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From the Curator…

I first performed Mauricio Kagel’s Finale on my 21^st birthday; it is inextricably linked to my coming of age as a musician and artist. The wild scope of this historical piece of experimental Music Theatre taught me to truly see performers’ bodies, to extend myself and my collaborators beyond perceived limits, and to question the hierarchies that have historically dominated Eurocentric Classical Music. Years later, I learned that a composer hero of mine, Bethany Younge, had written a fascinating article connecting Kagel’s work to contemporary disability studies, exploring how bodies and objects transcend their traditional roles. Her new piece for SMO Beyond/Species points to new futures in music, harnessing the childlike delight of new sounds and experiments, alongside beautifully embodied movement and fully-integrated electronics. It pairs well with her piece Orbits, which will envelop Town Hall Seattle in spatialzed sound through a quartet’s moving bodies and various instrumental PVC extensions.

There’s so much to see in this concert, so we enlisted bass trombonist, actor, director, and dancer C. Neil Parsons (my collaborator of 20 years, and most recently director of SMO’s production of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit.) I’m thrilled for him to join us as a soloist on Frederic Rzewski’s Moonrise with Memories, which features text by Langston Hughes and shimmering cells of shifting tonality and groove. Always conscious of the place of music in society, and questioning hierarchies himself, Rzewski reminds us that: “… music probably cannot change the world. But it is a good idea to act as if it could… At the very least, you stand a chance of producing some good music. And music is always better than no music.”

–Bonnie Whiting, SMO curator, percussionist, and board member

Bonnie Whiting, PC: Titilayo Ayangade

From the Director…

A baton descends, and bows draw across strings. Mallets strike and rebound. Breath animates wood and metal. Gesture becomes sound.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the physicality of music-making. As an audience member, I find myself observing the actions of musicians as much as I am listening. As a performer, I chose to play the trombone, in part, for the simple reason that it is a fun instrument to watch.

Much as actors learn to inhabit their roles through the practiced adaptation of their physical and vocal qualities (what some call the “instrument of self”), musicians train themselves to embody a composer’s intentions. They become, in composer Bethany Younge’s words, “bodily agents of sound.”

In Corporeal Worlds, the musicians of the Seattle Modern Orchestra embark on elaborately choreographed rituals of transformation. Our three composer/tour guides employ their own unique strategies for managing (and upending) our expectations, leading us to a heightened state of awareness at each new destination. At the invitation of Mauricio Kagel, Frederic Rzewski, and Bethany Younge, we are urged to awaken our senses, observe our surroundings, and reevaluate the many discrete tasks, precise gestures, coordinated breaths, as well as the very human interactions which make live concert music possible.

– C. Neil Parsons, guest director, choreographer, and soloist

C. Neil Parsons, PC: Andy Batt

Dear friends of Seattle Modern Orchestra,

After fourteen years as co-Artistic Director of Seattle Modern Orchestra, Jérémy Jolley has made the decision to step down from the role. We are thrilled to announce that University of Washington faculty, percussionist, and long-time member of SMO, Bonnie Whiting, will succeed Jérémy as co-Artistic Director. Julia Tai will continue her role as co-Artistic Director alongside Bonnie, creating a visionary and energetic combination that will continue to move SMO into the next phase of its life.

For the past two seasons, Bonnie has taken on an increasing leadership role as a member of the ensemble and our board of directors. Her artistic vision and advocacy has led to the augmentation of our concerts’ programming with works by luminaries such as Sarah Hennies and George Lewis. She has premiered as a featured soloist in SMO’s commissioned works by Kaley Lane Eaton and Huck Hodge. She was also instrumental in inviting artists such as Director Neil Parsons to work with our musicians on the West Coast premiere of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit in March 2023. She is the curator of this season’s final program in June that features the music of Frederic Rzewski, Mauricio Kagel, and Bethany Younge. Looking ahead to next season, Bonnie is leading the SMO curatorial team of musicians to bring all of us an imaginative 2024-2025 season (to be announced in June). Jérémy plans to stay on as the Founding Director in a consulting role to support the leadership transition at SMO.

“It has been a tremendous joy and honor to work alongside Jeremy in bringing the best of contemporary music to our Seattle audiences. I’m filled with pride and gratitude to see the little project that we dreamed up in a coffee shop so long ago developed into a strong organization that performs, commissions, and actively participates in the development of new music. I’m excited to work with Bonnie in her new role as the co-Artistic Director of SMO. She brings such artistry and vision to the ensemble that I’m sure will continue to energize and excite musicians and audiences alike for years to come.”

