Locally Sourced Sounds VII

Monday, March 21, 2022 at The Old Church Concert Hall

Available online beginning April 4, 2022

Part of an annual series that showcases the music of composers living and working in our home state, Locally Sourced Sounds concerts depict the spirit and diversity of Oregon culture, resulting in programs that are “always among the best of the season.” (Oregon ArtsWatch) Besides featuring musical selections that “hit home” with audiences, the series offers an invaluable platform to local composers, strengthening our cultural ecosystem.

PROGRAM NOTES

Lifia Teguh

Lifia Teguh is an Indonesian-born pianist, composer, and arranger whose passion is to make music that touches hearts and changes lives. Ms. Teguh’s concert venues range from the traditional concert halls to yacht clubs. Her creative and distinct approach breathes fresh air to traditional Indonesian music, combining Indonesian folk tunes and songs with other genres like blues, classical, and pop. Her arrangement of prepared piano music Rek Ayo Rek, which transforms the sound of the piano into sasando and kendhang (both Indonesian instruments), “successfully swayed the audience on their seats according to the rhythm of the music” (goodnewsfromindonesia.org). Her piano quartet score, Liber Dangdut, was performed in the College Music Society National Conference in New York and at the College Music Society & American Musicological Society Pacific NW Conference.

Ms. Teguh won the PSU Concerto Competition with Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major and will perform her own piano concerto with the PSU Orchestra on June 3, 2022. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, and two Masters degrees: a Master of Music in Piano Performance and a Master of Music in Collaborative Piano. As an educator, she serves as a piano faculty member at Linfield University, while she also nurtures students in her private studio.

Imagine Indonesia

Imagine Indonesia is a compilation of prepared piano pieces that converts the sound of piano into other Indonesian instruments. The collection provides a musical journey through Indonesia, a culturally diverse nation with more than 17,000 islands and around 1,340 ethnic groups, each with their own customs and traditions.

Both movements played in this concert, "Javanese Dance" and "Bali", bring the audience to the islands of Java and Bali, widely known for their unique sets of percussion, the gamelan, that are played by a group of people. "Javanese Dance" transports the audience to the Java island, where in the east the vibe, people, and cultures are energetic and vibrant, whereas the central part is known for its graceful and polite mannerisms. The ngremo (a dynamic east Javanese traditional dance) includes bracelets that are used to create the gong-like sound effects. The second movement "Bali" (world premiered in this concert) depicts the island's rhythmic, vivacious style through the gamelan. The audience interaction part depicts the kecak, a dance performed by a large group of men, with music coming from the mouths of the dancers depicting the sound of the gamelan.

"Javanese Dance" is available online on all streaming platforms of your choice, while the other movements of Imagine Indonesia are to be released starting in the spring of 2022. Follow Lifia Teguh on YouTube and @lifiateguh on Instagram for more information.

Kirsten Volness

Smart, transcendent, and immersive, Kirsten Volness’ emotive soundscapes integrate electronics and modern composition techniques with jazz and pop influences. “Irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “nothing short of gorgeous.” (New York Arts), each of her compositions reveals “an exquisite sound world” (New Classic LA) inspired by nature, myth, spirituality, and environmental and sociopolitical issues. With commissions from the World Future Council Foundation, ASCAP/SEAMUS, BMI Foundation, Metropolis Ensemble, and The American Opera Project, Volness received MacColl Johnson and RISCA Fellowships. Also an active performer, producer, and a passionate promoter of multimedia, Volness has cultivated and curated numerous festivals and series featuring the work of interdisciplinary artists. A highly sought-after collaborator, she is the Co-Founder, Co-Director and pianist for Verdant Vibes (Providence); multi-instrumentalist for Hotel Elefant (NYC); Co-Director of homeless advocacy group Tenderloin Opera Company (Providence); Composer/Performer in Meridian Project, a multimedia performance/lecture series exploring astrophysics and cosmology (Chicago/Providence); and Affiliated Artist of Sleeping Weazel (Boston). She holds composition degrees from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota, and is Visiting Assistant Professor at Reed College. Learn more at kirstenvolness.com.

