Commission from Nancy Karp + Dancers dance company

NANCY KARP + DANCERS
40th Anniversary Season

A new full evening work in celebration of our 4 decades of dance making...

Featuring music by David A. Jaffe and production design by Jack Carpenter, NANCY KARP + DANCERS returns to live performance in celebration of its 40th Anniversary with a new multidisciplinary work that embraces the interconnectedness of the natural world - an apt metaphor for our present times.

The concert features three works by David A. Jaffe: Fox Hollow, String Quartet for Two Instruments and the newly-commissioned “fly through the night, and land near dawn, five dances of migration” a name taken from the dance itself. The new work is scored for mandolin/mando-cello (one player), violin and cello. The music will be performed by the Friction String Quartet, with guest David A. Jaffe on mandolin/mando-cello.

Mark Your Calendar!

When:
Friday, October 28 | 8 PM with Opening Reception
Saturday, October 29 | 8 PM
Sunday, October 30 | 3 PM with Closing Reception

Where:
Paul Dresher Performance Studio, Oakland, California

Tickets Available:
August 15, 2022

Dancer: Sonsherée Giles || Photo Credit: John Hefti

Commission from Joanna Hood: "Northwest Passages, 13 climate alarms from the arctic," for 13 violas

Commissioned by Joanna Hood, I have just completed a new work for the intriguing and challenging combination of 13 violas, all of which often are playing separate parts.

Sought for five centuries by European explorers as a sea route to China, the Northwest Passage was finally achieved by Roland Amundsen in 1906 and represented both a triumph of navigation and a shrinking of the globe. Today's situation is more ominous, with melting ice forging unprecedented new "passages" through the Arctic, as temperatures rise at nearly twice the global average, threatening ancient ways of life and signaling a global crisis.

"Northwest Passages, thirteen climate alarms from the Arctic" is a musical soundscape that invokes the Arctic panorama, its contemporary disruption and the urgency of addressing it. Its thirteen diverse sections, presented as one continuous movement, represent my latest exploration of same-instrument orchestration (along with works for 5 double basses, 8 cellos, 8 guitars and 10 flutes.) The unique timbre of thirteen distinct viola parts enables massive textures suggesting the vastness of the landscape, as well as glacial layering, sliding, splitting, melting and deformation. In addition, the instruments merge in various combinations, with solo passages from the 13th viola (performed by Viola 1) providing a lone personal voice.

The sections are titled as follows:

1. Shrinking Ice Sheets

2. Sea Level Rise

3. Warming Ocean

4. Narwhal

5. Global Temperature Rise

6. Polar Bear

7. Caribou

8. Extreme Events

9. Beluga

10. Melting Sea Ice

11. Feedback Loop

12. Glacial Retreat

13. One Planet

Commission for Newberry Library - Open House Chicago

I am honored to have been awarded a commission to write a site-specific work for the famous Newberry Library (https://www.newberry.org/) as part of Open House Chicago (https://openhousechicago.org/), funded by Access Contemporary Music https://www.acmusic.org/. My piece focuses on the front lobby and stairwell, with the instruments separated spatially. Event is Saturday, October 13, 2018. The work is played continuously (with short breaks) throughout the afternoon.

UA at NAMM, 2015

On the technical front, Universal Audio announced at NAMM what I've been working on for the last year: "apollo expanded" allows mix/match multi-unit with all audio busses over thunderbolt, as well as a new GUI and other enhancements. More info here.

Successful Kickstarter campaign for "Eight O's in Woolloomooloo" premiere, with support from Aaron Copland Fund for Music

The Galax Quartet and Karen Clark successfully completed a Kickstarter campaign to fund the remainder of composer and performance costs of my new work "Eight O's in Woolloomooloo." My heartfelt gratitude to all of you. In these days of commodity culture, it's wonderful to have had your support for hand-made music in the experimentalist tradition of Charles Ives and Henry Brant.

I hope you can join us for the premiere performance on December 4th, at Trinity Chapel, Dana Street, Berkeley, 7:30 PM, followed by a reception at A Musical Offering following the concert. Sponsored in part by the San Francisco Early Music Society. Info here.