French composer Emmanuel Séjourné is fascinated by the relations between music and other performing arts. His music is rhythmic, romantic, energetic, inspired both by the Western classical tradition and by popular culture (jazz, rock, extra-European). His compositions are played throughout the world by soloists, ensembles and orchestra, including the Nagoya Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Sinfonia Toronto, Croatian Radio Television Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Italienne, Camerata de Bourgogne, Orchestre d’Auvergne, and the Wurttembergisches Kammerorchester, among others. Séjourné's Akadinda Trio (1992) was inspired by the percussive mallet music of Uganda. Each player uses 2 mallets, and all three players play on one 5-octave marimba. Numerous melo-rhythmic lines interlock to form an interesting polyrhythmic (3:2, etc.) groove. No one part is particularly difficult, yet concentration is required so as to realize the interlocking rhythmic patterns. Watch a performance of Emmanuel Séjourné Akadinda Trio (1992) played by percussionists Corey Hewitt, Paul Hutson and David Tart . . . it's one of our NEW MUSIC VIDEOS for the week.

Anna Weesner's music has been performed by leading ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Metamorphosen, the Indianapolis Symphony, and the orchestra of the Curtis Institute. Other important performances includes those by Dawn Upshaw and Richard Good, the Cassatt Quartet, the Cypress Quartet, the MATA festival, Network for New Music, Veronica Kadlubkiewicz, Matt Bengtson, Ensemble X, Counte induction, the Syracuse Society for New Music and Orchestra 2001. She has been commissioned by numerous performers and presenters, including Open End, the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival, violist Melia Watras, Sequitur, and Orchestra 2001. The contemporary music organization Network for New Music, to celebrate their 25th Anniversary, asked 25 composers to write new variations on the theme Beethoven used in his Diabelli Variations. Each variation was to be under two minutes, and for any combination of a small choice of instruments. All of the pieces were performed at the Settlement Music School (Philadelphia) on a concert in May 2010. Listen to Anna Weesner talk about her contribution to Network for New Music's 25th Anniversary celebration . . . it's this week COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

In 1980, composer Chen Yi attended a performance of Duo Ye while she was collecting folk songs of the Dong minority in southwest China. This emotionally charged experience prompted her to write a piano piece using the same title and utilizing similar musical characteristics. Duo Ye is a traditional folk song and dance form of the Guangxi Province in China. It is often performed to celebrate the joy of a harvest or the arrival of an important guest. In it the lead singer improvises a melody while others dance in a circle with a bonfire set in the middle. Listen to a performance of Chen Yi's Duo Ye (1984) played by pianist Amy Lin . . .  it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

. . . and check out Dialogos (2008), an animated Film by Ulo Pikkov with music by Mirjam Tally . . . it's this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

American composer Christopher Rouse writes about his Flute Concerto (1993): "Although no universal credence for the Jungian concept of "genetic memory" exists, for me it seems a profoundly viable notion. Although both of my parents' families immigrated to America well before the Revolutionary War, I nonetheless still feel a deep ancestral tug of recognition whenever I am exposed to the arts and traditions of the British Isles, particularly those of Celtic origin. I have attempted to reflect my responses to these stimuli in my flute concerto, a five-movement work cast in a somewhat loose arch form. The first and last movements bear the title Amhrán (Gaelic for "song") and are simple melodic elaborations for the solo flute over the accompaniment of orchestral strings. They were intended in a general way to evoke the traditions of Celtic, especially Irish, folk music but to couch the musical utterance in what I hoped would seem a more spiritual, even metaphysical, maner through the use of extremely slow tempi, perhaps not unlike some of the recordings of the Irish singer Enya. The second and fourth movements are both fast in tempo. The second is a rather sprightly march which shares some of its material with the fourth, a scherzo which refers more and more as it progresses to that most Irish of dances, the jig. However, by the time the jig is stated in its most obvious form, the tempo has increased to the point that the music seems almost frantic and breathless in nature. In a world of daily horrors too numerous and enormous to comprehend en masse, it seems that only isolated, individual tragedies serve to sensitize us to the potential harm man can do to his fellow. For me, one such instance was the abduction and brutal murder of the two-year old English lad James Bulger at the hands of a pair of ten-year old boys. I followed this case closely during the time I was composing my concerto and was unable to shake the horror of these events from my mind. The central movement of this work is an elegy dedicated to James Bulger's memory, a small token of remembrance for a life senselessly and cruelly snuffed out. Watch a performance of the final movement from Christopher Rouse's Flute Concerto played by flutist Daniel Stein  . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Chen Yi should be no stranger by now to listeners interested in contemporary music. She’s one of a potent handful of Chinese composers who came of age during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, but who were young enough not to be broken by it (as a matter of fact, for many, the forced repatriation into the countryside seemed to help them rediscover traditional musical roots). Chen Yi is perhaps the most extroverted of these; her music has color, dynamism, and energy to spare. She’s also developed an extremely fluent and sophisticated way of blending Eastern and Western classical practice. From the former, she takes traditional modes, rhythmic patterns, motivic formulae, and timbral/intonational inflections. From the latter, she takes larger developmental forms, quick modal modulations, polymodality, Western instrumentation, and extended performance techniques. The result sounds Chinese without ever sounding self-consciously exotic. No mean feat. This disc consists of chamber works, predominated by strings. Each has distinctive characteristics: Sound of the Five is the most substantial, being a four movement series of folkloristic portraits; Yangko is notable for the vocalizing (beat-box-like) of the percussionists; Sprout displays confident traditional counterpoint; Burning, as its title implies, is a passionate, propulsive work; the Tibetan Tunes are the only pieces to cite actual folk sources; Happy Rain on a Spring Night is for me the stunner of the group, a non-stop build of energy and color that crests and refreshes like an ocean wave (or the shower of its title). At the same time, these works seem to be part of one vast work in progress. Chen Yi has a seemingly inexhaustible store of music within her, and combined with her masterful technique, whatever seizes her at a given moment seems to be the piece that emerges [Robert Carl/Fanfare]. Check out Chen Yi's Sound of the Five (New World Records 80691)  . . . it's our FEATURED RECORDING for the week.

