ORCHESTRA UNDERGROUND: Tech & Techno Edmund Campion: Practice We hope these genre-bending artistic explorations will have you rethinking what an Practice is scored for piccolo, oboe, clarinet (doubling orchestra can be (and can do) in our evolving bass clarinet), contrabassoon, french horn, trumpet, streaming/downloadable sound-world. trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, strings, synthesizer and electronics. Justin Messina’s Abandon is an orchestral quest for the semiotics of the term, played to Practice opens with cinematic flare; the reconfigured a soundtrack of early 1990s Detroit techno. chamber orchestra competes in a noise-filled scene. Mason Bates uses computer and drum pad with Fleeting and ungainly musical surfaces drown in a sea of the orchestra in Omnivorous Furniture, a piece rehearsing musicians. Old forms of expression wash by heavily influenced by down-tempo electronic as the music erupts into new configurations. The metal music with roots in the British hip-hop of the industrial revolution gives way to the hyper- movement. Neil Rolnick, one of the pioneers metallic noisy bazaar of this contemporary moment. Welcome to Tech & Techno, the fifth installment of electronic music, pairs up with the intrepid The orchestra plays on, and like a terrible alarm, the in American Composers Orchestra’s series violinist Todd Reynolds, creating a new virtual orchestral triangles never fall silent. of Orchestra Underground digital releases instrument for their iFiddle Concerto. Tender that reinvent the orchestra with exciting new Hooks, by Anna Clyne, merges electronics new Secretly bound by technological models, scientific compositions, eclectic influences, unusual and old in a multidisciplinary piece that grew analysis and resynthesis of traditional orchestral instruments, cutting-edge experiments, and out of Playing It UNsafe, ACO’s laboratory triangles, the musicians in Practice are not autonomous. multidisciplinary collaborations. for experimental multimedia collaborations. Harmonically pooling around the din of triangles, they And Edmund Campion’s Practice merges practice conforming to the techno-inspired ambience. The music on this album inhabits a musical computers and the orchestra in an answer to Practice does not make perfect, it is a process that zone that is part underground dance club, part the hackneyed one-liner about how to get to generates change; change governed by unseen computer science lab, and part symphony hall. Carnegie Hall. gravitations and rituals that, in the end, determine form. There’s hip-hop, trip-hop, techno, laptops, and a “cyborg” fiddle. Intrepid new music that So put on your dancing shoes, and maybe your Practice was composed in partnership with The Center is never timid—it’s neither afraid to groove, thinking cap, too, and enjoy. for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). The nor afraid to stretch WAY OUT. principal software programmer was Matthew Wright, working under specifications of the composer. The goal was to build a new computer-based instrument whose core sound is born from hybrids of the orchestral triangles. The new instrument is performed live through a MIDI keyboard. his return from Paris, Campion joined the composition Abandon is composed of two pieces which are mixed faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where together as a DJ might do, thus creating two sections he is also Co-Director at the Center for New Music and with a significant transition. The first work is a Audio Technologies (CNMAT). Other prizes and honors hypnotizing reflection on an oscillating theme which include: the Rome Prize, the Nadia Boulanger Award, slowly emerges from the sound of a needle sliding the Paul Fromm Award at Tanglewood, a Charles Ives through the grooves of a record. As the world of LPs Award given by the American Academy of Arts and and dance clubs fades away, this typically synthesized Letters, and a Fulbright scholarship for study in France. music is brought into the concert hall and into the orchestra.

