New Music Ensemble

About the Program

Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. 
A City Called Heaven 
Born September 7, 1937, St. Louis, MO
Died March 12, 2018,  Berkeley, CA
Composed 1988
Premiered 1989, Boston Musica Viva, Boston, Massachusetts
Duration 9 minutes

The title of the composition is taken from a traditional Black American spiritual whose principal theme serves as the musical inspiration for the central slow movement of the piece. The chorus of this spiritual has the following text:
Sometimes I am tossed and driven — Lord
Sometimes don't know where to roam —
I've heard of a city called heaven
I'm trying to make it my home.

The composition contains three movements in a fast-slow-fast arrangement, each of which is inspired by different genres of African-American music transformed by my own contemporary musical language. The first movement is based on a reinterpretation of a blues "riff" -- a short definitive melodic motive which, in traditional practice, is repeated against a changing harmonic background. The piece opens with a somewhat rhetorical statement of a riff, whose inherent "swing" qualities gradually take on greater importance as the piece progresses. The movement utilizes a great deal of unison writing, cross rhythms and blues-like melodic patterns, that collectively create a composed realization of an abstract blues improvisation. After the first movement builds to a climax, there is a short, contrasting, harmonically static section before the return of an altered version of the opening blues riff.

The second movement seeks to evoke the character and sensibilities associated with the original spiritual in a new musical context. After a brief introduction featuring the clarinet, there ensues a series of short sections which, while sharing similar musical ideas, contrast with each other in character, texture and tempo. There gradually emerges an altered version of the first line of the spiritual stated cantabile in the viola and violin. This music is then commented upon, expanded and modified by the entire ensemble. In a broad sense, the entire movement is a contemporary reflection on the original spiritual.

The last movement, which opens with an aggressive percussion solo, is dominated by virtuoso passages for the piano in the lower register and percussion. The basic musical gestures associated with these two prominent instruments are inspired by rhythmic dynamism of the African-American music genre "Boogie-Woogie." The entire ensemble, beginning with pizzicato strings, shares in the development of this basic musical material that leads to several episodes whose distinct musical ideas grow out of previous sections. Ultimately, a series of duets between the percussion and piano culminate in a riff-like ensemble statement that brings closure to the movement.

– Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. 

Tyshawn Sorey
For Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. 
Born 1980, Newark, NJ
Composed 2021
Premiered February 7, 2021, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Paris France, Elena Schwarz, conductor
Duration 20 minutes

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey has performed globally with his own ensembles, as well as alongside industry titans including John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, and Vijay Iyer. He currently serves as the Presidential Assistant Professor in the Departments of Music and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, after joining their faculty in Fall 2020, and he is the recipient of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in music for his work “Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith).”  Sorey composed For Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. in memoriam for large mixed ensemble on a co-commission from the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and from Radio France and Ensemble Intercontemporain. According to Sorey, Olly Wilson's influence is heard not in the style of the piece, which unfolds slowly and contemplatively over the course of a single 20-minute movement, but in the use of pitch materials borrowed from a pair of Wilson compositions of special importance to Sorey: Akwan and Piece for Four.

– Mark Bilyeu

Alyssa Weinberg
...enfumée 
Born 1988
Composed 2023
Duration 15 minutes

Commissioned by the Lake George Music Festival, the initial impetus for …enfumée was Georgia O’Keeffe’s Blue II, an early work from a series of abstract and monochromatic explorations in 1916. When setting out to write this piece I initially chose to engage with O’Keeffe’s work because of her close connection with Lake George. While browsing a featured exhibit of her work at MoMA, I was immediately struck by the deep saturation and subtle shading of the color in this particular painting, the powerful movement portrayed in the crumpled yet expansive swirl of blue –  like someone making a fist of smoke. This image resonated particularly strongly at the time, as we were in the midst of New York’s first encounter with the hazardous smoke from the Canadian wildfires which was engulfing the city and surrounding regions of the country. In that moment I decided not to write a work that was necessarily in direct response to O’Keeffe’s painting, but rather to allow my connection and inspiration in that moment to refocus the piece as an outlet for my experience with that recent and present change in our environment. I began to see vivid imagery of the swirls of smoke, the flow of the air patterns, the gradually shifting colors of haze. I was mesmerized by air flow maps I found on various air quality tracking apps, the constantly shifting color patterns, all the while living through my own waves of paralyzing anxiety, an almost PTSD-like response to being told to be afraid of the air we breathe, yet again. It was ironic that after such a long period of time with Covid, growing accustomed to masking indoors but finding relief and safety in the free-flowing air outside, we were now being told to stay locked indoors and mask up if we ventured out. 
 

