Concert program for Pacific Pythagorean Music Festival
Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 2 pm
Download a copy of the program here.
Pacific Pythagorean Music Festival
Program
Del Sol Quartet
Benjamin Kreith & Samuel Weiser, violins
Charlton Lee, viola & Kathryn Bates, cello
Jungyoon Wie
A Popular Tune (2020)
Revised Standards: Set for Billie Holiday (Lover Man, No More, When Your Lover Has Gone) (arr. 1987)
arranged by Ben Johnston; written by Jimmy Davis, James Sherman, Roger Ramirez, Bob Russell, Toots Camerata, and Aaron Swan
Michael Harrison, piano
with Ritvik Yaparpalvi, tabla
Michael Harrison
Etude in Raga Bhimpalasi for just intonation piano and tabla
Dariush Saghafi, santur
traditional Persian music
Gayle Young
Five by Five (columbine)
Nine by Nine (columbine)
On The Rails (amaranth w/ pre-recorded resonator and train sounds)
Ride The Rails (amaranth w/ pre-recorded resonator and train sounds)
Hong Wang
traditional Chinese & Mongolian string instrument music:
Dan La Ban Na
Moonlight on the Placid Lake
Wu Yun Shan Dan
Liang Xiao (Good Night)
Ellen Fullman, Hawaiian steel string guitar and box bows
Ellen Fullman
Study 1 for Hawaiian Rainbow Guitar
Marguerite Brown, guitar with Satchel Henneman, guitar
Marguerite Brown
Duet (2019) for two different guitars refretted in 11-limit just intonation
Marguerite Brown
Duet 2 (2020) for two different guitars refretted in 11-limit just intonation
Marguerite Brown & Paul Matthew Moore
Scenes (2021) Structured Improvisations for refretted guitar and eurorack
deVon Russell Gray, piano
deVon Russell Gray
The Capricorn Improvisation
(Tuning: 1/7 Syntonic Comma Modified Meantone)
Nate Ryan, video
Cornelius Cardew Choir
Tom Bickley, director
Pauline Oliveros
The Heart of Tones (2008)
Giacomo Fiore, guitar
Catherine Lamb
Point/Wave (2015)
Daisy Press, voice with crystal bowls
Hildegard von Bingen with improvisation
About the musicians
The internationally-acclaimed Del Sol Quartet champions music by living artists, exploring social change, technology, and artistic innovation. The San Francisco-based ensemble is a leading force in 21st-century chamber music – whether introducing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana at the Library of Congress, taking Aeryn Santillan’s gun-violence memorial to the streets of the Mission District, exploring Andean soundscapes with Gabriela Lena Frank, or collaborating with Huang Ruo and the anonymous poets who carved their words into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station during the years of the Chinese Exclusion Act. They believe that live music can, and should, happen anywhere. delsolquartet.com
Composer/pianist Michael Harrison forges a new approach to composition through tunings that extend the ancient concept of just intonation. Harrison is a Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Fellowship recipient. His work Revelation achieved inclusion in the Best Classical Recordings of 2007 selections of The New York Times and Boston Globe. Just Constellations, commissioned and recorded by Roomful of Teeth, was among NPR’s Best 100 Songs of 2020. Time Loops was among NPR’s Top 10 Classical Albums of 2012. Performance venues include the Minimal Music Festival in Amsterdam, BAM Next Wave Festival, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Park Avenue Armory, United Nations, the Louvre, Pompidou Centre, MASS MoCA, Spoleto, Big Ears, and Sundance. michaelharrison.com
Dariush Saghafi began his study of the santur at age 11 with Ostad Abolhassan Saba, a leading figure in Persian traditional music. He taught santur at Tabriz School of Music in Iran. Dr. Dariush Saghafi is a recipient of the 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship Award in Traditional Art.
Dariush Saghafi has performed in Tehran and Tabriz, Iran both as soloist and in ensembles. His U.S. performances include concerts at New York University, Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as numerous concerts in Ohio and in Pittsburgh, PA.
Dariush Saghafi has been collaborating with Reza Vali in performing Dr. Vali’s composition for Santur and String Quartet. Performances have been with Quarteto Latinoamericano, Carpe Diem and the Hartford, Connecticut-based Quatro Puntos Ensemble.
Gayle Young will present music for instruments she designed and built to facilitate explorations in the use of unusual tunings. Compositions for these instruments are notated using a system Young invented using coloured and shaped noteheads that clarify relationships among ratio-based pitch sets.
In a 1993 outdoor sound installation Young first used multiple just-tuned resonators that create fundamental pitches and overtones within surrounding sounds. Visitors to the site could listen to a combination of recognizable musical notes integrated with the soundscape. Many of Young’s compositions incorporate recordings made through such resonators. The works heard in this concert feature sounds of trains and water flowing within an ice-covered cliff face.
As the editor of Musicworks Magazine from 1987 to 2006, Young published many articles about contemporary music. Her 1989 book The Sackbut Blues, describes the life and work of electronic music inventor Hugh Le Caine.
