Ear to the earth 2007:
Madeleine Shapiro

Madeleine Shapiro: The Nature Project

For Ear to the Earth '07, renowned cellist Madeleine Shapiro put together a riveting concert of works for cello and natural sounds. Works in the program featured the sounds of birds, snow, tigers, and, in the case of Paul Rudy's work Grandchild of Tree, the plucked needles of an amplified potted cactus!

PROGRAM

Wednesday, October 16, 2007, 8:30pm; Judson Church, NYC

Invocation.............................................................................................................................Peter Zummo
Peter Zummo, didjeridoo
Fragments from Cold..........................................................................................................Matthew Burtner
Madeleine Shapiro, cello; tape
For the Birds.......................................................................................................................... Judith Shatin
Madeleine Shapiro, cello; tape
Tx3 (Tres, Tristes, Tigres).................................................................................................Guillermo Galindo
Madeleine Shapiro, cello; tape
Axolotl.............................................................................................................................Morton Subotnick
Madeleine Shapiro, cello; live electronics
Grandchild of Tree.......................................................................................................................Paul Rudy
Madeleine Shapiro, cactus; live electronics

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Madeleine Shapiro, cellist, concert producer, educator, and founding director of ModernWorks, performs throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America. From 1974-1996, she was cellist and co-director of The New Music Consort, which toured the United States and Europe and presented premiere performances of works by Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Charles Wuorinen, and Mario Davidovsky. Her performances are available on New World Records, CRI, Mode Records, and Harvestworks labels.
Peter Zummo has been composing for solo trombone and ensemble since 1967. Critics and colleagues describe him as an important exponent of the American contemporary classical tradition. His compositions explore the methodologies of the minimalist, jazz, world music, and rock genres. Zummo’s compositions are published by Frog Peak. Recorded releases of his work include Zummo With an X (Loris Records), Experimenting With Household Chemicals (XI), Slybersonic Tromosome (Penumbra), Downtown Only (Lovely Music).
Matthew Burtner's music and sound art explores Ecoacoustics, interactive media, and extended rhythmic and noise-based musical systems. First prize winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition, he has also received honors and awards from Bourges, Gaudeamus, Darmstadt, Prix d’Ete, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, Luigi Russolo, American Music Center, and Hultgren Biennial. Commissioners of his music include the Peabody Trio (USA), Spectri Sonori (USA), Augsburg Kulturburo der Stadt (Germany), Trio Ascolto (Germany), The WIRE (U.K.), Innova (USA), and the Euridice Label (Norway).
Judith Shatin is a timbral explorer, whose inspirations range from poetry and myth to the calls of the animals around us and the universe beyond. Her music has been performed by such ensembles as the Denver, Illinois, Knoxville, National and Richmond Symphonies, and has been featured at the Aspen, BAM Next Wave, Autumn in Moscow, and West Cork Festivals. Twice a fellow at the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, Shatin has received four NEA fellowships and grants from the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the New Jersey State Arts Council and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Guillermo Galindo's work spans from the field of orchestral and symphonic composition to the domains of musical computer interaction, electro-acoustic music, opera, and sound design. Following the school of European and American Avant Garde composers of the 60's and 70's Galindo's music absorbs and combines existing styles to create polymorphic and extremely unusual musical specimens. His music has been performed at major festivals throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. During the past ten years, Galindo has been composing music for the San Francisco based Asian American Dance Performances Unbound Spirit Dance Company.

