Composer Highlight: Fjóla Evans

Hello friends, meet the fantastic Fjóla Evans! She has been a friend of andPlay for a while and we are really looking forward to performing her piece, DOGGED, again! The first time we played it was on her master's graduation recital back in 2014. Now it has been revised a bit and it will be our program opener on Tuesday. So, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and get to know Fjóla a bit...

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What is something you would like the audience to know about your piece?

DOGGED is an attempt to continuously reframe limited musical material, forcing constant reinvention of the same motive. It was written specifically for andPlay, and I am so honoured that they are playing my music!

What was your inspiration/mind set when writing your piece?

I tend to be a bit obsessive about my music. I find that re-listening to a piece of music always brings new epiphanies and a deeper (or just totally different!) understanding of the work. When I find a song or a piece that I like, I listen to it obsessively, chasing these feelings. I wanted to experiment with this idea in the piece for Hannah and Maya.

Do you have any non-music related traditions that you do to get your creativity flowing?

I am so easily distracted that sometimes when I really want to get into it I turn off my phone and my internet. That said, I also like to coast through youtube and wikipedia to find ideas or new tangents when I'm feeling stuck. Oooo and I very occasionally like to do a tarot or rune reading on myself before getting to work, just to get a different context for my ideas, or maybe just to procrastinate.

What is your favorite car/travel snack?

Love a chip! Peanut-butter stuffed pretzels are insane. I am also guiltily into Swedish berries (a Canadian thing?!). They are basically corn starch, sugar, carnauba wax, and food colouring ...

If you had to live the rest of your life without cheese or chocolate which would you choose?

Ohhhhh gawd I dunno if I could choose! I recently discovered these blue-cheese chocolates that sound like they would be disgusting but are actually really good. That's my final answer!

Check out more wonderful things by Fjóla on her website and soundcloud!

Composer Highlight: Peter Kramer

We are beyond thrilled to present a new batch of composers to you for our upcoming String Theories concert on March 22nd @ 8 PM at Roulette presented by the String Orchestra of Brooklyn (SOB)! First up is Peter Kramer, an Oberlin grad just like ourselves and a current doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. Carrie Frey, violist, friend, and member of Chartreuse introduced us to Peter's piece, Cantus Fractabilis, and we knew that if would be a great piece for this program. We hope to see you at the show so that you can hear this great piece and the amazing scordatura that goes along with it!

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What is something you would like the audience to know about your piece?

The piece is partly improvised, inspired by the chaconne and passacaglia forms of the renaissance, the players are tasked to repeat a sequence of chords (a sort of phasing canon) with different techniques and variation at each repetition, an ever-changing scordatura also becomes a feature as the piece progresses, altering the original pitch material. 

What was your inspiration/mind set when writing your piece?

Having studied harpsichord as an undergraduate at Oberlin, I wanted to utilize a sound world and gestural idioms in this piece that reflected the repertoire I was immersed in as a keyboardist.

Do you have any non-music related traditions that you do to get your creativity flowing?

Shower, shave, and a good breakfast!

What is your favorite car/travel snack?

Wasabi almonds!

If you had to live the rest of your life without cheese or chocolate which would you choose?

Cheese and champagne is my #1 favorite food, hotdogs come in second, chocolate is not included on this list... but I eat it with pleasure.

Check out more from Peter at his website and come to the show on Tuesday to hear Cantus Fractabilis!

Composer Highlight: Jonah Rosenberg

Tell us a bit about your piece.

I'm interested in ambient mechanical/electrical sound, the way they relate to how we hear harmonic spectra and the sound's relationship to our intuition.

With this piece for andPlay + Martha I'm trying to give organismal properties to these kinds of environmental musics, putting some fur on those mechanical legs.

I am also trying extraordinarily hard to compose something superb.

Did you have any particularly invigorating or difficult times writing your piece for andPlay + Martha?

IT IS ALL JUST SO INVIGORATING. 

