“The Plus One” for two pianos

Program note:

The Plus One is a sum of two pieces for solo piano that when played together create something greater than the sum of its parts. This work can be performed as a duo or as a three-movement piece: Piano I (solo), Piano II (solo) and Piano I + Piano II (duo).

Performance requirements:

Piano I should have two timpani mallets and a guitar pic (or similar) for the sections were playing inside of the instrument is required. The timpani mallets can be substituted with any type of soft yarn mallets. A layer of packing tape should be added to the strings on the notes E7 to B7. A single strip close to the instrument’s mechanism should work well for the section that starts in m. 170.

No preparations are needed for Piano II.

World premiere version: Ami I-Lin Cheng and Steve Beck pianos. July 2022. 

 

Hispanic Heritage Month on September 23

Schedule

9 AM – Jacky Avila. El Espectáculo on Stage and Screen: Evocations of the teatro de revistas in cine mexicano. SU 169 – Tiered Room.

10 AM – Maria Fernanda Castillo. LAMI: Proactiveness in promoting Latin American music and heritage. SU 169 – Tiered Room.

11 AM – Juan Luis Jurat-Fuentes. A brief history of Argentine tango music and dance. SU 169 – Tiered Room.

Noon – Donato Juarez & Julieta Julieta. Argentine Tango Master class at the SU Auditorium. Come dance!

4 PM – Live concert. New Music from el Rio de la Plata. Featuring the Domino Ensemble (Jorge Variego – saxophone and compositions, Matías Pedrana – bandoneon, Jon Hamar – double bass, Keith Brown – drums) and dancers Julieta Julieta and Donato Juarez. SU Auditorium.

Ciudad Vieja (string trio) premiered at the SSMF

My 2020 string trio “Ciudad Vieja” was premiered on July 3rd at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival with Lin He (violin), Hillary Herndon (viola) and Meghan Berindean (cello).

Program note about the piece:

In South America, the “Ciudad Vieja” is an emblem that today represents the neighborhood of a city where tradition and modernity coexist. The sounds of the string trio are folkloric sonorities arbitrarily metamorphosed with the help of an academic lens. Tangos, milongas, candombes are all there, all present all absent.

The score of the piece can be purchased in the Online store here.

Live video (recorded at the Guerry Auditorium – University of the South)

“Tango de Arena” on Spotify

Acá una pieza nueva para trio que grabamos en diciembre pasado junto a Jon Hamar y Keith Brown. Tiene un sonido jazzero, pero intenta ser otra cosa. Si tenés un ratito, escuchalos a Jon y a Keith que se tocan todo! Flor de tango ☺ salió / Here is a new piece for trio that we recorded last December with Jon Hamar and Keith Brown. It has a jazzy sound, but it tries to be something else. Listen to Jon and Keith making it happen! Tangazzo ☺

 

“BLINK” premieres on Monday!

BLINK (for orchestra, electronic sounds and video) will be premiered by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra this Monday March 29th under the direction of Mtro. Aram Demirjian.
Short program note about the work:
BLINK celebrates the uniqueness of the synchronous fireflies, a singular species of fireflies that lives in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park whose individuals synchronize their flashing patterns.
In the piece, the magic of the event is captured in the form of a journey that starts and ends in the National Park, going through imaginary worlds that exist inside of the Smokies. The glide through surreal underwater worlds, giant caves and Daliesque cities ends where it started, in the park, with the synchronous fireflies in full splendor.
BLINK was commissioned by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra for the 2021 Young People’s Concert: “Nature at Night: A Smokies Symphony.”

Recording of Blink – Knoxville Symphony Orchestra March 17th 2021 at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville.

“Goes Free” is out!

“Goes Free” is a project where free improvisation becomes a bridge for inclusion. The album is made out of freely improvised versions of compositions written by enslaved-born composers. The selection contains works by Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), Thomas Greene “Blind Tom’ Wiggins (1849-1908), and Basile Barés (1845-1902). The bonus track “Jan” offers a short duo introspection.

Performers

Cullen Burke (synth and live electronics)
Hunter Deacon (drumset)
Matt Nelson (double bass)
Jorge Variego (soprano and tenor saxophone)

Domino Ensemble Call for Scores – RESULTS

We received 44 pieces from 3 continents! The high caliber of the works was OUTSTANDING, it was a real thrill to be able to go through all of them. For this recording project, we selected the following composers and pieces (the list is in alphabetical order):
 
Sebastian Birch  Duplicitous Isolation

Lynn Blake John  The Little Buffalo

Michael Boyd  Animal Magnetism V

Nicholas Cline  abrade

Brian Field  ...and all that jazz…

Geoffrey Halgas  Village Folk Song

Aaron Hunt  Reluctant Dancer

Matthew Lam  Acrimonies

Yunfei MI Li  Made to Burn

Gabriel Malancioiu  Clavirgus

Kari Medina  Heart, Remember Dance

James Pecore  Samsāra

Piotr Szewczyk  Three Cartoons for Viola and Bass Clarinet

Robert Scott Thompson  Filigree and Shadow (two movements)

“La Caja de Música”

A new composition for multimedia for viola, electronics and video. “La Caja de Música” (the music box) proposes a journey through an imaginary world filled with memories tinted with the sounds of nostalgia. Embracing the metaphor of machine-made sounds, the piece offers an opportunity to glide away.

