New Events: Boston Composers of the '70s

various artists compilation - New Events: Boston Composers of the '70s

Neyrac Lux by Pozzi Escot

performer: Harry Chalmiers - guitar

"Neyrac Lux" (1978) was written in memory of the French scientist, M. Emm. Pozzi-Escot, "le jeune savant de Nancy", born in Neyrac Mont in 1880.Harry chalmiers, remarkable young virtuoso on the guitar and for whom the work was composed, is on the faculty of Lowell State University. In this work he plays three different guitars: 12-strings, classical and electrical.

Utterances by Robert Cogan

performer: Joan Heller - voice

"Utterances" is an open-ended folio of music for a single solo voice. Open-ended means that the composer retains the option of continually adding to it: it is never to be complete, he will simply stop adding. For a performance, pages are chosen from the folio and ordered (we lack a better word) by the performer: for this recording by Joan Heller, at whose request "Utterances" was composed during the years 1977-79. The work draws on texts, and not only texts, by Jorge Juis Borges, Bertholt Brecht, Chiang K'uei, ch'in Kuan, Huang P'u-sung, Kalidasa, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams; by anonymous Balinese, Chinese, Japanese, and Kwakiuti poet-musicians; and especially by William Bronk and William Butler Yeats.

Constellations by Shirish Korde

performer: Boston Saxophone Quartet

"Constellations" for saxophone quartet was composed in 1973-74 for the contemporary music festival held at Brown University in May of 1974. The work is in one movement which evolves gradually from a single sustained pitch, sounding in the middle of the combined saxophone range, to a cluster of pitches, sounding in the outer extremities of the quartet's range. The gradual unfolding of the acoustical space is controlled by a series of symmetrical harmonic formations which are co-ordinated with a characteristic texture motion from pure beatless sounds to complex multifaceted tone color formations.

Serenade by Thomas DeLio

performer: Michael Dewart - piano

Thomas DeLio's "Serenade" for solo piano was composed in 1974 in response to a commission from the pianist-musicologist Ivan Waldbauer. In it the composer explores various applications of mathematical information theory to musical composition. The work is in three sections and traces the evolution and dissolution of various fixed pitch and time fields which are continuously being juxtaposed and transformed as the composition unfolds.

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1. Pozzi Escot - Neyrac Lux {7:41}

2. Robert Cogan - Utterances {13:07}

SIDE B

1. Shirish Korde - Constellations {9:18}

2. Thomas DeLio - Serenade {8:42}

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