Julia Tai, co-Artistic Director

“I am full of gratitude to Jeremy for all his work cultivating such a strong force for new and adventurous music in our community. His work curating excellent concerts, creating new work for the ensemble, and expanding SMO has made it the highlight of my musical life here in Seattle. I can’t wait to keep working with Julia, and all of you, as we keep growing.”

Bonnie Whiting, co-Artistic Director

Please join us all on Friday, June 14 at Town Hall Seattle to celebrate SMO’s new leadership at our Season Finale:

Corporeal Worlds: Music by Bethany Young and Mauricio Kagel
 

Thank you all for your support!

Jérémy, Bonnie, and Julia

Julia Tai conducting SMO musicians at Town Hall Seattle

KATE SOPER IPSA DIXIT (2010-2016)

I. Poetics (voice, flute, percussion, and violin)
text by Aristotle (abridged Soper) and Sophocles (from “Oedipus Rex”)

II. Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say (voice and flute)
text by Lydia Davis

III. Rhetoric (voice, flute, percussion, and violin) 
text by Aristotle (abridged Soper) and Soper

IV. The Crito (voice and percussion)
text by Robert Duncan and Plato (abridged Soper)

V. Metaphysics (for voice flute, percussion, and violin)
text by Aristotle, abridged/adapted Soper

VI. Cipher (for voice and violin)
texts by Jenny Holzer, Wittgenstein, Pietro Bembo, Freud, Guido d’Arezzo, and Sarah Teasdale

PERFORMERS
Maria Männistö, soprano
Sarah Pyle, flute
Eric Rynes, violin
Bonnie Whiting, percussion

CREATIVE TEAM
Neil Parsons, director
Nabilah Ahmed, projection designer
Ryan Dunn, light designer
Marcin Paçzkowski, sound designer

PRODUCTION TEAM
Maria Manness, production manager
Amanda Balter, stage manager

These performances of Ipsa Dixit are generously sponsored by Patricia Tall-Takacs and Gary Takacs. 

PROGRAM NOTE:
What is art?  As the opening salvo to a piece of chamber music, the question is a little grandiose, bordering on pretentious.  And expecting to arrive at an answer may be as deluded as putting stock into Jenny Holzer’s enigmatic assertion that it is useful to incorporate language into art because ‘people can understand you when you say something.’  Nevertheless, these two phrases are the bookends of IPSA DIXIT, which attempts to sound the depths of the tangled relationship between art, language, and meaning.

IPSA DIXIT is the feminized form of ipse dixit (literally “he, himself, said it”), a term used to describe a fallacious claim based on the authority of the claimer alone – e.g., “I don’t need to prove that what I say is true, it’s true because I say so!”  The piece explores myriad ways in which the truth can be hidden, in how musical language can complicate sense, how a soprano’s sovereignty over instrumentalists can be challenged, and how gut feeling can overrule reason.  The pursuit of honesty, under everyday circumstances as well as in matters of life and death, relentlessly haunts Ipsa Dixit at its surface.

IPSA DIXIT is an evening-length work of chamber music theatre that explores the tantalizingly convoluted intersections of music, language, and meaning through a deep interweaving of music and text, complex instrumental textures, contemporary vocal techniques, and blistering ensemble virtuosity. Scored for voice, flute, violin, and percussion, and developed over several years of intense collaboration with the members of Wet Ink, IPSA DIXIT blends elements of monodrama, Greek theatre, and screwball comedy in its examination of the treachery of language and the questionable authenticity of musical expression. 

Ipse dixit /Ip-suh dik-sit/: noun (Latin). Literally “he, himself, said it.”

An unproven yet dogmatic statement which the speaker expects the listener to accept as valid without proof beyond the speaker’s assumed expertise.

Ipsa dixit: “she, herself, said it . . .”

                                                                                                                        – Kate Soper 

DIRECTORS NOTES
It always starts with a question, doesn’t it? If I wish to stay true to form, these Director’s Notes certainly shall. And might we expect an answer? We might. But wouldn’t it be more interesting if it were phrased in the form of a question? In the case of this project, my involvement began on January 4, 2023 with an enticing question posed in an email subject: “Out of the blue inquiry/maybe directing gig?” This was how percussionist Bonnie Whiting unlocked the door and ushered me into the magical realm of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit, a landscape where waves of musical invention splash, churn, and bubble up amongst craggy rocks of philosophical inquiry, and the air sizzles with shrieks, sighs, and softly-spoken secrets. Under Kate Soper’s guidance, we navigate dense intellectual forests to interrogate our understanding of art, language, and truth, only to emerge suddenly in clearings of pure sensory experience. The air here encircles us with visceral, gestural, almost palpable music. Music that must be seen to be believed. What is this place? Can we ever truly understand its secrets? Where does art begin? It always starts with a question, doesn’t it?                                                                         

