F o r T r i s t a n M u r a i l

C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y

M a r c e l o T o l e d o New York-based Argentinean composer Marcelo Toledo has developed though the years a personal music style particularly oriented toward the exploration of instrumental timbre, an aspect of his work that has become a characteristic facet of his compositions. In his work he has eliminated the traditional importance given to pitch in order to focus on a new Performers aural matter. This is the product of research created through his essential engagement to explore -with his personal techniques- the instruments of the orchestra. Toledo’s music Track 1 - Rebekah Heller evolves almost biologically in an intricate sound texture made out of complex fluid sounds. Track 2 - Members of Sinopia Percussion Quartet: Nicholas Gleason | NicholasWoodbury Dos miradas fugaces a la noche Track 3 - Sean Katsuyama, cello | Mahir Cetiz, piano Dos miradas fugaces a la noche (Two fleeting glimpses of the night) for two Track 4 - David Byrd-Marrow, horn bassoons uses constellations of the North hemisphere as visual configurations, Track 5 - Miranda Cuckson, viola then transform them into sounds. My memories of the years working with Tristan Track 6 - Elizabeth Janzen, alto flute in New York from 1998 to 2003 are bright moments of silence; meaningful and Track 7-9 - Miranda Cuckson, violin powerful silence that confronted me with my inner voice. Sounds and silences Track 10 - Charlotte Mundy, soprano | Anthony Cheung, piano don’t need too many words to exist. Looking at the sky at night we see lights and Track 11 - Steve Lehman, saxophone darkness and in a similar way we are confronted with our inner self. This music is Track 12 - Christopher Goddard, piano another version of the same experience. The recording of the two bassoons was Track 13 - Leah Asher, violin brilliantly done by Rebekah Heller at CMC, in New York on Track 14 - Airi Yoshioka, violin Mayday 2012. Track 15 - Jill Sokol, flute C h r i s t o p h e r B u c h e n h o l z Track 16 - David Eggar, cello Track 17 - David Byrd-Marrow, horn A native New Yorker, Christopher Buchenholz, is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor Track 18 - Pala Garcia, violin | Anthony Cheung, piano of Music at Columbia and Yeshiva Universities. He received his DMA from Columbia Track 19 - Members of Talujon Percussion Ensemble: Matthew Gold Matt Ward University where he studied with Joseph Dubiel, Jonathan Kramer and . His Track 20 - Erin Lesser, contrabass clarinet compositions are best known for their extraordinary blend of traditional musical sound worlds, relentless counterpoint, intricate rhythmic aggregations, and innovative harmonic motion. Mr. Buchenholz is the recipient of many awards and honors including The American Academy of Arts And Letters.

Prelude I have learned and continue to learn much from and from his distinct and distinguished music. I am extremely grateful for his guidance and support during the years I studied at Columbia. His singular musical voice continues to enrich, enhance, inspire, and inform. I am also very fortunate to have members of the Sinopia Quartet perform this brief but challenging piece at tonight’s concert. Y o s h i a k i O n i s h i B r y a n J a c o b s ( r e c o r d i n g e n g i n e e r ) Composer and conductor Yoshiaki Onishi is currently in his fourth year as a doctoral Bryan Jacobs is a New York based composer. His music has been performed by ensembles candidate in music composition and a teaching fellow at Columbia University in the City such as the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, The McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, of New York. Onishi’s music has been performed worldwide by such ensembles as JACK Wet Ink, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and the pianist Xenia Quartet, Next Mushroom Promotion, and Nieuw Ensemble. His music has been heard in Pestova. He has had performances at Festival Ai-maako (Chile), La Muse en Festival Europe, Asia, and the United States. The New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini called (, ), Festival Archipel (Geneva, Switzerland), Domain Forget (Québec), St. him “a composer who can draw such varied, eerily alluring sounds.” With his 2010 work John’s Church (Limerick), as well as numerous other music festivals in Canada and the Départ dans..., Onishi became the laureate of the Gaudeamus Prize 2011, one of the United States. His acoustic and electroacoustic compositions have earned him national significant international prizes awarded to young composers. and international awards and scholarships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bourges International Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art competition, r T Centre for Computational Musicology and Computer Music, RTÉ Lyric FM and McGill The title “Tr” has two significations; one is “trill”, a musical action where the University among others. He has participated in residencies at La Muse en Circuit in Paris two pitches are alternated rapidly. In this piece, the violoncello goes from one and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany. In addition to his pitch (the final pitch of the preceding piece) to another (the first pitch of the artistic endeavors, Bryan is the co-founder of Qubit, a New York based concert producing next piece). This illustrates the second meaning of “Tr ,” that is “transition.” organization concentrating on musical works involving technology. Written for “ensemble cross.art” in Stuttgart, Germany for their “cross.art 400” project. Dedicated to Tristan Murail with affection.

