The NYFA Collection, Volume Two innova 253 1. Laura Andel: Khartes 4 2. Sylvie Courvoisier Trio: La Cigale 3. Frank Carlberg: March 4. John Bacon: The Broken Branch Rag 5. Mihoko Suzuki: Ode to Number 14 6. Ben Gerstein: Berl Isaac 7. Judith Sloan: What’s Your Status? (a YO MISS! story) 8. Svjetlana Bukvich: Tattoo 9. Anthony Gatto: Sabbath Lily 10. Yotam Haber: We Were All When asked about the importance of a NYFA Fellowship, we often say that we are giving artists the gift of time—time to create, time to inspire, time to be free of some of life's daily tasks so as to allow the noble and artistic mind to flourish. And flourish it has. Past Fellows have won every possible measure of critical acclaim, including Academy Awards, Tony Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, and MacArthur ''Genius'' Fellowships. So in keeping with this gift of time, it is time to acknowledge the 30th Anniversary of NYFA's Fellowship Award. Over the past three decades, NYFA has awarded over $27 million in unrestricted cash grants to over 4,400 artists, and it is with both pride and humility that we pause to reflect on the artistic output that has flowed from their amazing talents. New York—and the world—is a better place for their contributions, and NYFA is honored to have helped them at an important time in their creative lives. None of this would be possible without the support and confidence of the New York State Council on the Arts. We thank them for their unwavering trust in NYFA's experience and expertise to nurture New York artists over the past thirty years, and we look forward to continuing what is a unique and venerable opportunity for the artistic community. Judith K. Brodsky, Board Chair Michael L. Royce, Executive Director Complete listing of 2013 Music and Sound Fellows (not all artists could be represented in this current Collection): Ramin Amir Arjomand, Laura Andel, Darcy James Argue, John Bacon, Susan Botti, Svjetlana Bukvich, Frank Carlberg, Sylvie Courvoisier, Timothy Dunne, Ben Gerstein, Keith Gurland, Yotam Haber, Satoshi Kanazawa, Dafna Naphtali, Anna Schuleit, Judith Sloan, Mihoko Suzuki, and Rodolfo Marcelo Toledo Finalists: Michael Attias, Anthony Gatto, Elizabeth Kosack Fellini-esque circus music, a meditation on the exile of immigration status, guitar stabs and accordion solos, abstract jazz and new music piano, pop references, odes to molars and a bad storm, are just some of the paths explored by the diverse group of artists who make up the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Music and Sound Fellows class of 2013. The NYFA Collection: Vol. 2 continues the archiving and dissemination of the New York music collection, which began with the 2010 release of The NYFA Collection: 25 Years of New York New Music (innova 233)—a collection DownBeat called a, “stunning document of historic culture.” Vol. 2 celebrates the 30th anniversary of NYFA’s Artist’s Fellowship Program by releasing ten tracks created/composed by the most recent class of Music and Sound Fellows. The recording has been curated by Cristian Amigo (composer-in-residence, INTAR Theater) and innova’s Philip Blackburn from work submitted by the composers themselves. 1. Khartes 4 Laura Andel Laura Andel Orchestra: Elliott Sharp, electric guitar Daniel Binelli, bandoneon Carl Maguire, Fender Rhodes Andrew Drury, drums Laura Andel, conductor Recording Engineer, Stephe Cooper Mastering, Elliott Sharp Khartes (2013) is a 50-minute work in seven parts for four musicians and a conductor written for an ensemble/orchestra of eclectic instrumentation. Khartes features musicians from the Buenos Aires and New York music scenes who collectively create a musical crossover of geographies and personal languages. By conceptualizing music that balances composition, textural improvisation, and compositional conducting, Andel creates unique, sometimes ritualistic, sonic landscapes built from elements drawn from avant-garde and contemporary classical music. In her pieces, each performer’s distinctive voice is a thread in the collective sonic fabric. Khartes 4 is the nodal point of this seven-part work—where both freedom and tension peak and where geographies overlap in a kind of broken sound map. Laura Andel is a composer and conductor from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Andel moved to New York in 2000 after living and working in Boston for several years. One of her main interests is exploring diverse combinations of instruments and formats for her orchestras, as well as working with musicians from different musical and cultural backgrounds. Her creative process