. . . also listen to Chen Yi, featured in this week's COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

Ulf Grahn studied music at the Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm and at the Stockholm City College where his principal composition studies were with Hans Eklund, violin and viola with Rudolf Forsberg, piano with Herbert Westrell, and voice with Bertil During. In 1973 he founded the Contemporary Music Forum, Washington, D.C. and served as its Program Director until 1984. During 1988-90 he was Artistic and Managing Director of the Music at Lake Siljan Festival, Sweden. Prior to this he was on the faculty of Catholic University of America, Northern Virginia Community College and at George Washington University. Presently he teaches Swedish language and culture at the Foreign Service Institute. He has received commisions from The Library of Congress Mc Kim Fund, The Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, The Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony String Quartet, Washington Music Ensemble, and George Washington University. His awards and prizes include Composers’ Forum New York, Charles Ives Center for American Music, Composers’ Conference Johnson Vermont, First prize at the Stockholm International Organ Days, Musik i Dalarnas Carillon contest and the Kil International Piano contest. His music has been performed throughout Europe, North and South America, Japan, Korea. Listen to a performance of Ulf Grahn's A Due (1985) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS.

Edson Zampronha has received two awards from the São Paulo Association of Art Criticism, Brazil. In 2005 he won, together with SCIArts Group, the Sixth Sergio Motta Award, the most outstanding prize on Art and Technology in Brazil, for the sound installation Poetic Attractor. He has received commissions from different groups and institutions such as the Museum for the Applied Arts (Cologne, Germany) for the Cultural Activities during the Soccer World Cup 2006; from designer María Lafuente for her catwalk show at the Pasarela Cibeles 2006 and 2010 (Madrid, Spain), and from the São Paulo State Symphonic Band for the 100th Anniversary of the São Paulo State Gallery in 2005 (São Paulo, Brazil). His works have been performed around the world, including performances at the Auditorio 400 - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the CBSO Centre in Birmingham (UK), and the Municipal Theater of São Paulo, Brazil. Listen to a performance of Edson Zampronha's Viaje al Interior (Travel to Inward) (2006) . . . it's this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Richard Danielpour has become one of the most sought-after composers of his generation – a composer whose distinctive American voice is part of a rich neo-Romantic heritage with influences from pivotal composers like Britten, Copland, Bernstein, and Barber. Danielpour has commented that "music [must] have an immediate visceral impact and elicit a visceral response." Check out his Souvenirs (2008) for orchestra ... this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEO.

According to Ned Raggett (All Music Guide), "Mirjam Tally's self-titled debut CD, collecting pieces composed over the previous seven years, reflects both a striking confidence in the 27-year-old's compositional abilities and an attractively broad range of influences ..." Have a look at it - it's our PYTHEAS FEATURED RECORDING.

In 1930 Berthold Bartosch moved to Paris and created the 30 minute film entitled L'Idea/The Idea. It is described as the first serious, poetic, tragic work in animation. The film's characters and backdrops were composed of several layers of different types of paper from semi- transparent to thick cardboard. Special effects like halos, smoke and fog were made with lather spread on glass plates and lit from behind. The film was based on a book of woodcuts from Frans Masereel and the animated film featured a score by composer Arthur Honegger, who employed the Ondes Martenot in his score, the very first use of an electronic instrument in film history ... see and hear it - it's our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

"For sheer visceral effect, nothing matched Chen Yi's Spring Dreams. The idea of 'petals falling' was conveyed through rhythmic whispers and chatters, birds by pulsating whistles. In the midst of this cumulative din the sound of voices actually singing came as a jolt. Chen has the ability to create a minor sensation with the simplest of means." - Paul Horsely, The Kansas City Star. See a perfomance of Chen Yi's Spring Dreams (1997) by Chanticleer at this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music