L u W a n g

Born in China, Lu Wang’s works reflect a very natural identification with strong Chinese opera and folk music traditions’ influences, through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities. Her works for a variety of Western and Chinese ensembles and orchestras have been performed internationally by: the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille of France, Holland Synfonia, Shanghai National Chinese Orchestra, Musiques Nouvelles (Belgium), Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal), the International Contemporary Ensemble among others. Her current projects include commissions from Taipei Chinese Track 1 recorded at the Columbia University Computer Music center on May 1st, 2012 Orchestra and Ensemble Intercontemporain. Tracks 2-19 recorded at the Italian Academy on April 4th, 2012 Track 20 recorded at the Columbia University Computer Music center on May 2nd, 2012

recording, production, and cover design by bryan jacobs Z o s h a D i C a s t r i C a r l C h r i s t i a n B e t t e n d o r f

Zosha Di Castri is a Canadian composer/pianist living in New York. Her compositions have Carl Christian Bettendorf is a New York-based composer and conductor. Born in been performed by the ESO, the Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, l’Orchestre de Hamburg, Germany, he studied composition with Hans-Jürgen von Bose and la francophonie canadienne, the NEM, JACK Quartet, l’Orchestre national de Lorraine, in Munich and Karlsruhe before moving to New York, where he received his doctorate and Talea Ensemble. Upcoming projects involve a piece for the ZOO Dance Company from Columbia University under Tristan Murail. His works have been played at major (Belgium), a piece for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal), and a commission for new-music festivals and venues on four continents, and he has received numerous awards the Banff Centre. Beyond composing acoustic concert music, Zosha also works with and fellowships. As a conductor, Mr. Bettendorf has worked with new-music ensembles in electronics, installations, video, and dance. Germany and New York and served as assistant conductor for the Columbia University and American Composers orchestras, Miller Theatre, and the Munich Biennale. Work and Day Work and Day is a miniature for two percussionists: one playing two differently tuned mbiras (aka kalimbas or thumb-pianos), which rest on a timpani drum for resonance, and the other playing xylophone. The piece is an homage to Tristan Murail whom I had the honor of studying with at Columbia University. The title and the musical material make reference to the opening of his cycle of pieces “Les Travaux et les jours” for solo piano, which I had the pleasure of working on in France before becoming a student of Tristan’s. A a r o n E i n b o n d M a h i r C e t i z Aaron Einbond’s work explores the intersection of composition, computer music, music Mahir Cetiz, (b. 1977-Ankara, Turkey) lives in since 2006 where he is perception, field recording, and sound installation. He was born in New York in 1978 studying in the doctoral composition program at Columbia University. He has been studying and has studied at Harvard, the University of Cambridge, the University of California with Fabien Lévy, Tristan Murail and Fred Lerdahl. His compositional discourse mainly Berkeley, and IRCAM in Paris. His other teachers have included Mario Davidovsky, consists of music for acoustic ensembles of different sizes, as well as solo instrumental Julian Anderson, Edmund Campion, and Philippe Leroux. From 2009-2011 he was Mellon pieces. As an active conductor and pianist, Cetiz also is continuously engaged with the Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at Columbia University. Upcoming projects include a Giga- performance of new music. Herz Prize from ZKM to produce a new work for pianos and electronics at the SWR Experimentalstudio and a Fromm Foundation Commission from Harvard University for epigram Ensemble Dal Niente. “epigram” for contrabass-clarinet, is dedicated to my teacher Tristan Murail, from whom I learned a great deal about listening to sound as living entities. Trace the gold sun about the whitened sky without evasion by a single metaphor A line of Wallace Stevens’ poem “Credences of Summer,” as read by the poet, is analyzed and re-synthesized for solo alto or bass flute through a succession of different transcriptions of increasing and decreasing detail. The technique as well as the line itself is a response to Tristan Murail’s approach to sonic models. A r t h u r K a m p e l a M i k a P e l o Arthur Kampela (b.1960 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), is internationally recognized both as Swedish composer Mika Pelo writes music for soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras, a composer, virtuoso guitar player and performer/singer of new and avant-pop music. He with or without electronics. He is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at UC has received commissions and awards from the New York Philharmonic, the Koussevitzky Davis.Pelo is inspired by the French so-called spectral composers and Scandinavian Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, RioArte Foundation and World Music Days lyricism, and describes his method of composition as “controlled dreaming”. The