also revolves around the diverse visual manifestations of music and sound by way of original graphic scores and drawings that initiate an intimate dialogue between sound and its representation. Andel has received grants and awards for her work from the Rockefeller Foundation, American Music Center, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New York State Music Fund, Edward T. Cone Foundation, BMI Foundation, Unesco-Aschberg, Jerome Foundation, Urban Artist Initiative/NYC, and the Senate for Culture of the City of Berlin. Her music has been performed in New York, Boston, Berlin, Caracas, Buenos Aires, and other cities. She currently lives in Harlem, New York City. The Laura Andel Orchestra has released 3 CDs to date: Somnambulist, In::Tension:., and Doble Mano. www.lauraandel.com Khartes was composed during a Roulette Residency Program, supported with funds from the Jerome Foundation, and had its world premiere on February 2, 2013 at Roulette in New York City. Thanks to Roulette and the Jerome Foundation. Special thanks to Carl, Andrew, Daniel, and Elliott for being my inspiration. 2. La Cigale Sylvie Courvoisier TRIO Sylvie Courvoisier, piano, composition Drew Gress, bass Julian Sartorius, drums Recorded live in Warsaw, June 13, 2015. Sylvie Courvoisier is a Swiss pianist, composer, and improviser who has lived in Brooklyn, New York since 1998. She has led several groups over the years and has recorded over 25 records as a leader or co-leader for different labels, notably ECM , Tzadik, and Intakt Records. She has also performed with and appeared as a sideperson on an additional 30 CDs with John Zorn, Mark Feldman, Yusef Lateef, Ikue Mori, Tony Oxley, Tim Berne, Joey Baron, Joëlle Léandre, Herb Robertson, Butch Morris, Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Ellery Eskelin, Lotte Anker, Fred Frith, Michel Godard, and Tomazs Stanko among others. Currently, Courvoisier is the leader of her TRIO with Kenny Wollesen and Drew Gress. She also regularly performs SOLO and since 1997, in DUO with violinist Mark Feldman. She co-leads the Sylvie Courvoisier/Mark Feldman Quartet with Scott Colley and Billy Mintz. Since 2000, she has been a member of Mephista, an improvising collective trio, with Ikue Mori and Susie Ibarra. She is currently playing and touring different projects by John Zorn including Cobra, Masada Marathon and Bagatelles. She also plays in Erik Friedlander's Trio, Nate Wooley's Quartet, and with guitarist Mary Halvorson. Since 2010, she has been working as a pianist and composer for flamenco dancer Israel Galvan's project la Curva which has had more than 150 performances around the world. www.sylviecourvoisier.com 3. March Frank Carlberg Frank Carlberg Big Band Solos, Gerard Kleijn, Vincent Veneman Recorded live at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam. Originally a native of Helsinki, Finland, Frank Carlberg occupies a unique niche in the New York jazz community. As a leader, Frank's groups include the Frank Carlberg Quintet (performing settings of a wide variety of texts including poems), the Tivoli Trio (a classic jazz piano trio playing an eclectic mix of Carlberg compositions drawn from cinematic and circus inspirations) and the Frank Carlberg Big Band (performing original compositions as well as arrangements and re-compositions of standards and folk music). The Brooklyn-based pianist has also been involved in many crossover projects; some of his collaborations include performances and recordings with saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. Additionally, Carlberg has been commissioned to write music for big bands, small ensembles, and symphony orchestras, as well as modern dance companies. Carlberg serves on the faculty at New England Conservatory, is a member of the Douglass Street Music Collective, and a partner in the artist run cooperative label Red Piano Records. 4. The Broken Branch Rag (2010) John Bacon The SUNY Fredonia Percussion Ensemble, Dr. Karolyn Stonefelt, director Alec Dube, Juan Herrera, Kyle Scudder, percussion Recorded May 3, 2015, Rosch Recital Hall SUNY Fredonia. Tim Bausch, recording Engineer The piece commemorates the "October Surprise" storm that occurred on October 14, 2007 in Western New York, in which a sudden and uncommon heavy snowstorm occurred before the leaves had fallen from the trees. This resulted in massive downing of limbs, branches and whole trees throughout the region. The incredible sounds of that evening, cracking, breaking and crashing trees, when virtually the entire region was without power and travel was hazardous, were both chilling and impossible to duplicate. Therefore the music is more of a monument than a narrative of the event. This piece uses some characteristics of ragtime music but also incorporates a considerable amount of non-ragtime elements that are borrowed from the world of modern percussion music. John Bacon, percussionist and composer, has performed with Lester Bowie, Roswell Rudd, Bobby Previte, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Bobby Militello. He was also a featured soloist with the SUNY Fredonia percussion ensemble. He teaches percussion and directs the Latin Jazz Ensemble at SUNY Fredonia. He also teaches at UB and Villa Maria College in Buffalo, NY. