• Florescence • Ingrid Arauco
Florescence • Ingrid Arauco • flute, harpsichord
Ingrid Arauco’s music “opens virtuosity to an inspection that reveals wit, passion, and deep aspiration” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Ms. Arauco’s principal teachers were Robert Hall Lewis at Goucher College, and George Crumb, George Rochberg, Richard Wernick, and C. Jane Wilkinson at the University of Pennsylvania. Among the organizations that have commissioned her work are Mélomanie, Network for New Music, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Kindler Foundation in the Library of Congress. Her compositions are featured on the Capstone releases Millennium Crossings and New Music for Oboe, and on the solo disc Invocation, forthcoming on Albany Records. Ms. Arauco has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and currently teaches at Haverford College.
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Florescence • Ingrid Arauco • flute, harpsichord
Florescence is a set of three miniatures for flute and harpsichord, written for and dedicated to my friends Kim Reighley and Tracy Richardson in 2005. The first movement presents a number of sharply etched melodic motifs; some bold, others delicate or playful in character. While composing, I observed that some of these motifs formed tendril-like shapes on my manuscript page; hence “florescence,” a term which refers to the flowering or blossoming of plants. In contrast to the variegated rhythmic tapestry of the first movement, the second movement flows in an
energetic stream of steady sixteenths, punctuated occasionally by assertive, rhythmically jagged figures. The final movement has a predominantly lyrical quality; after reaching a peak of intensity it subsides in a gently transcendent passage. Throughout the work, both instruments share equally in the presentation and development of ideas, whether engaged in lively dialogue or in thoughtful conversation.
• Trois Rivières • Mark Hagerty
Trois Rivières • Mark Hagerty • baroque instruments
Mark Hagerty studied trumpet, voice, and composition at Oberlin Conservatory (B. Mus.), and composition and Brandeis University (special arrangement, non-degree study). Early in his career he was awarded the prestigious Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his String Quartet: Formations and was invited by the eminent composer-conductor Jacques-Louis Monod to have his works published by the Association for the Promotion of New Music. More recently, he received Delaware’s highest music award for The Realm of Possibility, a large, multi-movement piano work of flexible form premiered in Turin by composer-pianist Curt Cacioppo.
Mark's music has been performed across the US and around the world, notably in Italy, the Netherlands, Israel, and Brazil. With numerous chamber, keyboard, and vocal pieces to his credit, he is currently concentrating on works for larger forces and investigating the melding of “sound sculpture” with more traditional musical expression. In keeping with his belief that academe should be the province of dedicated scholars and teachers, he has worked—apart from musical commissions—primarily in non-musical positions, including quarryman, machinist, programmer, science and technology copyeditor, technical writer, and manager in high-tech firms. Having lived and composed in Massachusetts, New York State, and the Netherlands, he now lives in Delaware.
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Trois Rivières • Mark Hagerty • baroque instruments
Trois Rivières was written in 2006 to inaugurate a new harpsichord built by Richard Kingston on late 18th Century Parisian models (principally Taskin). This style of harpsichord and the music written for it (Couperin, Rameau, Forqueray, et al.) represent the fullest development of the French Baroque. While the harmonies in Trois Rivières are updated, the piece follows a traditional chaconne form, that of a repeating harmonic progression as a basis for variations. Trois Rivières consists of three such chaconnes, linked. The pace of the repeating harmonic patterns remains consistent – rather slow – no matter how active the parts may become, and the steady flow of sound that results may suggest moving water, hence the title.
• Partita 622 • Mark Rimple
Partita 622 • Mark Rimple • flute, violin, viola da gamba, cello, harpsichord
Composer, countertenor, lutenist and theorist Mark Rimple is equally at home in the spheres of early and new music. He has performed and recorded with some of the nation’s top chamber groups including Network for New Music, Cygnus, The Newberry Consort, The Folger Consort, Piffaro, and Trefoil. His compositions integrate aspects of early music and often include early instruments. His works have been performed and presented by The League of Composers/ISCM, Parnassus, Mélomanie, Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, and Network for New Music among others. His score for West Chester University’s production of Love’s Fire recently received a Certificate of Merit by the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival. Mark is a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
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Partita 622 • Mark Rimple • flute, violin, viola da gamba, cello, harpsichord
Partita 622 was written in February 2008, following the death of my stepmother, Lynne Fein. I was sketching the work during her sickness, and had centered upon a ritornello form for the movement, somewhat after the manner of a Baroque concerto movement. After her death, her closest friend told me of her lifelong fixation with the number 622, which she felt had mystical meaning for her, and which was reflected in the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars the day she passed. The title “partita,” is meant in the sense of “starting out” or taking a journey. The work’s temporal proportions are reflections outward of these three digits: the ritornellos appear six times (always a perfect fourth higher, 2+2) before the work ends, and the intervening passages are generated by multiples and powers of 6 and 2. I chose to end the work with a musical reflection of celestial music: at the apex of tension, a slow, sarabande-like postlude draws the melodic themes of the movement together and spins out towards the incomprehensible beyond. While the composition provided a helpful outlet for me at a difficult time, I do not consider it a lament, but rather the contemplation of a mystery.
• Close Tolerances • Christopher Braddock
Close Tolerances • Christopher Braddock • 2 flutes, cello, harpsichord
Christopher Braddock is a past recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship in music composition from the Delaware Division of the Arts and is proud to be a member of the DDOA’s Delaware Artist Roster. His original works include three pieces for the Wilmington-area music ensemble, Mélomanie, as well as a string quartet, numerous compositions for flute and guitar, and several other commissions from area ensembles. Chris plays guitar and several of its cousins, including the oud, dobro, tenor banjo, mandolin, and saz. He performs regularly as a solo artist and as a member of several area ensembles, including the Bowman-Braddock Flute and Guitar Duo, Tidewater Brass Band, Scott Davidson Quartet, and Mosaic String Duo. Chris has been interviewed by publications such as Artline, Delaware Today, The News Journal, and El Tiempo Hispano, and has appeared many times on local radio and TV. He graduated from the University of Delaware, where he studied with Christiaan Taggart and received his Bachelor of Music Degree in classical guitar performance. Chris teaches at The Music School of Delaware, where he is Guitar Department Head, coordinator of the school’s Cultural Crossroads Series, and Jazz Ensemble director.
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Close Tolerances • Christopher Braddock • 2 flutes, cello, harpsichord
During the writing of this piece in late 2003, my home computer developed some problems. They were explained to me as being the result of “lots of tiny parts, all moving at very close tolerances.” I remember thinking that this description is wonderfully analogous to how music works. After all, a piece of music, in both composition and performance, is much like a beautifully engineered machine, smoothly humming along with all its parts in perfect synchronization and harmony, yet at every moment just a heartbeat from disaster! A poorly chosen interval can ruin a line of counterpoint. A careless comment from an ensemble member can wreck a rehearsal. And of course, the possibilities for trouble in a live performance are limitless. But when everything comes together properly, the results seem almost magical. It can be fun to trace the influences present in a piece of music. For Close Tolerances, those influences center around the proportion, economy, and playfulness found in the music of Haydn and Mozart. That aesthetic foundation is infused with more modern organizational structures, such as the pitch class sets used by Debussy and Stravinsky. Finally, since my primary instrument is the guitar, I have a great love and appreciation for the mid-20th-century composers for that instrument - Lauro, Ponce, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gnattali, and many others - whose music is at once so wonderfully appealing, rigorously composed, and artistically substantial
• Sonate en Trio • Chuck Holdeman
Sonate en Trio • Chuck Holdeman • flute, cello, harpsichord
Chuck Holdeman has written songs, works for band, orchestra, chamber music, and film and educational music. His one-act opera Agostino and the Puccini Clarinet, with libretto by Vincent Marinelli, was premiered in 2007 at the Music School of Delaware, and produced again in 2008. In 2006 his Concerto tre d'uno was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony. The soloist and dedicatee was Richard Woodhams, principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Holdeman is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied bassoon with Sol Schoenbach and counterpoint with Matthew Colucci, later studying bassoon in France with Maurice Allard. He is principal bassoonist for the Bach Festival of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and performs with the Philadelphia's new music group Relâche. He was a member of the Buffet Trio for 20 years, and for 28 years was a member of the Delaware Symphony, including 24 years as principal.
In 1999 Chuck Holdeman was named Composer of the Year by the Pennsylvania and Delaware State Music Teachers Associations, which commissioned Crossover Soundings, for piano 4-hands, and in 2000 he was the first recipient of the Delaware Division of the Arts Master Artist Fellowship. In 2003 Holdeman received the Beekhuis Award for outstanding service and performance in the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. The DSO commissioned and performed the orchestral version of Crossover Soundings as well as The Curse for narrator and orchestra. Chuck initiated and facilitates the DSO’s annual high school composition project, begun in 1995, and was recently commissioned again by the DSO. He is on the faculty of the Music School of Delaware, teaching composition and bassoon.
Holdeman has produced two CDs, one featuring Buffet Music, commissioned by Hampden-Sydney College for the Buffet Trio, and the other an all original solo album, partially recorded in the Cistern, an empty two-million-gallon water storage tank in Port Townsend, Washington. The Cistern’s 20- to 40-second reverberation time enables the bassoon to play chords among other magical effects. A CD of his recent chamber music compositions is planned. Sonate en Trio will be included in Florescence, the new Meyer-Media recording by Mélomanie.
A second opera is in the planning stage, a one-act based on mishaps in the early career of J. S. Bach.
Work has also commenced on a new commission for the flute/harp duo Sparx. The premiere is anticipated for the summer of 2011. A series of three interactive web-casts will kick-off in January, displaying the development of the new work and giving listeners the chance to respond and participate in the creative process.
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Sonate en Trio • Chuck Holdeman • flute, cello, harpsichord
This commission from Mélomanie was completed during the summer of 2004 and is dedicated to Margaret Darby. Like many 18th-century trio sonatas, this one also has four movements. While I was aware of the Baroque practice of maintaining a single “affect” or mood during an entire movement, my admiration for Ravel and Debussy won out as a primary influence. These composers went from section to section within a single movement with great freedom, while maintaining stylistic unity; thus each movement of Sonate has two or three ideas that alternate and provide contrast. Another French influence is in the fairly high concentration of 7th and 9th chords, as well as in my decision to give the work a French title. As usual for me, lyricism is paramount, along with the use of tonal harmony to create overtly emotional expression. I leave it to the listener to perceive these emotions in any way they may strike, and so I have avoided the typical Italian tempo/expression names and given only a metronome marking to delineate the movements.