“La Yapa” for trombone and piano premieres in Wisconsin

Trombonist Cole Bartels will premiere the recently commissioned work “La Yapa” for trombone and piano at the Hamel Music Center, University of Wisconsin Madison on November 17th @ 3PM.

The program also includes Four Themes on Paintings of Goya by Anthony Plog, Struggle by Evan Hause, Three Pictures by Dolores White, Caravaggio by John Stevens and a premiere by Steven L. Makela.

About the piece:

“La Yapa” represents something extra that is given as a plus for no ostensible reason. Sometimes parents and grandparents do it. The work proposes a sonic world with elements of traditional tango and improvisational and rhythmic textures alla Robert Muczynski. It is an intense trip through an imaginary space with the urban colors of El caminito in Buenos Aires.

Natasha Farny to premiere “Uno” for singing cellist

On the first faculty concert of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, cellist extraordinaire Natasha Farny will premiere my new work for singing cellist “Uno”. The concert will be at the Guerry Recital Hall on June 15th 8PM at the University of the South in Sewanee.

About Natasha:

American cellist Natasha Farny performs as a soloist and chamber musician. Highlights for 2019 include the release of her debut CD of French music for cello and piano with Jitka Fowler Frankova available soon on the Centaur label, and the emergence of her new chamber group, the Ekstasis Duo with pianist Eliran Avni. She made her concerto debut at age 17 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale College during her undergraduate years. After completing her master’s and doctoral degrees at the Eastman School of Music and at the Juilliard School, she received a fellowship for study in Leipzig, Germany. While studying at Juilliard, Ms. Farny won two concerto competitions, performing Dutilleux’s Tout un Monde Lointain with Robert Spano and Olav Anton Thommessen’s world premiere, Through Reflection with Joel Sachs. More recent performances have included concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Abilene Philharmonic, and the Greeley Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the Longwood (Boston) Symphony, Orchard Park  (NY) Symphony, National Music Festival Orchestra, Pennsylvania Sinfonia, Erie Chamber Orchestra, and the Western New York Chamber Orchestra.

Abroad, Ms. Farny performed at the International Dvorak Society American Spring Festival in the Czech Republic with Jitka Frankova in 2011. In 2013, she made a tour of Brazil, giving concerts in four capital cities, and returned in August 2016 as a clinician and performer. She performed on the Theremin cello for a project of the complete works of Edgard Varèse, alongside the Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Her performances with these groups of Varèse’s rarely heard Ecuatorial were held at the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Festival d’Automne (Paris), the Southbank Centre (London), and at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Nationally, she has played for audiences in New York City at the Bargemusic “Here and Now” series, at Chicago public radio “Live from WFMT”, Rochester, NY public radio “Live from Hochstein”, and at numerous recital series across the nation. Ms. Farny is also active as a new music performer and has been recognized with an “Encore Grant” in 2012 from the American Composers Forum. Ms. Farny’s two recent residencies at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute resulted in performances with her new music duo, Amistella, and her French cello music CD project. In addition to her work with the Ekstasis Duo, other chamber music projects include her string faculty jazz quartet called FredFour and her trio, ANA. In residence at Fredonia, the soprano-cello-piano collaboration champions the works of living composers. Both groups have performed in Erie, Buffalo, Rochester, New York City, and Boston.

Ms. Farny is the cello professor at the School of Music at the State University of New York in Fredonia. She oversees the Fredonia cello choir and coordinates the string chamber music program. She has been honored there with several awards, including grants from the Faculty Student Association and the United University Professions, as well as the Hagan Young Scholar Artist Award for outstanding artistic performance. In the summer, she teaches at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, the Brancaleoni International Music Festival, and the Fredonia String Camp and has been appointed to festivals in  Chestertown, MD, Boulder, CO, Anchorage, AK, and Sweden, ME.

About the piece:

“Uno” intertwines a collection of ones. The interplay of the voice and the cello suggests a search of oneself, a moment for reflection. Sparse, for moments frantic, the cello character goes from gritty to idyllic, always exploring.
Throughout an introspective journey the piece takes the listener through momentos tangueros based on Mariano Mores’ tango Uno, to strokes of Brahms first Symphony. All tinted with the palette of my own self.