Beyond the Notes is live! Visit www.beyondthenotes.org now on your browser or mobile phone.
The online multimedia educational guide includes numerous videos, interviews with art curators, audio excerpts, and program notes. The site contains:
24 pages
47 audio clips
33 videos
29 images
“Far more extensive than the usual site devoted to an event or artwork, [Beyond the Notes] contains…loads of information connecting the music and art.”
After browsing the website, come check out the concert on November 2!
Beyond the Notes: Music Inspired by Art Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 6:00pm-7:30pm
Free admission. Reception to follow.
Pierce Hall at New England Conservatory
241 St. Botolph Street, Boston, MA 02115
I’m very excited to announce my upcoming recital, Beyond the Notes: Music Inspired by Art. The concert will be a multisensory, multimedia experience featuring live chamber music performed by wonderful NEC student musicians coordinated with video and slide projections of the art that inspired it.
Beyond the Notes: Music Inspired by Art will be presented at the New England Conservatory of Music on November 2nd, 2011, 6:00-7:30pm in Pierce Hall (241 St. Botolph St, Boston MA). Reception to follow. The event is free and open to the public.
Beyond the Notes website as seen on a mobile phone
The concert will be enhanced by an accompanying digital companion, which will be launched within the next couple of weeks. Visitors are invited to browse the website ahead of time, or before and after the concert in the hall or on their phones, and explore video clips, audio excerpts, photographs, and information about the artists and music.
The new website will highlight Watercolors, a wind quintet inspired by the paintings of Charles Burchfield, in addition to the portion of the website featuring the string quartet The Course of Empire, which was posted in July.
The section on Watercolors features video clips from a fascinating interview with Nancy Weekly, Curator at the Burchfield Penney Art Center; Carol Steen, painter and co-founder of the American Synesthesia Assocation; as well as a movement-by-movement analysis of the connection between my music and the paintings, which is interspersed with audio excerpts and relevant images from the paintings.
While The Course of Empire and Watercolors are being highlighted on the website/app, every piece on the program has its own dedicated page and content. Other pieces featured on the program and the accompanying website include:
Setsugekka for violin and piano, inspired by Japanese woodblock prints by Hiroshige. The website will include videos introducing the genre of Japanese woodblock printing, and the traditional theme of setsugekka (snow, moon and flowers). This section features text and narration by independent print scholar John Resig (ukiyo-e.org).
To Create One’s Own World for soprano, flute, bass clarinet, and marimba, and The Faraway Nearby video piece with chamber score, both inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. The website will include audio clips, song text, and the online video of The Faraway Nearby.
Revealed in Stone, a song cycle for tenor and piano inspired by the sculpture and poetry of Michelangelo. The website will feature an analysis of the English translation of the poetry used in the cycle.
Triptych for solo guitar, inspired by the formal structure of triptychs (especially as seen in Medieval art). The website will include a comparison of different genres of triptychs.
Rehearsal at PEM with projections of Thomas Cole's paintings
“The Course of Empire” at the Peabody Essex Museum on Saturday, July 30, was a success! The four performers (members of string orchestra A Far Cry), Liza Zurlinden, Ethan Wood, Jason Fisher, and Alexei Gonzales did a beautiful job of interpreting my string quartet. The group performed in Morse Auditorium beneath a large projection of the five paintings (provided by PEM), which were switched in real-time to correspond with each movement.
The music was preceded by a brief introductory video compiled from clips of videos I produced for Beyond the Notes, which provided context for Cole’s paintings and my musical “transmutation” of them (as curator Linda Ferber at the New-York Historical Society put it).
I made video and audio recordings of the performance, and will post clips online in the near future.
Article in The Boston Globe
We counted roughly 140 people in the audience between the morning and afternoon concerts. That’s a great turnout for an event of this nature, and was bolstered by some remarkable publicity: the concert received a preview in the Boston Globe (read a scan of the article or see it on the Globe’s website) by Classical Notes columnist David Weininger. The article took up a full-page spread on p. 5 of the Arts & Entertainment insert on Friday, July 29. Weininger had the following to say about my companion website, Beyond the Notes:
“Far more extensive than the usual site devoted to an event or artwork, it contains not only reproductions of the Cole paintings and program notes, but a full performance of the piece and loads of information connecting the music and art.”
The concert took place in conjunction with the opening of Painting the American Vision, a special touring exhibit of 45 paintings by 19th century American landscape painters of the Hudson River School. This was the kind of event I’m really passionate about producing–an event that brings together art forms in what is both an artistic expression and an educational experience for audiences. I look forward to developing similar collaborations with art museums in the future.
