Ann Cleare's "I should live in wires for leaving you behind" on PSNY and Yarn/Wire/Currents

by Leif Larson on June 11, 2015, 12:12 p.m.

We are thrilled to announce the addition of Ann Cleare's I should live in wires for leaving you behind to the PSNY catalogue. Scored for piano (two players) and two percussionists, the piece is full of intricate and beautiful notation. With extensive playing inside the piano along with a unique selection of percussion, this is arguably Cleare’s most percussive work yet. Cleare writes,

The piece simultaneously traces two processes: one of growth and one of evanescing, and aims to sonically and visually depict the energy and psychology between these transformative states.
 

Percussion is a fitting instrumentation for exploring sonic and dramatic elements. With percussion’s natural choreographic dimension, the visual energy is apparent. The use of a "prepared" salad spinner filled with loose marbles, coins, and nails surprisingly and brilliantly explores the growth and evanescing of timbre and visual/aural drama. There are moments of beauty and stillness throughout as well. Cleare imagines the colorful sounds of glass bowls placed on the strings of the piano during the beginning of her piece as “an organ made of crystal. 

I should live in wires for leaving you behind was commissioned by Issue Project Room and the ensemble Yarn/Wire who gave its premiere in October 2014 at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY. In conjunction with the publication of the work on PSNY, Yarn/Wire has featured Cleare’s piece as part of the digital release of Yarn/Wire/Currents Volume 2. The series, inaugurated at Issue Project Room in 2013, serves as an incubator for new experimental music and explores the intersections of composition, technology, installation, live performance, music theater, and more. Visit Yarn/Wire's Currents Volume 2 album page and check out their recording of Ann Cleare's I should live in wires for leaving you behind:

Ann Cleare at the MATA Festival

by Ted Gordon on April 13, 2015, 11:47 a.m.

Now in its seventeenth year, New York's MATA festival, founded by Philip Glass, Lisa Bielawa, and Eleonor Sandresky, has reached a new milestone as one of the worlds leading festivals of new music, with nearly a thousand submissions for composers around the globe. In addition to the dozens of works that were chosen from these submissions, MATA has also decided to commission new works by some of the most interesting composers under 40. 

The highlight of this year's round of commissions is Ann Cleare's eöl, a collaborative work between Cleare, sculptor Brian Byrne, and percussionist Alex Lipowski. Lipowski, who along with Anthony Cheung is a co-director of the Talea Ensemble, will be the featured soloist at the premiere of eöl on April 18th at The Kitchen, playing a unique metal sculpture-instrument by Byrne, and accompanied by clarinet, saxophone, accordion, cello and double bass.

What is the eöl, you might ask? Byrne's new instrument consists of a set of several objects created from various metals, worn and played by the percussionist. eöl refers both to the concept of the "Aeolian," music produced by nature without human intervention, and to Eöl the elf, a character in J.R.R. Tolkien's writings, who weaves metals into magical armor. As Cleare writes, "The ensemble enacts a similar type of sonic weaving, leading to the sonic and visual formation of the percussionist's metallic hands." Here's an image of the eöl; be sure to check out the World Premiere of Cleare's new composition to see this sculpture in action.
 

Ann Cleare Performances in New York, Europe

by Ted Gordon on Jan. 7, 2015, 10:35 a.m.

Composer Ann Cleare has had a spate of successful concerts recently, featuring premiere performances of her work I should live in wires for leaving you behind by Yarn/Wire, who commissioned Cleare to write it. This piece, for prepared piano and percussion, was premiered at ISSUE Project Room on October 9th, and performed again at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's EMPAC on November 15th. I should live in wires for leaving you behind begins with all performers 'inside' the piano, playing carefully arranged crystal bowls set inside the piano; it gradually moves out to a second 'outside' space, where the instruments called for include modified salad spinners, flower pots, and more. Both the sonic and the visual coordination of this piece make it a stand-out for Yarn/Wire, and a successful collaboration with Cleare. 

Other recent performances include anchor me to the land, performed in Darmstadt, Germany by the Curious Chamber Players. This premiere was the fruit of Cleare's Staubach Honorarium, a prestigious composition prize awarded each year to composers for premieres at the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music. 

Just down the road from Darmstadt in Mannheim, Cleare saw the premiere of another new work, luna (the eye that opens the other eye), for solo alto saxophone, which was performed by Patrick Stadler at the Popakademie (University of Popular Music). 

Farther south in Karlsruhe, Cleare's eyam iv (Pluto's farthest moons) was premiered by Richard Craig and The Experimental Ensemble at the IMATRONIK Fesitval of Electronic Music. eyam iv, part of Cleare's eyam series for contrabass wind instruments, pairs a contrabass flute with a electronically spatialized ensemble of winds, strings, and percussion. The piece was commissioned and written as part of a research residency at The EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR.   

Cleare was also featured in the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäser Musik (Bludenzer Days of Contemporary Music) Festival in Vienna. Her work, luna | lithe | lair was commissioned and premiered by Ensemble Mosaik, a new music ensemble based in Berlin, conducted by Enno Poppe. 

Check out her work Dorchadas, for ensemble, which is also available from PSNY!