Lois V Vierk and Anita Feldman

with choreographic contributions by Rhonda Price

for 2 tap dancers and 2 high voices

ca. 16'05"

Swash is one of six music/tap dance works co-created by tap dance choreographer Anita Feldman and composer Lois V Vierk during the 1980s and 90s. From the very beginning, choreographer and composer worked together on all major aspects of each piece. They have always felt that in their work, music and dance are one. It's impossible to say where one leaves off and the other begins. The piece was named for the movement of water splashing up from an ocean wave onto the sand of the beach. This concept of "swash" inspired a wide variety of visual and sound ideas in the creation of the work.

Besides the above, some of the movement/sound materials are influenced by Hambone, an African-American music and dance form that uses the whole body as a percussion instrument to be slapped, brushed, etc. with one's hands. Hambone was originally developed by enslaved Africans in the US, Guyana, and the Caribbean. In the US, use of percussion instruments by slaves was banned in most places, starting in the mid 18th century. This was done out of fear that people would be able to transmit messages via drum patterns that would incite revolution against the system of slavery. Hence the body itself became the source of percussive sounds.

In Swash the slapping, clapping and sliding of the hands not only contributes to sound rhythms, but also propels the body’s movements. As the piece progresses, the action of one foot hitting the other both contributes to the rhythms and propels the foot movements of the tap dancing in a similar way. The costumes in Swash were designed by Denise Mitchell. They were sewn from a vinyl type fabric, which permits hand slaps and brushes to be clearly audible. Dancers also wear hand “instruments” made of velcro to further augment the sound.

Some of the vocal sounds in Swash derive from the South African Zulu language, which is rich in musical slides and in a variety of tongue clicks. Adelaide Ngoneni Cele was the language consultant. The two singers in the piece, one on either side of the stage, are amplified, so that their percussive sounds blend with the dancers' taps and body slaps, and their sustained sounds and long glissandos can be heard flowing over the taps, enveloping the stage. The American folk form Eephing, a folk form that developed in the Appalachians during the 19th century, is also an influence in this piece. Eephing, incorporating both exhaled and inhaled sung syllables, was used to holler to farm animals. The last part of Swash brings out four women's names, American and Zulu: Anita (for Anita Feldman), Nokuthula (for Ms. Cele's mother), Nora (for the composer's mother) and Ngoneni (for Ngoneni Cele).

Swash was premiered at Woodpeckers Tap Dance Studio in New York City in 1994. Subsequent performances include Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), SUNY Albany, SUNY Buffalo and Columbia Festival of the Arts (MD). The tap parts have been performed by Anita Feldman, Rhonda Price, and Sheri Laroche. Vocal parts have been performed by Dora Ohrenstein, Susan Botti, and Lisa Bielawa.

Swash was made with a New State Council on the Arts Composer Commission and a New York Sate Council on the Arts Company Grant. Special thanks to the Foundation for Contemporary Arts for additional support.

Audio recording is of vocal parts only (no tap), plus there is a demo of Zulu language click sounds. Recording is in three parts: 1) Vocal parts plus click track, 2) Vocal parts only, 3) Zulu demo. Singers are Lisa Bielawa (voice 1) and Katie Geissinger (voice 2). Zulu language demo by Adelaide Ngoneni Cele.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

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Video recorded live in concert (a good look at the choreography but sound quality is mediocre). Tap dance performed by Sheri LaRoche and Rhonda Price. Singers are Lisa Bielawa and Katie Geissenger. Video recorded June 20, 1998 at The Kitchen in NYC.

Click here to view the video recording.

Lois V Vierk and Anita Feldman

for solo tap dancer on Tap Dance Instrument (patented), cello, and marimba

ca. 9'37"

Twister is one of six music/tap dance works co-created by tap dance choreographer Anita Feldman and composer Lois V Vierk during the 1980s and 90s and is one of a number of works that Feldman created with various composers for her Tap Dance Instrument (patented). It had long been Feldman's belief that music made by the feet was equal to music made by musical instruments. Desiring to dance on an instrument that would allow the dancers' feet to make resonant and varied music in any performance situation, she joined forces with San Francisco instrument builder Daniel Schmidt to design the modular and portable Tap Dance Instrument, which was then constructed by Schmidt in 1987. The Tap Dance Instrument consists of six platforms, each about 9 inches off the ground. They can be arranged in any desired configuration. Three of the modules are hexagons of approximately 5 feet across, made of different woods and constructed in varying ways, so that they have individual resonances and timbres. A fourth platform is the "Tap Marimba" with 7 pitched keys. These large wooden keys can be replaced with alternates, so a number of tunings are possible. The remaining two platforms are smaller and are topped with thick brass slabs. They ring like bells, one higher pitched and the other lower. Twister uses 4 of the 6 floor modules, namely the wooden oak module, the Tap Marimba, and the two brass-topped modules.

Twister originated from the artists' desire to make a piece that would feature a solo dancer's virtuoso tapping ability. The work combines tap, cello, and marimba to create sounds and movements inspired by wind -- from gentle breezes to twisting tornadoes.

Feldman and Vierk worked together on all major aspects of the work. They experimented with different tapping techniques on each of the Tap Dance Instrument floor modules. They developed sound materials and phrases together, and these later turned into larger sections and then into the entire piece. The cello and marimba parts were composed to intertwine with the tap dance part.

Composer and choreographer commission fees for Twister were made possible by a grant from Meet The Composer's Composer/Choreographer Project, a national program funded by the Ford Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trust.

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The premiere of Twister was at a music concert presented at Merkin Hall in New York City by the ISCM (International Society of Contemporary Music) on March 18, 1993. Anita Feldman Tap (Anita Feldman's dance company) performed Twister many times after that, at both dance and music venues. Performance highlights include New York City venues Town Hall, Woodpeckers Tap Dance Center, The Kitchen, and radio WNYC-fm, as well as at Dance Place in Washington DC. The piece was performed in Germany at Podewil concert hall in Berlin, Theaterhaus in Frankfurt, Galerie Rose in Hamburg, and Pro Musica Nova Festival, Radio Bremen.

Over the years Twister has been danced by Anita Feldman and by Rhonda Price. Cellists have included Ted Mook, Mark Stewart, and Bruce Wang. Marimba players have included Tigger Benford, Michael Lipsey, Gary Schall, and Thad Wheeler. Costume design is by Denise Mitchell. Lighting design is by Sarah Sidman.

This piece was recorded live in concert at Merkin Hall, New York City, March 18, 1993. The performers were Anita Feldman dancing on Tap Dance Instrument, Mark Stewart on cello, and Tigger Benford on marimba. 

Click here to view the score and listen to the audio recording.

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Twister was video recorded live in concert June 20, 1998, at The Kitchen (NYC). This provides a good look at the choreography, although the sound quality is fair. The performers in this recording were Rhonda Price dancing on Tap Dance Instrument, Bruce Wang on cello, and Thad Wheeler on marimba.

Click here to view the video recording.

Lois V Vierk and Anita Feldman

for 3 tap dancers on Tap  Dance Instrument (patented), 1 percussionist, and live electronics

ca. 11'42"

Hexa exists in two versions: the original 1988 dance concert version, and a slightly shorter version which was used in a video produced by Jan Roberts-Breslin in 1990 and subsequently released on CD (audio track only) by Innova Records in 2010 (Innova 233 "25 Years of New York New Music: The NYFA Collection"). The audio recording of this slightly shorter version is notable because tap dance, percussion, and electronic processing were recorded and mixed in a sound studio. The sound quality of the CD is excellent unlike, of course, that of video recordings made in concert. Hexa is a tap dance/music work and also stands alone as a music piece.

The original dance concert version has 316 measures and the CD version has 260 measures. Small cuts were made in the original version throughout the piece, to produce the CD version. Scores of both versions are included here. The CD version appears first and the original dance concert version follows.

