Program Note:
rap‧scal‧lion (rap skal´yən),  n.  1.  a rascal; rogue; scoundrel.  2.  one who is playfully mischievous.

We all have them: those devious little traits and mischievious tendencies that we keep hidden in polite company. Sure, we cover them with all the trappings of “sophisticated” society, and imagine ourselves as being above such primitive, juvenile behavior.  But still, we all have them, and every now and then they seem to find their way to the surface…

About the Composer:
Travis Alford (b. 1983) is a composer, trumpet player, and improviser in the Boston area. His compositions have been performed at venues across the United States and beyond including the June in Buffalo Festival, Symphony Space in NY, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, the International Trumpet Seminar in Kalavrita, Greece, the NewMusic@ECU Festival, Jordan Hall in Boston, Slosberg Hall at Brandeis University, and Taplin Auditorium at Princeton, by groups such as the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the Lydian String Quartet, Benjamin Herrington’s “Little/Big Project”, the New York Virtuoso Singers, ECCE, L’Arsenale, Second Instrumental Unit, and members of the New York New Music Ensemble. 

Travis is currently Adjunct Instructor Gordon College and an Affiliated artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He holds degrees in theory and composition from the New England Conservatory and East Carolina University, and is currently an Irving Fine Doctoral Fellow at Brandeis University. He has studied composition with Eric Chasalow, David Rakowski, Lee Hyla, Edward Jacobs, Mark Richardson, and Melinda Wagner. He has studied trumpet formally with Trent Austin and Britton Theurer, and informally with Brian McWhorter and Jon Nelson. He has also studied Contemporary Improvisation with Tanya Kalmanovitch. Travis resides in West Newton, MA with his lovely wife, Lauren and their dog, Toby.

Premiered by Wild Rumpus December 10, 2011, at ODC Theater, San Francisco. Performer: Kathryn Bates Williams, violoncello.

Program Note:
Afterimage was written as a wedding gift for my friend and cellist Kathryn Bates Williams—a gift that was only late by a few years. Faced with such a severe writer’s block, I took Stravinsky’s seemingly paradoxical advice of imposing arbitrary constraints in order to stimulate creativity. The limits that I imposed were idiosyncratic to the possibilities offered by a cello: the piece is composed using only natural harmonics, and pizzicato played on the open strings. The strings have been de‐tuned to offer a less conventional set of notes, but ultimately, I was left with a total of 23 notes to work with. True enough, once this constraint was put into place, I was able to compose relatively quickly.

“Afterimage” refers to an image that remains in one’s vision long after the original image disappears. The two playing techniques utilized in this piece remind me such an optical illusion. Natural harmonics have a transparent, mirage‐like sound compared to the ordinary velvety sound of a bowed cello. Similarly, a pizzicato played on an open string, especially when played by just the left hand, looks like a sleight of hand on an instrument that usually requires two hands to play.

I would like to thank Kathryn for her invaluable musical insights throughout the compositional process. It has been a truly collaborative effort and I could not have written the piece without her dedication to the piece.

About the Composer:
Takuma Itoh (b. 1984) spent his early childhood in Japan before moving to Northern California where he grew up. Currently a student at Cornell University, he has attended the University of Michigan (M.M.) and Rice University (B.M.), and has studied with such composers as Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng. His music has also been performed by Albany Symphony, New York Youth Symphony with Shanghai Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet and Stanford Philharmonia Orchestra, violinist Joseph Lin of the Juilliard Quartet, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Momenta Quartet, New Spectrum Ensemble, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble among others. He is the recipient of four Morton Gould Young Composer Awards including the 2010 Leo Kaplan Award, and has been a fellow at the Pacific Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival. His Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra is published by Theodore Presser, and his Echolocation has been recorded by the H2 saxophone quartet on their CD, Times and Spaces. He enjoys playing jazz piano and has studied with Geri Allen. For more information, please visit www.takumaitoh.com.

Premiered by Wild Rumpus December 10, 2011, at ODC Theater, San Francisco. Performers: Calisa Hildebrand, flute; Sophie Huet, clarinet; Naomi Hoffmeyer, harp; Dan VanHassel, electric guitar; Stephanie Bibbo, violin; Michelle Kwon, violoncello.

