Tomorrow Is My Turn

PROGRAM NOTES

Nokuthula Ngwenyama

“Mother of Peace and “Lion” in Zulu, Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s performances as orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician garner great attention. Gramaphone proclaims her as “providing solidly shaped music of bold mesmerizing character.” As a composer, Uptown Magazine featured her “A Poet of Sound.” A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, she has performed with orchestras and as recitalist the world over. Recent highlights include joining the Emerson Quartet at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and the premieres of Rising for Solo Multitrack Violin and Pedals and Primal Message for Viola Quintet – performed with the Dover Quartet and jointly commissioned by the Phoenix Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Northwest. Her first viola concerto, recorded with the Janacek Philharmonic, will release on Peace Mama Productions (PMP) this winter. Her work Finding the Dream, written in response to the murder of George Floyd and Martin Luther King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, receives its world premiere with the Grammy-award winning Phoenix Boys Choir on their Awakenings program. Primal Message for percussion, harp and strings, an homage to the Arecibo message, also receives a world premiere with the Detroit Symphony. Born in Los Angeles of Zimbabwean-Japanese parentage, Ngwenyama is a Crossroads School graduate of the Colburn School for the Performing Arts, attended the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris as a Fulbright Scholar, received a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University, and attended the Curtis Institute of Music as an undergraduate.

Sonoran Storm

Humidity rises in the desert. That scorch blaster hitting the face feels fuller and expectant upon exit. Haboob dust causes a metal gate to clang. It’s bulging brown outside. Feet scamper across parched earth as clouds approach. Expanding into the atmosphere, they amass to quench aridity’s obsession.

Anti-trades carry sea moisture across Baja California to the Sierra Madres during the monsoons. It drifts north across el Camino del Diablo and swirls above the Mogollon Rim. Cumulus giants, made stronger by el Niño, dwarf the eastern landscape. The sun sets, the earth cools, and the desert braces for thermal dynamism. Tree branches partner with updrafts while downdrafts pelt the land. Angular veins shoot through darkness.

Thunder rumbles with an abusive baritone’s vigor while the saguaro leads succulents in thirsty supplication, arms toward the sky.

Static tendrils demand audience: jagged voltage constructs melody in joyful obeisance. Virga stop teasing as ten miles of heaven drop to the floor (section A). Big weather enjoys a snail-paced game of bumper cars, reforming whilst arboreal cards stand empty. It’s calm. Is it over? Abated leaves bathe in temporary starlight (section B).

But summer westerlies do not relent, and another thunderhead descends. The romp resumes, culminating in a celebration of renewal and life (section A1).

Derrick Skye

Derrick Skye is a composer and musician based in the Los Angeles area who often integrates music practices from different cultural traditions around the world into his work with classical music communities. The Los Angeles Times has described his music as “something to savor” and “enormous fun to listen to.” During his studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and the California Institute of the Arts, music across many cultures became an integral part of his musical vocabulary.

Skye is an American who has Ghanaian, Nigerian, British, Irish, and Native American ancestry. His ancestry and identity have led him to claim and develop an “American” aesthetic that incorporates many cultural influences into his work, reflecting the diverse communities he is part of. Skye passionately believes in music as a doorway into understanding other cultures and different ways of living. Through learning the music of other cultures, the opportunity for dialogue rather than conflict between strangers is opened, and our society can become one with less conflict due to cultural misunderstanding. He is deeply invested in fostering creative and effective collaboration between artists of different disciplines and traditions.

American Mirror

“American Mirror reflects on the coming together of cultures in our society, which consists of many generations and descendants of refugees, immigrants, and enslaved people, and how intercultural collaborations are essential to the well-being of American society. Melodically, the piece draws from West African, North African, and Eastern European vocal techniques and ornamentations, in addition to modal scales. Underneath these melodies, American Mirror uses open harmonies commonly found in Appalachian folk music, and also includes drones, an accompaniment practice found in many musical cultures. American Mirror is written in two parts.

Part I asks for the audience and/or Quartet members to sing drones in two sections. This singing symbolizes the support we could give to one another, encouraging every individual to reach their full potential. American Mirror must be workshopped with the audience before a performance. Time must be allotted for this. This is not necessary if the decision is made to have only the Quartet members sing or play the drones. Part I includes a hymn-like melody in the length of 7 measures rather than the traditional 6 or 8.