Strad 2006 Stuttgart, among many others. He recently received the DAAD Grant (Berliner magazine thinks that Pelo’s music “fashions a fascinating mosaic of sonorities”, and the Kunstlerprogram) to live and work in for an entire year (2012). Kampela’s works Irish Times writes that Pelo’s music is built by “gestures that were once the province of the have been performed in the leading forums for Contemporary music in South-America, avant-garde were here pliably exploited by a sensibility that sounded decidedly romantic.” Europe, Asia and the USA by renowned soloists and ensembles. Pelo’s music is published by Edition Peters in Germany. NOT I (2011) “Not I” for horn solo, player’s voice and light, is based on the homonymous play Sprites by Samuel Beckett. In it, an illuminated mouth, isolated from the body appears on Thanks Tristan, for all the interesting lessons and all the help, I hope you will the darkened stage and transforms language into a true “visible” character. The enjoy retirement! Thanks also to Miranda Cuckson for taking the time to learn piece being performed tonight is taken or sliced from the original composition. My my little piece, and thanks to Andile and Mahir for organizing. intention was to create a similar cognitive twist where sound is seen not only in terms of its aural specificity but acquires a broader perspective. Heterogeneous materials like notes, voice, light and language are brought together in the temporal/ O l i v e r S c h n e l l e r compostiotional “blender” or continuum creating a true perceptual hybrid. In this way, it is possible to hear the timbral displacement beyond the purely sonic or aural, Oliver Schneller was born in Cologne, grew up in Europe, Africa and SouthEast Asia. instead, isolated as a totality -- as language. He completed his doctorate in composition with Tristan Murail in 2002. From 2002-2004 A n t h o n y C h e u n g he was a “compositeur en recherché” at IRCAM. During his studies he also received important instruction from , George Benjamin, Salvatore Sciarrino Anthony Cheung (born 1982, San Francisco) is a composer and pianist. As a performer and Jonathan Harvey. The focus of his compositional work lies in the creation of networks and advocate for new music, he is Artistic Director and pianist of the Talea Ensemble in between musical instruments, architectural spaces and electronics. Schneller has taught New York. Ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Radio Symphony Orchestra, composition at the conservatories of Stuttgart and Hannover and at the University of the Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Musiques Nouvelles, Dal Niente, CSO MusicNOW, ICE, Arts in Berlin, where he is based. the Minnesota Orchestra, the French National Orchestras of Lille and Lorraine, and eighth blackbird have performed his music. Current commissions include new works for the Haiku for violin solo (2012) Taipei Chinese Orchestra and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Honors include first prize “Haiku for violin solo” in part revisits the sound world of my two first “spectral” and public prize at the 6th International Dutilleux Competition (2008), the pieces, “Trio” and “Aqua vit”, which I wrote at the onset of my studies with Tristan Fellowship and Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2006 and in 1998. It’s a miniature tribute to the large impact this encounter had on my 2003), and several ASCAP awards. He received his BA in Music and History from Harvard trajectory as a composer. and his doctorate from Columbia University, where he taught in the Core Curriculum and Music Department and served as assistant conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. He is currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, and will begin a teaching appointment at the University of Chicago in 2013. P a u l C l i f t O s c a r B i a n c h i

Paul Clift (b. 1978) is an Australian composer currently living in New York. At present Using a refined harmonic sensibility, has the very modern ability to dramatize he is a doctoral candidate in composition at Columbia University. He obtained a Master musical forms through the mastery of texture, to the utmost detail. At its core, Bianchi’s of Music (M.Mus) at King’s College, London and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A. hons) at music continues to be guided by the challenge of dramaturgical and formal issues. His first Monash University Conservatorium. He also participated in the New Music Technology opera, “Thanks to My Eyes”, commissioned by the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence with libretto & Composition Cursus at IRCAM. Paul’s music is characterised both by its abstract and staging by Joel Pommerat, received critical acclaim by audiences and critics alike (“A associations with literature, visual-arts & linguistics, and concretely, by rich harmonic masterly portrait of Melancholy”, Le Monde, July 7, 2011). micro-tonality, textural heterogeneity and a manipulation of temporal perception. Semplicissimo... Feuille Volante hopefully... one day... - a loose leaf of paper, detached from the volume which originally contained it. This short work is but a moment’s mediation upon the memories of conversations with Tristan at Columbia, and the influence his work had on me long before I ever met him.

