like blackbirds, like thrushes
world premiere
Ashlin Hunter
The musical material of like blackbirds, like thrushes is a fragmentation and unfolding of the English folk song “Hares on the Mountain.” I was particularly drawn to the line from which the title is taken: “If the young men could sing like blackbirds, like thrushes; how many young girls would go beating the bushes?” As I wrote the piece and the electronics, I was interested in the relationship dynamics narrated in the song and the imagery of a flock of birds ascending.
What’s Next
world premiere
Danny Leo
I can be an indecisive person at times. Whether it be professionally or personally, I am often inundated with the plethora of possibilities, trying to determine the best course of action. When writing music, figuring out the next note, next section, even next piece can be daunting. The present work is a reflection of this process, venturing into the unknown and unearthing What’s Next.
Transmissions from the Center of Nowhere
world premiere
Charlie Richardson
pulse structures radiating from an infinitely dense point and an endlessly prolonged moment
La Prophétie
world premiere
Wenhao David Shou
In the final days of the past year, I awaited the new year with hopeful anticipation. Yet, I came across prophecies foretelling the arrival of 2025—each one an ominous vision of calamity. With the turn of the year, I witnessed countless catastrophes, as if the world itself had suddenly become distant and unfamiliar. Wildfires ravaged California, earthquakes shook China, a new wave of flu spread through Japan, and tragedies unfolded in the skies over Korea and the United States. Wars loomed, political unrest deepened, and the weight of uncertainty grew ever heavier. Amidst these distant upheavals, I too was touched by sorrow—loss claimed those dear to me, and betrayal severed bonds once thought unbreakable. La Prophétie is my answer to these catastrophes—a lament, a reckoning, and a testament to the fragile and tumultuous nature of our times.
s h a d o w b o x
Chloe Villamayor
“s h a d o w b o x” is a work for a boxer and interactive media. The work utilizes real-time motion tracking technology to synthesize a sonic soundscape based on the boxer’s movements. This piece focuses on the expressivity of this art form, which I personally believe is too overlooked by audiences. To move is to create, and creation is a gift.
The term “shadowboxing” is fascinating to me. Shadows are from a source and defined by a source, yet aren’t the source. It’s a distortion of the physical. It is the absence of light yet depends on light.
Ideas of entertainment, harm, defense, aesthetics, and trends all swirl around the field of boxing. Through their interview with Gigi Hadid at Gotham Gym, Vogue tells its viewers that boxing is how you can get a body like a supermodel’s. Mike Tyson once said “When you see me smash somebody’s skull, you enjoy it.” So much of popular culture is interested in the effects of this sport.
But when shadowboxing, the boxer isn’t sparring with an external body, they are training with themselves and their own mind. Focus, intentionality, discipline, and imagination are essential to this practice. The objective, then, isn’t in the outcome of the movement, but the movement itself. The body and its movements become art.
My personal journey in boxing has been informed by popular media. I was initially interested in the outcomes: fitness, vanity, self defense, the “coolness” of it. But if these superficial motives were the light to cast a shadow, then the desire to express through the body is the shadow. And just how shadows can grow long, this hobby has augmented myself as both an artist and a human outside of my work.
four lightscapes
live premiere
Benjamin Beckman
In the Spring of 2021, I was asked to write a piece for the Yale Undergraduate Chamber Orchestra’s virtual spring concert. The artistic directors – Emery Kerekes and Jacob Miller – gave the prompt: “take us into your room. Show us something you’ve been thinking about lately.” With four lightscapes, I aimed to capture the texture and the feel of the various moods of light that fell in my room (‘lightscapes’, perhaps) – as I was concurrently taking a drawing class and thinking often on the unique qualities of light in varying conditions and times of day.
