Hinge Quartet presents Fractured Time, a program of contemporary music ranging from Cole Reyes’s beautiful ambient soundscapes to the intense and brutal noise sculptures of Sam Pluta, and from the the rigorously freeform improvisations of Anthony Braxton to the ritualistic theatricality of Sarah Grace Graves. This concert will showcase the wide diversity of musical expressivity of composers of the 21st century.
Praised as “experimental and ethereal” and a “welcome addition to the new music scene,” the Hinge Quartet is made up of Philipp Stäudlin (saxophones), Dan VanHassel (electric guitar), Matt Sharrock (percussion), and Keith Kirchoff (piano). Lying somewhere between a chamber ensemble and an avant-garde rock band, the Hinge Quartet combines cutting-edge contemporary classical and experimental music with seamless multimedia integration and the innovative re-imagining of rock and pop songs.
Repertoire
MOLLY JOYCE: Hit and Run (2019)
ANTHONY BRAXTON: Composition 131 (1986)
COLE REYES: A World for Each Moment (2022)
SAM PLUTA: American Tokyo Daydream IV (2007)
SARAH GRACE GRAVES: flesh bone skin time (2023)
Program Notes
MOLLY JOYCE: Hit and Run (2019)Hit and Run explores pitched and non-pitched instruments switching places, so the primarily pitched instruments (saxophone, piano, guitar) go from pitched to non-pitched, and the percussion goes from non-pitched to pitched, showcasing moments of uniformity and divergency through the process, and allowing the main melody to be the “conduit” for such, heard on different instruments throughout the process. Hit and Run was commissioned by Conduit and written in spring 2019 in Shanghai, China.ANTHONY BRAXTON: Composition 131 (1986)Composition 131 was composed by Anthony Braxton for his quartet, featuring himself on alto sax, David Rosenboom on piano, Mark Dresser on bass, and Gerry Hemingway on drums. Like many of his compositions, the piece is open to a myriad of approaches and re-interpretations. The score, which can be played by any group of four instruments, contains only about a minute of composed material, which is played at the opening in the manner of a jazz “head,” and serves as a springboard for solos and collective improvisation by the group for the remainder of the piece.COLE REYES: A World for Each Moment (2022)According to the theory of the multiverse, there are an infinite number of universes—each one differing by maybe a single event. This single event then spins out its ripple effect into an entirely new world. This piece essentially is music for the in-between, where we are suspended in a world of what-ifs, loosely tied to everything, wondering the consequences of the moments in our lives.SAM PLUTA: American Tokyo Daydream IV (2007)American Tokyo Daydream IV was written in 2007. The work reflects one of clearest examples in my music of what I think of as a kind of gestalt brutalism: a block structure that takes advantage of gestalt principles of grouping to guide the listener along a path in space. Proximity and similarity of sonic blocks render phrases out of their sequencing; dramatic hinges provide closure between sections of music; and simple, almost ascetic large-scale forms allow the listener’s perceptual bandwidth to confront the complexities inside of larger sonic objects. Meaning in this music can be gleaned from perceiving the order and repetition of blocks over time. Hinges that occur at the intersection of blocks become the focus of the formal process. All thought goes into making particular hinges as dramatic as possible.SARAH GRACE GRAVES: flesh bone skin time (2023)I think of percussionists like dancers, who create an embodied score of each piece with their bodies. I decided to choreograph the percussionist without dictating the sound or rhythm of the playing, to allow their movement to become the music. My art as a vocalist is similarly physical. I map out movement through my instrument, without dictating textual or melodic content, and that movement becomes the music. In counterpoint with the external choreography of the percussionist, I have created internal choreography in the voices of the performers. Ensemble
SAXOPHONES
Philipp Stäudlin
GUITAR
Dan VanHassel
PERCUSSION
Matt Sharrock
PIANO
Keith Kirchoff
Concert Services Staff
Senior Manager of Concert Services – Luis Herrera
Coordinator, Concert Services – Matthew Carey
Concert Production Manager – Kendall Floyd
Performance Technology Technicians – Sara Pagiaro, Goran Daskalov
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