solo instrument

Additional Information

Additional Information

When I wrote my Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) for string quartet in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write a cycle of compositions, Les six aspects du néant for string quartet and its subsets.

Betwixt-times for viola solo is the fifth piece that I completed in this cycle. In the context of the cycle, this piece would be played fourth, after Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) and before Envoi II for string trio. Working on a piece that could be played on its own, yet at the same time it would make coherent sense when played as part of the cycle, and designing it to be played between two pieces that I had completed posed an interesting compositional challenge on the formal and narrative levels.

The term “betwixt-times” is now an obsolete English term, signifying “between-whiles,” “at intervals,” or “now and then.” The word “betwixt” alone is more common even though it is still archaic, essentially meaning “between.” In this piece, the notion of “in-betweenness” plays an important role in deciding many of the compositional parameters. For example, the tempo in this piece for the most part fluctuates between two boundaries, endangering the notion of stability. And more than other pieces in the Les six aspects du néant cycle, the movements of the right hand and the left hand are decoupled, creating performative tensions that arise between the two hands. Thus, the piece is fragilely suspended in this tension, between the completely stable assuredness and the point of collapse.

Betwixt-times is dedicated to Anna Pelczer.

Additional Information

Written at the request of Miyuki Ito, for her concert series NymphéArt, this work was written and dedicated to Takashi Harada, ondist and one of my composition mentors Tristan Murail, whose seventieth birthday celebration was the central theme of the concert.

Additional Information

Written from August to October of 2015 at the request of Finnish cellist, Anssi Karttunen, this work is dedicated to him. Additional thanks are due to Theresa Wong, composer/improviser/cellist who showed me the clothespin technique back in 2012. In Envoi I this technique is used as part of the larger compositional unfolding that takes place throughout the work.

Additional Information

When I wrote my Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) for string quartet in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write a cycle of compositions for string quartet and its subsets.

Parti… marks the third piece that I completed in this cycle. In naming this piece I have thought of two things. First of all, it is an homage to a work by Johann Sebastian Bach (i.e. Partita) which, after nearly three centuries, remains to be a rite of passage for all violinists. As I composed this work, I could not help but think of the magnitude of the influence that the masterpiece had on me as a composer.

Then the title signifies “the beginning” or “starting up,” as the French word “partir” may suggest. This work indeed begins the entire cycle. Yet the signification does not stop there. In 2002 Mahir Cetiz, composer and good friend of mine, wrote an orchestral piece entitled Left. Even though he now considers the work juvenile, in listening to the piece I felt that the work possessed such a grand force of creativity that would guide Mahir in years that followed afterwards.

I thank Ari Streisfeld, violinist of JACK Quartet, who premiered the preliminary version of the work in New York. I also thank Maja Cerar who premiered the second preliminary version of the work. The current version reflects the premiere of the revised and final version in Takefu, Japan in September 2015 by Yasutaka Hemmi. Without their generous advices I would not have seen the work finished in its current version.

Parti… is dedicated to Ari Streisfeld and Mahir Cetiz.

Additional Information

Spargens was commissioned by trombonist William Lang. Its title, “spargens,” is a Latin word meaning “scattering.” It is a piece about a musical continuity being affected by various interferences, thereby creating paradoxically scattered sonic images out of such continuous musical gestures.

Many thanks are due to George Lewis for his initial inspirational remarks on trombone writing at the time I started to work on this piece. Also many thanks to the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbertide, Italy, where the creative process on this piece truly blossomed.

Watch

Additional Information

When I wrote my string quartet Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write a cycle of compositions for string quartet and its subsets.

Tr (épilogue) marks the second piece that I completed in this cycle. Its title has a precursor; Tr for violoncello and piano, of which I took the formal scheme as a point of reference for the solo piece. I took the duo piece, stripped away the piano part, and enlarged the piece by adding musical commentaries.

As the title may suggest, I intend that this piece concludes the cycle. In the spirit of concluding the cycle, my focus in this piece was to illuminate the gestures of ‘farewell,’ in the sense that the envelope of the phrases has the conscious trajectory of fade-out.

Many thanks to Patrick McGuire who, in the symposium Creative Dialogue V, premiered the work-in-progress version as a part of Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Also thanks are due to Anssi Karttunen and Magnus Lindberg, whose commentaries and feedbacks were crucial to the development of the piece.

Tr (épilogue) is dedicated to Pierre Morlet and Mark Andre.