Rabbit in the Moon

Among various East Asian, Aztec, and other folklore, there is a story about a rabbit who sacrificed their life for the benefit of another, as it was the only thing they felt they had to give. In commemoration of this selflessness, the rabbit’s shadow, or sometimes the smoke from the rabbit’s pyre, rose up and was imprinted on the moon for all to see.

Drew Swatosh

Coming from a background in arts integrated education, Drew Swatosh (they/them) creates connections within their music, whether through the inclusion of programmatic/extra musical elements; collaborating with other composers, musicians, and artists; and/or combining different musical styles and compositional techniques. They use composing as a means of processing the world around them, which includes social justice, intersectional feminism, climate change, and grief. Drew’s comissioners include the Seattle Opera Creation Lab for a trans/non-binary retelling of the myth of Icarus and Daedalus; choral educator Stephanie Bivins; the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics Music Department; the Fear No Music Young Composers Project; and vocalists Stephanie Lamprea, Marguerite McKean, and Carolyn Quick as part of the Dead Fires Anthology for Solo Unaccompanied/Self-Accompanied Voice. Drew holds an MMus and BMus in Contemporary Music from Western Oregon University and has studied composition with: Kevin Walczyk, James Reddan, Carlos Velez, Bill Whitley, Dave Averre, and Elizabeth Ackerman. They are a member of In Medio and Cascadia Composers, and reside in Vancouver, Washington. In addition to composing, Drew is a vocalist, pianist, ukulele player, and engraver. Drew loves women’s soccer and is a tech and fashion enthusiast. For more information, visit their website, www.drewswatosh.com.

Kind Wildness

Grounded in distinctly American ways of expressing ideas through rhythm, such as slam poetry, gospel, protest chants, jazz, and hip-hop, Kind Wildness is a protest piece that explores the increasing divide since the 2016 presidential election. The phrase kind wildness comes from slam poet Anis Mojgani’s poem “I’m Forgetting This Poem Before I Write It” from Songs From Under the River. Throughout the piece, the flute is processed with delay, creating counterpoint; chorus, to emulate a choir; and bit crusher, to add a layer of grime. Additionally, there are references to protest chants including “This is what democracy looks like!”, “Black lives matter!”, “Education not deportation!,” and “Pussy grabs back!”; the Chilean song by Sergio Ortega and “Quilapayún,  ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!,” or “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!;” and the drum groove from the song “Check the Rhime” by A Tribe Called Quest.

Jesse Ehrenberg

Jesse Ehrenberg is a composer, piano teacher, singer, and chef living in Portland, OR. They graduated from Reed College with a degree in Comparative Literature, and studied composition with Kirsten Volness, David Schiff, Jean-Paul Olive, and Emily Lau. Their works have been performed by fEAR no Music and Big Mouth Society. As an active performer, they have worked locally with Big Mouth Society and the choir First Presbyterian Church, and abroad with the Bach Collegium of Paris. Jesse is currently working on a collection of choral and instrumental pieces set to Emily Dickinson poems, and an electronic project, tentatively about an alien who wakes from a dream and remembers that there is a woman on Earth who he loved in a past life, and his travels across space and time in order to make amends with her. They are always listening to the timbre of the world, and thinking about the wind.

Quartet of Wind Particles

In the spring of 2020, I spent most mornings alone, on long walks or sitting in parks. I began to notice the wind. Specifically, I noticed that the same gust of wind passed through plants in various ways. The branches of a large spruce had wide, violent, sweeping gestures. The leaves of a quaking aspen were small and quick. A single flower swayed side to side, slowly, elegantly. Sitting there, sometimes the whole forest came alive with music—music that moved like the wind moving through the trees. I wrote some of it into a quartet. 

The quartet of wind particles contains a lot of quietness and silence. It is best to listen to it as one would sit alone, on a quiet morning, and listen to the world. The first section of the piece features a tulip, and this tulip’s leaves, in early evening, when the wind is gentle and slow. The second section features a wide-leafed tree in the light and wind; you can hear the branches blown by stronger gusts which reverberate through the leaves. The third section contains shadows of the first two, and a windchime. 