 – C. Neil Parsons 

ARTIST BIOS: 
Kate Soper is a composer, performer, and writer whose work explores the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the slippery continuums of expressivity, intelligibility and sense, and the wonderfully treacherous landscape of the human voice. She has been hailed by The Boston Globe as “a composer of trenchant, sometimes discomfiting, power” and by The New Yorker for her “limpid, exacting vocalism, impetuous theatricality, and mastery of modernist style.” A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Soper has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Koussevitzky Foundation, and has been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and Yarn/Wire. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Camargo Foundation, the Macdowell Colony, Tanglewood, and Royaumont, among others.

Praised by the New York Times for her “lithe voice and riveting presence,” Soper performs frequently as a new music soprano. She has been featured as a composer/vocalist on the New York City-based MATA festival and Miller Theatre Composer Portraits series, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, and the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series. As a non-fiction and creative writer, she has been published by McSweeney’s Quarterly, PAJ, the Massachusetts Review, Theory and Practice, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies. 

Soper is a co-director and performer for Wet Ink, a New York-based new music ensemble dedicated to seeking out adventurous music across aesthetic boundaries. She is the Iva Dee Hiatt Professor of Music at Smith College. http://www.katesoper.com  (Photo Credit: Richard Burbridge)

Finnish-American soprano Maria Männistö, “one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices I have heard in years,” (Seattle Times), moves comfortably among a wide range of musical styles to international acclaim. Maria has appeared frequently as soloist with Seattle Symphony, Seattle Modern Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet,  Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, and has premiered works by Seattle-based composers Wayne Horvitz, Garrett Fisher, William O. Smith, and Tom Baker. 

Recent solo engagements include Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day with Seattle Symphony, Kate Soper’s Now is Forever with Seattle Modern Orchestra, Carmina Burana with Pacific Northwest Ballet, and a performance of her own compositions at Musiikkitalo concert hall in Helsinki. A dedicated member of the Nordic community in Seattle, she serves as music director of the Finnish Lutheran Church, directs the Swedish Singers of Seattle, and performs regularly at Nordic festivals and events. (Photo Credit: Pinehurst Photography)

Sarah Pyle, flutist, is a specialist in contemporary music and most enjoys working on projects involving intersections of nature, music, visual art, and improvisation. In 2022 she integrated all of these interests with her new work for flute and tape, Four Ways of Moving through Penrose Point, an electroacoustic piece played from a limited run of four linoleum print graphic scores, where each score depicts notable landscape features of Penrose Point State Park located in South Puget Sound.  

Sarah has played with the Seattle Modern Orchestra since 2018. Previously, she was a founding member of the Seattle and Portland-based contemporary chamber ensemble Sound of Late, active 2014-2019. Sarah enjoys working with student composers and premiered more than one hundred works by young American composers at concerts throughout the Pacific Northwest with Sound of Late. She has held residences at the University of Washington, University of Oregon, Boise State University, and Illinois State University. 

As a piccolo specialist, Sarah was awarded first place at the 2015 Kujala International Piccolo Competition in Chicago and second place at the National Flute Association’s 2014 Piccolo Artist Competition. She has played flute and piccolo with the Oregon Mozart Players and has played substitute flute and piccolo with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Eugene Symphony Orchestra.

Sarah studied flute with Molly Barth, Michel Debost, and Kathleen Chastain. She holds master’s degrees in Flute Performance and Musicology from the University of Oregon as well as a B.M. in Flute Performance from Oberlin Conservatory and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College. A keen environmentalist, she is currently serving a term as a Rain Garden Specialist intern at the Kitsap Conservation District. She is based in Bremerton, Washington, and in her spare time she likes to sea kayak, garden, and explore fiber arts.