Justin Messina: Abandon The second tune is a somewhat quicker remix of my earlier electronic composition Barcelona Evenings. Abandon is scored for flute (doubling alto flute), oboe, Originally a buzzing and tweeting nostalgic anthem, clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), bassoon, French horn, the work underwent a dramatic transformation and Edmund Campion trumpet, trombone, tuba, harp, percussion, piano, emerged here as a blooming chorale decorated with strings and electronic soundtrack. streams of sixteenth notes from the vibes and piano. Edmund Campion was born in 1957 in , TX. He now resides in Oakland, CA. Campion’s music explores In the early 1990’s, while American automobile Just as a DJ’s set, though made up of hundreds of relationships between sound and space—creations manufacturers were fleeing Detroit, the deserted city songs, is regarded as one work (“the live set”), so too that often involve the careful mixing of acoustic saw an electronic music renaissance based in its many do I regard these two pieces as one. The transition instruments with emerging computer technologies. underground dance clubs. Artists like Kevin Saunderson, between them is just as important as the material itself, He studied composition at the University of Texas Derrick May, Kenny Larkin, and Richie Hawtin found and there seems to be a single direction to both tunes— and and went on to spend several themselves working in a new musical language towards a sense of personal abandon. years in France studying with composer Gérard Grisey. since dubbed “Detroit Techno.” Many subsections of In 1993 he was selected to work at IRCAM where he electronica which were subsequently formed had their composed the piece Losing Touch, a mainstay in the roots in this exciting period of creativity. repertoire for percussion and electronics. He has been commissioned by major American and French cultural This work is a sort of “analog homage” to these artists institutions including: IRCAM, Radio France, the French and their language—one that has continued to blossom Ministry of Culture, the Fromm Foundation, and the and reflect upon so many aspects of modern life. In Koussevitzky Music Foundation. His works are heard addition to these influences, and no less central to the in concert halls worldwide and a monograph CD by work, is the very concept of abandon. the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is available on Albany records. In 2012, he was awarded Are the many meanings of abandon related? Does the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship by the American one need to be abandoned in order to abandon Academy of Arts and Letters and appointed Composer oneself? Abandoned metropolis... Abandoned Artists... Justin Messina in Residence with the Santa Rosa Symphony. After Abandoned Music... Justin Messina was born in 1980 in Ventura, CA. He specifically composed for these two solo artists with Clyne was a participant in ACO’s 2006 Underwood now resides in Brooklyn, NY. Messina’s works have orchestra—each element being choreographed through New Music Readings for emerging composers. Her been performed at venues including Alice Tully Hall, a combination of standard notation, written instructions commissions include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, London’s Duke’s Hall, and graphic representation. This process incorporates the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, the Indiana University, CalArts, the University of Illinois a wide variety of input devices such as microphones, London Sinfonietta, and the . and the Aspen and California Summer Music Festivals. foot pedals, controllers, drawing tablets and one of the Awards include ASCAP, a Charles Ives Fellowship from Messina’s work Creating Raymond Bell was performed earliest electronic instruments, the theremin. the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet the in New York and London by musicians of the New Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation Juilliard Ensemble and the Royal Academy of Music’s for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation. Manson Ensemble. Her music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Other honors include the Greater Twin Cities Youth Neil Rolnick: iFiddle Concerto Orchestra Peer-to-Peer Commission which resulted in his work 5 Distortions for Large Orchestra; his piano During the writing of this piece, the biggest event in concerto In Close Volution, which came as the result of my life was the birth of my first grandson. Besides the the New West Symphony’s Discovery Artist Program; general good feeling of welcoming a new being into and the performance of his work Harmonasium by the world, Jake’s arrival left me thinking a lot about the Juilliard Orchestra in New York. Messina holds a time and the way in which knowledge and values are Doctorate from the . transmitted across generations, how my memories of my own grandfather, who was born more than a century ago, will be transmitted to my grandson, who I hope Anna Clyne: Tender Hooks will take them many decades into the future. This is all very heady stuff to try to make relevant