Sō Percussion oneppo chamber music series - Yale School of Music
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oneppo chamber music series
David Shifrin, artistic director
Sō Percussion
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 | 7:30 pm
Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
Robert Blocker, DeanProgram
Vijay Iyer Torque (2018)
b. 1971 II.
III.
Nathalie Joachim Note to Self (2021)
b. 1983 Much More
Maybe
Motivated
Jason Treuting Nine Numbers 4 (2017)
b. 1977 II.
III.
intermission
Caroline Shaw Taxidermy (2012)
b. 1982
Bryce Dessner Music for Wood and Strings (2013)
b. 1976
As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly
prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.Artist Profile
Sō Percussion Editions—an acclaimed version of Julius
Eastman’s Stay On It, and Darian Donovan
Eric Cha-Beach ’07MM Thomas’s Individuate. This adds to a cata-
Josh Quillen ’06MM logue of more than twenty-five albums
Adam Sliwinski ’03MM ’04MMA ’09DMA featuring landmark recordings of works
Jason Treuting ’01MM ’02AD by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steve Mackey,
and many more.
For twenty years and counting, Sō Percussion
has redefined chamber music for the 21st In the Summer of 2022, Sō performed at
century through an “exhilarating blend of the Music Academy of the West Festival,
precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” Newport Classical, at Time Spans in New
(The New Yorker). They are celebrated by York, and offers four concerts at Our Festival
audiences and presenters for a dazzling in Helsinki – including a performance of
range of work: for live performances in Let the Soil with Caroline Shaw. 2022–23
which “telepathic powers of communication” dates include concerts for Cal Performances,
(The New York Times) bring to life the vibrant at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in
percussion repertoire; for an extravagant Barcelona, at the Barbican in London, the
array of collaborations in classical music, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,
pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and Penn Live Arts in Philadelphia, University
theater; and for their work in education and of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and at
community, creating opportunities and The 92nd Street Y, New York.
platforms for music and artists that explore
the immense possibility of art in our time. In Fall 2022, Sō Percussion began its ninth
year as the Edward T. Cone performers-
Recent highlights have included performan- in-residence at Princeton University. Rooted
ces at the Elbphilharmonie, Big Ears 2022— in the belief that music is an elemental form
where they performed Amid the Noise, of human communication, and galvanized
premiered a new work by Angélica Negrón by forces for social change in recent years,
with the Kronos Quartet, and performed Sō enthusiastically pursues a range of social
their Nonesuch album with Caroline Shaw, and community outreach through their
Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part—and a return nonprofit organization, including partner-
to Carnegie Hall where they performed new ships with local ensembles including Pan
collaborations with Nathalie Joachim, and in Motion and Castle of Our Skins; their
Dominic Shodekeh Talifero. Their Nonesuch Brooklyn Bound concert series; a studio
recording, Narrow Sea, with Caroline Shaw, residency program in Brooklyn; and the Sō
Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, won Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive
the 2022 Grammy for Best Composition. two-week chamber music seminar for
Other recent albums include A Record percussionists and composers.
Of… on Brassland Music with Buke and
Gase, and—on new imprint Sō PercussionArtist Profile cont. Program Notes
by the composers
Sō Percussion wishes to thank all of our Torque
donors. Sō Percussion’s 2022-2023 season iyer
is supported in part by awards from:
• The National Endowment for the At the piano, I listen for how the contortions
Arts. To find out more about how of the hand can suggest the surges of a body
National Endowment for the Arts in motion.In my trio music, I’m often evolv-
grants impact individuals and ing rhythmic shapes, shaping gestural
communities, visit www.arts.gov patterns with an embodied resonance, and
• The New York State Council on the striving to evoke specific qualities of move-
Arts with the support of Governor ment with our performed rhythms. Someone
Kathy Hochul and the New York once compared us to The Flying Karamazov
State Legislature; Brothers, with their coordinated, cyclical,
• The New York City Department of antiphonal actions.I see the work of the
Cultural Affairs in partnership with rhythm section as a ritual of collective
the City Council synchrony, aiming above all to generate a
• The Aaron Copland Fund for Music dance impulse for everybody in the room.
• The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Torque, a twisting force on a body, seems
Columbia University to appear for the listener at music’s formal
• The Amphion Foundation boundaries, when one movement type gives
• The Brookby Foundation way to another. This piece for Sō Percussion
• The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation invites them to perform transformations
• The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels that twist the music’s temporal flow, bring-
Foundation ing the micro-relational art of the rhythm
• The Howard Gilman Foundation section to this virtuosic quartet.
