TRANSFORMED REALITIES (electronics):

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*Francisco Castillo Trigueros (b.1983): New Work for voice, flute(s), and electronics (13’)

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*Fredrick Gifford (b.1972): Shadow Play (2016) for open-hole bass flute and live electronics (8’)

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Alexander Schubert (b.1979): Your fox’s, a dirty gold (2011) for one performer with voice, e-guitar, electronics, motion sensors, and lights (9’)
 

*Nomi Epstein (b. 1978): New Work (2016) for voice, flute(s), and electronics (variable, 8-10’)

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Luciano Berio (1925-2003): Altra Voce (1999) for mezzo-soprano, alto flute and 6-channel live- electronics

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* Indicates commissioned for EAR TAXI Festival 2016; World Premieres given on 10/9/2016 at festival. 

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Music is simultaneously concrete and abstract, relying on the performers to navigate between the two. What happens if those boundaries are blurred for the performers, creating for the audience multiple possible realities? Collect/Project’s program Transformed Realities is an exploration and dialogue about states of tangibility and our own ever-ephemeral perceptions. The music caters to the specificities of Collect/Project, utilizing Shanna’s highly specialized instruments and Frauke’s extended vocal techniques/range, coupled with fully interactive electronics. The ensemble is a Chicago-Hamburg collaboration (sister-cities), which gave its debut concerts in Chicago. We are very excited to present a project focusing on the dynamic nature of Chicago composers.

 

Fredrick Gifford’s MOBILE 2016 will be an exploration of transience and permanence as details of the work will change in every performance. As performer, I will choose a pathway through composed percussive material and ephemeral sounds, while the the live electronics captures the resonances of the instrument: what remains after the performative act become shadows of reality. These sounds will be used to create a more continuous, but ever-changing layer of sonic activity as the second layer grows from the choices made in the first. The electronics will personify the instrument— it will listen to, remember and perform sounds that were not perceptible as separate sonic events – in this way, a true duo results with instrumentalist and instrument as co-protagonists.

 

Nomi Epstein’s music is often sonically fragile and explore aspects of openness and chance in the tradition of Cage and Frey. For this new piece, each member of the trio will be given specific and individual parameters within which they will make both pre-performance and live performance choices determining the structure of the piece as well as sonic and spatial relationships to one another.

 

As a performing member of Collect/Project, Francisco Castillo Trigueros has come to know Shanna and Frauke deeply as musicians and people, and the new work for this group will draw on those connections to create a piece that is truly for Collect/Project. The piece will explore ways to bring in sounds from "non-musical" sources such as concrete sound recordings and sonifications of non-musical phenomena into a live, chamber music performance; thus finding a convergence between these sources and the musicality of the performers. 

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ALTRA VOCE (electronics)

 

Beat Furrer (*1954): Auf tönernen Füssen (1998) for amplified voice and alto flute

 

Francisco Castillo Trigueros (*1983): Sûr les debris (2013) for bassflute and 4-channel-live-electronics

 

Luigi Nono (1924-1990): La Fabbrica illuminata (1964) for soprano and 4-channel-tape

 

Luciano Berio (1925-2003): Altra voce (1999) for soprano, flute and live-electronics

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Interaction, between performers, between live musicians and electronic sounds, between a composer and a performer: this is the idea at the heart of collect/project, a chamber music collective dedicated to presenting interpretations of contemporary music that empower the performer as part of the creative process. From Nono’s La Fabbrica Illuminata, with its vocal line weaving between industrial noise and political mob chants, to Beat Furrer’s Auf tönernen Füssen, in which “the speaking voice accompanies the ‘walker on the flute’, whispers to him those images, which he, who is totally preoccupied on his next steps, can’t see…” (Frauke Aulbert), the musicians must find a space for expression in the midst of these multi-layered interactions.

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FUTURE OF SONG (accoustic)

 

*Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf (*1962): Finite Jest (2014) for voice and flute (premier)

 

Matthias Kaul (*1949): Silence is my voice (for voice, mouth speaker and tape)

 

*Morgan Krauss (*1985): New Work (2015) for voice and flute (premier)

 

Toshio Hosokawa (*1955): Atem Lied for bass flute solo

 

Matthew Shlomowitz: (*1975): Letter Piece #4: Adams, Blackburn, Camomile, Djibouti and Eurohound (2008)

 

What is song? What is the future of this ancient tradition of musical art? As with any art form there is constant invention and re-invention amongst those who live their lives for the art in question. Collect/Project’s presentation of The Future of Song delves into the realm of what it means to be a song in modern times. It is a tour de force through the realms of sonic possibilities of the two instruments (female voice and flute), an exploration of sound’s different personalities through one of the oldest forms of musical art. 