Hexa is one of six music/tap dance works co-created by tap dance choreographer Anita Feldman and composer Lois V Vierk during the 1980s and 90s. This piece was the inaugural work for Feldman's Tap Dance Instrument (patented). It had long been Feldman's belief that music made by the feet was equal to music made by musical instruments. Desiring to dance on an instrument that would allow the dancers' feet to make resonant and varied music in any performance situation, she joined forces with San Francisco instrument builder Daniel Schmidt to design the modular and portable Tap Dance Instrument, which was then constructed by Schmidt in 1987. The Tap Dance Instrument consists of six platforms, each about 9 inches off the ground. They can be arranged in any desired configuration. Three of the modules are hexagons of approximately 5 feet across, made of different woods and constructed in varying ways, so that they have individual resonances and timbres. A fourth platform is the "Tap Marimba" with 7 pitched keys. These large wooden keys can be replaced with alternates, so a number of tunings are possible. The remaining two platforms are smaller and are topped with thick brass slabs. They ring like bells, one higher pitched and the other lower.

Hexa was named for all the sixes in the piece (hexagonal floor shapes, six feet on the Tap Dance Instrument, six percussion instruments played by the musician) and for the magical connotations of "hex" and "hex signs".

Opening the work, tap dancers' feet play a tune on the tap marimba, accompanied by the percussionist's muted cymbals. Dancers' arms, legs and bodies create visual designs as the tune moves the three performers back and forth across the tap marimba. Gradually the dancers move to non-pitched wood platforms and then to the brass floor modules.

Audio CD recording is by:

Anita Feldman, David Parker, Rhonda Price dancing on Tap Dance Instrument (patented)

Percussionist Gary Schall

Live electronics with Lexicon PCM 42 by Lois V Vierk

from CD Innova 233 "25 Years of New York New Music: The NYFA Collection"

Click here to view the CD on Innova.

Click here to view the score and listen to the audio recording.

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Video recorded live in concert (a good look at the choreography but sound quality is mediocre) 

Tap dance performed by Anita Feldman, Tim Grandia, Rhonda Price

Kerry Meads, percussionist

Live electronics by Lois V Vierk

Video recorded live in concert June 20, 1998, at The Kitchen (NYC)

Click here to view the video recording.

Lois V Vierk

for orchestra

ca. 11'30"

This piece was inspired by the twisted sandstone canyon in the southern California high desert in Angeles National Park called "Devil's Punchbowl". At this exquisite site you are always aware of both extreme beauty and also danger. Descending into the canyon the trail is rugged, rocky, and treacherous, and the heat is scorching. But rising up from the deep gorge are steep, magnificent mountains with their cold streams and sweet-smelling pine trees. The vistas are grand. Far in the distance, soft shapes and hues of the landscape melt into one another. 

Devil's Punchbowl unfolds slowly. Musical materials are constantly developed, pushing the work forward from a relatively simple beginning to its dynamic and colorful climax. The piece opens with languorous brass slides downward. String phrases answer the brass, and woodwinds add color and wisps of melody. Gradually the strings begin their long ascending glissando, sweeping the woodwinds up to their highest register, ending the first section.

Immediately strings and low woodwinds enter with agitated multi-color, ever-changing trills and tremolos. Various instruments combine to form sinewy melodic shapes which creep slowly upward. Percussion becomes more pronounced. Brass adds rhythm and harmony. Each phrase builds on the one before as, little by little, the music becomes faster, louder, and rhythmically emphatic. Trombones and celli playing fortissimo glissandi in the lowest register propel the piece to its full orchestral climax. After the high energy of the climax the music returns briefly to the lyrical mood of the opening, ending gently. 

Devil's Punchbowl was commissioned by the Bang On A Can Festival and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. The commissioning of this work was made possible by a grant from the Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. 

The recording of Devil's Punchbowl is of the premiere, given by Victoria Bond conducting the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra on March 21, 1994. They performed the piece beautifully. 

Below are two versions of the score. First is the final version, incorporating several sets of edits to the orchestration made after the premiere and over subsequent years, and which is dated 2009. The major changes to orchestration, emphasizing an expanded role for trombones, etc., are marked above the staves of the score. 

The second is the original score as used by Victoria Bond in 1994 (with numerous indications marked for my first set of edits).

Click here to view the revised score and listen to the recording.

Click here to view the original score and listen to the recording.

Lois V Vierk

for brass quintet

ca. 6'00"

This is a short and lighthearted work. Composed for the Chestnut Brass Company, it's a demonstration of the varied instrumental colors of the brass quintet. The image that inspired my sounds was a sunbow that I'd seen on a hike in the Sierras, with rainbow-like colors that appeared when sunlight shone through the spray of a small waterfall.