Eric Rynes has performed hundreds of works from the past 100 years, from concertante works and concertos by Scelsi and Berg to large-ensemble works by León and Ligeti to string quartets by Threadgill and Lutoslawski to solo pieces employing exotically-tuned violins and live electronics. He has performed in all thirteen SMO seasons. He has performed at June in Buffalo, ICMC (Havana), the Rotterdam Music Biennial, SEAMUS (Texas), Aspen, and other festivals, and in recital in Berlin, Barcelona, Belfast, Stanford, UCSD, and many other locations; he has performed with composer/performers Wayne Horvitz, Leroy Jenkins, Stuart Dempster, Garth Knox, Erin Gee, Sean Osborn, and Darius Jones, among others. His solo album of works by Xenakis, Boulez, Carter, Kotoka Suzuki, and others, on Albany Records, was praised in The Strad and called “a marvelous CD [by] a marvelous musician” by Helmut Lachemann. In his sixteen seasons as concertmaster of the Northwest Symphony Orchestra, he has performed the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Beethoven, and Barber; his extensive orchestra experience includes membership in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago during Daniel Barenboim’s tenure as its director. A versatile musician drawing inspiration from a wide range of experiences, he has performed Cuban music at The Triple Door and for several years performed in dance halls as the violinist of the quartet Tangabrazo; he has also performed with Sufjan Stevens, Natalie Cole, and Rod Stewart and recorded with jazz and rock groups. He received his M.M. in violin from the University of Washington, with further studies in Europe with Maryvonne Le Dizès (Ensemble Intercontemporain) and Irvine Arditti.

Bonnie Whiting performs and composes experimental music, seeking projects that involve the speaking percussionist, improvisation, and non-traditional notation. Recent work includes an evening-length song cycle for speaking percussionist composed by Eliza Brown and 10 musicians incarcerated at the Indiana Women’s Prison, performances on the original Harry Partch instrumentarium, collaborations with Torch Collective, and concerti with the National Orchestra of Turkmenistan. Her debut album, featuring a solo-simultaneous realization of John Cage’s “45′ for a speaker” and “27’10.554″ for a percussionist” was released by Mode Records in 2017, and her second album, Perishable Structures, launched on the New Focus Recordings label in 2020. Whiting is a core member of the Seattle Modern Orchestra and she has performed with the country’s leading new music groups: Ensemble Dal Niente, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and red fish blue fish percussion group. She is Chair of Percussion Studies and the Ruth Sutton Waters Associate Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. (Photo Credit: Titilayo Ayangade)

Neil Parsons has been performing for as long as he can remember, appearing in his first professional theatre production at age three. As a bass trombonist, actor, director, dancer, and choreographer, Neil’s creative output runs the gamut of music, theatre, dance, and interdisciplinary productions. Before co-founding the hybrid arts ensemble The Fourth Wall in 2010, Neil spent nine seasons touring with the “musictelling” ensemble Tales & Scales. Neil has directed and collaborated on interdisciplinary works with such musical ensembles as Hinge, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, Shakespeare’s Ear, Sputter Box, Strange Trace Opera Company, and numerous projects with flutist Zara Lawler. Neil is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he declared an individual major in Interdisciplinary Performance and Education, and earned his master’s degree in Contemporary Classical Music Performance at Boston Conservatory. Neil is an Assistant Professor in Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s Contemporary Theater BFA program, with additional teaching duties in the conservatory’s Dance and Music Divisions. (Photo Credit: Andy Batt)

Nabilah Ahmed (she/her) is a multi-hyphenate artist with a background in acting, museums, design, and live production. She has collaborated with many arts organizations in her various creative capacities, including Seattle Shakespeare Company, Book-it Repertory Theater, On the Boards, Washington Ensemble Theater, and MoPOP. Nabilah is passionate about moving image as a source of cultural power and metaphysical exploration. She is a graduate of Smith College with a B.A in Economics. 

Ryan Dunn is a Seattle-based lighting and scenic designer for theatre, dance and opera. Recent work includes designs at Book-it Rep, Intiman, Washington Ensemble Theater, On the Boards, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Village Theatre, ArtsWest Playhouse, Velocity Dance Center, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, and Café Nordo, among others. Ryan was a founding member of experimental theater troupe The Horse in Motion, is a resident designer for Washington Ensemble Theater, and has twice been the recipient of Gypsy Lee Rose awards for Outstanding Lighting Design. Outside of theater, Ryan is a freelance lighting designer, lighting director, and moving light programmer for concerts and events.

Marcin Pączkowski is a composer, conductor, digital artist, and performer, working with both traditional and electronic media. As a composer, he is focused on developing new ways of creating and performing computer music. As a conductor he regularly works with Evergreen Community Orchestra, presenting concerts of diverse repertoire to local communities. He collaborates with numerous ensembles in the Seattle area as an electronic music specialist, while also being active in the local improvised music community performing on various instruments.