Morton Subotnick is one of the United States' premier composers of electronic music and an innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music systems. Most of his music calls for a computer part, or live electronic processing; his oeuvre utilizes many of the important technological breakthroughs in the history of the genre. Currently, Subotnick co-directs both the Composition program and the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology (CEAIT) at the California Institute of the Arts. He tours extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe as a lecturer and composer/performer. He is published by European-American.
Paul Rudy, composer and sound artist, is the 2002 winner of the EMS Electroacoustic Music Prize (Stockholm, Sweden) along with other recognition from the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Competition (2000 & 2005), the Fulbright Foundation, Meet the Composer, the National Music Teachers Association, and the Missouri Music Teachers Association. Commissions include Meet the Composer USA, the American Composer’s Forum Jerome Composer Commissioning Project, 8th Blackbird and Third Practice, Music From China, New York New Music Ensemble, Kansas City Chorale, newEar, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the UMKC Conservatory. His works, published by Twisted Trail Music, have been broadcast and performed worldwide and can be found on EMS, Living Artist, Capstone, SEAMUS and Centaur recordings.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Invocation
Traditionally, Aboriginal Australians make their dijeridus out of fallen eucalyptus branches that have been hollowed out by termites. These instruments are the principal accompaniment to songs that express the kind of local relationships to the earth that are central to an indigenous people. As a trombonist, I have a tendency to experiment with my own tradition's techniques, which led me to experiment with their lip-reed technique, one of the most advanced in the world. A natural consequence of this has been my discovery that I could experiment with the tube itself. Fabricating dijeridus out of the materials that are easily available to me — not eucalyptus branches, but rather industrial piping — has given me the opportunity to create instruments that have their own individual sonic character, and are tunable. Like the original dijeridu, mine have beeswax mouthpieces. - Peter Zummo

Fragments from Cold
Like a skier moving across the snow, I imagined the cellist sliding the bow across the surface of the cello. The performer’s breath and the sounds of snow reveal contours of two terrains, hidden but only submerged. Fragments from cold: the snow from outside, the breath from within. The tracks of both crossings are left in noise. - Matthew Burtner

For the Birds
For the Birds, for amplified cello and electronics is an homage to the birds of the Yellowstone region, one of Madeleine’s favorites, as well as a play on John Cage’s book of that name. Rather than imitate the sounds of the natural world in music, I include them, sometimes directly, sometimes digitally transformed. The joining of the voice of the cello with that of the birds, reminds us of the joining of the human worlds with those of the birds that surround us. The transformation of their voices speaks to the transformative power of music.

For the Birds was commissioned by Madeleine Shapiro. I am grateful to naturalist Kevin Colver for sharing his recordings. Bird enthusiasts my also know that he is the narrator of the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Western Region.

Each of the four movements is named for, and draws on the voices of, different groups of birds.

1. Songbirds
2. Sapsuckers
3. Birds of Prey
4. Water Birds

- Judith Shatin

Tx3 (tres, tristes, tigres)
Since the early 1990’s, when I worked as a sound engineer at the California Library of Natural Sounds, I have written a series of pieces based on sounds from nature or recordings thereof. These pieces have, through the years, become an increasingly important part of my work and of my political views regarding environmental matters. Tx3 is a very challenging piece written for Madeleine Shapiro. The piece has a narrative form, open ended and non consequential, and uses processed and non-processed tiger sounds which merge and respond to the expressive, dramatic and energetic gestures played by the cello. Needless to say, the cello part is based on the tigers’ particular personality and unique behavior. Tigers are solitary and unpredictable animals which respondimmediately to stimuli and go through frequent mood changes. - Guillermo Galindo

Axolotl
Axolotl (for cello and electronic ghost score) was commissioned by Joel Krosnick and first performed by him at the Library of congress on February 13, 1981. It is the first of two works in Part I of a series entitled The Double Life of Amphibians (Part I, Amphibians; Part II, Beasts; Part III; Angels). The other work in Part I is called Ascent Into Air. The Axolotl is a Mexican salamander; it is transparent and delicate with two filigree wing-like appendages extending from either side and floating above the creature. These are its lungs for its future ascent onto land but the Axolotl never goes through the final stage of its potential development. The Axolotl demonstrates neoteny, remaining in its aquatic larval form even as a sexually mature adult and not undergoing metamorphosis into a terrestrial form. The name axolotl comes from the Nahuatl language; in Spanish it is called ajolote. Axolotls have cousins often referred to as "mud puppies" that appear similar and are found throughout Mexico and in many places in the southern United States. - Morton Subotnick

Degrees of Separation: "Grandchild of Tree"
The idea for a cactus and tape work came about when I heard a performance of John Cage's Child of Tree. I was immediately taken with the sound of the cactus in particular. Taken from its natural environment and placed in the confined and groomed existence of a pot, amplified with a contact microphone, the cactus took on a completely new and interesting character, however paradoxical. Without the amplification its subtle and poignant resonance goes largely unnoticed. The relationship between natural objects and their unnatural extension is the metaphor which inspired Grandchild of Tree. I am deeply indebted to Nathan Davis for his amazing cactus technique and samples. - Paul Rudy