Sunbow was commisssioned by the Chestnut Brass Company with support from the Pew Charitable Trust.

This recording is by the Chestnut Brass Company, live in concert July 7, 1997.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Lois V Vierk

for eight ryūteki flutes

ca. 22'33"

Hyaku Man no Kyū (One Million Spheres) is for 8 ryūteki flutes, of the Gagaku Japanese court music ensemble. It employs Gagaku playing techniques and embraces the breathy sound of this bamboo instrument with large finger holes, lacquered inside and out. The work is also influenced by minimalist long-tone music, especially the beautiful and uncompromising walls of sound composed by Phill Niblock.

The work employs instruments in pairs. Ryūteki 1 and 2 begin with repeated short phrases sliding up to the pitch B in the midrange. There are pitch slides, breath accents and dynamic crescendo/decrescendo patterns. Gradually all the instrumental pairs enter - - ryūteki 3-4, 5-6, 7-8. All the pairs play the same material as 1-2 although with fewer repeats, in a kind of giant, slowly-moving canon. Pair 1-2 moves down in pitch, with repeated short phrases centered on A, G, F, E, as the other pairs follow. The pitches then push upward, with 1-2 moving through midrange pitches F, G, A, B and then ascending stepwise through the octave above, finishing in the highest register of the instrument and finally settling on high B. Again, all the other pairs follow, with fewer repetitions than the first pair.

I think of this piece as a pulsating and directional sound mass made of many parts, say a million, and that's the origin of the title. Each successive pitch center is allotted a shorter amount of time as the piece proceeds. The slowly changing sound mass moves from lower to higher energy with its movements through pitches and instrumental range, constantly developing phrases with more and more nuance, accents and articulations as the work moves towards its conclusion.

I wrote Hyaku Man no Kyū in 1983 during my 2-year stay in Tōkyō to study Gagaku with Mr. Sukeyasu Shiba, then the lead ryūteki player of the emperor's court orchestra, Kunaicho Gakubu. Previous to that I had studied Gagaku for 10 years in Los Angeles with Mr. Suenobu Tōgi, UCLA professor and previously also of the Kunaicho Gakubu. The work was premiered in New York City in 1983.

Recorded live in concert at the premiere on May 4, 1983 at Experimental Intermedia, New York City. One ryūteki was played live along with a tape of the 7 other parts, which had been recorded previously at India Navigation Studios, New York  City.  Live and recorded ryūteki parts performed  by Lois V Vierk.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Lois V Vierk

for three clarinets

ca. 4'43"

In this short work, the three clarinets act together to produce what I call one "sound shape". The elements of the sound shapes in this piece include dynamic gissandi and held notes, crescendo/decrescendo patterns, and fast moving notes. Over the course of the work, sound shapes flow from the extreme high register down through the mid range to the low register. Material is presented in imitative passages. Because the instruments are of the same timbre, all melodic nuances are clearly audible.

This work was influenced by certain pieces of Gagaku, Japanese court music, which I was studying and performing at the time in ensembles led by Gagaku master and UCLA professor Suenobu Tõgi. In these particular pieces, several ryuteki flutes (my instrument) or several hickiriki double reeds play canons in free rhythm. A sound at once massive and transparent is produced.

As for the title of my composition, the intensity of the sound of three clarinets, especially playing loudly in the high register, reminds me of the unrelenting heat of the southern California desert. 

Recording info:

Recorded live, April 16, 1978, at a concert of the Independent Composers Association in their "Second Second Storey Series" at Larchmont Center, Los Angeles.

Clarinetists - Alan Solomon, Dave Ocker, Laurel Hall

For more information about this concert check out the excellent blog Mixed Meters by Dave Ocker:

http://mixedmeters.com/2008/05/second-second-story-series-concert-one.html

The present work was originally the first movement of my composition Song for Three Clarinets, which went through yet another renaming, Desert Heat.  Finally I settled on using the first movement only, with the title Small Shadow in the Desert.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

 for Gagaku ensemble

ca. 23'56"

Over the 12 years I actively studied Gagaku I discovered many things about sound. It wasn't, to my thinking, "Japanese sound" in particular – but sound. I learned how nuances of sound, such as articulations, dynamic shapes, and pitch bends are not just ornaments but all can serve to move a musical phrase forward. I learned how a number of the same instruments sounding together can make a "wall" of sound that can be at once powerful as well as graceful, with a transparency of texture that allows the subtleties of each instrument to come through. And I experienced music unfolding slowly over a long period of time, unhurried, with elegance.