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from SUNY Buffalo and a Masters Degree in Music Performance from SUNY Fredonia. Equally skilled as a percussionist and trap drummer, he has been a member of (hatArt) recording artists and The Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble, along with leading his own ensembles. His music has been performed by a diverse collection of musicians, including The Amherst Saxophone Quartet, Leroy Jenkins, the New Jazz Orchestra of Buffalo, the New York New Music Ensemble, Amanda Deboer and the Colorfield Ensemble, Duo Cuentista, Ensemble Laboratorium and the UB Percussion Ensemble. He performs regularly with the Genkin Philharmonic, Bobby Militello Quartet, and the George Jones trio. Recent creative projects include BacBacLove with Jonathan Golove (cello) and Steve Baczkowski (winds), Improv Ork (a group of composer-improvisers playing graphic music and free improvisation), resAUnance with vocalist Esin Gunduz and pianist Michael McNeill and the New Buffalo Jazz Octet. www.johnbaconjr.com 5. Ode to Number 14 Mihoko Suzuki Mihoko Suzuki, Hiroko Suzuki, piano Engineered & Mixed by Timothy Cramer @ cramersound, NYC. Part I – Denial and Deception Part II – Uncertainty of an Existential Perspective A piece for Piano Four Hands, Ode to Number 14 was commissioned and premiered in 2014 by the piano duo SaNaToMa in Alberta, Canada. Mihoko wrote this piece as a form of "dedication" to her upper maxillary first molar (Number 14), which caused her pain and misery for over a year. This recording includes digitally filtered excerpts from a Japanese poem by Kenji Miyazawa Ame nimo makezu (Be Not Defeated by the Rain) which was recited by the players during the performance. Mihoko has conceived and composed a diverse range of multidisciplinary works. Subject matter for her music theater pieces explore the complex and often contradictory relationships between humans and the natural world: Litany for the Animals—a multimedia opera/oratorio, This World—a song cycle with live audio manipulation of amplified water, and To the Dogs—a visual-auditory ritual dedicated to 33 dogs on death row at NYC Animal Care Center. Mihoko has also collaborated in dance works such as Sideshows by the Seashore—with choreographer James Sutton (winner of the Columbia Artists-National Choreography Competition); and Jessica Finds Her Way—a dance film with cinematographer Valerie Barnes, starring Jessica Saund (American Ballet Theatre) and featured at Les Instants Vidéo festival in Marseille. In 2011, Mihoko was honored to contribute a piece to the memorial ceremony for Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. At the memorial, her musical setting of Alice Walker’s poem We Have a Beautiful Mother was performed by Musica Sacra. A native of Japan, Mihoko studied piano at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo and moved to New York City in 1988. She studied composition at the Manhattan School of Music where she received her Bachelor of Music degree. 6. Berl Isaac Sholem Aleichem/Jack Newman/Ben Gerstein Ben Gerstein, trombone Jack Newman, voice Recorded August 2008, New York City. Trombone translation of a track from an obscure, privately issued Yiddish LP (circa 1960?), Sholem Aleichem Readings, a recital by Jack Newman. Originally from Santa Barbara, California, trombonist/multi-instrumentalist and multimedia artist Ben Gerstein (b.1977) has been living and working in New York City since 1995. www.bengerstein.com 7. What’s Your Status? (a YO MISS! story) Judith Sloan Vocals written, performed, arranged and produced by Judith Sloan. Music composed, produced, and performed by Taylor Rivelli. Includes dumbek drum samples by Frank London. Melody inspired by a Frank London tune. Mixed by Ryan West. Judith Sloan lives in the most diverse county in the United States — Queens, New York, the new “Ellis Island”. Queens is home to huge mix of refugees and immigrants, and is a borough