestern University, where he founded and directs the Institute for New Music. Air is a light piece … light as the substance to which its title refers. I followed my fascination with the violin’s ability to project an almost limitless pitch space on its four strings, as it delineates an ever expanding or descending harmonic grid. Sound still matters in Air, though, as its figures seem to inhabit a strange nowhere-land between the subjective motives and figures based on tonal syntax and the object-like sound-world of the instrument itself. The few overtly expressive melodic moments of the work are the attempts to assert subjective autonomy in this strange nowhere land.
Michael Jarrell - Prisme Prisme for solo violin, arose out of ...prismes / incidences... (1998) for violin and orchestra, a works which was also premiered by the soloist Hae-Sun Kang. It was written specially for this recording, which is thus its trust performance. Taking the opposite direction from Berio and his Chemins, Michael Jarrell here took the solo part of a concertante work and "isolated" it, as one might say, cutting off all communication with the orchestra. The violin is thus unceremoniously reduced to its own sound matter, but as this is complete in itself, such isolation, far from being a source of frustration, underlines the wealth of the instrument. On a first hearing, the listener may be struck by the various shifts of musical context that mark out the important moments of the work. These landmarks are linked to pitch (the composer integrates pole notes that support the music, such as the D at the start) or to the degree off animation and virtuosity. So the hearer perceives a progression of fairly long episodes that never really reveal a formal pattern, it is rather a question of looking next to the "prism" for its secondary definition, "seeing (or hearing) through a prism": namely, the perception of a reality that is here deformed by a subtle play on the elements that compose sound. Michael Jarrell is the perfect master of colours, dynamics, registers and playing techniques (which are particularly refined in terms of harmonics), and he succeeds in using these new but very expressive means to create an entire imaginary perspective where the instrument simply opens up new paths. Pierre Michel, Translation: Mary Criswick extract from the booklet Solos (CD aeon) Born on October 8, 1958 in Geneva, Michael Jarrell studied composition at the Geneva Conservatory with Eric Gaudibert and at various workshops in the United States (Tanglewood, 1979). He completed his training with Klaus Huber at the Freiburg Staatliche Hochschule für Musik im Brisgau. From October 1991 to June 1993, he was composer in residence with the Lyon Orchestra. Beginning in 1993, he became professor of composition at the University in Vienna. In 1996, he was "composer in residence" at the Lucerne festival, and then was heralded by the Musica Nova Helsinki Festival, which dedicated the festival to him in 2000. In 2001, the Salzburg Festival commissioned a concerto for piano and orchestra entitled Abschied. The same year, he was named "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres". In 2004, he was named professor of composition at the Geneva Conservatory.
Liza Lim – The Su-Song Star Map Written for and premiered by Ashot Sarkissjan, the current 2nd violinist of the Arditti Quartet. The work is inspired by the star map for the celestial globe of Su Song (1020-1101), a Chinese scientist and mechanical engineer of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was first published in the year 1092, in Su’s book known as the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao (Wade-Giles: Hsin Yi Hsiang Fa Yao). On this star map there are 14 Xiu (lunar mansions) on Mercator’s projection. The equator is represented by the horizontal straight line running through the star chart while the ecliptic curves above it. Su Song’s star maps had the hour circles between the Xiu (lunar mansions) forming the astronomical meridians with stars marked in quasi-orthomorphic cylindrical projection on each side of the equator, and thus was in accordance to their north polar distances. Not until the work of Gerard Mercator in 1569 was a celestial map of this projection created in the Western world (Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 569). Liza Lim (b.1966, Australia) is a composer, educator and researcher whose music focusses on collaborative and transcultural practices. The roots of beauty (in noise), time effects in the Anthropocene and the sensoria of ecological connection are ongoing concerns in her compositional work. Her four operas: The Oresteia (1993), Moon Spirit Feasting (2000), The Navigator (2007) and Tree of Codes (2016), and the major ensemble work Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus (2018) explore themes of desire, memory, ritual transformation and the uncanny. Her genre-crossing percussion ritual/opera Atlas of the Sky (2018), is a work involving community participants that investigates the emotional power and energy dynamics of crowds. Liza Lim has received commissions and performances from some of the world’s pre-eminent orchestras (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, BBC, WDR, SWR) and was Resident Composer with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2005 & 2006. Her work has been featured at the Spoleto Festival (USA), Miller Theatre New York, Festival d’Automne à Paris, the Salzburg, Lucerne, Holland, Venice Biennale Festivals and all the major Australian festivals. She has had a 30-year collaboration with the ELISION Ensemble and has regularly worked with Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, International Contemporary Ensemble, Arditti String Quartet and JACK Quartet amongst others. Liza lives in Melbourne, Australia
Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh – Triumvir The three physical properties of H2O: liquid, gas, and solid, in each of the different states, their individual physical appearances are unique, yet fundamentally/chemically the same. The title, in its usual literal explanation, refers to 'one of the three persons in a position of authority' and in this instance, such notion is extended and contextualised to represent 'one of the three physical appearances of a substance in a crucial position to the existence of the planet Earth'. Interchangeable between the different physical states, this work portrays a process of gas to solid (deposition), to liquid (liquefaction), then back to its gaseous state (evaporation), through the gaining and releasing of the energy required for the transformations. The work was commissioned and premiered by Sarah Curro. Born in Taiwan and raised between New Zealand and Australia, Hsieh’s compositional interest focuses on creating music as an immersive physical experience and she prefers to describe her music in terms of choreography, affective aptitude and resonances in spatial constraints. She received her doctorate degree from the University of California, San Diego, working with Lei Liang and Katharina Rosenberger. Recent commissions include Symphony Services Australia, The Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Wien Modern, Foundation Royaumont, Red Fish Blue Fish, Quince Ensemble and ELISION Ensemble, among others. Hsieh’s music has been presented internationally at events such as Beijing Modern Music Festival, Metropolis New Music Festival, OzAsia Festival, WasteLAnd Music Series (LA), The National Gallery of Victoria ‘Melbourne Now’ exhibition’, Tuesdays at Monk Space (LA), Center for New Music (SF), UC Davis The Art of Migration Festival, Mise-en Festival, Tectonic Festival, ISCM World Music Days, International Rostrum of Composers, SEAMUS, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Opera Memphis Midtown Opera Festival, Eavesdropping Symposium in London, Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music and Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music.
Hsieh’s current research delves into embodied physicality in performance through technological augmentation. Recent projects include Pixercise - a collaboration with UK-based flutist Kathryn Williams that addresses the effects of extreme physical activities and the impact of piccolo performance, The implicit Self - a collaboration with choreographer Veronica Santiago Moniello that examines the symbiotic relationship between movements and sound, and a new work in collaboration with ELISION Ensemble looking into the roles of dominance and suppression of corporeal performance gestures as a musical-social situation. She is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in contemporary music analysis and application, as well as music theory.
Mei-Fang Lin – Souvenir d’un Fée “Souvenir d’une fée” is dedicated to my grandmother in memory of her very joyful existence. The composition is inspired by an image of a fairy waking up slowly in the middle of the forest. After waking up, she starts to dance with the light and play with her own shadow before disappearing again in the skyline. The writing of the violin part is intended to reflect the agility and joyful character of the fairy. Amplification and reverb are utilized to create a surreal and fairy-like “glow” to the violin sound, thus any little change of timbre and all the noises from changing the bow become even more susceptible to the listeners’ ears. The composition as a whole is meant to project a sonic motion picture personified by a solo violin. It invites the listeners to actively join the world of imagination and magic. Mei-Fang Lin was born in Taiwan. After receiving her B.A. in Music Composition and Theory from the National Taiwan Normal University, she left for the United States to pursue her graduate studies in composition. She received her master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. With the support of a Frank Huntington Beebe Fund for Musicians and a George Ladd Paris Prize, Lin lived and studied in France from 2002-2005. She studied composition with Philippe Leroux and participated in the “Cursus de Composition” at IRCAM in Paris. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Lin taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Illinois from 2007-2009. She was an Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor at the Texas Tech University from 2009-2017. Since 2017, she returned to her home country Taiwan and became an Associate Professor of Composition at the Taipei National University of the Arts.
GRAEME JENNINGS Australian violinist, violist, conductor, improviser, educator, Graeme Jennings, is a former member of the legendary Arditti String Quartet (1994-2005). He has toured widely throughout the world, made more than 80 CDs, given over 300 premieres and received numerous accolades including the prestigious Siemens Prize (1999) and two Gramophone awards. Active as a soloist, chamber musician, ensemble leader and conductor, his repertoire ranges from Bach to Boulez and beyond. He has worked with and been complimented on his interpretations by many of the leading composers of our time. Graeme is a member of Australia’s internationally acclaimed new music ensemble ELISION and the Kurilpa String Quartet. He has performed as Guest Concertmaster of the Adelaide, Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and Guest Associate Concertmaster with the Sydney Symphony. In 2011 he was a founding member of the Australian World Orchestra. He has also appeared as guest artist with the Australian String Quartet, the Kreutzer Quartet, the New Zealand String Quartet and the del Sol Quartet. Having previously served on the faculties of Mills College, UC Berkeley and Stanford University, he was appointed Senior Lecturer in violin and viola at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in 2009.