Many of my early compositions, like more than a few Gagaku pieces, have slow beginnings and gradually gather speed and momentum. Although much of my current work uses other approaches to form, I have returned to this idea in Silversword. It seemed the most natural way to let the musical materials develop. But I have not tried to write Gagaku here. The way that I blend instruments and seek new colors from the blendings is not traditional to Gagaku. And the work's high energy climax built on increasingly dense textures, more and more volume, and repetition of ever-shortening phrases, has more to do with my own sensibilities as a Western composer than with anything in Gagaku.

This piece is named after the Hawaiian silversword plant. On the island of Maui you can ascend 10,000 feet to reach the peak of mount Haleakala. From that precipice you look down into a vast crater ("big enough to hold Manhattan") at an ancient desert strewn with volcanic cinder cones. Volcanic ash has been windswept over the centuries into spectacular stripes and swatches of color -- bright white, brilliant orange, shining black. If you then descend 3,000 feet into the bowl of the crater, you will see magnificent plants scattered like jewels on the ashscape. These are silverswords. Their leaves are like silvery quills that grow out of the arid soil in spherical crowns to catch water from the evening fog. Their bloom spikes rise up to five feet with hundreds of tiny white flowers forming rosettes.

Silversword is dedicated very respectfully to my Gagaku teacher in Tokyo, Mr. Sukeyasu Shiba, and to Reigakusha, the Gagaku ensemble that he founded.

Special thanks especially to Mari Ono and Naoyuki Miura and their organization, Music From Japan (New York City).

Special thanks also to Bob Cummins, David Behrman, Yuji Takahashi, Akemi Naito, Donel Young, Bruce Ide and Karen Pearlman.

Silversword was premiered on July 28, 1996 at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center Festival 1996, New York City.

Audio is an informal recording made in a rehearsal space in Tokyo in June 1996.  There were changes to the score made after this rehearsal and before the premiere in July 1996, most notably to the biwa parts.

Recording by Reigakusha - gagaku ensemble in Tokyo, Artistic Director Sukeyasu Shiba.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

 Lois V Vierk

for vocal soloist, accordion, violin, cello, and percussion

Back in the 1980s accordionist/composer Guy Klucevsek commissioned around 25 composers to write short polkas for his "Ain't Nothin' But a Polka Band"--composers like Elliot Sharp, Al Leroy, Peter Zummo, John King, Bill Obrecht, Mary Jane Leach, David Mahler, David Garland, many more, and me, too. The Klucevsek polka concerts were raucous, fun, clever, and always extremely well-performed. It was a great time being part of these events! Arthur Stidfole wrote the soloist's words for my short piece. Attack Cat Polka takes about 90 seconds.

Recording is by:

Guy Klucevsek, accordion

Thomas Buckner, baritone

Mary Rowell, violin

Erik Friedlander, cello

Bill Ruyle, percussion

from CD:

Starkland ST-218 "Guy Klucevsek: Polka From The Fringe"

http://www.starkland.com/st218/index.htm

Click here to view the score.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for three tenor voices and three bass voices, with conductor

ca. 3'15"

Kana was my first piece for multiples of like-instruments or voices. Soon after writing this short piece I composed TUSK for 18 trombones, Go Guitars for 5 electric guitars, then works for multiple cellos, multiple trumpets, etc. While composing this piece I was a composition student at California Institute of the Arts, and I was also playing ryuteki flute in the Gagaku (Japanese Court Music) ensemble at UCLA. I was very familiar with a Gagaku piece called Etenraku. Kana takes as its starting point the sung version of the flute part of etenraku. The sung version, called shoga, is not performed, but can be thought of as a kind of solfeggio of gestures. The player is supposed to learn and memorize the shoga first, before playing the melody on the flute and before looking at notation. In Kana, I started with the shoga syllables to Etenraku and developed textures of sound organized into three short sections: glissandi, which move into a rhythmic middle section, and then close with sung and whispered glissandi incorporating short rhythmic patterns.