Program Note:
Mischief (of One Kind and Another) is a brief, light-hearted work, which takes its inspiration from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. As a composer, I have recently become interested in the concept of light and playful music––to offset my darker musical output. I have begun writing works that encompass a narrower scope and employ simpler rhythmic and harmonic ideas. The purpose in doing so is to hopefully expand my personal oeuvre of musical techniques. In a sense, Mischief is an etude. The work revolves around a series of repeated chords, and the form is similar to that of a popular song––AABA. Many of the ideas recur––though in different orchestration––and the melodic and rhythmic ideas are explicit and upbeat. The total duration is four minutes and thirty seconds.

About the Composer:
Christopher Stark is a composer of contemporary classical music deeply rooted in the American West. Having spent his formative years in rural western Montana, his music is always seeking to capture the expansive energy of this quintessential American landscape.

Described as “fetching and colorful,” (New York Times) Stark’s music has been performed in concert venues around the world from the Neue Synagoge Berlin to Carnegie Hall. A recipient of the coveted Underwood Commission from the American Composers Orchestra, and winner of the 2011 Utah Arts Festival Orchestra Commission, his music has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today and was recently broadcast as a fan-voted favorite on WQXR’s Q2 Music Re:Sound. Stark has been programmed, rehearsed, and performed by such ensembles as the Sacramento Philharmonic, Brave New Works, the American Composers Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Dinosaur Annex, the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, the CCM Wind Symphony, the Israeli Chamber Project, Juventas!, janus trio, the Momenta Quartet, and members of eighth blackbird. He currently lives in Ithaca, New York where he is a student at Cornell University.

Premiered by Wild Rumpus December 10, 2011, at ODC Theater, San Francisco. Performers: Calisa Hildebrand, flute; Sophie Huet, clarinet; Naomi Hoffmeyer, harp; Margaret Halbig, piano; Dan VanHassel, electric guitar; Stephanie Bibbo, violin; Michelle Kwon, violoncello.

Program Note:
Delta refers both to the place where a river flows into an ocean and to the Greek letter that, in mathematics, signifies change. Beginning with parallel threads of music, both measured and unmeasured, the piece unfolds as a series of ideas that arise and dissolve, beginning with half-formed snippets of material, but moving toward increasingly pronounced forms and greater expanses over time.

About the Composer:
Jen Wang’s work has been featured at the Wellesley Composers Conference, the International Computer Music Conference, the Bang On A Can Summer Institute, the California EAR Unit Residency at Arcosanti, the Music ’03 and ’04 festivals, and the SPARK Festival. Her commissions include works for the Iktus Percussion Quartet, Coro D’Amici, the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, flutist Janet McKay, NeXT Ens, and clarinetist Cristhian Rodriguez; she has also been performed by Lucy Shelton, the California EAR Unit, Onix Ensamble, Eco Ensemble, the New Spectrum Ensemble, and the percussion ensembles of Mannes College and the University of California, Davis. Her first installation work, Black Cloud (for streaming data and electronics), premiered as part of Panorama, an evening-length multi-media performance featuring choreography by Merce Cunningham and Lisa Wymore.

Jen has been commissioned to write a chamber work for the 2012 Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, as one of the recipients of the Staubach Honoraria, and her percussion quartet, Renderings of Things We Couldn’t Take Home, will be featured this March at San Francisco’s Other Minds Festival, as part of the Composer Fellowship program.Other upcoming projects include a song cycle for contralto Karen Clark and a piece for piano and electronics for pianist Gloria Cheng. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, where she was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and the Millay Colony of the Arts, where she was a Robert W. Simpson Fellow. She is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (M.M.) and Carleton College (B.A.). Currently, Jen is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has been awarded the Eisner Award in Music, the Nicola de Lorenzo Prize, and the William V. Power Graduate Award.She is founder and co-director of Wild Rumpus.

Performed by Wild Rumpus December 10, 2011, at ODC Theater, San Francisco. Performers: Sophie Huet, clarinet; Margaret Halbig, piano; Stephanie Bibbo, violin; Michelle Kwon, violoncello.

Program Note:
Shadow Rings takes advantage of the acoustical properties of the instruments: of strings, of columns of air.  In Shadow Rings, different timbres are combined to make the quartet ring in a new way.  Almost every note occurs with a shadow of itself.  Each player reinforces the other players’ sounds, adding color, enhancing overtones, and strengthening the musical message.  The quartet begins and ends with literal shadow rings:  the careful listener will hear ghost tones in the violin and cello, as the players manipulate the ringing of the instruments.

