MSMNYC Contemporary Performance Program presents:
EMuX4
Immersive music composed and performed by:
Gabriel Garcia
Shimon Gambourg
Madeline Hocking
Dániel Matei
Emmalie Tello
Carla Bossi-Comelli Studio
Manhattan School of Music
Wednesday December 8, 8 pm
Welcome to this end of semester concert event featuring 2nd year participants from the Performing With Electronics Circuit.
We’ve created this page for you to navigate the show and to give you some context for the experience - PWE courses are open to the entire MSM community as electives, and you are welcome to take them as well.
There are four courses available in the curriculum, two semesters which focus on music software (Ableton LIve, Max/MSP) and two semesters which follow which focus exclusively on performance and hardware/software composition, collaboration and show design.
Over the course of four semesters, participants have access to equipment, education, and experience with the opportunity to:
build and manage amplification, performance, and recording systems.
design creative and performance environments using laptops, controllers, and professional equipment
learn the principles of synthesis, sampling, and recording
gain an ease and facility in music technology, providing access and depth both to individual musical expression and practice as well as providing valuable experience and knowledge which leading to wider engagement and employment in the music industry
Tonight’s Program:
Swerve by Jessica Meyer, transcr. Tello
Emmalie Tello, bass clarinet
Ever Watchful by Leo Sussman
Teagan Faran, violin
Sonnet #18 after William Shakespeare
Gabriel Garcia, sampled voice
Ozymandias after Percy Bysshe Shelley
Gabriel Garcia, voice
Dániel Matei, electronics
Space and Time are the (__)
Dániel Matei, percussion
Madeline Hocking, violin
Day at Eagle River
Emmalie Tello, clarinet
Madeline Hocking, violin
Air-Conditioned Nightmare
Shimon Gambourg, samples and loops
808s and Heartburn by Shimon Gambourg
Emmalie Tello, clarinet
Nick Marziani, alto saxophone
Evan Amoroso, trombone
Shimon Gambourg, electric bass
notes
Swerve by Jessica Meyer
Swerve is about making a conscious effort to get everything grooving the way it should, in balance with all the feelings and responsibilities that are unique to women.
In essence…. that moment when you “get your swerve on.”
-Jessica Meyer
Sonnet #18 by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Space and Time are the (__) by Dániel Matei and Madeline Hocking
Today’s performance is a manifestation of the material we’ve been working on, exploring quadraphonics. The starting point was a quote taken from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason; “Space and Time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.” The rhythmic and pitch material, and the form of the last section are directly derived from the first five words of the quote (space and time are the).
Time and Space being intertwined gave us the inspiration to use the number of letters in these two words (4 and 5) as the ratio at the core of the piece.
The two gongs are F# and A# → the major third is a 4/5 ratio. The metric modulation into the third section is also a 4/5: the quarter note beat at 70bpm becomes the quintuplet in the new tempo of 56bpm.
These are ideas we’ve been interested in exploring, and we are happy to share them with you. But in the end, music is about music. We hope you’ll enjoy this performance regardless of our words.
Day at Eagle River by Madeline Hocking and Emmalie Tello
This piece was inspired by the Eagle River in Qathet, British Columbia. The river traces a path through the woods from Lois Lake to the Salish Sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean known for being especially secluded and non-turbulent (due to a large collection of islands buffering it from ocean storms). Most of the river is also quite slow-moving and calm, except one point near the end of its journey where the current narrows and the water spills over a cliff into a huge pool below. It is possible for one to easily swim the entire length of the river, which many locals do, and this often includes jumping off the waterfall. The piece traces the river’s journey from one still body of water to another, as experienced by someone swimming the length of the river - as one nears the falls, nervous anticipation builds, which is quickly followed by relief as one is carried the rest of the way down to the ocean by the gentle current.