There are some real words in the score. The intentional words are names of two of the instruments in the Gagaku orchestra, namely Taiko (big drum) and Hichiriki (double reed wind instrument).

Recorded live in concert by singers from California Institute of the Arts, conducted by the composer, at the Second Second Story Series, produced by the Independent Composers Association, Los Angeles 1978.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for 18 trombones

ca. 6'23"

TUSK was written in 1981. During the '80s much of my music was for ensembles of multiples of the same instrument. Besides this piece for 18 trombones, I composed works for 8 cellos, for 8 violins, 6 trumpets, 5 electric guitars, 8 ryuteki flutes (bamboo flutes from the Japanese Gagaku court music orchestra), etc. These like-instrument ensembles allow a wide variety of timbral, dynamic and rhythmic nuance to be heard. I've always found the sound of this type of ensemble deeply beautiful and powerful. In these pieces, two or more instruments act together to form one voice or "sound shape", which in turn interacts with other sound shapes. There are three groups of six instruments each in this work. I create what I like to call a Big Instrument, from the sound of the entire ensemble together – a giant trombone consisting of 18 parts. TUSK was commissioned by California Institute of the Arts, Contemporary Music Festival 1981.

Recorded live in concert by Miles Anderson and trombone ensemble, conducted by Lois V Vierk, at the 1981 Cal Arts Festival, California Institute of the Arts.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for solo piano

ca. 4'30"

When pianist Aki Takahashi talked to me in 1990 about commissioning a short piece inspired by a Beatles tune, I enthusiastically began going through all my old favorites from teenage years. I chose "She Loves You" and got to work. The first phrase of this tune, an ascending scale, is stretched out with tremolos and arpeggiated embellishments over the beginning 43 measures of my piece. After that, my composition follows the harmonic structure of "She Loves You", with melodic fragments woven in. At the very end of the piece the musical phrase "yeah yeah yeah" is whispered briefly by the piano.

This recording is by pianist Sachiko Kato, recorded live in concert on Aug. 20, 2008 at the Phoenix Hall in Osaka, Japan.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for flute, electric guitar, and marimba

ca. 10'09"

Io (1999) features virtuoso performances on amplified flute, amplified marimba, and electric guitar. After an introductory section, a tumultuous, high energy middle section begins with short, dynamic phrases. As the work progresses, each phrase develops materials from the one before, gradually producing longer and longer phrases, and dense textures of interlocking tremolos and glissandi, with sharply articulated sounds in all instruments. A lyrical statement ends the piece.

The work is titled after Jupiter's innermost moon, which in turn is named for the mythological beautiful maiden Io, beloved of Zeus but tormented by Zeus' wife, Hera. The moon Io was discovered by Galileo in 1610. In the 1970's it was discovered to have over 100 active volcanoes, the only known volcanoes outside the earth. At times the volcanoes shoot huges plumes of sulfur up to 300 kilometers into the sky. Io is caught in a gravitational tug of war. It is periodically nudged out of regular orbit by two nearby moons, Europa and Ganymede, then pulled back by the massive gravitational field of Jupiter. Io is constantly squeezed and distorted, like a rubber ball held in the hand. The friction produced by this action produces enormous heat – enough to melt the rock deep within and cause the great volcanoes and lava flow.

This piece was commissioned by Ensemble L'ART POUR L'ART of Hamburg, Germany. It was recorded on flutist Margaret Lancaster's CD "Io" on New World Records.

Recording is by:

Margaret Lancaster, flute

Larry Polansky, electric guitar

Matthew Gold,  marimba

from CD:

New World Records 82720 "Io - Margaret Lancaster, flutes"

Click here to view the CD on New World Records.

Click here to view the score and listen to the music.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for solo accordion

ca. 12'12"

The myriad timbres and expressive dynamics of the accordion have always been a wonder to me. The instrument's deep and powerful sounds, its penetrating middle register with octave doublings, its high-pitched soft, fragile, colors are all full of interest and are gorgeous. Unlike a piano, where the struck notes die away, an accordion held-note can dramatically or gently crescendo and decrescendo. Many kinds of accents and dynamic shapes are possible. Dynamics make the music flow.

