New Music Ensemble

About the Program

Program notes by Mark Bilyeu except where noted.

Michael Gordon
Confetti
Born 1956, Miami Beach, Florida
Composed 2020
Premiered September 12, 2020, Alte Oper, Großer Saal, Frankfurt am Main, Ensemble Modern, Igno Metzmacher, conductor
Duration 1 minute

Over the past 30 years, Michael Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. Transcending categorization, this music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness. Gordon holds a Bachelor of Arts from New York University and a Masters of Music from the Yale School of Music. He is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can. Like other works on this program, Confetti was commissioned for Ensemble Modern as part of their 40th anniversary.

Brigitta Muntendorf
Daisy, Daisy
Born 1982, Hamburg, Germany
Composed 2021
Premiered September 12, 2020, Alte Oper, Großer Saal, Frankfurt am Main, Ensemble Modern, Igno Metzmacher, conductor
Duration 4 minutes

Daisy, Daisy is a part of the larger music theatre work entitled MELENCOLIA, and was published in the end in 2021. It was a gift for the 40th anniversary of the Ensemble Modern (Igno Metzmacher, conductor) and their recording “Beschenkt.” Daisy, Daisy exists in two versions – one version for large ensemble – written for Ensemble Modern – and another version for orchestra, which was premiered by the Wiener Symphoniker at the Opening of the Bregenz Festival 2022. The piece is about the process of translation and the separation of emotion and expression.

Mark-Anthony Turnage
A Jolly Good Knees-Up
Born 1960,  Corringham, United Kingdom
Composed 2020
Premiered September 12, 2020, Alte Oper, Großer Saal, Frankfurt am Main, Ensemble Modern, Igno Metzmacher, conductor
Duration 2 minutes

A composer of international stature, Mark-Anthony Turnage is indisputably among the most significant creative figures to have emerged in British music of the last three decades. His first opera, Greek, established Turnage's reputation in 1988 as an artist who dared to forge his own path between modernism and tradition by means of a unique blend of jazz and classical styles. Turnage has been resident composer with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra. Turnage is Research Fellow in Composition at the Royal College of Music, and is published by Boosey & Hawkes. He was awarded a CBE in the 2015 Queen's Birthday honours. Like other works on this program, A Jolly Good Knees-Up was commissioned for Ensemble Modern as part of their 40th anniversary.

Bike Öner
Arda & Canfezâ
Duration 8 minutes

Arda and Canfezâ merges improvisational recordings of Arda, a qanun player, and Canfezâ, a kemenche player from Istanbul, with a live performance by the New Music Ensemble. The improvisational recordings were (re)composed by me, partly processed through Ableton, and are in fixed media format.

There are two emerging sound-blends in the piece which consist of instruments from different cultures, similar in the register and instrument family but highly different in timbre: Qanun and Harp, Kemenche and Strings.

In this piece we experience acoustic and electronic processing simultaneously and realize the co-presence of musicians in a piece, even though their performances are not in the same medium, place, or time. “Co-presence” is something I delve into in my project Sounds of People. 

– Bike Öner

Christopher Cerrone
Why Was I Born Between Mirrors?
Born 1984, Huntington, NY
Composed 2019
Premiered May 17, 2019; Stage 773, Chicago, Il; Latitude 49
Duration 8 minutes

"Why Was I Born Between Mirrors?" is the penultimate sentence in Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station. The novel is about an American author living abroad in Spain, trying to find his own voice through the act of translating Spanish poems into English. The original phrase ¿Porque naci entre espejos? comes from a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, “Canción del naranjo seco” and my title is Lerner’s translation.

I’d been thinking how the act of translation is very similar to the act of transposition in music as I began composing this sextet. On the surface, they are straightforward operations. However, when a musical idea is shifted out of its original register or instrumental context, the results are often surprising and unpredictable. This is particularly true in my piece: Mirrors utilizes the inherently unstable sounds of a prepared piano (in this case, metal screws inserted between the strings) and clay flower pots—unconventional instruments whose sound worlds are not uniform or consistent. Therefore, moving musical ideas up or down a step produces strikingly different results, just as the act of translating words from another language inevitably changes their meaning (for better or worse).

The title also refers to the form of the piece, in which the “meat” of the work occurs between mirrored sections of music. It begins and ends with an undulating tremolo on the flower pots; moving inward, there is a rhythmic section for prepared piano, and at the center is a gentle and lamenting chorale, expressing the core of the work at its simplest: two notes, a third apart, trying to connect to one another.

– Christopher Cerrone

Steven Bryant
The Treachery of Sounds
Born May 28, 1972 Little Rock, Arkansas
Composed 2022
Premiered July, 2022, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble
Duration 20 minutes

Steven Bryant Steven studied composition with John Corigliano at the Juilliard School, Cindy McTee at the University of North Texas, and Francis McBeth at Ouachita University.  His seminal work Ecstatic Waters, for wind ensemble and electronics, has become one of the most performed works of its kind in the world, receiving over 250 performances in its first five seasons. In 2015, the orchestral version was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra. The son of a professional trumpeter and music educator, he strongly values music education, and his creative output includes a number of works for young and developing musicians.“ His evening-length work for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, The Treachery of Sounds, based on several images of the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte (famous for “The False Mirror” and “Not to be Reproduced”), uses a live application of binaural technology by placing every member of the audience in headphones to create an immersive experience that defies the listener’s sense of reality.

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About the Artists

Steven Bryant

“His compositional virtuosity is evident in every bar.” 
–John Corigliano

Steven Bryant’s music is chiseled in its structure and intent, fusing lyricism, dissonance, silence, technology, and humor into lean, skillfully-crafted works that enthrall listeners and performers alike. Winner of the ABA Ostwald award and three-time winner of the NBA Revelli Award, Steven Bryant’s music for wind ensemble has reshaped the genre. A prolific composer, his substantial catalogue of music is regularly performed throughout the world. Recently, his Ecstatic Waterswas premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra to unanimous, rapturous acclaim. The son of a professional trumpeter and music educator, he strongly values music education, and his creative output includes a number of works for young and developing musicians.

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.

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New Music Ensemble

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