Catch up With...Cherise Leiter![]() For those who follow our composer spotlights, Cherise Leiter may be a familiar face. She was a finalist in 2014 for her beautiful work for flute/alto flute and cello, Chroma. We loved the timbres she created in that duo and we were pleasantly surprised when it was revealed that she was the winner of this year’s chamber music category for The Life in the Day for flute/alto flute, guitar, and cello. Again, she deftly creates unique and beautiful timbres and beautiful melodies, this time adding the guitar to the ensemble she so skillfully composed for in Chroma. We're pleased to share that Cherise will be meeting with Nicole Riner, our wonderful Membership and Communications chair, in 2018 and we look forward to sharing their conversation, but in the meantime we wanted to give you all an opportunity to catch up with Cherise. We look forward to hearing two works Cherise completed recently, a duo for two flutes entitled Vignettes and a work for flute and fixed electronics, Penitence and Praise. We’re also really pleased to learn that Chroma has been recorded. There are more details about all of these exciting announcements in the Q&A below! Q&A with Cherise… What about new music for the flute appeals to you? One of the things I love about the flute is that despite its ancient and glorious lineage and the tremendous body of literature written for it, we can still discover new sounds, new techniques, and new effects. That is what appeals to me so much when writing for the flute. I play just enough flute to be a danger when writing for it, and I love experimenting with techniques, fingerings, etc. While my chamber piece "The Life in a Day" is in the more traditional vein, I still had fun exploring meter and tone color. I also love the fact that flutists really dig new music and are not the least bit scared of it! That is VERY attractive from a composer's point of perspective. Describe your musical background and current activities. I have a Bachelor’s degree in music theory, and was perfectly content in my Common Practice literature and analysis, until I had to take a class that was intended to introduce theory majors to the art of composing. I entered it kicking and screaming (at least internally), and left it headed to graduate school as a composition major. I have composed a number of pieces for flute in the past few years—primarily in chamber settings—and have enjoyed it very much. I now have a piece for flute and fixed electronics (Penitence and Praise) that was a commission from Colleen White, which pushed me into a new area. I also recently finished a flute duo which was commissioned and premiered by Naomi Seidman and Cristina Ballatori at the most recent NFA conference. Outside of the flute world I am finishing up a piece for wind ensemble (although it does have flutes in it!) and also working on a piece for solo piano—a set of etude variations on the folk song written by the female outlaw, Belle Starr. Do you have any upcoming events that you would like our friends and followers to know about? I am thrilled that “Chroma,” a piece I composed for flute and cello (and that was an FNMC finalist in 2014), has been recorded by the Jano Duo on their recent CD “Dreaming in Color.” They did an AMAZING job with it, and with the pieces of five other composers—all recent pieces! What advice can you give to flutists about approaching new music in practice? Advice to flutist when approaching new music: don't be afraid to play around and try new sounds and timbres, even if they are not what we traditionally think of as 'pretty' sounds. As a composer I love all the colors the flute can produce! More About Cherise… Born in Florida, Cherise Leiter received a B. M. in Music Theory and an M. M. in Composition from the University of Florida where she studied with Dr. Budd Udell. She is currently Professor of Music at Metropolitan State University of Denver, teaching music theory and composition. A composer whose output includes works for choir, piano, voice, band, orchestra and assorted chamber ensembles; her compositions have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Scotland, France, Italy, Romania, and Japan. She was a featured composer at the New Music Symposium, the University of Central Missouri’s New Music Festival, the Aspen Composer’s Conference, the Women Composers Festival, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, June in Buffalo, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts. In her spare time, Ms. Leiter is an avid knitter, hiker, swimmer, cook, and bibliophile. She also has a vested interest in anything made of chocolate. She can be reached at [email protected], or www.cherisedleiter.com. If you liked The Life in a Day… American Folk Suite Instrumentation: flute and soprano Duration: 11’ Chroma Instrumentation: flute/alto flute and cello Duration: 9’ Chromaticity Instrumentation: flute/alto flute, clarinet and bassoon Duration: 9’ Penitence and Praise Instrumentation: flute and fixed electronics Duration: 9’ Prelude and Fugue Instrumentation: flute choir Duration: 7’15” Sacred Harmony Instrumentation: flute choir The Life in a Day Instrumentation: flute, guitar, cello Duration: 18’ Vignettes Instrumentation: flute and alto flute Duration: 6’