Blue jets and red sprites are two kinds of lightning that flare at the outer limits of earth's atmosphere. They flash high above a thunderstorm, appearing over the part of the storm that is producing the most powerful cloud-to-ground lightning. One theory of jets and sprites holds that after a strong lightning bolt there is an upward rush of electrons. As the electrons surge upward in a kind of upside-down avalanche they eventually collide with nitrogen molecules. This makes them glow blue or, at higher altitudes, flash bloodred.

These descriptions of visual and aural events were my starting points in writing the music.

Blue Jets Red Sprites was commissioned by Guy Klucevsek.

Recording is by Guy Klucevsek, accordion

Please note that the score has been slightly updated.  The recording does not contain those updates so it will not completely match the score. 

from CD:

Starkland ST-209 "Guy Klucevsek: Free Range Accordion"

http://www.starkland.com/st209/index.htm

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for trumpet, cello, electric guitar, percussion, and piano/synthesizer

ca. 12'25"

The title of this piece refers to the way in which astronomers and physicists measure movement and distances of distant celestial bodies. Briefly, characteristic lines and patterns made by different elements found in the stars, etc., as observed through a spectrometer, are shifted in one direction or the other, towards the red or towards the blue end of the spectrum, depending on whether the body is moving away from us or towards us. This shift is called the "red shift".

When I wrote this work, I had the feeling of something of great mass and motion, far away, like a comet. It first seemed to move slowly, then gradually began accelerating toward us, faster and faster, until finally at great speed I felt it sweeping down upon us, through us, and back out into the heavens.

During the 1980s and into the '90s I worked on developing principles of "Exponential Structure", in which elements such as time, harmonic motion, rhythmic and timbral development, sound density, etc. are controlled mathematically by exponential factors. These are not meant to be abstract constructs, but formal ideas based on the emotional thrust of the sounds and of the piece as a whole. The harmonic motion (movement from one pitch center to another), with its ever-decreasing time segments, is the clearest expression of Exponential Structure in this work. 

The original 1989 version of Red Shift (cello, electric guitar, percussion, synthesizer) was commissioned by the Experimental Intermedia Foundation with support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and is available on CD from Tzadik Records. In 1991 the piece was reorchestrated as Red Shift 4 for A Cloud Nine Consort and again for Ensemble Modern.

This recording does not totally match the score.  The recording is of a 1991 orchestration of this piece for the New York ensemble A Cloud Nine Consort, without cello.  Performers are:

Gary Trosclair, trumpet/synthesizer

Mark Stewart, electric guitar

Alan Moverman, synthesizer/piano

Tigger Benford, percussion

from CD:

New World Records NWCR646 "Bang On A Can Live, Vol. 2,  Emergency Music"

Click here to view the CD on New World Records.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for four accordions

ca. 20'00"

Many of my works from the 1980's are for ensembles of like-instruments – 8 cellos, 18 trombones, 8 violins, 8 ryuteki flutes, etc., and this work for 4 accordions. In these pieces two or more of the instruments act together, forming a "sound shape". The beginning of this work consists of relatively simple sound shapes of trills and tremolos. The piece unfolds slowly. It utilizes principles which I call "exponential structure" in which rates of change of musical materials are constantly increasing by an exponential factor. Gradually these materials develop into more complex and dynamic scales, repeated chords and clusters, accents and dynamic patterns. Over a 20-minute time span Manhattan Cascade is transformed from a gentle flow of sound to its cascading conclusion, crashing like a giant waterfall.

This piece was commissioned by Guy Klucevsek.

Vierk: Manhattan Cascade, for 4 piano­‐accordions      

Recording is by Guy Klucevsek, accordion      

from CD: New World Records NWCR626 "Manhattan Cascade"

The composer has approved this work for performance by a soloist with a recorded track for the other parts.

Click here to view the CD on New World Records. 

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for cello and piano

ca. 7'19"

I wrote the melody for the first movement of Words Fail Me soon after September 11, 2001. My family and I had watched horrid events of that day "live" out of our apartment window, as thousands of people were murdered before our eyes and the World Trade Center was shot down. It was just across the Hudson River from where we live. It is an image I will never ever forget of smoke and dust drenching lower Manhattan in a horrible white cloud of debris that used to be a building vibrant with the energy of many living, breathing people.