where people speak over 167 different languages. As an American-born citizen, and grandchild of immigrants who fled war to seek a better life, Judith teaches and mentors a diverse group of college and high school students. Among her many students are young people who are undocumented immigrants. What’s Your Status? is a testimony and witnessing of how the culture of fear, shifts in immigration law, and big-bureaucracy impact her students, fellow professors, teachers, and neighbors. Judith Sloan is an actor, audio artist, writer, radio producer, and poet whose work combines humor, pathos, and a love of the absurd. For over twenty years, Sloan has been creating interdisciplinary works in audio and theater, portraying voices often ignored by the mass media. Her solo performances and plays include: Denial of the Fittest, A Tattle Tale, Crossing the BLVD, and YO MISS!. Sloan has received numerous grants and awards from: the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, NYSCA and Queens Council on the Arts. She also won the Brendan Gill Prize, BAXten Artists Award, and the Third Coast International Audio Festival short documentary competition. She performs YO MISS! live with a series of MIDI-controllers and keyboards. Her work has aired on National Public Radio, WNYC, PRI, BBC, and public radio stations throughout the U.S. and has been produced throughout the U.S. and abroad at La Mama, The Public Theatre, and the Market Theatre (Johannesburg), among other venues. Sloan teaches at NYU’s Gallatin School, and is a co-founder of EarSay, a non-profit dedicated to uncovering and portraying stories of the uncelebrated. www.earsay.org Taylor Rivelli (Taylormade) is a music producer and guitarist who is a member of a Hip Hop band Dujeous. As a producer he has also worked with Saigon, Rhymefest, Nipsey Hussle, John Legend, Sharon Jones, MTV2, Dip Set, Nas, HBO, BET. 8. Tattoo Svjetlana Bukvich from Interior Designs Kamala Sankaram, soprano Svjetlana Bukvich, piano, synthesizers Recorded and produced by Svjetlana Bukvich at Purple Mountain Studio, NYC in January, 2013 Published by CBCO Music Tattoo from Interior Designs was a commission Bukvich received from Carolyn Dorfman Dance for the company's "Celebrate 30! Performance Gala" in spring 2013. The 30-minute piece features electro-acoustic music with live vocalists Kamala Sankaram and Samille Ganges, integrates lighting and costume designs, and projects images on-screens, theater walls and dancers' bodies via video mapping. Listed as one of the top ten dance events of 2013 (The Star-Ledger), Interior Designs received a New Music USA, 2013 Live Music for Dance award, the USArtists International grant, and support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Interior Designs has been performed at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Alvin Ailey City Center, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (LPAC), National Theater in Sarajevo, and Live Arts New York among others. Svjetlana Bukvich (ASCAP) grew up during the wildly creative music scene in Sarajevo's eighties, when music and technology began their life-long affair there. Her genre-bending performances meld symphonic and progressive rock with experimental, classical. and electronic soundscapes in "ecstatic musical experiences" (New Music Connoisseur). In 2013 she was featured in the book In Her Own Words - Conversations with Composers in the United States, joining the ranks of twenty-five trail-blazing women composers including Meredith Monk (NYFA FELLOW), Joan Tower (NYFA FELLOW), Pamela Z and Pauline Oliveros (NYFA FELLOW). Bukvich is a board member of the American Festival of Microtonal Music, and was an honoree in 2014 Selected Honors, Awards & Achievements in ASCAP Concert Music. She is on faculty at NYU, and writes a new music and art column in Modern Diplomacy International. Bukvich’s acclaimed debut album EVOLUTION was released in the spring of 2014 on Big Round Records. She is currently working on her second solo release, LENKORAN, named after a 120-year-old line of Arabian horses bred in the mountains near Sarajevo. In June of 2015, Bukvich became an associate director of the NYC-based Composers Concordance organization. wwwsvjetlanamusic.com 9. Sabbath Lily 1st Song Anthony Gatto Holly Hansen, vocals; Adam Meckler Orchestra conducted by David Bloom (excerpt from the opera WISE BLOOD , based on the novel by Flannery O’Connor) Sabbath Lily gets a note from Hazel Motes: "Babe, I never saw anybody as good as you before you is why I came here." Anthony Gatto has developed collaborative works and concert music with