Rhythmically, Part II uses clapping as an accompaniment, continuing a tradition practiced in many cultures around the world. Part II uses rhythmic structures found in Hindustani (North Indian) classical music such as tihais (rhythmic cadences played three times where the last note of the third time resolves to beat one of the cycle) and dumdhar chakradhar tihais (a longer rhythmic cadence that may include tihais, played three times where the last note of the third time resolves to beat one and there is a rest between each repetition). Part II also uses an eight beat cycle called adi tala, found in Carnatic (South Indian) classical music. Towards the end of the piece, a portion of the audience is invited to mark the shape of adi tala using their hands, a practice found in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music.”

— Derrick Skye

Carlos Simon

Carlos Simon is a native of Atlanta, Georgia whose music ranges from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo- romanticism. Recent commissions have come from the Philadelphia Orchestra, Washington National Opera, Reno Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra, Irving Klein String Competition. Simon’s latest album, MY ANCESTOR’S GIFT, was released on the Navona Records label in April 2018. Described as an “overall driving force” (Review Graveyard) and featured on Apple Music’s “Albums to Watch.” As a part of the Sundance Institute, Simon was named as a Sundance Composer Fellow in 2018, which was held at the historic Skywalker Ranch. His string quartet, Elegy, honoring the lives of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner was recently performed at the Kennedy Center for the Mason Bates JFK Jukebox Series. Simon earned his doctorate degree at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Daugherty and Evan Chambers. He has also received degrees from Georgia State University and Morehouse College. He has served as a member of the music faculty at Spelman College and Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and now serves as Assistant Professor at Georgetown University.

Move It

“The pandemic of COVID-19 has continued to influence my social, professional and personal life in ways that I never imagined. I’ve been frustrated by not being able to function in normal routine of life, but also grateful to have the time to think and explore ideas and thoughts that I would not have done normally. This piece is meant to represent my desire to get out MOVE. My intent is to make this piece an imaginary syncopated joy ride. I wanted to explore the percussive and rhythmic nature of flute; something that moves with energy and forward motion. The work was commissioned by Brice Smith for the National Flute Association.”

— Carlos Simon

Jessie Montgomery

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator whose music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of twenty-first century American sound and experience. In July 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works have been hailed as turbulent, wildly colorful, and exploding with life. Recent highlights include Five Freedom Songs (2021), a song cycle conceived with and written for soprano Julia Bullock; Shift, Change, Turn (2019), commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and Coincident Dances (2018), written for the Chicago Sinfonietta. Since 1999, Montgomery has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization, which supports young African American and Latinx string players. She has also served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Princeton University. She is professor of violin and composition at the New School.

Strum

“Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.

Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.”

— Jessie Montgomery

C. J. Bey & Nicholas Emerson

A talented and cerebral lyricist, committed to uplifting fallen humanity – with Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice – Hip Hop artist C. J. Bey Encrypts Morals, Principles and Standards through Rhythm and Poetry. Poignant and relevant to the human experience, C. J.’s music centers around the words “The truth will set you free,” and covers topics ranging from politics, education, and history, to love, family, and the human desire to be a better person for one’s self and others. From South Bend, Indiana, C. J. recently moved to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to family and further his music career.

Nicholas Emerson is a composer, producer, and guitarist from Portland, OR. He studied composition and music production at Portland State University with a B.S. in Sonic Arts & Music Production.  He is very active in the local music scene helping to cultivate the incredible wealth of youth talent in the Pacific Northwest and is involved with organizations including Fear No Music Young Composers Project, Portland Youth Philharmonic, Northwest Children’s Theater & School and many others. Along with Hip Hop, Nicholas has experience composing chamber music, theater/opera music and recently premiered a concerto for guitar and orchestra with local guitarist David Tutmark and the Tillikum Chamber Orchestra. He currently teaches at Reed College, the Metropolitan Youth Symphony, and is a member of the Fear No Music Board of Directors. 

Level Up!

Level Up! is a collaborative composition for Hip Hop artist, guitar, and string ensemble, co-written/produced by the talented and cerebral lyricist C. J. Bey and composer Nicholas Emerson. The piece is a call to us all to do better - a reminder that we can always strive to improve ourselves and the lives of those around us. Bey and Emerson borrow from the fun and engaging sound world of retro video game music to embody and accompany the work’s powerful message.