I composed …enfumée while in residence at Copland House, an idyllic retreat in Cortlandt, NY. Aaron Copland’s house is situated in a wonderfully isolated natural setting, a perfect space to engage with this subject matter, to escape from the city and breathe the fresh air. In the middle of my residency another wave of smoke set in, creating an opportunity for me to re-engage directly with the experience in the middle of the composition itself. I remember the first afternoon of the smoke’s return, driving on a bridge across the Croton Reservoir and almost stopping my car in the middle of the road as a I was struck by the imagery looking out into the hills beyond the water: it looked exactly like O’Keeffe’s paintings of Lake George, the haze from the smoke recreating her shading, her brushstrokes. The title …enfumée is also a reference to the work …à la Fumée, an homage to the composer Kaija Saariaho who passed away in June and whose music I have held in my mind and heart as I worked on this piece. 

– Alyssa Weinberg

Back to Program ^

About the Artists

Alyssa Weinberg 

Composer Alyssa Weinberg (b. 1988) uses color, texture and gesture to channel big emotions, creating music that is “quite literally stunning” (Chicago Tribune). She is fascinated with perception and loves to play with form, subverting expectations to create surreal scenarios, often in dreamy, multidisciplinary productions.

Highlights of the 2024/25 season include the premiere of Bioluminescence, commissioned by the Juilliard School in collaboration with ARCO Collaborative, artistic director Jennifer Koh, for the Sounds of US Festival presented by the Kennedy Center, and the premiere of The water-clock bleeds, commissioned by an international consortium of over 50 saxophonists, in collaboration with consortium leaders Aporii (Doug O’Connor and Jeff Siegfried). This season also celebrates the announcement of two new operas: Claude & Marcel, written with librettist Stephanie Fleischmann and director Elkhanah Pulitzer, commissioned by West Edge Opera and premiering in August 2027; and DRIFT, written with librettist J. Mae Barizo and director Mary Birnbaum, commissioned by Opera Saratoga, and made possible by a commissioning grant from Opera America’s 2024 Opera Grants for Women Composers, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Weinberg’s music has been performed by celebrated artists and ensembles around the world, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, as well as So Percussion, yMusic, PUBLIQuartet, and the Aizuri Quartet. She has received commissions and awards from organizations including Chamber Music America, Copland House, New Music USA, FringeArts and the Pennsylvania Ballet, Paris Dance Project, the Barnes Foundation, and the Curtis Institute of Music. Alyssa’s percussion music has been celebrated for its inventive use of color and innovative performance techniques, most notably for her prepared vibraphone duo Table Talk which has received hundreds of performances across the globe.

Weinberg’s poetic monodrama ISOLA, a prismatic meditation on time, mental health, and isolation written in collaboration with librettist J. Mae Barizo, was premiered by Long Beach Opera in February 2024 to critical acclaim, and she was awarded a 2022 Opera America Discovery Grant to facilitate the development of DRIFT, an opera with collaborator Barizo centering themes of migration, motherhood and climate change.

A dedicated educator, Weinberg currently teaches at Peabody Conservatory, Mannes School of Music, and Juilliard Pre-college. She is the Founding Director of the Composers Institute at the Lake George Music Festival, a summer program that centers mentorship and community alongside the craft of composition.

Alyssa Weinberg holds a PhD in composition from Princeton University, as well as degrees from Vanderbilt University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music.

T.J. Anderson

T.j. Anderson (he/him) is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Wind Conducting as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Music at Coastal Carolina University, focusing on percussion under the mentorship of Dr. Jesse Willis. T.j. continued his education by pursuing a Master’s Degree in Instrumental Conducting at Appalachian State University. There, he studied primarily with Dr. John Stanley Ross. As a graduate teaching assistant, T.j. made contributions to university bands, teaching conducting, band literature, and band methods courses. He also worked with the Marching Mountaineers as a winds and percussion instructor/arranger and served as Musical Director for the Appalachian Concert Band. In addition to his academic pursuits, T.j. has held leadership roles as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Festive Brass and Assistant Conductor of the Carolina Master Chorale. He is an active member of various professional music and education organizations and has been recognized as an Honorary Brother of Kappa Kappa Psi, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and a Sigma Alpha Iota Friend of the Arts.

Marc Sosnowchik

Dr. Marc Sosnowchik is a conductor, educator, arranger, and clinician based in Austin, Texas. His current duties as Assistant Director of Bands at the University of Texas include conducting the New Music Ensemble and Concert Bands, instructing courses in conducting and wind literature, and teaching the Longhorn Bands. Before his appointment at UT, Dr. Sosnowchik served as Associate Director of Bands at the University of South Florida, Assistant Director of Bands at Oklahoma State University, and Associate Conductor of the Florida Wind Band.  Dr. Sosnowchik maintains an active schedule as a clinician, conductor, and arranger. He conducts ensembles throughout the U.S., and in the summer teaches at the World Youth and Adult Wind Orchestra Projects as part of the Mid-Europe Festival in Schladming, Austria.  Dr. Sosnowchik earned his bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Alabama, and both his master’s and doctoral degrees in conducting from The University of Texas at Austin.

Back to Program

New Music Ensemble

Back to Program