Student Composers
Recital
students of Mark Engebretson
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
7:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
broke dance suite Seth Colaner
allahmond (b. 1982)
kerrahnt
sahrahbond
zheeg
Em McKeever, guitar
Senioritis Nick Stubblefield
Nick Stubblefield, piano
NABI Miso Lim
Lis Thomas, Clara Bunrs, Sidney Dixon, and Yooli Sun; soprano
Jien Kim, flute
Kathleen Hall, oboe
Holly Kortze, clarinet in A
Tom Turanchik, English horn
Rebecca Hammontree, bassoon
Toccata-Fantasy Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes, piano
Memories Jeffrey Lewis
Susannah Steele, piano
Something Along the Lines of a Tarantella Lindsey Parsons
(b. 1983)
interval
(she.moves.the.ocean) Braxton Sherouse
(b. 1985)
Emily Morgan, dance
Romance for Violin and Electronics Michael Cummings
Andrew Liggit, violin
Dissipating Hallucinations Thomas Royal
Sarah Evans, piano
just after Adam Josephson
(b. 1981)
Thomas Lowry, saxophone
Two Movements Alex Beard
I.
II.
James Esteppe, guitar
Paranoia Fit Sean Pollack
(b. 1986)
digital media
Notes
Seth Colaner—broke dance suite (ca. 6:00)
broke dance suite developed from many hours of improvisation on the guitar, playing various
scalular figures over a drone. The piece is essentially a meditation on the tension/release created
by pitches gliding into and away from the pitch of the drone. Four distinct musical ideas emerged
from the improvisation, which became the four movements.
Nick Stubblefield—Senioritis (4:15)
Senioritis comments on the fleeting nature of childhood, the tangle of emotions experienced in
leaving the security of K-12 and home. The composer, as a recent high school graduate, here
contemplates the memories, the regret, the loss, the anticipation, the insecurity, and the strange
mixture of choice and inevitability.
Miso Lim—NABI
What are we made of? I strongly believe that we are made from dust without a doubt. After our
death, we will eventually go back to dust. What I want to point out is that nothing in this world can
separate nature from human, because we are nature. Then where are we from? Where does
dust come from? And where does nature come from? I hope the audiences will find the answer
from “Nabi”, because I found the answer through composing this piece.
In Jesus Christ, Miso Lim
? .
.
.
? ? ?
.
Nabi
As a butterfly is flying
I'm swinging forth my net
Longing to hear your voice
Hungering for your breath
I won't give up until I catch
This wonder for myself
My treasure for eternity
Your presence is the best.
Please visit our desert
And water it with rain
Make it soft with showers
And provide our grain
Let the mountains and the hills rejoice
And take away our pain
We shout for joy, Oh Lord we sing
We honor God our King!
Fill our pastures, Lord with flocks Let the cattle graze in our land
Lift our hearts, remove all shame Let our fruit multiply
As your wheat we divide Fill us God as we speak Thy name
--Tomeka Denise Allen
Carlos Fuentes—Toccata-Fantasy (ca. 6:00)
The Toccata-Fantasy is a brand new piece, composed only in the past month. It represents
another step away from the "romantic" school of composition that heavily permeates my earlier
works, and towards a new tonal and rhythmic freedom that I have experimented with in the past
year. The piece became a synthesis of the myriad of emotions and struggles I have experienced
since coming to UNCG, but ultimately resolving in a powerful, triumphant conclusion.
Jeffrey Archer Lewis—Memories (14:00)
Memories is the result of a combination of musical ideas, thoughts, and feelings that have
fermented in my mind for six months. These have been organized in much the same order as
they were conceived, but with many changes made along the way. The main challenge I have
faced with this piece, and continue to face with my compositions, is balance between inspiration
and order. It is a delicate balance, and one I have had to address time and again with this piece.
However, I do not consider this a piece that I have created, but rather discovered through my
imagination.