0 Comments
Get to Know...Jake Thiede![]() The flute and accompaniment category has traditionally been a very strong category with multiple high quality works and 2017 was no exception. Jake Thiede’s work for flute and computer And everything in-between was awarded the honorable mention in the flute and accompaniment category. Interestingly, this is the second work featured in the “12 Days of Composer-mas” that involved specific calculations in the compositional process (the other is from 2016, Daniel Miller’s Contrails for flute and electronics.) Although, you don’t hear this in either work, both are really engaging and masterful compositions with interesting musical ideas and colors. And everything in-between was commissioned by Krisztina Dér for flute and electronics with lighting. You can view a video of the performance on Jake’s website featuring Krisztina’s masterful performance of the work! We truly enjoyed her beautiful playing. We look forward to hearing performances of And everything in-between by our members very soon, we have a feeling it will soon be joining the standard repertoire of works for flute and electronics. Q&A with Jake… What about new music for the flute appeals to you? The liberation of sound that the instrument has experienced in the last half century. The flute has so many different timbres...and so many more to be discovered. As a saxophonist, I'm jealous of the flute's wide range of controlled dynamics and how many more octaves it can play than the saxophone. Who is/are your favorite “new music” composer/s and why? Right now I'm listening to a lot of Eric Lyon, David Lang, and György Ligeti. I think what draws me to their music (and influences my own music) are the varying degrees of clarity with touches of irony. What is/are your favorite “new music” piece/s and why? As of late, Michael Laurello's "Big Things." His use of different rhythmic systems and ride rhythms encourage me that there is just as much innovation/experimentation waiting to happen in rhythm as harmony or timbre. Describe your musical background and current activities. I grew up learning Suzuki piano and then played in a metal band through parts of high school and college. This mixture of classical and vernacular styles, cultures, and traditions in my musical upbringing has pushed me to challenge how I understand music and art to this day. I'm still learning... Do you have any upcoming events that you would like our friends and followers to know about? I will be performing my piece "While it was raining in the woods" at the 2018 SCI National Conference at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA sometime between March 1st-3rd. If any of my flute playing friends are there, let me know--we can hang out! More About Jake… Jacob (Jake) Thiede is a composer, saxophonist and current PhD student at the University of North Texas. Recently, his music has been championed by the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, the 15.19 Ensemble, STACKS Duo, and pianist Kris Carlisle. Premieres and performances of Jake’s music have taken place in Italy and the United States, including Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont. Recent honors and festivals include the Bowling Green State University Graduate Music Conference (2017), the National Student Electronic Music Conference (2016 & 2017), the Electric LaTex Conference (2016 & 2017), New Music on the Point (2015), and the HighSCORE Festival (2014). He received his BME at Murray State University and MM in music composition at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has studied with Mike D'Ambrosio, Brian Ciach, and John Fannin at Murray State and with Mark Engebretson, Alejandro Rutty, and Steven Bryant at UNCG. As a saxophonist, he has studied with Scott Erickson and Steven Stusek. Current interests are grooves and rhythms in metal music, glitch, and the manipulation of sine tones. Jake studies composition with Kirsten Broberg and Andrew May as well as saxophone with Eric Nestler at the University of North Texas. www.jaketheedee.com/ If you liked And everything in between… Forgotten Places, Abandoned Buildings Instrumentation: pierrot ensemble Date of Composition: 2016 Get to Know...Daniel Miller![]() One of the most interesting elements of the composer