Maria Manness facilitates the performing arts using her management and fabrication skills, and love of spreadsheets. As a freelancer she regularly works with On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center, Kitten N’ Lou, MALACARNE, Drama Tops, Tim Smith-Stewart & Jeffrey Azevedo, and Hannah Simmons. She serves as Managing Director for Washington Ensemble Theatre, where she has been a company member for 10 (!!!) years. She also teaches technical theatre to the youth. @xo.m.e.m 

About grey angel (2001) by Christopher DeLaurenti

grey angel reflects my interest in updating the musician-plus-tape genre of electroacoustic music by distorting and blurring the perceptible distinction between what is ‘live’ and prerecorded, two categories which are ultimately meaningless to a truly attentive and absorbed listener. Through the use of deeply reductive materials, I intended the score of grey angel to foster imaginative, out-of-the-box interpretation and improvisation with electronics.

-Christopher DeLaurenti

About Cyclic Complement (2010) by Angelique Poteat

In Cyclic Complement, Angelique Poteat unites two of her passions: bass clarinet and bicycles.  The piece emphasizes the rhythmic aspects of cycling, and juxtaposes that with a drawn-out focus on pitch with the bass clarinet.  To complement each other, a rhythmic motive is utilized by both recorded bicycle sounds and the bass clarinet.  Basic extended techniques on the bass clarinet, such as slap-tonguing and flutter-tongue, attempt to remove the instrument from its fixation on pitch and place it in a more percussive, transitory world.  Conversely, by speeding up some of the bicycle sounds and bringing out a variety of frequencies, every-day bicycle noises are converted to pitch-based music, uniting melodically with the bass clarinet.

– Angelique Poteat

About find — viola ( / cello / bass) and electronics (2019, rev. 2021) by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti

Original viola and electronics version commissioned by Kieran Welch. Bass and fixed media version commissioned by Shangri La. Special thanks to sound engineer Greg Heimbecker for recording, to Adam Morford for the use of his Morf-enhanced electric guitar that is featured in the electronics, and to Nina C. Young for creating the patch for the live electronics.

find is about the illusion of repetition—remembering, altering, trying to hold on.

– Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti

About Inference Engines (2022) by Yiğit Kolat

An inference engine is a component of a neural network that infers new information based on what it has learned. This piece features three inference engines. The first inference engine is the musician’s mind that is able to generate new musical expressions based on a score provided for this piece. The second inference engine is an artificial neural network that outputs changing, evolving excerpts of musical notation.

The third inference engine is a facial recognition network that is unable to recognize and distinguish black faces due to biased training. The output of this network is routed into a secondary network which processes audio. The result is a distortion effect, applied to the soloist’s sound. The distortion emerges as an independent element that disrupts the musical experience for both listeners and performers. While it is an inescapable part of the overall experience, the distortion is not part of the musical process—it does not interact with the musical narrative or with the soundscape. It exists as an inherent flaw in the system, like the sonic artifacts of a damaged speaker. 

This deliberate distancing between the musical process and the sound effect serves to emphasize the essential identity of the distortion as an output of a faulty neural network. Its separate and insistent presence reminds us the very real consequences of using such networks. In 2020, Robert Julian-Borchak was arrested from his home, in front of his wife and young children, and wrongfully imprisoned, when facial recognition software powered by a neural network with similar biases, misidentified him. Mr. Julian-Borchak’s experience was possibly the first known instance of such misidentification by law enforcement, but certainly will not be the last.

Today, despite all efforts, the “distortion” still remains.

– Yigit Kolat

About echo fantasia V (2018) by Maria-Eva Houben

echo fantasy V is part of a series: the echo fantasies I – VI were composed in 2018 for several instrumentations, some of them are dedicated to the ensemble Ordinary Affects (USA), in connection with a project in Boston during October 2018. Playing the organ, I joined the group Ordinary Affects (Morgan Evans-Weiler, violin; Laura
Cetilia, cello; J.P.A. Falzone, vibraphone/piano; Luke Martin, guitar) during our trip in Boston and to New York, Middletown, and Hannover. In Middletown we had a beautiful recording of the fantasies I, IV, V, and other pieces (edition wandelweiser EWR 1904-05). One notice in the score might be a path into the piece, for performers as well as for listeners: “nothing more than a vibrating standstill.”

– Eva-Maria Houben

About WAR (2022) by Darius Jones 

Darius Jones has created a new minimalist work titled WAR for the Seattle Modern Orchestra. WAR explores the sonic palette of sustained intensity and aggression in an orchestral environment. This work attempts to elicit the same emotional weight of the battle cry and lay bare the ominous reality of impending conflict.

What does it mean to prepare for WAR? It’s not just the physical but the psychological aspect of confronting sustained conflict, violence, and the reality of death; how often we confront these elements is dependent on who we are within a society or community. This piece commands the ensemble to prepare for WAR.