 

The haunting and powerful gestures of breath in Hosokawa's ATEM LIED (Breath Song) for solo bass flute explore a primal aspect of song—breath—connecting traditional Japanese sounds with modern intentions. Matthias Kaul’s work is at once eerie and riveting as sounds mingle from the voice and speaker placed within the mouth. Using text by the Belgian surrealist Henri Michaux to create a general atmosphere and sequence of events, SILENCE IS MY VOICE reverses the usual procedure of modifying the voice by sound processors as it is the voice that changes the sounds from the playbacks—a surrealist duet for one musician. Shlomowitz challenges us to relate seemingly disparate sounds into a composite whole.

 

The two new works written for Collect/Project’s tour by Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf and Morgan Krauss stretch the idea of song into the future, challenging the traditional aspects of collaboration and the

relationship between performer and audience. The songs could not be more different. While Mahnkopf’s works is steeped in textual satire and musical virtuosity constantly shifting the relationship between the individual parts, Krauss’ work is a tactile exploration of a performer’s physical awareness opposites and how an audience perceives these disparate elements.

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Trial. Repeat. Failure. (acoustic)

 

*Andrej Koroliov (*1982, Germany): Trial Repeat Failure III (2016) world premier

 

*Gordon Kampe (*1976, Germany): Schwarze Lieder nebst einer Moritat (2009) new version for voice, flute and accordion (2016) world premier

 

*Matthias Leboucher (*1985, France): new piece (2016) world premier

 

^*Christopher Trapani (*1980, USA): Hamburger Lied (2016) world premier

 

*Kumiko Omura (*1970, Japan): Ancient flowers, new version for voice, flute and accordion (2016) world premier

 

Keiko Harada (*1968): Third Ear Deaf (2002) 

 

* Indicates pieces written for Collect/Project

 

^This piece was supported by New Music USA. To follow the project as it unfolds, visit the project page: https://www.newmusicusa.org/projects/connecting-hamburg-and-louisiana-with- christopher-trapani/

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VISIONS AND DELUSIONS

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Selim Göncü (b.1983):  Play Back (2016)

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Fredrick Gifford (b.1972): Shadow Play (MOBILE 2016)

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Neele Neo Hülcker (b.1987): Eva und Neele (2013) US Premiere

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Detlef Heusinger (b.1956): Ver-Blendungen (2016) US Premiere

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Keiko Harada (b.1968): Third Ear Deaf II b (2000) US Premiere

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[zygote] (Martin Iddon/Antti Saario): complicity simplex (2010) US Premiere

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Visions and Delusions explores musical and visual space of what is real or not, seen versus heard, how those elements align or not, and a presents dialogue about states of tangibility and our own ever-ephemeral perceptions. The music expresses the uniqueness of the ensemble Collect/Project, which specializes in experimental music performance with an interest in unorthodox and deeply collaborative experiences. Most of the works on the program were commissioned by the ensemble and developed in close collaboration with the composers and video artists an utilize improvisation, graphic notation and interpretation, open mobile forms, and interactive video and electronic elements.

 

This is the first time that Collect/Project will appear in the United States in this formation of flute, accordion, and electronics, featuring accordionist Eva Zöllner, and the first time they present a guest artist recital at Northwestern University. 

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Roadtrip!

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Christopher Trapani: Hafenlieder (2016) for voice, flute and accordion**

Francisco Castillo Trigueros: En la orilla gris, silencio (2016/18)**

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Lisa R. Coons: Essay 1: Mater (2019) for voice, flute, accordion and electronics*

Christopher Biggs: Tar for flute, accordion and electronics*

Matthias Leboucher: Bilder in Bildern (2016) for voice, flute, accordion**

Neo Hülcker: I’m in your bodies (2018) for voice, flute, accordion and electronics **

* world premiere    ** US premiere

 

Roadtrip! is designed to focus on the experience of musical performance through a diversity of pieces that look at relationships between performer, creator, composer and audience— a virtual road trip across continents and musical styles and experiences.Trapani and Leboucher both bring together the idea of story-telling via text in special ways. Leboucher melds the voice and flute together as performer and mirror of each other for a fantastical text. Christopher Trapani’s Hafenlieder is the first piece of contemporary music with vocal text in Plattdeutsch which brings together the port city characteristics of Trapani’s roots in New Orleans with those of Eva and Frauke in Hamburg. The works by NEO Huelcker and Lisa Coons bring specific commentary on the issues of gender roles and in/equality in society—a particularly prescient and important topic as an ensemble of women and immigrants.