New Sounds Festival – Scott Deal
Friday, January 31 at 8:00 PM
Dalton Recital Hall
Scott Deal, Percussion
Yu-Lien The, Piano
Program
After Long Drought (2016), Elainie Lillios
Avatars Improvisations (2019), Scott Deal, software avatar by Jason Palamara
Immeasurable Distance (2019), Elainie Lillios
Will all fall in (2019), Christopher Biggs
Red Arc/Blue Veil (2002), John Luther Adams
Program Notes and Bios
After Long Drought
This work for vibraphone and live, interactive electroacoustics takes its inspiration from a poem with the same title by Wally Swist:
The sky rips open
after days of grinding heat,
waves of meadow grass
shift in the blowing rain,
and floating on the breadth
of its extended wings,
as bright as a vision,
the great blue heron
strokes through the storm.
The percussionist’s virtuosic foray through Swist’s evocative work conjures images of an aggressive summer squall, with its torrential driving rain and gusting wind reflecting life’s unpredictability and tumult. As the piece progresses, the storm fades into the background as our focus is directed to a peaceful calm discovered amidst the storm – a heron majestically gliding through the gale. After Long Drought was commissioned by Scott Deal. After Long appears with the author’s permission and is published in Winding Paths Worn through Grass (Chicago, IL: Virtual Artists Collective, 2012).
—Elainie Lillios
Elainie Lillios’s music reflects her fascination with listening, sound, space, time, immersion and anecdote. Her compositions include stereo, multi-channel, and Ambisonic fixed media works, instrument(s) with live interactive electronics, collaborative experimental audio/visual animations, and installations. Recent awards include a 2013-14 Fulbright Scholar appointment in Thessaloniki, Greece, First Prize in the 2009 Concours Internationale de Bourges, Areon Flutes International Composition Competition, Electroacoustic Piano International Competition, and Medea Electronique “Saxotronics” Competition and Second Prize in the 2014 Destellos International Electroacoustic Competition. Her music has also been recognized/awarded by the Concurso Internacional de Música Electroacústica de São Paulo, Concorso Internazionale Russolo, Pierre Schaeffer Competition, and La Muse en Circuit. She has received grants/commissions from INA/GRM, Rèseaux, International Computer Music Association, La Muse en Circuit, NAISA, ASCAP/SEAMUS, LSU’s Center for Computation and Technology, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Ohio Arts Council, and National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. She has been a special guest at the Groupe de Recherche Musicales, Rien à Voir, festival l’espace du son, June in Buffalo, and at other locations in the US and abroad. Elainie serves a Director of Composition Activities for the SPLICE institute (www.splice.institute) and is Professor of Composition at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Elainie’s acousmatic music is available on Entre Espaces, produced by Empreintes DIGITALes. Other pieces appear on Centaur, MSR Classics, StudioPANaroma, La Muse en Circuit, New Adventures in Sound Art, SEAMUS, Irritable Hedgehog and Leonardo Music Journal. elillios.com
Avatars
Avatars is a the title of a collection of vibraphone and electronics improvisations created by the collaborative team of Jason Palamara, software design, and Scott Deal, music. The software at the core of Avatars is a machine learning application named Avatar created by Palamara for Scott Deal. The software is trained in the overall sounds, textures, degrees of loudness, and pitches of the vibraphone, or the chosen instrument of the performer. During the performance, the software "listens" to the improvisor and performs an analysis of the music, then plays back accompanying response that forms an interactive "duet" with the musician. Avatar was first publicly used during a live performance at the Fata Morgana Arts Festival, Indianapolis, USA, in October 2019.
Jason Palamara is a technologist, composer educator, and performer from Indianapolis, Indiana. He specializes in composing music for dance, film, theater and in the development of new music technologies. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is the founder and director of IUPUI’s DISEnsemble (Destructive/Inventive Systems Ensemble – an ensemble devoted to the performance and study of hardware hacking, circuit bending, and other destructive forms of music making) and also teaches Applied Technology (using the laptop and other devices as vehicles for live musical performance). His latest album, [bornwith 2brains] is available on iTunes, Spotify and other international outlets.
Immeasurable Distance
Immeasurable Distance was composed in memory of my percussion colleague Roger Schupp. Roger asked me to compose a piece for him but passed away before the piece could be brought to fruition. My sincere appreciation and thanks to Scott Deal, who agreed to join me to imagine and complete the journey of this piece. While Immeasurable Distance was initially composed as a tribute to Roger, I think it has become a piece about the immeasurable distance that can exist between any of us.
—Elainie Lillios
will all fall in
Will all fall in was written for and is dedicated to Scott Deal. The work draws on imagery from Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder’s graphic novel “A.D. After Death.” A scene in the graphic novel paints a picture of a family playing on a frozen lake and the juxtaposition between the family’s experience of joy and freezing water below the ice. “...part of you refuses to ignore what’s beneath, to ignore the fact that at some point...the ice will give way to the cold, black water below it. And, one by one, your friends, your family, and you, will all fall in.” For me, this scene evoked the feeling that I often have right now: all the joy and beauty created by humans is at risk because of climate stability. That feeling and dread for humanity’s future colors all the creative, beautiful, and empathetic acts I witness. Without rapid and dramatic action we will all fall in.