Lisa Neher

New music powerhouse Dr. Lisa Neher is an award-winning composer, mezzo-soprano, and actress on a mission to transform audiences through sound, story, and vulnerability. Described as a “maestro of beautifully wacky noises” (Oregon ArtsWatch) and a composer of “varied and imitable” vocal lines (Contemporary Classical), Neher writes music inspired by female athleticism, the tender love of friends, the ambiguities of death, and the eerie mystery of deep ocean life. Her EP Of Wind and Waves explores the currents of air, water, and emotions that define our natural and psychological world. Neher’s commissioners include Third Angle New Music, Opera Elect, Opera Theatre Oregon, and Dinosaur Annex. She is the winner of the Iowa Choral Director’s Association / Iowa Composers Forum Choral Competition and the Mirror Visions Ensemble Young Composer Competition, and is a NATS Composer Mentee, working with Tom Cipullo. 

Praised as “a small woman with a very big voice” and “especially alive” (Oregon ArtsWatch), Neher captivates audiences as a performer with her electrifying dramatic commitment and unforgettable vocal colors. She recently performed with Third Angle New Music, the Resonance Ensemble, New Music Gathering, Queer Opera, the International Saxophone Symposium, and Opera Theatre Oregon. For more information, visit www.lisanehermusic.com.

Icy Celestial Bodies

Comets spend most of their existence far from the sun and the Earth, orbiting the far reaches of our solar system. While some pass by our planet every few years, others take thousands or even millions of years to complete an orbit. Comets consist of ice and organic materials left over from the formation of our solar system. Some scientists theorize that comets striking our young planet may have deposited water and compounds that contributed to the development of life.

Icy Celestial Bodies expresses the distant loneliness of a comet’s path through space through shimmering bowed passages and delicate, sparkling chords. Rushes of rapid notes evoke the excitement of approaching the sun, which produces melting and the comet’s signature gas tail. The gravitational pull of the sun produces momentum which unwinds and fades away as the comet embarks on its next orbit.

This piece was written for Matt Andreini and premiered in October 2017 at the Cedar Rock House in Quasqueton, Iowa on the Iowa Composer's Forum Fall Concert Series, Hammers and Mallets.

James Shields

Composer-performer James Shields joined the Oregon Symphony as Principal Clarinet in the autumn of 2016. He holds a Masters degree in Composition and Theory from the University of New Mexico and a Bachelors Degree in Clarinet Performance from The Juilliard School.  In addition to his orchestral performance activities, Mr. Shields is increasingly becoming known to North American audiences as a dynamic and passionate performer of chamber music, making over 30 appearances annually in intimate settings throughout the United States and Canada.  James is the co-artistic director of Chatter, an Albuquerque-based chamber music organization that presents more than 70 concerts per year.  In over a decade of involvement with Chatter, Mr. Shields has programmed and performed in hundreds of concerts, and presented a diverse range of repertoire, from classical favorites to world premieres.  In Portland he is a member of cutting edge chamber music groups Fear No Music and 45th Parallel Universe, as well as a frequent guest performer with Third Angle New Music.  Before relocating to Portland, James served as principal clarinet of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, as well as the New Mexico Philharmonic in Albuquerque.  

Cataclysmic Hyper-Virtuosity in Perpetual Motion

"Cataclysmic Hyper-virtuosity in Perpetual Motion" is a true chamber music showpiece, demanding intense focus and technical prowess from all four members of the ensemble. Although the intensity is high throughout, the work's emotional affect shifts from ecstatic to darkly brooding and back again. Each player takes a turn tackling a demanding solo passage of twisting and surging 16th notes. The heart of the work includes an extended viola incantation, based on a common plainchant rendering of Psalm 23. When refracted through the lens of the work’s strange harmonic universe, this plainchant tune emerges as a shadowy prayer amidst an otherwise chaotic composition.