The first Tufts Composers PractiCast for Fall 2020 was streamed live from Distler Hall (Granoff Music Center) on Thursday, 3:15-3:50 pm PMA on September 10, 2020.
A production of Music 119: Composition, this concert featured Raptae (2017/2020) by Jacquelyn Hazle, performed by John McDonald on piano.
I. Heat of the Moment
II. Check-out
III. Fight, Flight
IV. Silence Scream
V. Déjà vu
Raptae is a multi-movement work originally written in 2017 and revised in 2020. It is a programmatic piece whose narrative is represented by the recurring use of B-natural and covertly followed through the five movements that make up a series of experiences. These experiences are responses to an event: the recurring B-natural. [J.H.]
Live from Distler Hall at the Granoff Music Center
Web-streamed every Thursday, 3:15-3:50 PM
A Production of Music 119: Composition Practicum
September 10 PractiCast 1: Raptae-Piano Suite by Jaquelyn Hazle
John McDonald, Piano
And forthcoming:
September 17 PractiCast 2: Keyboard Aphorisms Some Fives; Nocturne by Samuel-Graber-Hahn Thank-You Fours; High Fives by John McDonald
September 24 PractiCast 3: Violinist Anna Griffiths plays Anderson, McDonald, Shaffer & others
October 1 PractiCast 4: “Variety Show 1.” Selections TBA
October 8 PractiCast 5: Pianist John McDonald plays a piano tetraptych by Julia Moss
October 15 PractiCast 6: Cellist Emmanuel Feldman plays Ghodsi and Rifkin. Details TBA
And save the dates for PractiCasts 7-13: October 22 & 29;
November 5,12, & 19;
December 3 & 10
Brought to you by Peter Atkinson, Granoff Music Center Studio Manager,
and the Musical Events Technical Staff
Publicity and Programs by Anna Griffiths
Event Direction by Jeff Rawitch, Granoff Music Center Manager
Tufts Composers ConcertSeries is an outgrowth of two composition courses: Music 118 and 119, Contemporary Composition (Seminar) and Composition Practicum. These advanced, project-based courses open to both graduate and undergraduate students assume musical fluency, familiarity with forms of notation, and a practical level of performance experience in a variety of styles and techniques.
If your interest is to create your own musical work, and/or to play new music by your peers and colleagues, then please consider Tufts Composers as your possible outlet. Our Fall 2019 concert schedule appears below. Contact Professor and Composer/Pianist John McDonald for more information. john.mcdonald@tufts.edu
Fall 2019 Tufts Composers Events: All at Distler Hall, 20 Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
Tuesday September 24, 2019 at 8 pm, — Guest Ensemble! Ludovico Ensemble: Rhythm and Myth (Music by J Aylward; M Salkind-Pearl; J Werntz)
Wednesday October 16, 2019 at 8 pm How to Fall Slowly. Ease into Autumn with a varied program of new works by Tufts Composers— students, faculty, and alumni. With music by Samuel Graber-Hahn, Jacquelyn Hazle, Mark Bolan Konigsmark, guest composer Ryan Vigil (Tufts MA 2004), and others.
Friday October 25, 2019 at 12 pm New @ Noon #1: How To Finish. How do pieces of music end? Whimpers? Screams? Static? Tufts Composers provide possible answers with new chamber works.
Monday November 4, 2019 at 8 pm Nova November. Undergraduate and graduate Tufts Composers start a new month with some novel musical audacity.
Friday November 15, 2019 at 12 pm New @ Noon #2: How To Let Things Fall Apart. And not put them back together. Music by Tufts Composers highlighting unexpected approaches to structure
Tuesday December 3, 2019 at 8 pm ROBERT BLACK, Guest Artist and Double Bass Virtuoso, presents Insomniac Do’s and Don’t’s, a recital featuring Philip Glass’s The Not Doings of an Insomniac, commissioned by Black. Betwixt each of its 7 parts, Black recites poetry by Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, David Byrne, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, and Arthur Russell. Featuring several works made for Black by Tufts Composers alongside an improvised dialogue with guest bassist Andrew Blickendorfer.
“Yesterday afternoon there was a deeply affecting concert at Tufts, beautifully curated by John McDonald on the subject of work and life. John played the piano throughout with his usual brilliance, his playing of the amazing Poulenc cycle on painters was particularly strong… Julia Cavallaro used her gorgeous mezzo sound and total emotional commitment all afternoon – and turned out to be a very fine composer with the guts to set Anne Sexton’s take on Van Gogh!! The (as usual) amazing Philipp A. Stäudlin’s alto sax matched her timbre astonishingly… And then there was the ending. A glorious performance of Schubert’s „Nacht und Träume“. And just when the last chord had faded, John started to play his P.S. on the song. Which turned out to be no post scriptum at all, but an incredibly courageous extension and exploration into emotional areas Schubert only hinted at. Philipp played his heart out all the way to the irresolute ending that left us all hanging…. All the consummate skill and immense courage and emotional thrill that was missing in the Super Bowl game (despite the fact that of course the right team won) – here it was in abundance. I’m deeply grateful.”