About the Composer:
The music of Caroline Mallonée has been heard in New York City at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Tenri Cultural Center, and Tonic, as well as at the Tribeca New Music Festival, Long Leaf Opera Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Chapel Hill Arts Festival, 21st Century Schizoid Music Series, Durham Downtown Music Festival, New Music New Haven and at Boston’s Jordan Hall.  Her music has been performed in the U.S., the Netherlands, Wales, England, Iceland, Japan, Italy and Mexico, and has been broadcast several times over National Public Radio on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion.” Recent commissions include new works for Firebird Ensemble (Boston), Present Music (Wisconsin), Ethos Percussion Group (New York), Friends School of Baltimore, and Monadnock Music (New Hampshire).

Ms. Mallonée holds a Ph.D. from Duke University, a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.  A Fulbright award recipient, she spent a year in The Netherlands studying with Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. She is the director of the Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat, a week-long festival for composers and improvisers that takes place in June and is on the faculty of the Walden School Young Musicians Program for students 10-18.

Performed by Wild Rumpus December 10, 2011, at ODC Theater, San Francisco. Performers: Calisa Hildebrand, flute; Margaret Halbig, piano.

Program Note:
Invisible Worlds (2010) is a dramatic work for flute and piano that was inspired by the eternal darkness of the deep ocean. More information is known about our moon than this arcane habitat. At just under a mile below the surface of the ocean, the only visible light is that produced by the creatures that reside within these depths. This region of the ocean is called the Bathypelagic Zone and sometimes referred to as the midnight or dark zone. At this depth, water pressure can reach levels close to 6,000 pounds per square inch making research difficult, if not, impossible. This zone only makes up the top third layer of the ocean. Venturing deeper toward the trenches promise no shortage of life and yield a vastly unexplored landscape…

About the Composer:
Nicholas S. Omiccioli (b. 1982) is currently a Preparing Future Faculty Fellow at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Production Coordinator of newEar Contemporary Ensemble.  Mr. Omiccioli has studied composition with James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, João Pedro Oliveira and Brian Bevelander.  His works have been performed throughout the United States, Italy, Thailand, and China by such ensembles as the Jasper String Quartet, Indaco Quartet, Society for New Music in Syracuse, ConTempo Beijing, DuoSolo, Brave New Works, Contemporaneous, Puget Sound Piano Trio, The Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, and the Kansas City Chorale.

Mr. Omiccioli has been commissioned by the Wellesley Composers Conference and Shouse Institute at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.  Some of his recent awards include two nominations for a Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts & Letters, an ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Beijing Modern Music Festival Young Composer Award, 1st place in the Thailand Internation Composition Festival Award, DuoSolo Emerging Composer Award, Brian M. Israel Prize, and multiple awards through the College Music Society.When not composing, Nick enjoys watching cartoons.

Performed by Wild Rumpus December 10, 2011, at ODC Theater, San Francisco. Performers: Calisa Hildebrand, flute; Sophie Huet, clarinet; Margaret Halbig, piano; Stephanie Bibbo, violin; Michelle Kwon, violoncello.

Program Note:
Groove III, part of a family of pieces that includes short solo piano movement Groove, solo piano piece Groove II, and mixed septet Groove Excursion, explores the repetition of musical figures, while altering characteristics such as the length of notes, the orchestration and timbres used, and the location of rhythmic emphasis.  In working this way, I am striving to create music that is engaging and propulsive and, at the same time, unified, elemental, meditative, and maximally focused.A musical motive becomes, rather than a stepping stone to something new, an object to be fully examined and experienced in its own right.

About the Composer:
Liza White’s music has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, Fifth House Ensemble, members of the Charlestown Symphony Orchestra, the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, ALEA III under Gunther Schuller, and many other world class musicians.  Liza has won awards including the Craig and Janet Swan Prize, the Margaret Blackburn Composition Competition, and an Emil and Ruth Beyer Award from the National Federation of Music Clubs.  She has participated in the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, New Music on the Point, California Summer Music, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College, and she has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Hambidge Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Liza has studied at Boston University, the New England Conservatory of Music, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Royal College of Music in London, England.  Liza co-founded and co-directed Embryonic NOISE!, a Boston area concert series featuring works by emerging composers, and has also taught general music in the Boston Public Schools.  She is currently living in Chicago, working toward a Doctor of Music degree in Composition at Northwestern University and teaching composition, music theory, and aural skills at Northwestern, Access Contemporary Music, the Merit School of Music, and People’s Music School.See www.lizawhitemusic.com for more information.