-Darius Jones

On February 24, 2020, Seattle Modern Orchestra premiered a work by composer and pianist Wayne Horvitz, 188 Sullivan: Varèse meets Bird. In this blog post, Horvitz shares a few words about the piece.

The Meeting
Long thought to be an admirer of Varèse, Parker met with him several times in 1954 at his residence at 188 Sullivan Street to discuss the possibility of lessons. “Take me in as you would a baby,” Parker implored of Varèse, “and teach me music. I only write one voice. I want to have structure. I want to write orchestral scores.” Parker himself had been influenced by the tumultuous music of Stravinsky and had a dream to unify jazz and classical music into a new genre; he loved the idea of playing with a string section and recorded Charlie Parker with Strings, a session of six ballads recorded with chamber and jazz orchestras. Varèse recalled that “[Parker] was so nice, and so modest, and he had such a tone. You could not know if it was an angelic double bass, a saxophone, or a bass clarinet … I promised myself I would try to find some time to show him some of the things he wanted to know.” Unfortunately, the lessons never occurred: Varèse returned to Paris to complete work on his piece Desèrts, and Parker suffered a heart attack and died of complications prior to Varèse’s return in 1955. While we may never know what collaborations may have arisen from their lessons, Varèse continued to be influenced by jazz throughout the remainder of his career, and attended jazz sessions with Charles Mingus, Art Farmer, Teo Macero, and other illustrious contemporaries of Parker.

The Piece
Charlie Parker was perhaps the greatest icon in the history of American jazz music. Brilliant and controversial, an inordinate amount of attention was paid to his excesses in lifestyle and the blazing tempos of his improvisations. This belied what we know of him from many accounts — his deep intelligence and intellectualism, his broad taste in music and art, his brilliant wit, and his keen observation of the world and its inhabitants.

Parker’s musical influence on improvisers in the jazz idiom was almost inexplicable. As brilliant as he was, it was not as if he wasn’t surrounded by wildly inventive peers and elders. For every alto player who aspired to become the next Johnny Hodges, thousands more imitated Bird. I assume there are multiple factors, including some degree of serendipity. Some have suggested that Parker’s innovations were not easy to imitate, but perhaps easier to analyze. From a musicological perspective, Parker’s approach to resolving to chord tunes, his use of leading tones and “enclosures” wasn’t that far from melodic devices found in Mozart — much like Coltrane shared approaches to intervals also found in Messiaen, Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

In addition, Charlie Parker died just as the idea of a formal jazz pedagogy began to emerge — and a tremendous amount of that pedagogy was based directly on the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic approaches that emerged from be-bop.

Of course, the idea of Jazz Education holding equal status with European traditions has been the victim of historical racism, and still is today. We still see music departments divided in two, and fundamental attitudes about jazz, and even improvisation, persist. Even the notion of Parker knocking on Varèse’s door to study with him creates the wrong impression. Igor Stravinsky went to hear Charlie Parker play, Varèse was stunned to find this genius pursuing him, and Toru Takemitsu famously stated “my teachers are Duke Ellington, and nature”. With the possible exception of Schoenberg and the Viennese school, almost all the seismic changes in 20th century Euro-centric music were a result of non-European influences, many of them related to jazz and Afro-centric American idiomatic forms.

To me, the story of Varèse and Charlie Parker is really the story of urban America, and especially New York City. Who wouldn’t you go see the premiere of an experimental composer at 7:30 and then go to the Five Spot later that evening? I know I would have! The institutions may have been slow to change, but this was the story of human beings — actual musicians with deep passions and curious, open minds. Varèse meets Bird, Gunter Schuller champions Ornette, and Charles Mingus and Earle Brown are hanging out in a loft in lower Manhattan, working out graphic scores and structures for improvisation. The rest is just left to the squares.

Parker was famous for his catholic taste in music. It not only came as a surprise to some that Parker was engaged with 20th century new music, but also that he loved the Tommy Dorsey band. And by all accounts he was a fan of Hank Williams. Why would that be a surprise? What sort of soul wouldn’t love Hank Williams? Parker was an extremely literate musician, he appreciated great musicianship, and great artistry. Despite some revisionist history, Charlie Parker with Strings was not a record company’s attempt to increase sales, but Charlie Parker’s idea (Mitch Miller was the producer, who had also produced Hank Williams). And he plays like an angel, soaring above the Jimmy Carrol arrangements.

Analysis:
I: The first movement is directly inspired by Charlie Parker with Strings, and the initial four-note motif is the opening melody to “Out of Nowhere”, the famous ballad performed so elegantly on the original recordings. Hints of percussion and electronics are my way of imagining New York City at that time, and the incredible concurrence of sound in the music and on the street.

