The "Lost" Works of Morton Subotnick: Ascent into Air

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 11, 2014, 4:16 p.m.

Morton Subotnick has enjoyed an expansive career as a composer and technical innovator for decades, and his touring schedule has grown extensively in the past decade, as he is recognized for his pioneering role in electronic and electro-acoustic music. Equally appreciated by fans of concert and electronic music, Subotnick is a legend in his own time. If you haven't yet, check out this lecture he gave at the Red Bull Music Academy:

Lecture: Morton Subotnick (Madrid 2011) from Red Bull Music Academy on Vimeo.

We're happy to announce the publication of several of Subotnick's "lost" works-- works that have been otherwise unavailable until now. The first of this series is Ascent into Air, commissioned and premeired at IRCAM in 1981, with Peter Eötvös conducting. 

Scored for pairs of clarinets, trombones, celli, pianos, percussion, and computer-generated sound, this work uses the metaphor of an amphibian's ascent from water to air as a dialectic metaphor for the evolutionary role of technology in art in the late 20th century. The amphibian represents art's double-inhabitance of two modes of existence, two modes of communication: one in water and one in air. As technology evolves in artistic practice, music finds itself in a similar position, inhabiting two modes of existance at the same time. Dialectically, "Ascent into Air" produces a synthesis of Subotnick's vision of the aesthetic and technical possibilities that contemporary music can afford us.  

Lei Liang's "Trans": Immediate Publication on PSNY

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 4, 2014, 2:20 p.m.

One of the great things about digital publishing is the immediacy of it: a new work can be both premiered and made available to the public on the very same day. And we've done just that: Lei Liang's "Trans," for solo percussion and audience, premiered on Saturday, February 1st, and we've made it instantly available on the very same day.

Commissioned and premeired by percussionist Steven Schick, "Trans" is a score with three staves, representing three states of mind: "outward," "inward," and "immovable". The audience is given 60 pairs of small rocks, with which they create "sonic clouds," which create a relation between the percussionist's actions on stage and the sonic environment in which she suddenly finds herself. The performance attempts to unify these sonic fields, along with the performer's interpretation of Liang's three states of mind. Forging boldly into areas of relational aesthetics, interaction, and embodiment, "Trans" is a perfect percussion work for performers and audiences of all varieties.

Here is a video of Steven Schick performing one of his favorite works, Xenakis' Psappha. 

Kate Soper's "Cipher" Now Available on PSNY

by Ted Gordon on Jan. 28, 2014, 2:28 p.m.

Kate Soper's Cipher, for soprano and violin, is now available on PSNY. Composed for violinist Joshua Modney, Cipher is a meditation on language, timbre, text, and intelligibility, melding texts by Jenny Holzer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Guido d'Arezzo; the work "[exposes the inherent ambiguity of musical temperament, ensemble hierarchy, and lyric comprehension." Presented in four movements (with each movement's name reminiscent attribution on hip hop albums), Cipher is an "exotic score" [NYTimes], a feast for the eyes (and mind) as well as the ears. Check out Soper and Modney performing it at ISSUE Project Room in 2012: 

Soper has been developing her interrogation of language, embodiment, and the seduction of song with her new opera project, "Here Be Sirens," which is currently running at Dixon Place, presented by Dixon Place and Morningside Opera. With a great review in the New York Times, and an in-depth feature on I Care if You Listen, this work is not to be missed. Check out this video of Soper discussing the work during her 2013 MacDowell Colony residency: