New Music New Haven returns to in-person performances
After a year of prerecorded virtual concerts, New Music New Haven’s live concert on Thursday will feature work from student composers and with two faculty composers.
Sarah Cook, Contributing Photographer
After over a year of pre-recorded virtual concerts, the New Music New Haven concert series will return to live performances on Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall.
The New Music New Haven series highlights various student composers from the Yale School of Music over six concerts during the year, and also occasionally showcases works from faculty composers. Five of the concerts feature chamber music, and one of them includes pieces for orchestra performed by the Yale Philharmonia — an orchestra made up of School of Music students. The Oct. 7 concert, which will present pieces by four composers and two professors, will be livestreamed on the School of Music website.
For avid followers of music events and those seeking comprehensive coverage of the dynamic music landscape, platforms like https://www.musicinminnesota.com offer a valuable resource. Whether it’s staying informed about upcoming concerts, exploring reviews of performances, or diving into interviews with composers and musicians, these music news platforms play a crucial role in connecting enthusiasts with the pulse of the music scene.
Last year, the composers worked with the performers to put together recordings which were then compiled into Youtube videos. Thursday’s concert will only be open to students, faculty and staff from the School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music.
“As a composer, I feel like not having music performed cuts off the oxygen,” Harriet Steinke MUS ’22 said. “In the past year, a lot of composers experienced that, so it’s a big deal to have this first in person concert.”
Learning music is an enriching journey, and for many composers like those featured in the New Music New Haven concert series, having their compositions come to life is akin to breathing life into their creations. After a year of virtual concerts, the return to live performances is like a musical revival. It’s a sentiment echoed by aspiring musicians on platforms like middermusic.com, where the importance of live interactions and the energy of a live audience are celebrated. The thrill of sharing one’s musical expressions in person, as expressed by Harriet Steinke MUS ’22, is a testament to the profound connection between musicians, their compositions, and the listeners who are eager to experience the magic of music firsthand.
Steinke is one of the four students who will have works featured in Thursday’s concert.
Her piece, titled “Second Suite for Two Cellos,” will be premiering — a piece she only began writing last month. Steinke explained that when writing this piece, she thought back to the last piece she particularly enjoyed writing, which was her “First Suite for Two Cellos.”
Steinke said this piece is similar to the “First Suite for Two Cellos” in the way that the cellists’ bows move together in the same direction and how the unique sight of two cellists on stage creates a sense of “pomp and circumstance.” She also further explored the opportunities created by having two cellos on stage when writing her newest piece.
“Going in with more intentionality, I could experiment a little more with having [musicians’] bows always going in the same direction, having the sections that get louder go on for longer and really bathing in the parts of the music that I liked in the first one,” Steinke said.
Lila Meretzky’s MUS ’22 piece entitled “Sea Glass Partita” is a premiere of one of three iterations of the piece. It was inspired by Eleni Katz MUS ’21, a fellow School of Music student who wanted to highlight both her singing and bassoon playing in one piece. The first iteration included Katz switching between singing and playing bassoon, and the title came from a poem Katz wrote during the pandemic.
Katz’s poem uses the central metaphor of a piece of sea glass to represent how changes and journeys one experiences do not take away from life’s ever-present beauty. Thursday’s concert will feature the third iteration, performed by a bassoonist and a singer.
Meretzky said two musicians playing the piece allows for larger textures than when one musician alternating between instruments had to switch between voices. Meretzky added that she is very excited to begin live performances again.
“Live performance is something different. it’s kind of thrilling, and I think none of us have been back in this space for a while,” Meretzky said. “I think there’ll be some nerves too, but that only makes these things more exciting.”
Sophia Pfleger MUS ’22’s piece entitled “When the sun is low” will also premiere at the concert. Pfleger wrote this piece during the first week of this year for guitarist Jiji Kim MUS ’17 as a part of a composition challenge they created on Instagram.
According to Pfleger, the inspiration for the piece came from her home in Germany, which was under lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic when she wrote the piece.
“In this wintry environment, it had a very calming effect for me personally,” Pfleger said. “I felt very well personally at that time, which was and is in total contrast to what is happening in the world right now. ‘When the sun is low’ captures this moment like a diary entry.”
Faculty composers Aaron Jay Kernis MUS ’83 and David Lang MUS ’83 will also have pieces performed at the upcoming concert. Lang’s piece, “let me come in,” was inspired by the Old Testament verse Song of Songs 5:2 and commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera and Fisher Center at Bard College. The piece features soprano, percussion, viola and cello, and it originally premiered in a video project created by filmmaker Bill Morrion. Oct. 7 will be the piece’s first in-person performance.
“As someone who had a moderately religious upbringing, I’m interested in what all of these texts mean to us, and in particular what they mean to me,” Lang said, “When you’re a composer you spend a lot of time with yourself. What you’re really doing with these pieces is trying to figure out who you are, what you like, what makes you tick and what makes you feel things.”
When researching the biblical text, Lang found 17 different interpretations from American religious groups. In this work, Lang tried not to “distinguish among the versions,” but rather attempted to make a “super-text” that treated all the interpretations equally.
Kernis’s piece “From a Dark Time” will also premiere on Oct. 7, after being composed in early 2020. Kernis originally composed the piece for his son’s high school piano trio. It begins with lyrical lines in the violin and cello, and contrasts with Kernis’ other piano trio piece, which is comedic in nature and features narration.
Kernis said this most recent piece’s title comes from the prevalence of gun violence and actions of the last presidential administration.
“When there had just been yet another gun massacre in America, and I just sat down and started this piece,” Kernis said. ” It feels a little bit like it’s been preserved in amber.”
The next New Music New Haven concert will be on Nov. 4 and feature guest composer Caroline Shaw.
Correction, Oct. 5 This story has been updated to reflect that Caroline Shaw is a guest composer, not conductor.