II: Is inspired by the dramatic changes in the tempo of life in urban America, and the tempo of be-bop.

III: This takes the famous first 16 bars of Parker’s solo on his composition Anthropology and reimagines it rhythmically and harmonically. The form on the clarinet solo is, like Anthropology, based on the changes to George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm”. I have kept the root motion, and the harmonic rhythm, albeit with a much slower tempo and very different harmonic structures. Plus a hint of Bernard Herrmann, the remarkable film composer.

IV: The subtitle of this movement is “995 Fifth Avenue”, which was the address of the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter — Charlie Parker’s great patron, friend, and confidant. As Parker became ill, “Nica” insisted that he come to her apartment, and summoned her Upper East Side physician. Parker died shortly thereafter. Her neighbors were so outraged that a black man died in her apartment, as was the press and the rest of “high society”, that the baroness was forced to move.

V: Is inspired by Varèse’s “Ionisation.”

VI: As mentioned above, Parker may have expanded some of the pitch choices considered acceptable in the standard repertoire of chord changes, but above all he was a superb melodist, and capable of breathing new fire into long-practiced approaches to melodic lines. The theme explores some of those approaches in a less tonal context, as befits the spirit of this evening.

VII: The final movement is subtitled “Electronic Poem” as in Varèse’s completely revolutionary composition Poème Électronique. I only wish Varèse had collaborated with Parker. I would have liked to hear Charlie Parker play with Hank Williams! There is a story that Bob Dylan sat in with Cecil Taylor once! These are the reasons I love music.

I would like to thank Julia Tai, the Seattle Modern Orchestra and all the musicians, James Falzone, Angela Brown, Seattle Opera for this evening’s concept and their continued support, the folks at KNKX, and the amazing D’Vonne Lewis and his incredible band. And as always, the staff at the Royal Room.

I hope you enjoy the music.
Wayne Horvitz
Seattle, WA 2020

Verses written for the individual Sequenzas were written by the Italian author Edoardo Sanguineti in 1994 and 1995. In our performance, each verse will be recited before the respective Sequenza by Stefano Catalani

Stefano Catalani, Executive Director of the Gage Academy of Art

Intro 
Incipit sequentia sequentiarum, quae est musica musicarum secundum lucianum

Here begins the sequence of sequences, which is the music according to Luciano

Sequenza I for flute (1958, rev. 1992)
e qui incomincia il tuo desiderio, che è il delirio del mio desiderio:
la musica è il desiderio dei desideri

And here begins your desire, which is the delirium of my desire:
Music is the desire of desires: 

Sequenza II for harp (1963)
ho ascoltato catene di colori, muscolosamente aggresivi:
ho toccato i tuoi ruvidi rumori rigidi: 

I have heard chains of colours, muscularly aggressive:
I have felt your rough and rigid noises: 

Sequenza III for voice (1965)
voglio le tue parole: e voglio distruggerle, in fretta, le tue parole:
e voglio distruggermi, me finalmente, veramente

I want your words: and I want to destroy them, in haste, your words:
And i want to destroy myself, me, finally, truly: 

Sequenza IV for piano (1965)
mi disegno contro i tuoi tanti specchi, mi modifico con le mie vene,
con i miei piedi: mi chiudo entro tutti i tuoi occhi

I draw myself against all your many mirrors, I transform myself with my veins,
With my feet: I shut myself up inside all your eyes 

Sequenza VII for oboe (1969)
il tuo profilo è un mio paesaggio frenetico, tenuto a distanza
è un falso fuoco d’amore, ché è minimo: è morto

Your profile is one of my frenzied landscapes, held at a distance
It is a false fire of love that is insignificant: it is dead 

Sequenza VIII for violin (1976)
ho moltiplicato per te le mie voci, i miei vocaboli, le mie vocali
e grido, adesso, che sei il mio vocativo

For you I have multiplied my voices, my words, my vowels
And now I cry out that you are my vocative

Sequenza IX for clarinet (1980)
sei instabile e immobile, mio fragile frattale
sei tu, questa mia infranta forma che trema 

You are unstable and immobile, my fragile fractal
It is you, this fractured form of mine that trembles 

10 Things You Need to Know About Berio

1. A hand injury from World War II led him to pursue composition instead of piano. During the Second World War, Berio was drafted into the army and injured his hand in basic training. This injury prevented him from pursuing his studies in piano at the Milan Conservatory, so he switched his focus to composition and the rest is history.

2. He was heavily involved in the world of electronic music. In 1955, Berio, along with Bruno Maderna, founded the Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Radio Milano, a leading facility for experimentation with electronic composition. Later, from 1974-1980, Berio ran the electro-acoustic department of Paris’ IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music.