to an 18-minute Tender Hooks is an experimental work created by piece for violin, computer, and orchestra. But it is collaborators Anna Clyne, Jeremy Flower and Joshue Anna Clyne relevant to the piece in a number of ways. Ott. The work stretches the orchestra by means of live Credit: Robert Adam Mayer electronics and live visuals, creating a synergistic audio First, as I began to work on the piece, I found myself and visual experience. Anna Clyne composes acoustic and electro-acoustic in a kind of middle ground between the past and the music, combining resonant soundscapes with textures future. From the past, the idea of making a real concerto Tender Hooks features technologies and instruments that weave, morph, and collide in dramatic explosions. was very appealing. As I think of the concerto from created and developed by the laptop-artists themselves. Her work, described as “dazzlingly inventive” by Time Out the 19th century, it is a virtuoso vehicle that sets up a Flower performs with digital source sounds, custom- New York, often includes collaborations with cutting- competitive binary relationship between soloist and the made instruments, and the orchestra as a source for live edge choreographers, visual artists, and film-makers. orchestra. Second, thinking towards the future, this isn’t processing. Ott performs with his superDraw software, Chicago Symphony’s Mead Composer-in-Residence just a concerto for violin, but a concerto for a cyborg created for live visual expression. For this recording, through the 2010-11 season, Clyne also served as the violin that has been intimately joined to a computer. For Ott and Flower linked their computers to transmit and Director of the New York Youth Symphony’s Making the last few years, I’ve been deeply involved in writing receive live data from the orchestra. Clyne’s score is Score program for young composers. work that explores this kind of relationship between instruments and computer—that uses the computer to Innova Recordings released his 16th CD, Extended expand the already substantial expressive abilities of Family. Rolnick teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic virtuoso players. Institute in Troy, NY, where he founded the iEAR Studios. Perhaps inspired by my grandson, I’ve tried to approach the writing of this piece with a kind of fresh look at how Mason Bates: my materials can work together. As new babies spend Omnivorous Furniture time figuring out each and every bit of their world— Omnivorous Furniture is scored for flute (doubling how to control their heads and hands and feet, how to piccolo), oboe, clarinet (doubling E-flat), bassoon identify their parents and themselves, how to smile and (doubling contrabassoon), French horn, trumpet, laugh—I’ve tried to dramatize the encounter between bass trombone, percussion, harp, strings, piano and soloist and ensemble by thinking of it as a process of electronics. constant discovery.

Omnivorous Furniture exists at the junction between Part of the discovery has been the dialog I’ve had with a world of morphing electronic beats—generally Todd Reynolds, the soloist in the piece. Todd and I have described as electronics—and the rich and varied worked together in many different ways over more than textures of a chamber orchestra. a decade, and I’ve seen his initial interest in getting to Neil Rolnick know more about music technology develop into a deep While these two musical spaces usually exist on engagement with the computer as a natural extension A pioneer in the use of computers in performance since opposite ends of the universe, my activities in both of his music making and violin playing. This makes for the late 1970s, Neil Rolnick often includes unexpected have convinced me of some pregnant possibilities. The the possibility of working in a serious way to redefine and unusual combinations of media in his work. Whether thumping electronica beats of an underground club— what a violinist might do musically when the instrument working with electronic sounds, improvisation, or which are other-worldly sounds to some listeners of is paired up with a computer. Although originally I multimedia, his music has been characterized by critics 200 year-old acoustic instruments—can provide an thought of this as a concerto for violin, computer, and as “sophisticated,” “hummable and engaging,” and interesting stasis that an orchestra’s myriad textures orchestra, I’ve now begun to think of it as a concerto as having “good senses of showmanship and humor.” can explore. This can create thrilling possibilities when for a new kind of instrument, one that combines the Rolnick’s performances included concerts in Shanghai, paired with the rhythmic contagion of electronica. computer and violin into a single musical instrument. Hong Kong, Vienna and New York. He completed 50 I’ve thought of it as a cyborg violin, but Todd and I Fugue and Numb, both part of the extended media The work is organized around several “omnivorous began referring to it as an iFiddle. performance MONO in 2012. That same year he was moments,” when material previously perceived as awarded the Hoefer Prize from the San Francisco bac¬ground—the