--Christopher Biggs
Christopher Biggs is a composer and multimedia artist residing in Kalamazoo, MI, where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Technology at Western Michigan University. Biggs’ recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media. Biggs’ music has been presented across the United States and Europe, as well as in Latin America and Asia. His music is regularly performed on conferences and festivals, including the International Computer Music Conference, SEAMUS Conference, Visiones Sonoras, Electronic Music Midwest, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Root Signals, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Toronto International Electroacoustic Music Symposium, Bowling Green New Music Festival, and Society for Composers, Inc.
Red Arc/Blue Veil
Red Arc/Blue Veil (2001) is the first piece in a projected cycle exploring the geometry of time and color—what Kandinsky called ‘those inner sounds that are the life of the colors.’
As in all of my recent music, I imagine the entire ensemble (piano, percussion, and processed sounds) as a single instrument, and the entire piece as a single complex sonority. The processed sounds are derived directly from the acoustical instruments…. In Red Arc/Blue Veil, the electronic sounds are layered in tempo relationships of 3, 5 and 7, while the piano and mallet percussion trace a single arc, rising and falling from beginning to end. Red Arc/Blue Veil was commissioned and premiered by Ensemble Sirius.
—John Luther Adams
John Luther Adams is a composer whose life and work are deeply rooted in the natural world. Adams was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his symphonic work Become Ocean, as well as a Grammy Award for "Best Contemporary Classical Composition" (2014). Inuksuit, his outdoor work for up to 99 percussionists, is regularly performed all over the world. Columbia University has honored Adams with the William Schuman Award ‘to recognize the lifetime achievement of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance.’ A recipient of the Heinz Award for his contributions to raising environmental awareness, JLA has also been honored with the Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University ‘for melding the physical and musical worlds into a unique artistic vision that transcends stylistic boundaries.’ Born in 1953, JLA grew up in the South and in the suburbs of New York City. He studied composition with James Tenney at the California Institute of the Arts, where he was in the first graduating class (in 1973). In the mid-1970s he became active in the campaign for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and subsequently served as executive director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. Adams has taught at Harvard University, the Oberlin Conservatory, Bennington College, and the University of Alaska. He has also served as composer in residence with the Anchorage Symphony, Anchorage Opera, Fairbanks Symphony, Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and the Alaska Public Radio Network. The music of John Luther Adams is recorded on Cantaloupe, Cold Blue, New World, Mode, and New Albion, and his books are published by Wesleyan University Press.
Scott Deal
Performer, composer and media artist Scott Deal engages new works of computer interactivity, networked systems, electronics and percussion. His recordings have been described as “soaring, shimmering explorations of resplendent mood and incredible scale”....”sublimely performed”, and his recording of Pulitzer Prize/Grammy Awarded composer John Luther Adams’ Four Thousand Holes, for piano, percussion, and electronics was listed in New Yorker Magazine’s 2011 Top Ten Classical Picks. He has performed at Musicacoustica Beijing, Almeida Opera London, Arena Stage Washington, Supercomputing Global, Vancouver New Music Festival, Zerospace, SIGGRAPH, Chicago Calling, IEEE CloudCom, Ingenuity Festival, ICMC, NIME, PASIC and with groups that include ART GRID, Another Language, Digital Worlds Institute, Callithumpian Consort, and the Percussion Group Cincinnati. He is the percussionist for the computer-acoustic trio Big Robot, who have performed to audiences worldwide. In 2011, Deal and composer Matthew Burtner won the coveted Internet2 IDEA Award for their co- creation of Auksalaq, a telematic opera called “an important realization of meaningful opera for today’s world”. In 2017, Deal released the Computer Media Collection, comprised of six interactive works fusing electronics, media, and algorithmic processes with acoustic percussion.
Yu-Lien The
Yu-Lien The has performed throughout the US, Europe and Southeast-Asia, including appearances as a soloist with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Kammerorchester Hannover, and the Baroque Orchestra L'Arco. Other notable performances include a two-piano recital with Lori Sims of Messiaen’s “Visions de l’Amen” in 2008 and a lecture-recital of “The Other Diabelli-Variations” in 2012, both at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A prizewinner of the 12th International Piano Competition Viotti-Valsesia (Italy) and the Deutsche Musikwettbewerb, she was admitted to the National Concert Podium for Young Artists (Germany), which led to several concert tours with violinist Tomo Keller. Ms. The is a champion of contemporary composers and has been involved in a number of commissions and world premieres. She frequently collaborates with saxophonists Joe Lulloff and Henning Schröder as well as composers Dorothy Chang, Keith Murphy, and Carter Pann. During her tenure with the new music ensemble Opus21, she worked with composers Anna Clyne, David Lang, and Frederic Rzewski, which culminated in premiere performances at Symphony Space (New York) as well as Zankel Hall at Carnegie in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
Born in the Netherlands, Yu-Lien The received most of her musical training in Germany, where she obtained degrees in both piano and recorder performance and pedagogy from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. She has earned an Artist Diploma from the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, a Master of Music from Western Michigan University as well as a D.M.A. in piano performance from Michigan State University. Her principal piano teachers were Arie Vardi, Anatol Ugorski, Deborah Moriarty, and Lori Sims.
Yu-Lien The is Assistant Professor of Keyboard Studies at Western Michigan University and has previously served on the faculties at Bowling Green State University, Valparaiso University, and Kalamazoo College.