As an experienced multi-instrumentalist and erhu soloist Hong Wang performed Gang Situ’s Erhu & Violin Double Concerto with Stanford Symphony, played sheng/bawu/recorder/suona/erhu for Tan Dun’s world premiere 2000 Today with Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra, gave the world premiere of Albert Chang’s Concerto for Erhu and Orchestra with Fremont Symphony, played matouqin (morin khuur) for the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s Xuan, and Guanzi, dizi, xun for Keeyong Chong’s Yuan with the Ensemble Het Collectie (Belgium); played the bawu and xiao for Zhao Jiping’s Germany premiere My Favourite Concubine with Berlin Philharmonic; Zhonghu/sheng and suona with the Anthony Brown’s Asia American Orchestra (Jazz). As multi-instrumentalist recorded for the Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness episodes and The Legend of Korra. As a soloist performed the world premiere of Jeremy Zuckerman’s Legend of Korra Suites in PlayFest in Malaga, Spain in 2014. more info here.
Ellen Fullman has been developing the Long String Instrument, an installation of dozens of wires fifty feet or more in length since the early 1980s. This project encompasses the study of Just Intonation tuning theory, a compositional practice centered on string harmonics, experiments with various wire alloys and gauges, the development of a tablature graphic notation system, and wooden resonator design and fabrication. The enveloping nature of the rich acoustic tones produced by The Long String Instrument evokes a sensation of being inside of a musical instrument. Awards include: Gerbode Foundation’s Special Awards in the Arts for her upcoming collaboration with The Living Earth Show; Guggenheim Fellowship, Music Composition; Foundation for Contemporary Arts “Grants to Artists” Award; DAAD “Artists-In-Berlin Program” residency; and Japan-US Friendship Commission/NEA “Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship for Japan”. Her recordings include: Harbors, on Room40, in collaboration with cellist and composer Theresa Wong, selected in The Wire’s top 50 releases of 2020. ellenfullman.com
Marguerite Brown (b. 1990) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist who explores new mediums, forms, and performance practices. Recent projects include a commission for mixed chamber ensemble premiered by Ghost Ensemble at the REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles, CA in March 2020, and new music for refretted guitars for the 21st Century (virtual) Guitar Conference 2021. She received a BM from Cornish College of the Arts (2013), a MA from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2019), and will be attending the University of California San Diego to pursue a PhD in music composition beginning fall 2021. margueritebrown.com
deVon Russell Gray is a polyglot organically fusing contemporary classical, jazz, hip hop, Afrofuturistic, and popular music performance practices and styles. Gray’s music takes listeners on an outermost and deeply resonant journey. He approaches newness with a refreshing and enlightening sense of mystery, wonder, and beauty.
glfcam.com/devon-gray
Founded in Berkeley on Mayday 2001, the Cardew Choir sings at the intersection of inclusive community and experimental music, strongly influenced by Cornelius Cardew and his circle in the 1960’s and ‘70’s in England. We draw inspiration from the experimental music tradition and musicians such as Pauline Oliveros and John Cage. We recognize our music-making as enacting healthy political economy, with respect for individual contributions and high regard for the community as a whole and we intend our mutually supportive work to be compassionate, joyful and liberating political action. facebook.com/cardewchoir
Italian guitarist Giacomo Fiore has presented eclectic programs to audiences across the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, and Italy. Highlights include appearances at Other Minds (SF), the Stone (NYC), Spectrum (NYC), Constellation (Chicago), Omaha Under the Radar, Tuesday@MonkSpace (LA), the wulf. (LA), Microfest (LA), Garden of Memory, and Thingamajigs; numerous invitations to guitar festivals (Healdsburg, Santa Barbara, LaConner, Northwest, South Bay Guitar Society, Sierra Nevada, Sarzana, and Cervo); and performing with Wild Rumpus, SFSound, West Edge Opera, and the UCSC Symphony. A new music specialist, Giacomo has given world and U.S. premieres of dozens of works for classical, just intonation, and electric guitars, including pieces by Larry Polansky, Kenji Oh, Ron Nagorcka, Agustin Castilla–Ávila, Garry Eister, Lanier Sammons, Fernanda Navarro, Edward Schocker, and many more. To date, he has released seven recordings for Cold Blue, Pinna, and Paper Garden Records, as well as his own impressum. His fourth recording, iv: american electric guitars, was awarded a Project Grant by New Music USA in 2014. giacomofiore.com
Daisy Press is a prominent interpreter and creator of music in the US and Europe. Pre-pandemic, she was principal vocalist at Brooklyn’s famed nightclub House of Yes. She has worked closely with Steve Reich, Bernhard Lang, and George Crumb, and was declared “intrepid and passionate” by The New York Times for her recording and performance of Feldman’s Three Voices. She is a regular guest soloist with Vienna-based Ensemble Phace and most recently sang Romitelli’s Index of Metals with them at the Wiener Konzerthaus and Elbphilharmonie.
Ms. Press is a specialist in the music of 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen, and she incorporates elements of North Indian (Hindustani) ragas into her embodiment of Hildegard’s music.
Daisy is the founder and High Priestess of Voice Cult, an online “convent” of women and men who incorporate Hildegard chants into their daily lives. She maintains an active teaching practice. daisyvoice.com