Congratulations to Deborah Seale (BM in Music Studies ’16), who just graduated from the UT Butler School of Music with a bachelor’s degree in music education and has opened her own music education studio, Little Heart Talent Education, serving Bastrop and La Grange, Texas. For more information, visit
www.facebook.com/Little-Heart-Talent-Education.
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New on YouTube! Daniel Kopp (MM ’18) performs the “Intermezzo e danza finale” from the Gaspar Cassadó’s Suite for Solo Cello…
Friction Quartet Bounds Through Electronic-Dance-Music-Inspired Quintet
by Joe Cadagin
Andy Akiho doesn’t look like a composer. A DJ, maybe. Or perhaps a hip-hop producer or even a member of a boy band — although he’s pushing 40, he looks an eternal 25. As he took the stage of Noe Valley Ministry church on Sunday to introduce the San Francisco premiere of his Piano Quintet, the Noe Valley Chamber Music audience couldn’t help but laugh and smile at his friendly, sprightly demeanor.
The composer’s youthful vigor surges through his music. And though Akiho may not be a pop musician, he draws heavily upon contemporary dance music, convincingly combining it with classical influences (notably Bartok), without having a computer involved at all.
Akiho’s quintet, titled Five Prospects of a Misplaced Year, was composed for the San Francisco-based Friction Quartet, joined by pianist Jenny Q. Chai. Over the course of four retreats, the musicians met with Akiho to plan the new work, tailoring the musical material to the players’ strengths and tastes — Akiho likened it to Duke Ellington composing for his band members. Each of the five movements is dedicated to a separate member of the ensemble, resulting in a highly personalized composition that musicalizes a close-knit friendship.
The tumultuous first movement gave way to a nocturnesque second movement, titled “Matchbook Aria” after cellist Doug Machiz (MM ’11). Chai introduced a slow, bare-bones riff consisting of a skeletal rattling noise and drip-like tones while the violinists and violist played ghostly harmonics on a theme reminiscent of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden.” Out of this eerie nightscape emerged a plaintive lament from Machiz.
A younger generation of composers — notably Gabriel Prokofiev, Mason Bates, and Ted Hearne — have sought to fuse music of the concert hall with EDM. What sets Akiho’s hybrid experiments apart is that he evokes contemporary club music without actually utilizing electronics. The result is a more cohesive musical language, without the friction between electronic and acoustic elements that often plagues the music of his peers.
Some of the same fusion techniques made their way into the concert’s encore work, Akiho’s 2011 In/Exchange for string quartet and steelpan, which was played by the composer himself. It was shocking how ably Akiho integrated this percussion oddity into the sound world of the string quartet. At the beginning, the solo part emerged almost organically out of an intense high-register passage in the quartet. An instrument heard only in Caribbean music was transformed in this new context. Like the prepared piano, it called to mind electronically produced sounds, especially since Akiho is such a virtuoso, capable of producing lightning-quick runs that seem computer generated. He even bobbed up and down like a club DJ, only the track he mixed would likely terrify a seasoned raver. The piece is a relentless dance of death, a thrilling, orgiastic frenzy that doesn’t let up, until the stabbing, Morse-code figure that brought the piece to a close.
Tonight at 7:30 PM, Ying Zhang (DMA ’16) performs in the 2016 New York International Artists Competition Winners Showcase at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. For ticket, venue and more information, visit
www.carnegiehall.org.
Yi Xin (DMA ’14), as part of the Color Field Quartet, releases a new recording of James Matheson’s String Quartet on the Yarlung Records label. Other artists on the recording include conductor Esa-Pekka Solonena and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The recording is available via multi-track surround sound download, at iTunes and on CD or vinyl.
On September 24, 2016, Francesco Mastromatteo (DMA ’12) opens the season for the Central Texas Medical Orchestra performing Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor in a benefit concert for Symphony of Soul. Now in its 16th year of serving Central Texas, Symphony of Soul is an Austin-based charity with a dual mission: we provide financial support to Austin’s beloved musicians by paying them to provide live music or “musical medicine for the soul” to people who are confined in care centers and facing challenging circumstances. For venue, ticket and more information, visit ctmorchestra.org.
New Longhorn cellists Seulki Lee (DMA ’19) and Eunhye Lim (AD ’18) have won the Principal and Associate Principal cello positions with the Round Rock Symphony Orchestra (RRSO). The RRSO is the premier orchestra and the largest arts organization in Williamson County, TX. Now in its 9th season, the RRSO is led by Music Director and conductor Stefan Sanders, who is also Associate Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lauren Peacock (MM ’16) has won a position in The Orchestra Now (TÕN). TŌN, a unique training orchestra and fellowship program founded by Bard in 2015, is preparing a new generation of musicians to break down barriers between modern audiences and great orchestral music of the past and present. At a TŌN concert, musicians and audience inspire one another, each following their curiosity with a shared sense of adventure. The musicians of TŌN hail from across the U.S. and eleven other countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Spain, Taiwan, and Venezuela. In addition to a concert series at their home base—the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College—they perform multiple concerts each season at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and offer complimentary concerts at venues across the boroughs of New York City in the Around Town series. At The Metropolitan Museum of Art they join Leon Botstein in the series Sight & Sound as he explores the places where musical and visual expression meet, pairing orchestral works with masterpieces from the museum’s collection.
Longhorn Cellos 