• The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
Note to Self
Sō Percussion uses Vic Firth sticks, Zildjian joachim
cymbals, Remo drumheads, Estey Organs,
and Pearl/Adams instruments. Sō Percussion Though I’ve spent much of my life trying
would like to thank these companies for to quiet my inner voice, for this work, I chose
their generous support and donations. to focus on and explore the thoughts that
occupy my headspace as a result of my
chronic anxiety.
Note to Self, for percussion quartet and re-
corded samples of my voice, takes the listener
through different phases of cyclical thoughts
and states of being that I experience regu-
larly. Composed in three short movements—
Much More, Maybe, and Motivated—thiswork examines the notion of having my based on my realization of the Sudoku.
inner voice embodied elsewhere, in an Different scores will exist for different
attempt to create new space for processing ensembles. Most of the recognizable elements
emotion. It also plays with repetition as an of the pieces will remain fixed, but surface
opportunity to bring new meaning, under- details can change depending on the Sudoku.
standing, and perhaps some levity, to the
language itself. Each movement is a reimag- The complete work of nine pieces will be the
ining of vocal incantations that, driven by second recording of my music on Cantaloupe
imaginative, virtuosic, and whimsical Music after 2006’s Amid the Noise, featuring
percussion scoring, re-center and re-purpose performances by Sō Percussion, Tigue,
my voice as a tool for healing. the Meehan/Perkins Duo, Ji Hye Jung,
Sandbox Percussion, and Adam Groh.
Nine Numbers 4
treuting Here is the Sudoku for Sō Percussion’s
version of Nine Numbers 4:
Nine Numbers 4 is a mallet quartet for two 192 456 378
marimbas and two vibraphones written 734 928 156
for Sō Percussion. Inspired in some ways 658 731 924
by Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet, this three 247 695 831
movement piece explores the bowed and 386 147 592
struck sounds of these keyboard instru- 915 283 467
ments. This piece is the fourth in a set of 421 369 785
nine, which are sequenced from solo 569 874 213
percussionist to nonet. 873 512 649
All of the pieces in Nine Numbers translate Taxidermy
the 9 x 9 solutions of Sudoku puzzles into shaw
notes and rhythms. The number nine, with
its three sets of three, contains many won- Why “Taxidermy”? I just find the word
derful symmetries and fractal-like charac- strangely compelling, and it evokes some-
teristics. It allows for nesting structures at thing grand, awkward, epic, silent, funny,
the largest and smallest levels. and just a bit creepy—all characteristics of
this piece, in a way. The repeated phrase
In the pieces for fewer players, sometimes toward the end (“the detail of the pattern
I ask the performers to help generate the is movement”) is a little concept I love
score. In the solo, duo, and trio, the perfor- trying (and failing) to imagine. It comes
mers find their own puzzle solutions, and from T.S. Eliot’s beautiful and perplexing
the score is a set of instructions to translate “Burnt Norton” (from the Four Quartets),
the numbers into music. In this quartet, I andI’ve used it before in other work—as a
present the ensemble with a finished score kind of whimsical existentialist mantra.Program Notes cont. Music for Wood and Strings dessner For several years I have been experimenting with simple chorales in my music that utilize triadic chord inversions that are aligned in complex rhythm patterns to create a kaleid- oscopic effect of harmony. These feature heavily in my work for orchestra and two guitars, St. Carolyn by the Sea (2011), and the writing for my song cycle, The LongCount (2009). While I have used this technique on guitars and strings, I have not had the opportunity to apply it to percussion in- struments. For this new So Percussion piece I have been working with instrument builder Aron Sanchez (BlueMan Group, Buke and Gase) to design four dulcimer-like instru- ments to be played by the quartet. These are simply designed double course string instruments which are played like a dulcimer, but which are specifically built and tuned to implement a more evolved hybrid of the chorale hocket. Each instrument is amplified using piezo pickups and will have 8 double- course strings tuned to two harmonies. With the use of dulcimer mallets, the quartet players can easily sound either harmony, or play individual strings, melodies, and drone tremolos. There are alto, two tenors and a bass instrument which can play fretted chromatic bass lines. With these elements as well as a few pieces of auxiliary percussion—bass drum, wood block—the work is about 30 minutes long.
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