Lindsey Parsons—Something Along the Lines of a Tarantella (6:30)
Something Along the Lines of a Tarantella was written and premiered at the Brevard Music
Center this past summer (2006). It was written for a good friend that I met there, and is more or
less about the violin and its capacities. The title comes not from the actual dance form but rather
the story surrounding it. The Tarantella was supposedly a dance that would happen after a
person was bitten by a spider. The spider's bite was deadly, and the person on the wrong side of
it would dance until he or she died. I want to put it out there that I didn't actually name the piece.
My performer suggested that I name it "..something along the lines of a Tarantella," because it
just gets faster and higher and louder, and the rest is history.
Braxton Sherouse—(she.moves.the.ocean) (5:30)
(she.moves.the.ocean) was inspired by a fleeting thought I had last year during a slow-moving
recital program: "Wouldn't it be neat to fill the Recital Hall with water?" While this piece does not
directly address that question, it served as a needed diversion of my energy towards making an
extended audio metaphor, to which the title alludes... I at least hope that the use of cables and
audio instead of hoses and water will increase the likeliness of future performances. I give my
endless thanks to Emily Morgan for her time, energy, and adventurous spirit in collaborating with
me on this piece.
Michael Cummings—Romance for Violin and Electronics (5:00)
The term romance (Spanish romance/romanza, Italian romanza, German Romanze, French
romance) has a centuries long history. Beginning as narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be
used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments
alone. During the 18th and 19th centuries Russian composers developed the French variety of
the romance as a sentimental category of Russian art song. The Oxford Dictionary of Music1
states that "generally it implies a specially personal or tender quality.”
Georges Bizet's "Je crois entendre encore" from The Pearl Fishers (1863) is labelled a romance
in the score. As for instrumental romances, Mozart subtitled the second movement of his piano
concerto no. 20 in D minor (K.466) "Romanze" and his Horn Concerto has a romanze and Rondo.
Robert Schumann was particularly fond of the title for lyrical piano pieces.
1 The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Michael Kennedy, editor, 1985 (New York: Oxford University
Press), sub "Romance".
Thomas Royal—Dissipating Hallucinations (5:45)
Musical materials dissolve in a number of ways in this work. The piece is in three sections. The
opening section begins with a nervous, dissonant syncopation. This theme develops into an
angry climax which ultimately dissolves into the silence that created it. The middle section begins
with a more pleasant tone. Yet this pleasantness eventually descends into the decadence of the
first section and again fades into silence. The third section begins suddenly and with a bit more
brutality than the first section. The music proceeds with more drama and it seems as if the piece
will end in a climax of brutal anger. Yet, just when this begins to happen, the music fragments and
ultimately destroys itself.
Adam Josephson—just after (7:40)
In just after I wanted to create a sound atmosphere in which the listener is able to focus his or
her mind in order to have an individual and true experience with the music. The ebb and flow of a
quiet forthright opening pattern slowly disintegrates, leaving large silences for the listener to
consider. New gestures, which are a result of the combination of slight alterations of previously
used sounds, begin to appear and the silences grow longer. Out of this sparse and contemplative
section, the opening pattern reappears, but in a new context – unsettled by its exploration of deep
thought and focus.
Alex Beard—Two Movements for Guitar (ca. 7:30)
Guitarist James Easteppe commissioned this two-movement piece. The first movement is very
traditional with subtle Brazilian folk influence, while the second is more progressive, although
based on material from the first.
Sean Pollock—Paranoia Fit (5:00)
Taking Electronic Music this semester, I have been given the opportunity to explore electronic
music with some of the best technological resources currently available at my disposal. This
piece marks my most indepth foray into electronic music yet. Paranoia Fit is a piece set up for 8-
speaker surround sound playback created using the music sequencing software Reason, and the
audio programs Peak and Logic. Among the sounds recorded was my voice, which I modified to
an unsettling effect. I aimed for the piece to convey an aggressive edgy style mixed with the
macabre