Nell with the performers. (L-R: Ethan Wood, Alexei Gonzales, Nell, Liza Zurlinden, Jason Fisher)
I’m thrilled to announce that I will collaborating with members of A Far Cry, Boston’s leading string orchestra, to present my string quartet The Course of Empire, which was inspired by the suite of five paintings by great 19th c. artist Thomas Cole. For the first time ever, the quartet will be performed directly in front of the paintings themselves! The performance will coincide with the unveiling of the first Beyond the Notes multimedia companion website, which explores the Course of Empire paintings and music in depth.
Thomas Cole, Destruction (1836) from The Course of Empire
The concert is being presented by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA on Saturday, July 30, 2011, with two performances at 11:00am and 3:30pm in the special exhibit galleries (free with museum admission). The event is part of the Inspired by the Land festival, held in conjunction with the opening of national touring exhibit Painting the American Vision featuring 45 landscape paintings by Cole and his contemporaries.
A Far Cry (Photo: Yoon S. Byun)
The Course of Empire will be brought to life by four musicians who perform regularly with A Far Cry: Liza Zurlinden and Ethan Wood, violin; Jason Fisher, viola; and Alexei Gonzales, cello. Founded in 2007, the groundbreaking self-conducted string orchestra has enjoyed a heady ascent toward the highest ranks of today’s new generation of classical ensembles. Hailed by the Boston Globe as “thrilling,” “intrepid” and “brilliant,” A Far Cry explores the traditional boundaries of classical music, experimenting with the ways it is prepared, performed, and experienced. A Far Cry was recently appointed Chamber Orchestra in Residence at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Visit www.afarcry.org for more.
The concert will coincide with the premiere of multimedia companion Beyond the Notes, which I’m producing with the support of an Entrepreneurial Grantfrom New England Conservatory (my first E-grant supported the production of The Faraway Nearby). The Beyond the Notes website and mobile app for The Course of Empire will be up and running in the very near future, and I will be posting on my blog, twitter, and sending out a newsletter announcing its release. Please keep an eye out for that!
Screen capture of the upcoming multimedia companion
The website/app will feature a comprehensive guide to the paintings and music, featuring audio of the string quartet and 23 short videos exploring the historical, artistic, and intellectual contexts for Thomas Cole’s five paintings, and illuminating how Empire fueled my creative process and musical decisions.
The videos include extensive excerpts from my interview with the awesomely knowledgeable and articulate Linda S. Ferber, Vice President and Senior Art Historian of the New-York Historical Society (sponsor of the touring exhibit and permanent home of the Empire paintings). My favorite quote from Ms. Ferber: “A string quartet composed to The Course of Empire is very natural, when you think about it. Thomas Cole was very musical…I think he would be immensely pleased to find his paintings transmuted into musical form.”
Triptych for solo guitar (see this blog post for more about the piece) received a wonderful premiere performance by Devin Ulibarri on April 26th at Tuesday Night New Music. The recording of this piece is now online for your listening pleasure!
I am fascinated by the works of American painter Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), and was inspired by his visual world to compose a wind quintet and an orchestral tone poem (The Sphinx and the Milky Way). The premiere of my wind quintet Watercolors, the winner of NEC’s 2010-2011 Honors Ensemble Composition Competition, will be performed on Thursday, May 12th at 8:00pm in Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory (290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115) by Andra Winds, who were selected this year as an NEC Honors Ensemble. I’m very honored to have my work performed by this talented group in beautiful Jordan Hall.
An April Mood, 1946-55. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
Watercolors references four watercolor paintings completed during Burchfield’s late period (the mid-1940s-60s). Although the paintings were not created as a set, I selected them for their complementary contrasts and connections.
Burchfield’s dynamic style and almost psychedelic imagery are arrestingly unique. His haunting paintings speak of a spiritual world of transcendence, redemption, decay and renewal, and he depicted the wonders of nature (the patterns on a sphinx moth’s wing; moonlight filtering through the petals of a sunflower) in an artistic voice that is as distinctive as it is beautiful.
Glory of Spring (Radiant Spring), 1950. Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY.
Each movement of Watercolors reflects my impression of an individual painting. The paintings depict natural environments in different seasons or moods, from the barren rainstorm landscape seen in An April Mood to the luminous forest of Glory of Spring. At times, musical references to the visuals are direct (the bird or insect-like motifs in Autumnal Fantasy, for example), but more often than not, my music is an interpretation of the paintings’ overall atmospheres.
It is interesting to note that Burchfield himself was a passionate music fan (which helps to explain why his paintings are so suggestive of music). His copious journals reveal that he favored Beethoven, Wagner, and Sibelius, and created artworks inspired by his listening. Burchfield was sensitive to sound, especially the sounds of nature, and some of his paintings contain abstract patterns that directly represent sounds (see Autumnal Fantasy, The Insect Chorus [1917] or Song of the Telegraph Poles [1917-1952]). These images pulsate with energy, and imply a world of sensory experience.
