HOCKET Explores #what2020soundslike

Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff of HOCKET

Assistant Teaching Professor of Music Composition Sarah Gibson commissions works for 2020 with HOCKET

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Assistant Teaching Professor of Music Composition Sarah Gibson announced a new project, #what2020soundslike, with her Los Angeles-based new music piano duo, HOCKET. Gibson and her duo partner, fellow pianist and composer Thomas Kotcheff, commissioned 50 composers to write miniatures for piano duo as a response to the challenges of the year 2020.

“We’ve all been itching to create music and to figure out a way to share art,” said Gibson. “Once we made the decision to start rehearsing together again, HOCKET was interested in how 50 composers would respond in the moment with miniatures for our duo. For the prompt, we asked composers to respond musically to what has happened (and what is currently happening) so far in 2020 — they could respond in any way they felt they wanted to. We wanted this project to be a platform for our friends, colleagues, and collaborators to come together and express themselves in a time when many of us are looking for a sense of community and artistic expression.”

“The piece length parameters were to write miniatures that are either 15, 30, or 45 seconds in length. The purpose of this choice in length was so that the pieces could be composed, rehearsed, and recorded quickly and give as much of a sense of “real-time” musical reaction to the moment as possible. The composers could write for any combination of two pianos, piano 4-hands, toy piano (2), melodica (2), accordion, and/or small percussion.”

The 50 commissioned composers include new music luminaries from across the country, including Vicki Ray, Ted Hearne, Hitomi Oba, Donald Crockett, Gemma Peacocke, Marcos Balter, and UC Santa Barbara Composition alumnus Nick Norton. HOCKET released pieces weekly on their Facebook (facebook.com/HOCKETensemble), Instagram (instagram.com/hocketensemble/), and Twitter (twitter.com/HOCKETensemble) accounts beginning in mid-June and released the final video in the project in late October. The duo gave a YouTube Premiere performance of many of the pieces on August 22, 2020 for the UCSB Summer Music Festival (video available at youtu.be/XMsDVNVxSRg) and the project will culminate in an album release. Learn more at hocket.org/what2020soundslike.

Gibson, who joined the faculty at UC Santa Barbara in Fall 2019, was awarded a UC Santa Barbara Faculty Research Grant for the 2020-2021 academic year to record HOCKET’s debut album, And the River. The album will showcase the most innovative and exciting works commissioned by and written for HOCKET over the past five years, and will include works by Nina Young, Christopher Cerrone, Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Donald Crockett, and Gibson. Specifically, the funds will support the recording, equipment, and contracting fees for Donald Crockett’s concerto, And the River, which was written for HOCKET in 2018.

“During the last five years, HOCKET has committed itself to the creation, performance, and sharing of new music for piano duo,” said Gibson. “Every piece on this album is a showcase of our artistic efforts. In particular, Crockett’s concerto is written for a unique instrumentation—piano 4-hands/two toy pianos, and chamber orchestra—and was intimately workshopped with HOCKET throughout its conception. To have it be the centerpiece of our album just felt right. We are excited to record this and the other works, and to highlight how broad the definition of a piano duo can be.” Noted as “brilliant” by Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times and as an “adventurous young ensemble” by The New Yorker, HOCKET has performed at some of the most exciting festivals across the country including the LA Philharmonic’s annual new-music marathon, “Noon to Midnight,” the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, MATA Festival, Other Minds Festival, and with the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab. The duo has held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and received grants from the Earle Brown Music Foundation and the Presser Foundation.

Previously the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Sound Investment Composer, Gibson has received commissions and performances from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and Chamber Music America, among others. She currently serves as Assistant Teaching Professor of Music Composition in both the UC Santa Barbara Department of Music and the College of Creative Studies. Learn more about Gibson at music.ucsb.edu/people/sarah-gibson.