Lisboa, Tramway 28

by Elzbieta Sikora

movement 1 and 2

Lisboa, Tramway 28 by Elzbieta Sikora movement 3

Lisboa,  Tramway 28 by Elzbieta Sikora movement 4

Distances Within Me by John Anthony Lennon with Shima Tsubata, piano.

Sonata by Edison Denisov movement 2 with Shima Tsubata, piano

Sonata by Edison Denisov movement 1 with Shima Tsubata, piano

Sonata by Edison Denisov movement 3 with Shima Tsubata, piano

Excerpt of Birdsong-a new work for sopranino saxophone and pre-recorded sound by Jeremy Ruthrauff.

The musical composition involves eleven sections or episodes with each section’s sound material for the playback derived exclusively from the sopranino saxophone and the sounds of one of eleven birds.  The birds are common ones native to the Chicago area.  The magpie is a sort of wild card in the piece since it is not indigenous and traditionally has been a symbol endowed with mystical properties.  Birdsongs include:  starlings, goldfinches, morning doves, robins, crows, bluejays, cardinals, house sparrows, house finches, swallows, and the magpie.  Recorded sound material is often manipulated electronically in an exaggerated manner resulting in sounds quite distantly separated from their original context.  The piece is a kind of strange dream landscape inhabited by magical birds.

Shout by Mark Anthony Turnage with Shima Tsubata, piano.  The end of this piece involves the saxophonist playing directly into the strings of the piano with the sustain pedal depressed generating a melancholy elegiac echo.

10. J.S. Bach Sonata in G minor BWV 1020 movement 3 (Allegro) with Anthony Porter, cello and Shima Tsubata, piano
    

Trio sonata with modern instruments-soprano saxophone, piano and cello

Hard by Christian Lauba

Hard for solo tenor saxophone by French composer Christian Lauba utilizes an extensive array of extended playing techniques such as muliphonics (simultaneous multiple note chords produced by controlling the harmonics in the overtone series) and a variety of percussive articulations.  The title refers to the hard edged aggressive aesthetic embodied in music like hard rock, soul and free improvisation.  A section of the piece early in the form invokes the sounds of James Brown with multiphonics imitating the sound of the rhythm guitar and the upper line of the tenor saxophone wailing out James Brownian vocalisms.

Christian Lauba’s notes about Hard:

“Hard is a synthesis between the present contemporary music and the more popular music (Hard rock, Soul music) which is often improvised.  These musics have many aspects in common in spite of the barriers that apparently separate these essential means of expression. The piece is very precisely written but it must give the impression that it is a long improvisation.  Both performer and audience must go into a trance at the end of the performance.”

Elegie 1 by British composer Mark Anthony Turnage.

Eliott Carter

Pastorale with Shima Tsubata, piano.

Pastorale by Eliott Carter is an example of the composer’s early style which is tonal and reminiscent of Aaron Copland while also containing the complexity of the composer’s later serial works.

This recording of Elzbieta Sikora’s Liboa, Tramway 28 is a live performance in Chicago as part of the Contempo contemporary music concert series.  The piece is for soprano and alto saxophone with pre-recorded sound and is an homage to the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.  The piece opens with closely amplified air sounds performed by the saxophonist.

Fernando Pessoa:

Walking on these streets, until the night falls, my life feels to me like the life they have. By day they’re full of meaningless activity; by night, they’re full of meaningless lack of it. By day I am nothing, and by night I am I. There is no difference between me and these streets, save they being streets and I a soul, which perhaps is irrelevant when we consider the essence of things.

Fernando Pessoa,

from «A Factless Autobiography» in The Book of Disquiet,

tr. by Richard Zenith.

The painting  to the left is Island 2 by Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

listen to an interview with Jacob TV and Fulcrum Point Artistic Director Stephen Burns about the world premiere of the reality opera “The News” on WFMT’s Relevant Tones show:

http://www.exploringmusic.org/rt/relevant_tones_1204a.mp3

http://www.exploringmusic.org/rt/relevant_tones_1204b.mp3

-also included is an excerpt of a performance of Jacob TV’s “Grab It!” by Jeremy Ruthrauff (tenor saxophone), Collins Trier (bass) and Jeff Handley (drums) (at 23:53 in first link)