A l e x a n d r e L u n s q u i K a t h a r i n a R o s e n b e r g e r

Alexandre Lunsqui holds a DMA from Columbia University. He is currently Professor in Much of Swiss composer Katharina Rosenberger’s work manifests in an interdisciplinary Composition and Theory at the State University of Sao Paulo (Unesp). context and is bound to confront traditional performance practice in terms of how sound is produced, heard and seen. Her compositions, installations and interdisciplinary operas empirreali T have been featured at festivals such as the Weimarer Frühlingstage, Festival Archipel, empirreali ourquoi pas T : P ? Festival La Bâtie, Geneva, Zürcher Theaterspektakel, Festival Les Musiques, Marseille, Zoo Bizzarre, Bordeaux, New Media Art, Yerevan, “atélier trideni plus”, Prague, Shanghai New Music Days and Shanghai International Electro-Acoustic Music Week, China, and the October Contemporary in Hong Kong, among others.

The Sky (2012) “The Sky 2012” makes part of a set of E.E.Cummings Miniatures written for the voice and with either a piano or percussion accompaniment. The earliest pieces were composed in 1999 during the composer’s final undergraduate year. With the recent piece the composer revisits her passion for these beautiful poetic gems. H u c k H o d g e S t e v e L e h m a n writes music that explores the embodied poetics of organized sound, Steve Lehman (b. New York City, 1978) is a composer, performer, educator, and scholar perceptual illusion and the threshold between design and intuition. He has won the who works across a broad spectrum of experimental musical idioms. Lehman´s pieces Rome Prize, the Gaudeamus Prize and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts for large orchestra and chamber ensembles have been performed by the International and Letters and the Bogliasco Foundation, among many other awards and commissions. Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), So Percussion, Kammerensemble Berlin, The Praised by the New York Times for his “harmonically fresh work…full of both sparkle and Jack String Quartet, and members of the Argento and Wet Ink Ensembles. An alto and thunder,” his collaborators include members of Ensemble Modern, the Berlin Philharmonic sopranino saxophonist, Lehman has performed and recorded nationally and internationally and the ASKO Ensemble. Hodge studied composition at Columbia University and the with his own ensembles and with those led by Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer, Meshell Musikhochschule Stuttgart with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ndegeocello, and High Priest of Anti-Pop Consortium. He has taught undergraduate Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). He is currently Assistant Professor courses at Wesleyan University, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de in Composition at the University of Washington. Paris, New School University, and Columbia University, and has presented lectures at The Départ Royal Academy of Music in London and IRCAM in Paris, where he was a 2011 composer-in- Départ — residence. His recent recording, Travail, Transformation & Flow (Pi 2009), was chosen as — in affection and shining sounds the #1 Jazz Album of the year by The New York Times. Y u r i k o H a s e K o j i m a Yuriko Hase Kojima was born in Japan in 1962. Completing her studies in piano in Japan, A n d i l e K h u m a l o Ms. Kojima studied composition in the United States for ten years, and earned a MA (1996) and DMA (2000) from Columbia University. She studied with Tristan Murail, Jonathan Durban-born composer Andile Khumalo is currently based in New York City, and is a DMA Kramer, Fred Lerdahl, Brad Garton, George Edwards and others. Her works have been candidate at Columbia University where he is studying with George Lewis. His former selected for various international festivals and concerts including the ISCM, the ICMC, teachers include Tristan Murail, Fabien Lévy, Fabio Nieder and with whom and the ACL, performed by the Ensemble Modern, the Azure Ensemble, the New York New he studied in Stuttgart (Germany). Music Ensemble, to name a few. Currently, Ms. Kojima is back in Tokyo and serves as the professor of composition at Shobi University. She is the founder and the Artistic Director of a non-profit organization Glovill for promoting new music in Japan. UndulationsTM Tristan was the sponsor of my dissertation piece “Chronosphere” for 15 instruments and Max/MSP, which became my first piece with live electronics. Recently, I have been composing pieces exploring more ordinary instrumental techniques, under the name of “Undulations.” Here in the piece for Tristan, he will see what I absorbed from him during my years studying with him and how it has led me to my new current musical thinking . I am always very honored to be listed as one of Tristan’s first few students who finished the DMA at Columbia. By participating in this special project, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to both Tristan and Françoise for what they taught me through their works and aesthetics.