features is to learn more about the inspiration for the works. We found it really fascinating to learn about the way Daniel Miller conceived of Contrails for flute and three-channel live electronics. Contrails was awarded the Honorable Mention in the flute and accompaniment category in 2016. Daniel began with the idea of a contrail, a trail left behind after something’s passing, and interpreted it in several ways. We can’t describe it better than Daniel, so we’ll quote from the program notes for the work “The electronics serve as a “contrail” to the flute, capturing and sustaining certain resonant frequencies of the flute’s sound. The whole work is also a contrail of Bach’s aria, “Aus Liebe Will Mein Heiland Sterben” from St. Matthew’s Passion, about the compassion of Christ’s self-sacrifice. Most of the material in this piece was derived from a spectral analysis of the aria. An original computer algorithm running in ACToolbox was used to “morph” smoothly between spectrally generated material and the original flute melody found in the aria. This interpolation occurs in nearly every parameter of the music (rhythm, pitch, dynamics, etc.). The effect is that one musical idea gradually recedes from the texture revealing a second idea hidden within or beneath it. As this patina dissolves, notes or phrases from the original aria are sometimes heard to emerge from the resonant, fluttering abyss from which the work begins.” Sometimes, we’ve found that works strongly based on an algorithm are fascinating in their construction, but lack a certain emotional content. This is not the case in Contrails it is a beautiful and haunting work, a testament to Daniel’s skills as a composer! Daniel is currently studying in India on a Fulbright Fellowship, we look forward to hearing new music inspired by his research and collaborations in Mysore! Q&A with Daniel… Describe your musical background and current activities. I've been lucky to have had an unremittingly varied and adventurous introduction to various sound practices. Although I have an undergraduate degree in contemporary music theory and composition, I also spent a year studying with "outsider" sound artists on three continents, developing an eccentric "prepared" field-recording practice through travels as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow. In 2015, I followed-up on my passion for intersections between music and technology, completing a master’s degree in digital musics at Dartmouth College. Currently I'm a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow based in Mysore, India, where my research and music composition has reflected various collaborations with Indian musicians and sound artists in and around the Bangalore scene. What about new music for the flute appeals to you? The flute is a very somatic instrument. The physicality of the lips and mouth and lungs and hands are very present in the sound, unmediated by strings or hammers or even a reed. I'm really interested in how that manifests in music and in performance, especially in the moments between steady, stable states where standing waves or controllable musical gestures start to break down. In composition, I want to explore how the artifice of stability and control can be peeled back to reveal the chaotic flux saliva, air pressure, and metallic movement. Tell us a bit about your compositional process. I consider myself a composer/programmer. A lot of my works are composed with the assistance of computer programs, either for pre-compositional calculations or for live audio processing and/or synthesis. More About Daniel… A native of Seattle (USA), Daniel Miller is a composer, programmer, instrument builder, and field recordist. His creative practice centers on perceiving and responding to the vitality latent in simple processes, materials, and technologies. Recent creative interests have included explorations of found objects, live animated interactive scores, and feedback cycles between performers and stochastic processes or acoustic automata. Daniel’s music has been performed in North America, Europe, and Asia. Past collaborators include Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, ensemble mise-en, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble l'Itinéraire, Sound Energy Trio, the NOW Ensemble, and Ensemble MotoContrario. His electroacoustic works have been accepted by conferences of the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) and the International Computer Music Association (ICMC), and his research on visual score representation and notation has been featured at the International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR). In 2013 he was a recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a grant that made possible twelve months of