wallpaper or “furniture” surrounding So, as I watch a new kid learn about his world, exploring Conservatory of Music. Innova Recordings released The the foreground material—ultimately consumes the it day to day, I tried to learn about the iFiddle by Economic Engine in 2009, which was cited by the New entire texture. The fleeting pentatonic tune that opens exploring it in the old world of the concerto form. On York Times as one of the year’s outstanding classical the work, for example, is chased by a variety of staccato, an emotional level, the music I write invariably reflects CDs. He has also received a New York Foundation for pointillistic gestures that point the listener’s attention what I’m feeling when I write it. For whatever joyfulness the Arts fellowship, and residencies at the MacDowell away from any sustained notes. But these sustained you hear in the piece, you have my grandson to thank. Colony and the Ucross Foundation. In January 2011 notes in the orchestra begin to fuse together rapidly in the moments preceding the first climax, creating a sonic The San Francisco Symphony has explored Bates’ music THE ARTISTS wall that shatters the beats that have dominated the first with its Beethoven & Bates Festival. Each of his three quarter of the piece. largest works—Alternative Energy, Liquid Interface, and AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA The B-Sides—recorded and paired with a Beethoven American Composers Orchestra (ACO), founded in The orchestral interlude that then ensues is a feature work. Another major work, his Violin Concerto, is being 1977, is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the that reappears with greater significance. The form of recorded with , the London Symphony, creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation the work is quite simple: progressively longer orchestral and extraordinary violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who will of music by American composers. ACO makes the interludes interrupt progressively shorter beat sections. perform the work with the Chicago Symphony and many creation of new opportunities for American composers Superimposed over this is the gradual elongation of the others. and new American orchestral music its central purpose. opening motive, from its bouncy first moments to its ACO identifies today’s brightest emerging composers, long, lyrical flowering in the work’s core. Continuing performances of works such as Rusty Air champions prominent established composers as well in Carolina, an electro-acoustic tone poem about the as those lesser known, and increases awareness of the This melody, having reached its expressive peak during ambience of the South, and Mothership, which premiered infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting the orchestra’s longest escape from the electronica at the Sydney Opera House by the YouTube Symphony geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO beats, then begins to dissolve. Pulled lower and to an online audience of 1.8 million, have demonstrated also serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and lower by sliding pitch, it collapses into the work’s final that electronic sounds can be a welcome addition to the talent and as a catalyst for growth and change among ambient space, in a kind of chemical meltdown of pitch orchestral palette. orchestras, and advocates for American composers and and texture. Flowering imperceptibly from this surreal their music. ACO has performed music by nearly 700 ambient landscape, a reincarnation of the work’s opening American composers, including 300 world premieres material swiftly brings us to the end. and commissioned works. ACO maintains an unparalleled range of activities, including an annual concert series at Mason Bates was born in 1977 in Philadelphia. He now Carnegie Hall, commissions, recordings, broadcasts and resides in Oakland, CA. Recently awarded the Heinz streaming, educational programs, new music reading Medal in the Humanities, Mason Bates writes music that sessions, composer residencies and fellowships, as well fuses innovative orchestral writing, imaginative narrative as special projects designed to advance the field. More forms, the harmonies of jazz and rhythms of techno. His information is available at www.americancomposers.org. symphonic music has been the first to receive widespread JEFFREY MILARSKY, CONDUCTOR acceptance for its expanded palette of electronic sounds, Jeffrey Milarsky, a leading conductor of contemporary and it is championed by leading conductors such as music, is a frequent collaborator with ACO, having served Riccardo Muti, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Leonard as both percussionist and assistant conductor with the Slatkin. He has become a visible advocate for bringing orchestra. In the U.S. and abroad, he has premiered and new music to new spaces, whether through institutional recorded works by contemporary composers, including partnerships such as his residency with the Chicago , Fred Lerdahl, , Elliott Symphony, or through his project Mercury Soul, which Carter, , Jonathan Dawe, Tristan Murail, embeds sets of