Cecilia Lopez & Ingrid Laubrock:
Works for saxophone and electronics

NTQ presents our 6th Explorations concert with a program of cutting edge works for saxophone, drawing from meditative breath, temporal flux, sine tone clusters, dissembled instruments, and vocalization.

The concert opens with works from NTQ’s residencies at New York University and Binghamton University. Neva Derewetzky‘s small voices explores time and air, growing from meditative breath to sweeping dynamic swells. Derewetzky writes the saxophone “is an instrument that begs to run… For just a few minutes, I want the instrument to be patient. To take a breath and to wait.” Michael Seltenreich‘s Ornamentation 1 uses flux in tempo to build a constant pulsing line. The work builds harmonically while always centered around the push and pull of time. Our program will continue with commissioned works by NTQ founding member Erin Rogers and by Victoria Cheah. Erin Rogers‘ Foliage utilizes timbral and harmonic shifts to produce slow motion color changes in a gradual transition to noise. Victoria Cheah‘s Walk for a shell incorporates fixed media playback alongside the saxophone quartet, and explores how actions along a path may connect you to others. Cheah writes “Pilgrimage journeys put time and effort to work at covering a distance in an offering of respect. Walk for a shell attempts this respect with gestures of tuning, ghosts of words exchanged, and offerings of effort.”

Explorations Vol. 6: Time and Breath
Sunday, Sept 10 @ 2pm
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Benzaquen Hall
450 West 37th Street, New York, NY, 10018
Tickets – $10 online and at the door

Program
Neva Derewetsky – small voices (2023), NYC premiere
Michael Seltenreich – Ornamentation 1 (2022), NYC premiere #
Erin Rogers – Foliage (2023), world premiere *
Victoria Cheah – Walk for a shell (2023), world premiere *

Learn more at our event page.

This new musical work for voice and birdroar instruments by composer Brent Michael Davids honors Nora Thompson Dean (1907-1984), a Lenape teacher and herbalist who dedicated her life to preserving Lenape culture. The sung and spoken lyric consists entirely of her name “Weènchipahkihëlèxkwe” in Unami (Lenape for “downriver people”). Translated, her name was “Touching Leaves Woman” or as Nora herself suggested ‘Leaves-that-touch-each-other-from-time-to-time.’ A hand-notated music manuscript, inked on vellum, is part of the exhibition Nora Thompson Dean: Lenape Teacher and Herbalist and on view before and after each performance. The work runs approximately 20 minutes and will be performed in the Rotunda of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library at 2 PM and in the Morgan Garden at 3 PM (weather permitting).

September 9, 2023, 2 PM and 3 PM
The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Event Page

Saturday, August 26, 2023 // 7:30 pm

MARY FLAGLER CARY HALL
Dimenna Center
450 W 37th St, NYC
TICKETS

Program:

Enno Poppe
Speicher I-VI, 2009-2012
for chamber ensemble

Saturday, August 19, 2023 // 7:30 pm

MARY FLAGLER CARY HALL
Dimenna Center
450 W 37th St, NYC
TICKETS

Program:
Clara Iannotta
They left us grief-trees wailing at the wall, 2020
for clarinet, saxophone, percussion, piano, electric guitar, violin, viola, cello, double bass

Yi Ting Lu
Timelessness I: Individualism, 2017
for flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello

Agata Zubel
FLASH, 2021
for percussion soloist, and ensemble
with Sae Hashimoto, percussion soloist

Patricia Alessandrini
Pastorale (Hommage à Alfred Schnittke), 2014