research on music and technology in seven countries. In 2016 and again in 2017 Daniel was a recipient of the BMI Student Composer Awards. A former student of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Daniel is a recipient of degrees in music composition and philosophy from Lawrence University. Most recently he received his masters degree in Digital Musics from Dartmouth College where he was a music composition student of Ashley Fure. Daniel is currently a Fulbright-Nehru research fellow based in Mysuru, India, where he is advised by Dr. Mysore Manjunath at the University of Mysore. www.lontanomusic.com If you liked Contrails…. Hoquetus Perindens Date of Composition: 2012 Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, piano Duration: 3’ Ritual On a Poem By Whitman Date of Composition: 2012 Instrumentation: alto flute (doubling on flute), percussion (3 players), soprano, tenor, live electronics. Duration: 6’ Vela Sierra Date of Composition: 2016 Instrumentation: bass flute, accordion, violin, viola, double bass, and synthesizer Get to Know...Alexis Bacon ![]() One of the great things about new music is that sometimes you find really effective and interesting combinations that you would never have thought could make great music. In Yodeling Song, a finalist work in the 2014 FNMC Composition Contest, Alexis Bacon did just that in writing a work for alto flute, percussion, electronics and yodeling. Q&A with Alexis… What about new music for the flute appeals to you? What I love about the flute is its agility, the way flute players can play virtuosic runs and trills with the seeming greatest of ease. I also appreciate how the flute can blend into a texture or be more brilliant, and the sound of the lush, rich texture of low notes on the flute. And I enjoy working with flute players because I find them to be very adventurous in experimenting with new sounds and techniques. Describe your musical background and current activities. My background is that of a composer of both electroacoustic and acoustic music, as well as a violist and pianist. I started composing electroacoustic music in college and soon became fascinated by the idea of using speech that was sometimes intelligible and narrative-driven and sometimes purely sonic and musical. Where does speech leave off and music begin? I'm also very interested in American oral traditions, particularly those that might be threatened or dying. Besides my electroacoustic flute/percussion work "Yodeling Song," I've written a piece for percussion and fixed media called "Cowboy Song," based on auction calls. I'm currently finishing a work commissioned by a consortium of ten percussionists called "Ojibwe Song," about the disappearance and reemergence of the Ojibwe (Chippewa)language. Describe “Yodeling Song “ (Alto Flute, Percussion, Fixed Media) Yodeling Song was written for the duo Due East, flutist Erin Lesser and percussionist Greg Beyer. When I composed it, I was living in Indiana and came to know of a community of Swiss descendants in rural Adams County, some of whom had kept up a tradition of yodeling. Through a chain of connections, I met Wayne Dubach, a retired farmer who had yodeled since he was a young man. Wayne was kind enough to let me come to Adams County and record an interview with him to use as source material for my piece. A second source was another local yodeler, professional bass trombonist Bryan Heath who moonlit in a cowboy band. Some themes emerged during my interviews with these yodelers. Wayne Dubach, the farmer, spoke of how he used to yodel to pass the time and keep himself company while driving the tractor on his fields late at night during intensive work periods. Bryan Heath, the musician, spoke of how he had taught himself to yodel from listening to the radio program “Riders Radio Theater,” as he tried to adjust to city life while in grad school in Boston. Both men seemed to practice yodeling to help them to combat loneliness and find joy. Indeed, in my own experience, the mere mention that I was composing a piece based on yodeling often made people smile. Yodeling Song is in three interconnected movements. The first, Pastorale, is a tribute to yodeling’s rural roots. The second, Nocturne “Years ago, before I was married” is based on Wayne Dubach’s account of his days of nighttime farming. The third, Yodeling Song, is a celebration of the pure joy that yodeling and the idea of yodeling seems to bring to so many. More About Alexis… Alexis Bacon is a composer recognized nationally and internationally for her acoustic and electroacoustic music, having won awards such as the IAWM Search for New Music Pauline Oliveros Prize, the Ossia International Composition Prize, and the ASCAP/SEAMUS student composition commission. She has also received