I shall be travelling to Atlanta, GA, to celebrate TJ Anderson’s 90th birthday with his friends and family.
The event is scheduled for August 17-18, 2018, and has been organized as a mini-symposium with a concert, composer session with TJ, and a banquet dinner.
The concert of works by TJ and his favorite composers is on Friday, August 17 at 7:30 pm at Canterbury Court Retirement Center in Atlanta. Artists include myself, Louise Toppin, and many others.
A mini-conference will be held on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 18, with a presentation of music by other residents of Canterbury Court, followed by a dinner/roast of TJ, hosted by the Anderson family, with Master of ceremonies Dwight Andrews and David Morrow of Morehouse Men’s Choir.
The celebration is hosted by Composers of Color Collective (CCC) and the Anderson Family.
As Amherst College’s 2016-2017 Valentine Visiting Professor of Music, I was invited to present a talk on my in-progress biography on T.J. Anderson Jr. at the college’s Frost Library.
My talk partitioned and analyzed Anderson’s work and influence in five chronological phases.
Premiered on November 22, 2015, by Tufts Chamber Orchestra for the concert Gloria, at Distler Hall, Granoff Music Center, Tufts Univerisity, Medford, Massachusetts.
The Suite Of Old-Style Items [Bernstein Bunch], Op. 576 (2015)for strings is dedicated to Jane Bernstein, Austin Fletcher Professor of Music, celebrating her scene-transforming 40 years at Tufts University.
Upon Ormavoyt
Cromatica (Interlude By Twos) [attacca]
Alternatim (Ormavoyt Again)
Fragments/Glow
When Jane Bernstein was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005, I started searching for a way to celebrate her singular achievement with a piece of music. Continue reading →
Commissioned by Jill Dreeben for the concert at Brandeis University, this trio casts (or recasts) some sketchbook materials, shedding new light on sometimes “pending” ideas and giving then the particular definition that the flute/clarinet/piano instrumentation suggests.
Prelude is a version of a two part invention entitled Deux Mains Qui Penser; as the French title suggests, the piece is somewhat pensive (and a little capricious).
Opa’s Twofer is a pair of similarly enrgetic (but also reflective) ideas smashed together to congratulate and celecrate pianist/composer Thomas Stumpf on his recent grandfatherhood.
Trio Study in Familiar Style is a four part chorale; parts are underlined/doubled in ways that the instruments accentuate idiomatically.
The three pieces were presented together as a set due to their proximity in my sketchbook as well as because of their contrasting qualities.
Boston Arts Diary writes: John McDonald’s Three Sketchbook Items immediately calls forth the image of “Cubist Copland,” an abstract array of sounds that still maintains, at its core, a kind of pastoral unity. The wandering sonority of the Prelude is short, quaint and angular, giving way, in Opa’s Twofer to tremolos echoing three ways, with an emerging lyrical piano line that seeks to sew the fluttering pieces into a quilt of sounds.
Three Sketchbook Itemsis dedicated to Jill, Todd, and Liz with gratitude.
Premiered on February 27, 2015, by Lois Shapiro, piano, Randall Hodgkinson, piano, and Colin Gee, performance artist, for the concert Mythos/Melos: The Intertwining Threads of Music and Narrative, at Distler Hall, Granoff Music Center, Tufts Univerisity, Medford, Massachusetts.
Commissioned for the concert by Lois Shapiro and Randall Hodgkinson, Kindling With Subsongs [Two-Part Prequel To Ignite Would-Be Firebirds], Op. 555 (2014-2015) for two pianos is dedicated to the performers.
PART 1: 1. Kindling I (Maestoso; brioso)—2. Subsong I (Chant-Like and Flitting)—3. Subsong II (Misterioso; Somnambulent)
PART 2: 1. Kindling II (Crackling/Rumbling)—2. Subsong III (Martellato; Brittle)—3. Subsong IV (Tranquillo misterioso)—4. Subsong V (Incisive; Exactly Together)
Composed as an introduction to Lois Shapiro’s and Randall Hodgkinson’s performance of an arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite, Kindling With Subsongs takes notions and “rehearses snippets” from Stravinsky’s legendary ballet music in an attempt to capture bits of its singular atmosphere, thereby preparing the listener in particular quirky ways for the experience of The Firebird Suite itself. Continue reading →
Premiered on September 16, 2014 by Transient Canvas: Amy Advocat, bass clarinet & Matt Sharrock, marimba, at Davis Square Theater, Somerville, MA.
Video by Transient Canvas
Short List, op. 548 (2014) for bass clarinet & marimba
First Thing In The Morning
Unable To Move Much
Five-Note Echo Groups
Phrases In Their Places
Doodad Made In An Adirondack Chair
Steady As Can Be
“Inspired” by the rituals of academic search processes (the formation of “short lists”), this particular short list is a collection of six miniatures gleaned from notebook sketches and personalized for Amy and Matt. The pieces where conceived in places as different as the accupuncture table (2) and the front porch (5).
The first Tufts Composers PractiCast for Fall 2020 was streamed live from Distler Hall (Granoff Music Center) on Thursday, 3:15-3:50 pm PMA on September 10, 2020.
