Composition Studio | School of Music (2024)

The UW Composition program presents a year-end concertof works by studentcomposers.

Program

The Chicken Wars — Alex Ryan
for voice, viola, bassoon, and piano

Alex Ryan, voice
Abigail Schidler, viola
Griffin Smith, bassoon
Kaisho Barnhill, piano

Memory — Taylor James Bellamy
for fixed media

The Four Guardians — Elly Lee
for voice, tuba, cello, and double bass

Elly Lee, voice
Foster Patterson, tuba
Serena Tideman, cello
Eddie Nikishina, double bass

Café concret — Ryan Baker
for fixed media

Program Notes

The Chicken Wars- Alex Ryan
This piece is a study of the melody and harmony underlying narrative oration. Pitches were drawn from a recording of this monologue and harmonies were derived from those pitches. In many cases, the subjective assignment of pitch to a given syllable changed on different listenings, and in those cases intervals were assigned, which further clarified harmonies. The piece is intended as a collaborative storytelling effort meant to highlight the musicality of speech.

The Four Guardians - Elly Lee
Over a distant mountain, there’s a golden land where honey flows
Over the brilliant sky, the four guardians dance

At sunrise on a warm spring day, across the green forest
At noon in the hot summer, through the red flames
At sunset on a cool autumn day, through a field filled with white iron
At midnight in the cold winter, crossing the black sea

The image of the sky leads to the earth,
Guardians of the universe, lead us to the right way

Ah, the four symbols shine brightly
Retreat, as darkness and chaos won't stop us
Ah, nature and man have become one
Praise, as balance and harmony will last forever

At dawn, a blue dragon flies to the east
At midday, a red bird glides to the south
At dusk, a white tiger runs to the west
At midnight, a black turtle crawls to the north

The image of the sky leads to the earth,
Guardians of the universe, lead us to the right way

Ah, the four symbols shine brightly
Retreat, as darkness and chaos won't stop us
Ah, nature and man have become one
Praise, as balance and harmony will last forever

Ah, four gods are looking over us
Make way, not even time and space can stop them
Ah, the sky and the earth are united
Forever, continuing reincarnation and peace

Ah, the four symbols shine brightly
Retreat, as darkness and chaos won't stop us
Ah, nature and man have become one
Praise, as balance and harmony will last forever

In the Garden Suite -Serena Tideman
In the Garden Suite is inspired by nightingales, both those of Beatrice Harrison’s garden
and the one of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, and also the nightingales in
Berlin that improvisers serenade. Beatrice Harrison was the “favorite cellist” of Edward
Elgar, and made the first recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the composer
conducting. She also made a popular weekly BBC broadcast playing cello with birds in her
garden until WWII bombing forced the radio show to go silent. In the Nightingale fairytale,
the Emperor covets the beautiful singing nightingale and has it brought from the palace
gardens to a golden cage inside the palace. Then someone gives him the gift of a
mechanical nightingale, and he forgets about the real nightingale. After his mechanical
nightingale breaks, he is heartbroken and on his deathbed. The real nightingale, free of its
cage, attempts to serenade him one last time before returning to the garden. The piece
utilizes elements of “musique concrete” and field recordings of birds, including an archival
recording from Beatrice Harrison’s garden, as well as some stylistic influence from Elgar’s
elegiac melancholy and a “mechanical bird” made from a “beepbox” loop. Visualizing
lush gardens and also the death of gardens, to be replaced 100 years later with buildings,
and then in certain places, the wildness regains tractions. “Compose for your friends”
recommends Nico Muhly. For “In the Garden Suite” I have tried to compose for my friends,
and for the heroic ghosts of yesteryear. Even if at times it is melancholy, it also has
moments of peace and mirth.

From Silence to Quiet -Eddie Nikishina
Through the gradual building of a melody and revoicing of harmonies, From Silence to Quiet follows the changing perspectives of a person seeking to understand and accept an aspect of their identity. Unknowing Always, always on the brink of words Silence blares, refusing Wordless din, chilling conclusion Why? Disapprove of this, without knowing why Reasons indistinct become true Why this? To stand and watch trials of once carefree mirrors Is to be grateful Grateful to fear Unsettled Halting Silent Still Longing to soften from silence to quiet Unseen by contention, unmoved by warmth

Samenstück - Justin Zeitlinger
I am presenting here a few of the individual audio tracks that make up my installation piece
Samenstück (for five hanging cassette players), which was shown at the UW Biology Greenhouse as partof the exhibition An uncanny garden on May 22–24, 2024. Below is the description that accompanied
the installation:

Samenstück is a sound installation consisting of five independent 45-minute cassette tapes. Eachone employs granular and concatenative synthesis techniques from samples of classical music thatinvoke or depict plant life, in various “ripe” (heavily altered) / “unripe” (quotation) and “seed”(chopped) / “plant” (linear) forms. The cassette tapes and the music they play comment on therelationship between analog technology and nature, as well as uncover the web of themes that theseclassical works import in their associations with nature: love, longing, God, alienation, human folly.Additional decorative strands of cassette tape visually connect the medium of the sound with theorganic plant bodies.

As the tapes run out, each one must be manually rewinded, causing the “channels” to fall out of sync and an irreproducibly-evolving soundscape to emerge over time.

For this concert version, the tracks are played as individual sound-objects—one at a time—to offer analternative (and perhaps more focused) perspective from the soundscape inside the greenhouse.

The Tiger and the Gotgam- Foster Patterson
This setting of the Korean folk story, “The Tiger and the Gotgam” (also known as “The Rabbit’s Tail”) for chamber ensemble and narrator revolves around the cultural and musical function of the minor third. From the symmetry of the diminished seventh chord, to the depiction of children in music, to its cadential function in the south-western Korean styles Sanjo and Pansori, to the many calls, taunts, and cheers that have developed throughout history and across different cultures, this piece aims to wring this interval of all its implicative juices and then further twist it into evocative shapes with the help of rhythmic patterns(Jangdan) from the Sanjo and Pansori traditions. I hope you enjoy this story of mischief and misunderstandings, and of course, watch out for the Gotgam.

Into the Blue - Ryan Rose
The ocean, sometimes referred to as the blue, can be very calming with its oscillating waves and its great, everchanging stasis. At the same time, the deep waters hold great mysteries and can seem very dangerous. The phrase out of the blue is used to depict how something happened to you unexpectedly. Inversely, into the blue could mean that you willingly dive into the unknown, facing the potential scare directly. At times, one may find themselves stuck in the stasis of the everyday, waiting for life to act on them, but choosing to take the risks of action leads to a meaningful life. Rather than waiting for life to happen, jump into the blue and see what it holds.

Composition Studio | School of Music (2024)

Program

Program Notes

Director Biographies

References