artists and ensembles in the US, Europe, and Asia, including works for film, theater, dance, and opera. His works have appeared at Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, Symphony Space, Angel Orensanz Center, UdK Berlin, the Walker Art Center, MIT, Berlin Staatsbank, Open Eye Figure Theater, the Festival Dancing in Your Head, and several Bang on a Can Festivals. He received a doctorate in composition from Yale University and was a student of Ornette Coleman. He is an Associate Professor of Music at City University of New York and lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is grateful for the residencies and awards he received while working on the opera Wise Blood, which include spending time at the Yaddo Artists’ Retreat, where Flannery O’Connor wrote the novel. He also spent time at the Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony of the Arts and was an Artist-in-Residence at Willapa Bay. During that time he received a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellowship and a City University of New York Research Award. 10. We Were All Yotam Haber Contemporaneous: Lucy Dhegrae, soprano Tomás Cruz, countertenor Andrew Fuchs, tenor Fanny Wyrick-Flax, flute Stuart Breczinski, oboe Vicente Alexim, clarinet Chuck Furlong, bass clarinet David Nagy, bassoon Cameron West, horn Evan Honse, trumpet Daniel Linden, trombone Amy Garapic and Matt Evans, percussion Milena Gligić, keyboard Finnegan Shanahan, Sarah Goldfeather, Kate Dreyfuss, and Marina Kifferstein, violins Sarah Haines and Adam Matthes, violas Dylan Mattingly and Matthew Smith, cellos Pat Swoboda, contrabass and egg shaker David Bloom, conductor From the CD Torus produced by Glen Roven for Roven records. To purchase the entire cd please go to Rovenrecords.com Recorded at Roulette, Brooklyn, November 12, 2014 Sound Engineer: Charles Hagaman The title, We Were All, comes from the poem Cherries by Andrea Cohen. We had met at the MacDowell Colony at a difficult moment in her life when she had recently lost a parent. I was drawn to this text because it so beautifully and succinctly evokes a quiet, unsentimental, yet deeply emotional response to loss. When I asked Andrea if this poem is about grieving for the death of her mother, she emphatically said, “no, I think it's about appetite and desire and changing one's expectation. Rather than being bitter about one’s loss, the speaker searches for meaning and decides that the blackbirds got their fill and that by accepting that, or appreciating it, by finding meaning in not getting what one had hoped for, well, that's a kind of nourishment. Though I wasn’t thinking about grieving, it is about an acceptance of some loss—which is also a kind of accomplishment.” This piece is a burst of physical, visceral energy: sometimes menacing, sometimes exuberant and full of joy. It was originally written for Alarm Will Sound and commissioned by the Adele and John Gray Endowment Fund. Yotam Haber’s music is hailed by New Yorker critic Alex Ross as “deeply haunting,” he was picked by the Los Angeles Times as one of five "2014 Faces To Watch" in classical music, and chosen as one of the “30 composers under 40” to participate in Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s Project 440. Yotam was born in Holland and grew up in Israel, Nigeria, and Milwaukee. He is the recipient of a 2013 Fromm Music Foundation commission, the 2007 Rome Prize, and a 2005 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He has received grants and fellowships from New Music USA, the Jerome Foundation, the Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation, Yaddo, Bogliasco, MacDowell Colony, the Hermitage, ASCAP, and the Copland House. Recent commissions include works for: Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor; an evening-length oratorio for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, CalARTS@REDCAT/Disney Hall (Los Angeles); New York-based Contemporaneous, Gabriel Kahane; the 2015 New York Philharmonic CONTACT! Series; the 2012 & 2014 Venice Biennale; 2012 Bang on a Can Summer Festival; the Neuvocalsolisten Stuttgart and ensemble l’arsenale; FLUX Quartet; JACK Quartet; Cantori New York; the Tel Aviv-based Meitar Ensemble; and the Berlin-based Quartet New Generation. Thanks to David Bloom and Contemporaneous http://www.contemporaneous.org/ Innova is supported by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation. Philip Blackburn, director, design Chris Campbell, operations director Steve McPherson, publicist Produced by Cristian Amigo and Philip Blackburn Mastered by Greg Reierson, Rare Form Mastering