classical music into a fluid evening of , , , and DJing and immersive stagecraft, transforming spaces Mason Bates . Milarsky is Music Director and Conductor ranging from commercial clubs to Frank Gehry-designed of the Columbia University Orchestra. He is also on the concert halls into exciting hybrid musical events drawing faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, as well as the over a thousand people. Juilliard School, where he is Music Director of AXIOM de Lyon, Berlin, San Francisco Symphony, Houston contemporary ensemble, and a member of the Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Munich and Bavarian conducting faculty. Milarsky has worked with the Los Radio orchestras, the orchestra of the Komische Oper Angeles Philharmonic, Opera, and Bergen Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestra del Teatro di Philharmonic in Norway. Recent performances include San Carlo Naples, City of Birmingham Symphony, Israel IRCAM in Paris, Tanglewood, and Carnegie Hall, where Philharmonic, London Philharmonia and the Toyko he substituted for in an all Metropolitan Orchestra. program in honor of his 100th birthday. TODD REYNOLDS, VIOLIN STEVEN SLOANE, CONDUCTOR Todd Reynolds has been hailed by critics as “New York’s Steven Sloane, ACO’s principal guest conductor, is one reigning classical/jazz violinist.” He is a fixture on New of the most adventurous conductors to have emerged in York’s downtown scene, playing with the recent years. His passion for unusual repertoire, interest All-Stars, the Ensemble, and as a founding in eclectic juxtapositions of music of divergent eras member of the Mahavishnu Project. Reynolds is a co- and styles, commitment to contemporary works, and founder of the New York-based string quartet , willingness to challenge convention have established and he has premiered works by dozens of American Sloane as a bold champion of the future of concert music. Composers. After studying under the legendary violinist Sloane made his Carnegie Hall debut with ACO in 2002, , and receiving degrees from the Eastman serving as ACO’s music director until 2007, leading the School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook, Reynolds orchestra in dozens of world premiere performances at served as Principal Second Violinist of the Rochester Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is General Philharmonic. His career has included performances, Music Director of the City of Bochum Symphony recordings, and collaborations with a huge and diverse Credit: Peter Gannushkin / DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET (Germany), and has also served as Music Director of the list of prominent figures including Yo-Yo Ma, Uri Caine, Spoleto Festival, USA. Sloane’s engagements include the , Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Graham Nash, JOSHUE OTT, ELECTRONICS Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter, and Cassandra Wilson. Joshue Ott is a multi-disciplined media artist and designer. He created superDraw, software for live visual JEREMY FLOWER, ELECTRONICS performance. The program produces visual art, but Jeremy Flower is a multi-instrumentalist and composer of behaves more like a musical instrument to be learned, acoustic and electronic music. His work with electronics practiced and wielded just like a guitar, saxophone or has landed him on stage as a guest artist with the laptop. To this end, the program is fitted with a tablet Atlanta and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Santa Fe interface for drawing in real time, enabling a higher Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Curtis Institute, ACO degree of physical interaction with the person using it, as well as with world-renowned electronic producers in and arguably, a higher degree of interactive expression. experimental, ambient and minimal techno genres. He has collaborated extensively with Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, on several Grammy-nominated works and the score for Francis Ford Coppola’s film Tetro. Orchestra Underground: Tech & Techno

1 Practice Edmund Campion...... 9:04 American Composers Orchestra Steven Sloane, conductor 244 West 54th Street, Suite 805

NYC, NY 10019 2 Abandon Justin Messina ...... 9:06 Steven Sloane, conductor www.americancomposers.org [email protected] 3 Tender Hooks Anna Clyne...... 9:36 212.977.8495 Jeremy Flower and Joshue Ott, laptops Jeff rey Milarsky, conductor

4 iFiddle Concerto Neil Rolnick ...... 18:55 Todd Reynolds, violin Neil Rolnick, electronics Steven Sloane, conductor

5 Omnivorous Furniture Mason Bates ...... 18:52 Steven Sloane, conductor

ACO’s recording initiative is made possible with the support of the Fund for Music.

Practice, Abandon, and iFiddle Concerto were commissioned by American Composers Orchestra. Tender Hooks was developed as part of ACO’s first Playing It UNsafe research Rolnick, Campion, Batees and Messina conducted by Steven Sloane and recorded live on March and development laboratory for experimental 18, 2006. Clyne conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky and recorded live on April 27, 2008 orchestra music. Copyright © 2014