grants and awards from the Indiana Arts Council, the Percussive Arts Society, the American Music Center, and ASCAP, and commissions from the duo Due East, the Bro-Fowler Duo, and violinist Robert Simonds. A Fulbright scholar to France, she studied music composition in Paris with Betsy Jolas before attending graduate school at the University of Michigan, where her composition teachers included William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Susan Botti. Also skilled as a violist and pianist, she remains active as a performer. She has taught at the University of Michigan, West Texas A&M University, Indiana StateUniversity, and the University of Indianapolis, and spends her summers teaching at Interlochen Arts Camp. She is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Media at Michigan State University. www.alexisbacon.com If you liked Yodeling Song… Capriccio Flute, Oboe/English Horn, Clarinet, Alto/Baritone Sax, Bassoon 7:00 Lullaby-Fantasie Flute, Clarinet, Viola, Cello, Piano, Percussion 12:00 Ecbó Flute, Oboe, Piano, Contrabass 8:00 Get to Know....João Pedro Oliveria ![]() Flutists obliviously enjoy João’s works; he has been our most frequent finalist! Three of his compositions have been finalists in the FNMC Composition Contest; A Escada Estreita for alto flute and electronics (or alto and bass flute and electronics) and Entre O Ar E A Perfeio, for flute, piano, and electronics in 2014 and Burning Silver for flute, guitar, and electronics was a finalist in the chamber music category in 2015. João is currently composing a flute concerto; we’re looking forward to hearing it! Q&A with João… What about New music for the flute appeals to you? Flute is one of the most versatile and interesting instruments. It has an amazing richness of colors, timbres, and special effects. Composing for flute becomes almost like an adventure in an unexplored land, trying to find new landscapes, colors, and sound images. Who is your favorite “new music” composer and why? I have a great admiration for the music of Jonathan Harvey. His spirituality and inner self reflects in a very direct way in the music he composed. The treatment of timbres, the orchestration, and the work with electronics is one of the most successful in contemporary music. What are your favorite “new music” pieces and why? There are several. For example, Dhomont’s Le Trevail du Rêve is masterpiece of acousmatic music. Lachenmann’s Fassade has an amazing treatment of the timbre possibilities of the orchestra. Elliot Carter’s Symphonia Sum Fluxae Praetium Spei has an intensity of gestures and phrase relations that transmits a special energy to the listener. Describe your musical background and activities. Background in architecture and organ performance. Presently I am interested in the relation between sound and images, working on pieces with video or videomapping in instruments. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyuxBjw7C74 Do you have any upcoming events that you would like our friends and followers to know about? I am preparing the composition of a flute concerto. More about João… João Pedro Oliveira studied organ performance, composition and architecture in Lisbon. He completed a PhD in Composition at Stony Brook University. His music includes one chamber opera, several orchestral composition, a Requiem, 3 string quartets, chamber music, solo instrumental music, electroacoustic music and experimental video. He has received over 40 international prizes for his compositions, including the prestigious Bourges Magisterium Prize, the Giga-Hertz Award, 1st Prize in Metamorphoses competition, 1st Prize in Musica Nova competition, etc.. He is Professor at Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and Aveiro University (Portugal). He published several articles in journals, and has written a book about analysis and 20th century music theory. www.jpoliveira.com João’s Additional Works for Flute… Etude for Five Instruments Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, piano, cello, percussion Year: 1984 Duration: 12’ Le Chant de L’Oyseau-Lyre Instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello Year: 2002 Duration: 11’ Prisma Instrumentation: Flute, accordian, piano percussion Year: 2008 Duration: 9’ …there are those who say that life is an illusion… Instrumentation: flute, oboe, trumpet, percussion, violin, cello, electronics Year: 1999 Duration:10’ Timshel Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, electronics Year: 2007 Duration: 15’ Towdah Instrumentation: flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, electronics Year: 2009 Duration: 13’ |
AuthorThe Flute New Music Consortium is an organization dedicated to the creation and support of new music for the flute. Archives
June 2019
Categories
All
|