James Díaz Releases UNO on Bandcamp

by Ted Gordon on Aug. 19, 2021, 11:19 a.m.

James Díaz has long worked within the interstices between scoring, live performance, and recording—exploring the sonic possibilities that emerge when the fluidity of sound is exploited in every available medium and dimension. His latest album, UNO, documents compositions that Díaz has crafted between 2016–2019, performed by the collaborators with whom he wrote many of these works, and recorded at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Keeping with Díaz's practice of using both recorded and live sound to construct his work, some of the compositions on this album were also further refined by Díaz in his studio, resulting in a meticulously produced album of hybrid works. 

For example, Díaz crafted I [am] not, a work for bass clarinet and electronics, in collaboration with the clarinetist Tyler Neidermayer. While this work is completely scored, it does contain options for the performer to choose in the moment of performance; it also calls for the performer to experiment with a large set of extended techniques, which Díaz later expanded using studio techniques such as pitch-shifting, vocoding, harmonizing, compression, and other processes to achieve his desired sounds. The movements' titles hint at the play of instrumental identity; the bass clarinet is brought into relation with a didgeridoo, a snare drum, a guitar, and the human voice. 

Other works on this recording include Díaz's string quartet INFRASTRUCTURES, composed in collaboration with and performed by Quartet121; a song for, performed by Julia Suh; and in times of passive voice [en tiempos de voz pasiva], here performed by cellist Carolina Diazgranados.

Catching Up with Richard Carrick

by Ted Gordon on July 27, 2021, 10:07 a.m.

PSNY recently caught up with composer Richard Carrick to discuss how he's been adapting to the changing landscape of composition, collaboration, and performance during the ongoing pandemic. Carrick has seen several ongoing projects continue, despite the challenges, to fruition—including his evening-length work for music and dance Sea, a collaboration with the choreographer Miro Magliore, which includes the premiere of Carrick's composotion The Mill along with his Piano Preludes and "in flow". Sea premiered physically on May 28th, 2021, performed by the New Chamber Ballet, and was also premiered as a dance film which can be viewed below: 

We also discussed Carrick's ongoing "Graphic Series" of scores, which Carrick conceptualizes as "lead sheets" for virtuosic improvisers. Constructed as large, physical scores with open instrumentation, these works were first workshopped with Carrick's Neither/Nor Ensemble at the Berklee School of Music in 2018, and since have been written for and performed by ensembles such as the Mivos Quartet, String Noise, Either/Or, and many others. 

Richard Carrick · Graphic Series

Catching Up with Wang Lu

by Ted Gordon on July 15, 2021, 10 a.m.

PSNY continues to catch up with our composers to explore the different pathways taken through the ever-changing new reality of music-making in the late stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We talked with Wang Lu about new kinds of physical performances, new media, and the new compositional landscape in which she continues to work.