3. His music brings together a variety of techniques and influences. From his early interest in serialist composition to later explorations in electronic and aleatoric (chance-based) techniques, Berio was always seeking new ways of integrating various musical elements. One of his most well-known works, Sinfonia, for eight amplified voices and orchestra, showcases a myriad of musical and literary influences in the 3rd movement which layers quotes from Bach, Debussy, Stravinsky and more over an arrangement of the Scherzo from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. 

4. He was married to Cathy Berberian, virtuoso vocalist and composer. Berio composed many works to be performed by his first wife, Cathy Berberian, including Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), which was one of the earliest works to feature electronic elaboration of the human voice, and Sequenza III, a challenging solo work from his series of Sequenzas.

5. Berio taught at several American institutions, including Juilliard and Harvard. His first teaching position in America was at Tanglewood, followed later by Mills College, Juilliard, and Harvard. While he was at Juilliard, he founded the Juilliard Ensemble, which specialized in contemporary performances.

6. Steve Reich and Phil Lesh were among his many students. Steve Reich, one of the first minimalist composers, studied under Berio at Mills College. Phil Lesh, founding member of the Grateful Dead rock band and bass guitarist, also studied with Berio at Mills College at the same time as Reich.

7. His work O King pays homage to Martin Luther King Jr. Written in 1968, shortly after MLK’s assassination, Berio’s O King for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, uses MLK’s name as the text for the work, starting with the vowels and then slowly adding in the consonants to reveal the full name. This work was later rewritten for orchestra and amplified voices as part of Berio’s larger work, Sinfonia. 

8. In addition to his original compositions, Berio produced many arrangements and transcriptions. From Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata to Folk Songs and Beatles arrangements, Berio’s talent for reimagining the music of others reflects his masterful craftsmanship and passion for a diversity of musical genres.

9. He spent the last years of his life in his home country of Italy. Berio passed away in 2003 at the age of 77 in Rome, after serving for 3 years as the President and Artistic Director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.  

10. His Sequenzas were written during a span of over 40 years. Berio’s Sequenzas are a set of highly virtuosic solo works for a variety of instruments, and they were composed from 1958-2004. Seattle Modern Orchestra will be hosting a Sequenza Marathon on Saturday, February 15th at the Chapel Performance Space.

GET YOUR TICKETS to our Berio’s Sequenza Concert on February 15. 

Our January 24th concert at the Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum Library Library is an evening of chamber works curated by our violinist, Eric Rynes. Eric has been a violinist in the ensemble since our very first concert 10 years ago! Here’s what he has to say about how he came up with this kaleidoscopic program:

“The centerpiece of the evening is Arcipelago Möbius by the Italian composer Ivan Fedele, whose works are virtually unknown here; I was riveted when I saw his music performed in Europe, and we’re so excited to bring this piece to a Seattle audience! The piece was inspired by the geometric Möbius strip, so all the musical motives are played forwards and backwards, some parts “above” and the others “below” and later flip over. While we progress through it, Fedele also asks us to evoke traces of lightning, a volcanic eruption, and in a particularly gorgeous and soothing section, a rainbow.

After the words “inside-out” came to me while thinking about the Möbius strip, I looked for musically complementary pieces that tie in with these words in some way. For the opening neoclassical aperitif, Court Studies from The Tempest, Thomas Adès arranged fragments featuring minor characters in his opera The Tempest; it’s “inside-out” because it’s out of sequence of the opera, ending with “The King’s Grief” from Act 2, despite the king in Act 3 being happily reunited with the son he thought had died. Tristan Murail’s meditative Stalag VIIIa surges three times with quotes from the Quartet for the End of Time, which was composed inside the WWII camp by Olivier Messiaen who, like the Quartet itself, eventually got outside and became hugely influential.

Anthony Cheung‘s Elective Memory sounds like hazy recollections of Beethoven’s op. 96 violin & piano sonata. It builds to high drama and a mischievous scherzo before concluding with a twinkling nocturne that evokes—blink and you’ll miss it—a shooting star at the end. Alfred Schnittke‘s Hymn II conjures a monumental edifice that then seems to focus on a lone soul inside it, maybe at first questioning, then pleading with, but ultimately praising, a higher power. Its ending has kinship with the “rainbow” section near the end of the Fedele, which completes a beautiful cycle for the concert.”

We can’t wait to see you there!

GET CONCERT INFORMATION AND TICKETS HERE

Seattle Modern Orchestra is fiscally sponsored by Shunpike