After spending some weeks in a kind of daze I eventually picked up musical sketches I had been working on before 9/11. The materials in those sketches seemed so irrelevant that I threw them away. Then I wrote simple music. There is room for some improvisation. This is the first movement.

The second movement is made up of dense instrumental textures. It is dynamic and rhythmic. It builds relatively simple phrases into more complex statements, which develop into a high energy climax. This piece is meant as a tribute to the victims and to all the people of greater New York City, as well as to all people anywhere who survive tragedy and disaster and go on with life with great resolve.

Recording is by:

Theodore Mook, cello

Margaret Kampmeier, piano

from CD:

New World Records 80766 "Lois V Vierk: Words Fail Me"

Click here to view the CD on New World Records.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Lois V Vierk

for string quartet

ca. 24'13"

Into the Brightening Air dates originally dates from 1994, but was revised in 1999. It was conceived as a dance piece for Karen Bamonte Danceworks W (despite its considerable abstraction, the rhythmic thrust and harmonic openness of Vierk's music make it especially successful for dance, rather like Stravinsky's). This work shows the most recent development in her music, embodied in the music's flow. The piece creates the by-now expected accumulation of energy in its opening minutes, but then, even as it grows in density, it also begins to slow down and open up, and we find ourselves in a new landscape, more spacious and generous than we had known before. While not following a traditional format, the music does seem to exist in some sort of multi-movement form, played without pause. Perhaps this trajectory is derived from the Yeats poem "The Song of the Wandering Aengus", which inspired the title: in the poem the writer catches a "silver trout" which metamorphoses into a "glimmering girl" and "faded through the brightening air", leaving him with a lifelong sense of loss and yearning.

--Robert Carl

Recording is by: 

 Eva Gruesser, violin

Patricia Davis, violin

Lois Martin, viola

Bruce Wang, cello

from CD:

Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"

Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.

Click here to view the score and listen to the music.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for string quartet

ca. 14'11"

Currents of sound made up of string phrases and textures of tremolos, glissandos, sustained sounds, and highly articulated and accented passages flow through this piece. The currents alternately co-exist, separate, and coalesce, in their gradual transformation from a gentle beginning to a dynamic conclusion.

At the beginning of the work, the first violin and cello act together to form one "sound scape". This shape interacts with the sound shape of the second violin and viola. Throughout the piece two or more instruments always act together to form one shape, one sound. the music unfolds slowly. The constant transforming and developing of the sound shapes and relationships employ principles which I call "exponential structure". This has to do with rates of change of musical materials, which in this work are constantly increasing by an exponential factor.

The term "river beneath the river" comes from the Spanish expression "rio abajo rio", which refers to the innermost soul, the depest expression of a human.

This work was commissioned by the Barbican Center of London for the Kronos Quartet.

Recording is by: 

Eva Gruesser, violin

Patricia Davis, violin

Lois Martin, viola

Bruce Wang, cello

from CD:

Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"

Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, and 2 bass trombones

ca. 21'47"

This 22-minute work unfolds slowly, and it gradually builds in intensity to a dynamic and expansive climax. At first, languid descending glissandi flow across the space from choir to choir. Little by little the materials develop, pitch relationships become more complex and faster moving, the work becomes rhythmic, glissandi get faster and change direction, the register expands. At its climax the piece settles into arpeggios across the range of the instruments, against fortissimo chords and bass trombone pedal tones.

Jagged Mesa was premiered in 1990 at St Mark's Church in the Bowery, on New York City's lower East Side, with a modern dance choreographed by Risa Jaroslow. St. Mark's Church is a big, cavernous space, with balcony around the top, and a beautiful modern dance floor below. There is a long reverberation time in the church. The piece was composed with this in mind. Brass players were in the balcony – 3 players on each side – and the composer conducted from below, on the same level as the dancers. Sounds in the piece are written to overlap. The slowly-moving tones and glissandi blend and resonate in the space.

Recording is by: 

Gary Trosclair, trumpet

Bruce Eidem, trombone

Christopher Banks, bass trombone

from CD:

Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"

Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.