Visual Abstract
Pierre Jalbert
 
In 2009, Canadian filmmaker Jean Detheux and I worked on a project together in which he created a film first, and then I wrote the music to his images. This piece was entitled L’œil écoute (The eye listens) and was premiered by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. For Visual Abstract, Jean and I wanted to reverse the process – he would create his film to my previously existing music, which appropriately used images as its initial inspiration.
 
The music for Visual Abstract was originally written for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Each of the three movements of Visual Abstract was inspired by a visual image. The first movement, entitled “Bells – Forwards and Backwards”, was inspired by the image of a tolling bell, and also its sound – a loud attack followed by a long decay – and its sounds backwards – a large crescendo followed by an accented note. One can hear both of these forward and backward bell sounds throughout the movement. The second movement, entitled “Dome of Heaven,” was inspired by Francesco Borromini’s dome at the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome. Though it is one of the smallest domes in Rome, when one looks up into the dome from the inside, it evokes a sense of infinity and suspended time. The third movement, entitled “Dance”, was inspired by the image of a group of dancers creating an energetic choreography.
 
–Pierre Jalbert
 
 
Short Winds
Sean Friar
 
Short Winds is an ongoing set of short pieces for woodwind quintet. The first piece, “Wiggle Room,” has a strong urge to leave itself with some of its namesake as it decides whether it wants to slither and pulse, or slip into a lilting dance. In “Weaves,” the instruments hesitantly piece together simple melodic fragments one at a time before weaving them all together. In “Lick Machine,” each instrument starts with its own bluesy riff, or “lick”. As those licks change over time, evolving grooves emerge, ultimately leading to a frenetic rave at the end of the piece. This is not an entirely smooth process, however; like an old, hobbling machine, the music occasionally hits a snag, goes off the rails in a surprising direction, and must be stopped and started again to get back on course.
 
–Sean Friar
 
 
Je sens un deuxième coeur
Kaija Saariaho
 
Je sens un deuxième cœur is a piece born in the middle of composing my second opera [Adriana Mater]. The title, as well as the names of the five sections, comes directly from the libretto.
 
My original idea was to write musical portraits of the four characters in the opera, but when I began reworking the material in the context of chamber music, concentrating on developing the ideas to fit the three instruments of my trio, the piece grew further from the opera.
 
Compositionally, I started from concrete, high-profile ideas and advanced toward abstract, purely musical concerns. So, for example, the title of the first section, “Je dévoile ma peau”, became a metaphor: the musical material introduced was orchestrated to reveal the individual characters of the three instruments and their interrelations.
 
The second and fourth parts both start from ideas of physical violence. In the context of this trio the violence has turned into two studies on instrumental energy. Part three is a color study in which the three identities are melded into one complex sound object.
 
The last section brings us to the thematic starting point of my opera, again very physical: the two hearts beating in a pregnant woman’s body. I am fascinated by the idea of the secret relationship between a mother and an unborn child. Musically, the two heartbeats and their constantly changing rhythmic polyphony have already served as an inspiration in my music; now the connections between the two minds added another layer of communication. Finally the title became also a metaphor for music making: isn’t it with the “other” we want to communicate through our music? As written over the last movement, Doloroso, sempre con amore.
 
–Kaija Saariaho
 
 
I See Shapes in Storm-Filled Skies
Gibson Mahnke
 
“I see shapes in storm-filled skies . . . do you?”
 
–Gibson Mahnke
 
 
In a Holt of Giant Hatpins
Trevor Zavac
 
Music is perhaps the most abstract art form, which has confused and upset audiences for centuries. Composers have thought up a good many ways to combat this – from Beethoven who denotes mood and character, to the overtly programmatic music meant to literally represent a narrative. What these have in common is the use of concrete art forms (such as text), which are used to guide the listener and give the music direction.
 
This begs the question: If text can be used as the narrative basis to make an abstract piece less abstract, can music be utilized as a springboard to employ a concrete art form in an abstract manner? In a Holt of Giant Hatpins uses music to justify text. With the exception of the first line, all of the text was written either after the music or in conjunction with the music. This means that any resulting narrative (if one exists) is dictated solely by the demands and development of the music. In this particular approach to “music painting”, the text makes semantic sense.
 
The words, at least to me, reflect the music. The beauty of the text is rooted primarily in the sound of each word or stanza as it relates to the words and stanzas on either side of it. The result is a fantastical experience, exploring a world as unique and sprawling as the music.
 
In a Holt of Giant Hatpins is about nothing in particular. Any meaning extrapolated from the text or the music has equal origins in the mind of the listener.
 
–Trevor Zavac

Alessia Jensen
 
Soprano Alessia Jensen is a first-year master’s student at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music and an alumna of the Cleveland Institute of Music. She began her musical journey performing with The Cleveland Orchestra as a member of its Children’s Chorus, appearing in The Cunning Little Vixen (2014, 2017) and Three Fragments from Wozzeck (2015).
 
A committed advocate for new music, she has performed student-composed micro operas at CIM (2022, 2024) and premiered several contemporary works, including the award-winning song cycle Five Songs by Tristan Wilson. Her stage credits include Arminda in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, Dido in Purcell/Landau’s Dido & Aeneas & Aeterna, Agony in Wilson’s Saint Agony, Older Alyce in Cipullo’s Glory Denied, Mère Marie in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, as well as the soprano solo in Hailstork’s Four Spirituals and Rossini’s Stabat Mater.
 
 
Donald Crockett
 
Donald Crockett
Donald Crockett is professor and chair of the composition department and director of Thornton Edge at the USC Thornton School of Music, and senior composer-in-residence with the Bennington Chamber Music Conference. He has received commissions from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Composer-in-Residence (1991-97), Kronos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hilliard Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and the California EAR Unit, among many others.
 
Recent projects include commissions from the Harvard Musical Association for violist Kate Vincent and Firebird Ensemble, the San Francisco-based chamber choir, Volti, for its 30th anniversary season, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Claremont Trio, and a chamber opera, The Face, based on a novella in verse by poet David St. John.
 
The recipient in 2013 of an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for outstanding artistic achievement, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006, Donald Crockett has also received grants and prizes from the Barlow Endowment, Bogliasco Foundation, Copland Fund, Copland House, Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards, Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA and many others.
 
His music is published by Keiser Classical and Doberman/Yppan and recorded on the Albany, CRI, Doberman/Yppan, ECM, innova, Laurel, New World, Orion and Pro Arte/Fanfare labels. Two all-Crockett recordings were released in 2011, on New World Records with Firebird Ensemble and on Albany Records with Xtet. Active as a conductor of new music, Crockett has presented many world, national and regional premieres with the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble Xtet, the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble, and as a guest conductor with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Hilliard Ensemble, California EAR Unit, Firebird Ensemble and Ensemble X.
 
As conductor of the USC Thornton Symphony’s annual New Music for Orchestra concert, Donald Crockett has premiered well over a hundred orchestral works by outstanding Thornton student composers. He has also been very active over the years as a composer and conductor with the venerable and famed Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles. His recordings as a conductor can be found on the Albany, CRI, Doberman/Yppan, ECM and New World labels.