Contemporary Classics October 16, 2018 Birmingham Art Music Alliance (BAMA) Birmingham New Music Festival

Again the introductory theme music is from Nocturne by Kirsten Volness.

Tonight on Contemporary Classics we are featuring music by composers who will be at the fifth annual Birmingham Art Music Alliance’s New Music Festival which is next week from October 18-21^st in Birmingham Alabama.  This year in addition to music from composers of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance there will be composers involved from the New York Composer Circle who have been invited to participate.

The first concert is Thursday October 18^th at 7 pm in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Hulsey Center Recital Hall in Birmingham Alabam. Lets begin with some music by composers whose works will be performed there. 

Lets start with Monroe Golden’s Liberal Hands and Spirits Free. Monroe Golden is a composer from rural Alabama, now living in New York, whose overtone-informed music has been called “delightfully disorienting.”   Golden writes “Liberal Hands and Spirits Free is a quote from the Alabama state song – the point of departure for this set of tangential variations in extended Just Intonation. The original song, though antiquated, reflects a generous and tolerant society that might one day be. Inspiration came upon hearing a high school performance of Ed Robertson's quintessential choral setting.”   Here is Monroe Golden’s Liberal Hands and Spirits Free for Bb clarinet and fixed media.

The next work is Brian Moon’s “Wrong Number”.  Brian Moon is a Birmingham composer, musician and an adjunct music instructor at Birmingham-Southern and UAB.  Moon writes “I previously had a very memorable land-line phone number, and because it was so memorable and fun to dial. I received an unusually high number of wrong numbers and some truly odd messages over the years. Source materials for this sound file include manipulated audio from the wrong number messages, common analog phone sounds, and selections from my outgoing messages.”  Here is Brian Moon’s “Wrong Number” for 2-channel stereo audio file.

The next work is LaDonna Smith’s “Vapors of India”. LaDonna Smith is an American avant garde musician from Alabama. She is a violinist, violist, and pianist.  Smith writes “The diverse and rich cultural eccentricities of India have excited my imagination for many years.  Somehow, the mysteries of Hinduism, the saddhus and gurus, the musical traditions, the amazing geographical contrasts, the languages, the extreme climates, the animals, the jungle, the desert, the the banana plantations, the Himalaya's, the stone temples. All of this is music behind my eyelids, as I imagine a world so distant, and yet now we have touched it's heart and cracked it's mystery with earth-shrinking technology. In this piece, I would like to manifest some sounds and drones, and perhaps carry the audience with me to a place outside the room, indeed the body, if just for a few minutes”.  Here is a performance of LaDonna Smith’s “Vapors of India”. for 5 string electric violin solo.

The next work is Holland Hopson’s “…about the size of a fist and located slightly to the left of…”. Holland Hopson is a composer, improviser, and electronic artist. A multi-instrumentalist, he usually performs on clawhammer banjo and electronics.  Hopson writes “about the size of a fist and located slightly to the left of… is an improvisation using a custom software mapping of an off-the-shelf MIDI fader box. The typical position information of each fader/knob is ignored in favor of gestural information about how the control is manipulated over time. This transforms the controls into virtual bellows on a pump organ or something like the springs in a wind-up toy.”   

Another concert in the festival is at the Hoover Library in Hoover, Alabama on Friday, October 19, 2018 at 8 PM. 

Appearing at this performance is another work by Monroe Golden “Lament for Lost Children” for Highland pipes and vibraphone. This work was adapted from a song by Padruig MacCrimmon also called “Lament for the Children” which was reportedly composed after losing most of his children in an epidemic. Golden writes “With global refugee crises and family separations at our own southern border, such a lament seemed appropriate as a basis to develop a new work. Original tunes are occasionally presented unaltered, but more often adapted to accommodate vibraphone and composite tuning systems of the two instruments”.   

Next is Michael Colman’s 2014 work “Late Friday Afternoon” for Flute and Oboe.  This work was Commissioned by and dedicated to Kathleen Diamond and LaBarrin Wallace.  

Next is a performance of Terra Nova by Tom Reiner for B-flat clarinet and viola. 

Next is Matthew Scott Phillips’ “Dig My Grave”.  Phillips is an Alabama composer who has composed over 70 instrumental and vocal works including music composed in serial, freely atonal, traditional, polytonal, pantonal, modal, and electroacoustic styles.  Phillips wrote “Dig My Grave was originally one of the nine “Angola Prison Spirituals” recorded at the maximum security prison facility in Louisiana, often called the “Alcatraz of the South.” This arrangement attempts to synergize different iterations of the song, as well as stay true to the sentiment and tone of the original.” Here is a performance of Matthew Scott Phillips’ “Dig My Grave” for baritone & cello.

 Next is W. F. Smith Leithart’s “Regicide”. Smith Leithart is a senior at Samford University.  He writes “Even after composing the piece in its entirety and giving it the title, Regicide (the murder of a king) , I still did not really know what the piece meant. The significance of the piece finally dawned on me. I am the king. The regicide that occurs in this piece is my own murder, my own death.”  

Next is David Mecionis’ Obstinate Duet, for flute and clarinet.  Mecionis is a composer and instrumentalist from the New York Composers Circle.  Here is a performance of David Mecionis’ Obstinate Duet, for flute and clarinet from a recording made at the NY premiere of the work.

The next work is Joseph Landers Septet.  Joseph Landers is an Alabama born composer who has trained at the University of Alabama, University of Toronto and Cambridge University. The Septet for flute, clarinet, string quartet, piano was composed for and dedicated to the BAMA Players. Each of the three movements explores specific intervallic motives and instrumental combinations.

Tom Reiner’s The Memory Palace for flute, clarinet, piano, and cello.

The next work is the 3rd  movement of Matthew Scott Phillips’ 4th string quartet.  Phillips describes the work “as “absolute” music that does not have a specific program. This movement resolves musical, thematic, and harmonic conflicts established in the first movement, and sustained in the second. This resolution is at first attempted by a set of dances that ultimately fail, and is successfully completed only by the concentration of dissonance in the middle. After this dissonance, the first dance can then be played properly and smoothly transition to the closing chorale.

The next work is W. F. Smith Leithart’s “Life” for piano.  Smith Leithart writes “Every time I play this piece, it means something different. This piece, originally composed as a response to a personal hardship, does not wallow in the grief of sufferings, but rather looks ahead to the result of the sufferings.  Suffering produces endurance, character, and hope. That is the meaning of Life.” Here is a performance of W. F. Smith Leithart’s “Life” for piano.

We are going to end today’s show with Kenneth A. Kuhn’s Prelude No. 3 in G-minor.  Kenneth Kuhn is an electrical engineer specializing in electronic circuit design and composer.  Kuhn writes “The Prelude No. 3 in G-minor opens with a dramatic theme in the style of 1940s piano music for movies. A lyrical subordinate theme provides contrast. The second part begins with a transformation of the dramatic main theme to a beautiful B-flat major flowing melody with a joyous and yearning subordinate theme reminiscent of the dramatic main theme. The music then builds to a concluding grand majestic version of the dramatic opening theme.”  Here is a performance of Kenneth A. Kuhn’s Prelude No. 3 in G-minor.

I hope you have enjoyed this celebration of the Birmingham Art Music Alliances’s New Music Festival on Contemporary Classics.  The Festival begins this Thursday October 18^th at 7 pm in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Hulsey Center Recital Hall.