Flutist Elizabeth Erenberg will be participating in a masterclass with the renowned flutist, composer, and conductor John Heiss this Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 6:00pm at New England Conservatory (in Jordan Hall room 118), presenting three solo pieces from my Nine Muses, a set of works inspired by the muses of Greek mythology (the other six “muses” were composed for harp and violin; listen here).
Elizabeth will be performing Nine Muses on a recital program centered on music relating to Greek mythology, which she will presenting in Los Angeles this summer, and Boston in the fall. Her recital program will be funded by an Entrepreneurial Grant from NEC (learn more about her project).
My newest piece, a work for solo classical guitar, Triptych, will receive its premiere on Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 8:00pm in Williams Hall at New England Conservatory (290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115).
A French 13th c. triptych
Triptych (pronounced “trip-tik”) is a term from visual art describing an artwork divided into three sections that are displayed as a group. Triptych structures have appeared in a variety of genres of art, including Japanese woodblock prints, and they were especially popular in European Medieval and early Renaissance religious art. European triptychs were usually painted or carved wood or ivory panels connected by hinges for standing or folding, and would have two narrow panels flanking a larger, contrasting middle panel.
My three-movement piece for solo guitar reflects this structural model. The first movement parallels the third in overall tempo, density, tonality, and duration, and contains similar musical devices (e.g., the ongoing use of droning upper strings). The middle movement is somewhat longer, slower, sparser, and more lyrical.
Devin Ulibarri
As a former rock guitarist with some (minimal) experience with classical guitar performance, I chose to compose most of this piece on the instrument in order to achieve an idiomatic, “guitaristic” effect that would take advantage of the resonance of the open strings and explore the full register of the instrument.
Triptych was composed for guitarist Devin Ulibarri (visit his blog, or listen to his music here). We collaborated throughout the creation of the piece, and Devin has encouraged and guided me since well before I had written a note. Thanks to our teachers, composer/guitarists Michael Gandolfi and John Mallia and guitarist Eliot Fisk, who are working with us on the development of this performance.
The New England Conservatory New Music Vocal Chamber Ensemble, a group of young singers dedicated to performing works written by composers at NEC, gave a gorgeous premiere performance on April 6 of selections from my three-movement Walt Whitman setting I Dream’d in a Dream for SATB. This was the first performance by the sixteen-piece ensemble, and hopefully not the last time that we will collaborate!
Click the titles of the movements to hear mp3s of this performance:
Newly completed three-movement cycle for SATB choir or vocal ensemble, I Dream’d in a Dream, is a setting of selections from Walt Whitman’s poetic masterpiece Leaves of Grass (1855). The first and third movements of the set will be premiered this Wednesday at New England Conservatory in Boston, MA. This will also be the first performance by an ensemble of young singers dedicated to the realization of newly-composed music: the NEC New Music Vocal Chamber Ensemble.
I am far from the first composer to set Whitman to music, and for good reason. His works have a directness and a universality that refuse to show their age, and speak to the reader (or listener) with a kind of emotional clarity and honesty that is, in my opinion, irresistibly appealing. The gentle wit and undying idealism that shine through the verses of Leaves of Grass allow the bold, declamatory quality of Whitman’s voice to ring true.
Although I previously set a poem from Leaves as an art song for baritone and piano (Laws for Creations), I’ve been wanting to write a choral piece with texts from Whitman for years, and until now had never quite managed to realize my vision of what this poetry should sound and feel like in a choral setting. It seems this creative impulse had, like many, a necessary gestation period. When I sat down to compose music last February for these particular poems, it clicked. The piece (about 11 minutes in duration) was begun and completed in less than two weeks.
I chose to set three poems on distinct but complementary topics: the title piece, I Dream’d in a Dream, is a vision of peace (“I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; / I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; / Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love“); Think of the Soul, a list of incitations to contemplation that cover the gamut of earthly and spiritual experience (“Think of the soul… think of loving and being loved… think of the time when you were not yet born…“) and resolve with a humanist affirmation (“The creation is womanhood… / Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?“); and Among the Multitude, a love song to the “one” who finds a kindred spirit amongst the crowds of people (“Some are baffled–but that one is not–that one knows me.”)
These poems possess a unique combination of qualities–reflective, declamatory, muscular–which I attempted to reflect in my setting. However, this poetry is broad enough for each reader to understand in an entirely personal way. And although my piece comes from my own subjective interpretation, I also hope that listeners of my music will be able to see themselves and their own experience reflected in it.
If you’re in town, come check out the premiere of the first and third movements of I Dream’d in a Dream performed by the New Music Vocal Chamber Ensemble on Wednesday, April 6th, at 8:00pm in Brown Hall at New England Conservatory (290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115). The piece will be featured on a brief program of works by composers studying at NEC, including pieces for soprano and piano, jazz ensemble, and euphonium quartet. The concert is free and open to the public.
