EVENT SPOTLIGHT: JOVINO SANTOS-NETO QUINTETO AT CORNISH

Posted on April 2, 2014 by maestrobeats

Thursday, April 3 at 8pm at Cornish College of the Arts (PONCHO Hall), you can hear three-time Latin Grammy nominee Jovino Santos Neto leads his Quinteto—with Chuck Deardorf (bass), Mark Ivester (drums), Ben Thomas (vibraphone), and Jeff Busch (percussion) with special guest vocalist Johnaye Kendrick—through his original compositions in a range of Brazilian styles.

We had the pleasure of hosting Jovino on piano along with flutist Paul Taub in 2013 on KING FM’s NW Focus LIVE – they performed music of the Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal.

PARALLAXES & MORE WITH HUCK HODGE

Posted on March 25, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

The University of Washington School of Music is fortunate to have Huck Hodge as an Assistant Professor of Composition. Hodge has already won more prestigious composition awards than many renowned composers twice his age. He is the winner of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship the 2010-2011 Rome Prize, the 2008 Gaudeamus Prize and the Aaron Copland Award from the Bogliasco Foundation.

Huck stopped by our studios to share some insights about three of his compositions & recordings: re[(f)use] (2012), Parallaxes (2005), and Alêtheia (2011). As you listen to Huck’s commentary about Parallaxes, refer to this image.

With 3 other esteemed composers (Richard Karpen, Juan Pampin, and Joël-François Durand on faculty at UW and a top notch student modern ensemble, Inverted Space, expect this to be the first of many features on that program!

PAUL TAUB: EMBRACING AND SHARING NEW SOUNDS

Posted on March 18, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Seattle’s rich and vibrant flute community would not be nearly such without the presence of influence of Paul Taub. He is a Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts and founding member of the Seattle Chamber Players, two organizations constantly pushing the envelope of contemporary music through innovative performance venues and adventurous repertoire. I’m thinking most recently of the Icebreaker VII Festival at On the Boards in Seattle. (Listen if you haven’t heard these excerpts!)

Paul has performed and recorded American and world premieres by Robert Aitken, John Cage, George Crumb, Janice Giteck, Sofia Gubaidulina, Wayne Horvitz, Ned Rorem, Toru Takemitsu, Reza Vali, and Peteris Vasks – composers you’ll likely hear on any given day here on Second Inversion! In 2011, Paul released Edge, a collection of “Flute Music from the Periphrey of Europe” on the Present Sounds label here in Seattle. Chamber music by Armenian Artur Avanesov, Latvian Peteris Vasks, Georgian Giya Kancheli, Azerbaijani Elmir Mirzoev, and Russian Sergei Slonimsky are represented by some of Seattle’s finest musicians.

Giya Kancheli’s Ninna Nanna Per Anna was commissioned by the National Flute Association in recognition of Paul Taub’s multiyear Board of Directors and New Music Advisory committee roles. Dr. Elena Dubinets writes, “This beautiful and uncannily slow lullaby uncovers itself through a very gradual blinking of major and minor keys in the pastel tones of nostalgia and half-forgotten memories.”

Please enjoy this entire track performed by flutist Paul Taub and many amazing collaborative musicians from the Seattle Area. (Paul Taub, flute; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Natasha Bazhanov, violin; Julie Whitton, viola; David Sabee, cello)

JUMPING JACKS AT UW

Posted on March 14, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

The members of the JACK Quartet are no strangers to Second Inversion’s playlists – their recordings of Xenakis, Amy Williams, Ken Thomson are in regular rotation on our stream. On Saturday, March 15, they conclude a week-long residence at the UW School of Music and UW World Series with TWO performances at Meany Studio Theatre.

The “Early Show” at 7:30pm features world premieres by UW composition faculty: Juan Pampin’s “Respiración Artificial” (2014) for bandoneon, string quartet and electronics and Richard Karpen’s “Elliptic” (2014) for traditional Vietnamese instruments, electric guitar, and string quartet.

The “Late Show” at 10pm features improvised music with UW faculty musicians Cuong Vu (trumpet), Ted Poor (drums), Richard Karpen (piano), and Juan Pampin (live electronics), Stomu Takeishi, bass, and the members of the JACK Quartet.

This collaboration between the University of Washington and JACK Quartet really aligns with their mission to broaden and diversify the potential audience for new music through educational presentations designed for a variety of ages, backgrounds, and levels of musical experience. We highly recommend this event, and hope to present a broadcast of this concert in the coming months. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear them in Seattle!

And if you’re going to the early show, be sure to say “hello” to Seth Tompkins at the KING FM table – he will be representing KING and Second Inversion as part of our community outreach!

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SPRING WITH NAT EVANS

Posted on March 11, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Second Inversion is very excited about a couple of projects Seattle composer Nat Evans has up his sleeve this Spring.

Nat and a Cat.

On Saturday, March 29, 8pm at the Good Shepherd Center Chapel Performance Space, The Box is Empty will present a concert on the Wayward Music Series featuring one of his works, More Comfort, which “explores the evolution of our relation to different screens in our lives, mobile devices and televisions as a hearth place, and the nature of our contemporary interactions and language.” The performance includes a video by Rodrigo Valenzuela showing of the use of our hands with the multitude of devices in our everyday lives. Three works for strings by New York-based composer Leaha Villarreal (and Artistic Director of Hotel Elefant are also slated, one of which features video by Seattle artist Erin Elyse Burns. I’m also told that alka seltzer tablets and compressed air will cameo as instruments, which on its own is enough to pique my interest in attending.

Then, in late April Nat is going to take a very long walk. A 2,600 mile journey from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail, to be exact. This is a compositional journey in which Nat will send 8 West Coast composers field recordings to use with newly composed material. In early 2015, all of these new works will be released on Quakebasket Records. I sincerely encourage you to find out more about “The Tortoise and His Raincoat” and we hope to give you some sneak peeks of Nat’s work as he checks in along the way!

PS If that’s not enough to put you in green spirits, here’s some music by Nat performed in Seattle’s Ravenna Park.