Something I've been talking about quite a bit when I discuss this piece is how difficult it is to write music that is very quiet, it took a lot of brain energy and time sitting blowing air through my soprano saxophone to figure out what this music was going to sound like.

What music has most recently inspired you (to dance, sing, be a better person, etc.)?

I can't say I was blown away frequently enough by the records released in 2015, though I did listen to the Kendrick record quite a bit, which is amazing, and the new Threadgill record "In for a Penny, In for a Pound" was great. I also rediscovered recently Julius Hemphill's classic "Reflections".

You are stranded on a desert island. What snack do you bring?

Cashews and I just got a jar of coconut oil...

but if it's a desert island they probably already have these things? maybe? desert island or deserted island?

dessert island? send me to dessert island.

Lastly, do you have a fun fact that you learned recently?

Apparently the Milky Way is full of weird invisible noodles, according to astronomers.

If you need more Jonah head on over to his nifty W E B S I T E!

Artist Highlight: Grace Engel

We would like you to meet our lovely friend and collaborator, Grace Engle. She made the INCREDIBLE poster for our upcoming Notes on Fiction concert at the Center for Fiction (Thursday, Feb. 11th at 7:30). This concert has not only been a great opportunity for us to bring a story and music together, but also to work with an artist on creating a depiction of this magical world that we want to immerse our audience in. Feast you eyes on this and some of the other pieces that Grace is sharing with us!

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you are up to!

First off, thank you so much for not only approaching me for collaboration, but also for these fun questions!

I've been interested in art my whole life but I only got serious about it in the last few years when I went to an artist residency in Missouri. I spent a year there working on technique and learning from fantastic peers. Through the opportunities offered me by my residency, I was able to open up my Etsy store and actually get some income for my weaving and ceramics. 

Now, I'm working as a Wilderness Recovery Guide in Asheville, North Carolina, and experimenting with my art in some exciting new ways! It really fuels my life and brings a level of joy to each day that nothing else ever has.

How does your collaboration with andPlay fit into your body of work/other collabs that you have done?

I was so thrilled when I heard details about the Notes On Fiction performance and immediately had a lot of ideas running through my mind for the poster. I love working on pieces like this because I was given a few parameters about content, and then told to just run with it and let my inspiration take over. It's really great for me as an artist when I feel like I have a lot of flexibility in a commission and that my developing style can come through naturally. 

A lot of my work is figurative but I deeply enjoy drawing flora and fauna, especially when I can get dense with it. I wanted to bring a youthful aspect to the piece and drew inspiration from some of my favorite illustrators, such as Tove Jansson. I'm really excited about the finished piece and I wish I could attend the concert!

What has been inspiring you lately?

Two things leap to mind; Goauche painting and Pat Perry. I've been using watercolors for years but only got into Goauche recently. It's so much fun to play with and it's a really versatile medium.

Pat Perry has been a favorite artist of mine for several years. I look at his art on a daily basis. He's a role model to me in many ways, since he started going to school for art and then decided to quit and just draw on his own. I used to feel like my art could never live up to my own expectations since I didn't attend an art school, but looking at Perry's independently-developed body of work has been a constant relief and inspiration to me. He is truly committed to his craft. 

Favorite 'nobody-is-watching' snack?

Anybody can watch me eat, and that's a fact. I've been eating dried mangoes like it was nobody's business lately. I will also admit that a lot of chocolate goes into my body on a real frequent basis.

What have you andLiked this week? (Anything from a book, movie, tv show, music, podcast, etc.)

I'm living in a Steinbeck world right now! A few months ago, I read The Red Pony which started this domino effect of me only reading Steinbeck novels. I just finished East of Eden and I was incredibly impressed by it! 

Follow Grace on her instagram 

https://www.instagram.com/_phlox_/

and check out her Etsy shop (Maya carries her pencils and pens around in one of these incredible pouches, and cannot stop showing it off!)

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SHOPHLOX?ref=hdr_shop_menu