SOLSTICE
Works by Anna Clyne, Dusan Bogdanovic, Lou Harrison
& featuring Blithe on a Bird on a Briar a world premiere from composer & vocalist Tamzin Elliott
Tamzin Elliott is a composer from northern San Diego, now based in Los Angeles. She graduated from Bard College and Conservatory in New York with a Bachelors of Music in Composition and a Bachelors of Art in Poetry, and is currently working on her Masters of Composition at University of Southern California studying with Sean Friar. At Bard she studied composition with George Tsontakis and Joan Tower, and was advised by Ann Lauterbach through working on her thesis in Poetry.
In recent years Tamzin has been focusing on writing vocal work for herself and others, on writing lyrics, and experimenting with traditional parameters of live performance - her work often making genre lines ambiguous. She loves performing, whether it be her own work, classical harp repertoire, or Georgian folk music.
with violist Hannah Rose Nicholas
Hannah Rose Nicholas is a violist, vocalist, curator, and writer. She has been a soloist and featured artist with the O, Miami Poetry Festival, SoFar Sounds Miami, the Lucerne Festival Academy, and the Barnes Ensemble, a contemporary music ensemble in residence at the Barnes Museum, Philadelphia. She is a founding member of the indie-rock trio The alt Default, winner of the Knight Arts Challenge South Florida.
Hannah’s recent performances have included new works by composers Sahba Aminikia, Jessica Meyer, Eric Wubbles, and Ljova, as well as collaborations with visual artist Kevork Mourad and poet Mario Ariza. Her own compositions, influenced by Sephardic and folk music, have been performed in Houston for the Art of Cultural Intersection in Music series (2016).
Currently the Principal Viola of the Central City Opera Orchestra in Colorado, Hannah was a member of the New World Symphony from 2014-17 under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, performing as principal viola on highlighted concerts including Strauss' Don Quixote and on tour to Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Hannah earned a Masters in Music from New England Conservatory, studying under Kim Kashkashian, an Artist Certificate in Chamber Music from San Francisco Conservatory, studying under Paul Hersh, and a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
MUSICIANS
Preben Antonsen Celeste, Liam Boisset Oboe,
Matthew Cmiel Guitar/Conductor, Tamzin Elliott Singer,
Brad Hogarth Trumpet, Evan Kahn Cello,
Hanna Rose Nicholas Viola, Elizabeth Talbert Flute,
Eugéne Thériault Bass
MATTHEW CMIEL & AFTER EVERYTHING INVITE YOU
TO NEW MUSIC FOR DECEMBER
Greetings, Everyone! This is a story about Dusan Bogdanovic.
A teenager who studied improvisation with Dusan Bogdanovic had a hard time explaining to his parents what happened during their lessons together. (Teenagers frequently do). Out of curiosity. his father asked if a lesson could be recorded. The kid asked Dusan. Dusan said , "Yes."
After the next lesson, the kid’s father listened to the recording for 52 minutes when he suddenly burst out laughing. The father assumed that the kid had removed the talking from the recording, leaving only the music. Instead, the lesson was almost entirely music, at least until 52 minutes in when, in a kind voice, Dusan said: “So, Matt, how are you?”
Dusan speaks through his music. I describe him as the Chopin of the guitar, because he is as dedicated to the guitar as Chopin was to the piano and also because of the deep musicianship that pours through each beautiful phrase.
Dusan Bogdanovic is a creator of new and unusual rhythms, developing relationships between voices in ways that are rhythmically complicated and elegant–similar, in some sense, to Thomas Ades– yet never beyond what one can easily hear.
I've never worked with anyone that improvises quite like Dusan. A master in all genres, I thank him for the guidance and wisdom he has provided me, and I will play and program his music as often as possible.
On December 2, Hannah Rose Nicholas and I will be performing his piece–
Four Intimate Pieces
for Guitar & Viola: Prayer • Movement • The Harp of David • Chant
All four movements are personal and wonderfully express that deep beauty within all parts of humanity. For Dusan, to know someone intimately is to love all of them.
So much to be excited about. So much to be thankful for.
See you at the church! –Matthew
MATTHEW CMIEL & AFTER EVERYTHING INVITE YOU
TO NEW MUSIC FOR DECEMBER
Greetings, Everyone! I want to take a second and
talk a little bit about Lou Harrison.
I grew up with the music of Lou Harrison in the house the way my friends grew up with Bob Dylan and Marvin Gaye. There was almost always a constant stream of Lou's music playing and so I don't really remember falling in love with Lou, the way I remember falling in love with so many other composers. Instead he was just a constant presence.
I remember when I first met Lou, though. I was maybe 7 years old when the San Francisco Conservatory of Music was celebrating an "80 Years Young" festival of music by Lou Harrison. Lou was young, I mean, he had lived, and he had seen a lot, but there was something so incredibly guileless, incredibly open about the way he viewed the world. I remember thinking that he might actually be Santa Claus, with his broad white beard, and wide smile, and genuine kindness. He pulled me onto his lap and my father snapped a picture. An unforgettable moment that lives only in our memories, lost when the photographer exposed the roll.
I first started to really understand Lou's importance to the music world when I began attending the Cabrillo New Music Festival Annually. Maestra Marin Alsop would program Lou's music every year, and he would come, and talk about music. Once he told a story of writing a letter to Charles Ives without any form of introduction, and Ives writing back with a trunk filled with music for Lou to study, many of them Ives' only copy of his manuscripts. This inspired me to write my own letter to Lou, which the festival forwarded to him. He wrote me back, of course, how could he not? His letter was inked in beautiful calligraphy, and he gave me feedback and music and advice about the world.
With such an auspicious start to my relationship with Lou Harrison and his music, it's a real treat for me to be able to present his composition, Solstice, for the December 2017 concert of new music from After Everything.
MATTHEW CMIEL & AFTER EVERYTHING INVITE YOU
TO NEW MUSIC FOR DECEMBER
Duke Ellington
Steve Reich
John Adams
Meredith Monk
The year: 2000. I was 11 years old at the San Francisco Symphony’s first American Mavericks Festival, listening to the most amazing sounds I had ever heard. That was when I decided that I would put on my own concert series some day and share this amazing music with the world. A year later, I met Preben Antonsen and we discovered our similar musical tastes, interests, and shared beliefs about music.
We believed concerts should be inclusive: Robert Schumann can share the stage with Magnus Lindberg, Julius Eastman with Anna Clyne. Music as global and timeless concept.
From these thoughts and ideas, After Everything, an ensemble of musicians dedicated to the performance of inspiring and daring music, was born. Now, many years and many collaborations later, we want to share our musical ideas with our community and the great, wide world.
For several years, After Everything was in a formative phase and only staged occasional concerts. 2016-2017 was our first full season, sponsored by the generosity of our friends and families, for which were and are very grateful.
Funding a music ensemble is challenging. There are costs for the venue, for renting scores and sheet music (sometimes as much as $600 for one piece), marketing , advertising, and paying our wonderful, talented, hard working musicians. There is also the added challenge to keep the cost for admission to a minimum, in the interest of making the concerts accessible to as many people as possible, to extend our reach to a wider audience each season.
We can reach, if you reach. Into your pocket. For your checkbook. Or your mouse.
It's hard to decide to give, when so many people, places, causes, cry out in big and small ways for help. It's also hard to ask. But, we must. A contribution of $400 would cover the cost of the venue for a single concert. A donation of $100 would help pay for promotional posters, postcards and programs.
Thank you for your support. Any amount is appreciated.
