Critically acclaimed New York-based new music group the JACK Quartet presents a program of works by UW composers Joel-François Durand, Huck Hodge, Richard Karpen, and Juan Pampin in this performance capping off a weeklong residency at the UW School of Music.

PROGRAM DETAIL

RE[(F)USE] (2012) ................................................HUCK HODGE (b. 1977)
STRING QUARTET (2005) ................... JOËL-FRANÇOIS DURAND (b. 1954)
I N T E RMI S S I O N
INTERSTICES ......................................................... JUAN PAMPIN (b. 1967)
layer I (1997) / layer II (2012)
APERTURE II (2012) .......................................RICHARD KARPEN (b. 1957)
for amplified string quartet and live electronics

PROGRAM NOTES
re[(f)use] Huck Hodge
refuse (v.)
refuse (n.)
reuse (v.)
reuse (n.)
fuse (v.)
fuse (n.)
re-fuse (v.)

re[(f)use] was commissioned by Music at the Anthology for the JACK
Quartet as part of the 2012 MATA Festival of New Music

String Quartet (2005) Joël-François Durand
My string quartet resulted from a proposal from the Beethovenfest 2005
(which commissioned the work) to explore how Beethoven’s late quartets
still resonate in our times. At a general level, the relations between
my piece and Beethoven’s last works touch upon the problem of how
expressivity and lyricism can be allowed to emerge in spite of, or indeed
from, severe compositional constraints. In Beethoven’s case, one can
witness this in the way in which he designs his thematic materials to be
effective within the constraints of older contrapuntal techniques (such as
the fugue) as well as specific large-scale harmonic relationships (such as
the pull toward the subdominant region, in conflict with the attraction of
the dominant); in other words, how his expressive needs take advantage
of the limits imposed by a particular type of discipline.

The inherent tension that results from such types of situation has confronted me directly
for many years and resulted in a number of different solutions. A common response to this in several of my recent works has been to focus on constraints that primarily are of a temporal nature. In my quartet, as in Athanor, for orchestra (2001) and Ombre/Miroir, for flute and ensemble (2004), elaborate systems of temporal cycles are designed in order to
control the length and tonal color of musical phrases, and their relation with each other in the global design. This type of constraint offers a chance to explore the relations between chronometric and perceptible time, through the way in which different types of musical materials “fill” the temporal cycles.

On a more concrete level, I imagined my piece as the locus for a
scene on a sort of imaginary theater stage, one on which we would witness
Beethoven’s mind working on his last string quartet, op. 135, trying
out ideas, modifying them, drawing parallels and connections between
them. However, lest one would expect from this introduction to hear a
sort of pastiche of Beethoven’s work, I hasten to add that there are very
few direct allusions to the original; rather, some specific ideas of op. 135
are used as impetus to create alternate trajectories, remote images, new
dramatic chronologies. One such example appears at the beginning of
my quartet (after the two pizzicatos of the first measure): it is a fairly
direct allusion to Beethoven’s work, as one can briefly hear a slightly
modified version of the very beginning of op. 135. But here, this initial
gesture is not followed by other parts derived from the first movement of
op. 135, but is immediately slowed down to a considerable degree, and
followed by resonances in echoes. It is then inside the opening created
by this stretched-out time that the new work unfolds by progressive discoveries,
additions and detours.

A bit further, another example shows a more abstract type of relation to Beethoven’s work, one in which the hocket of his quartet’s second movement is used as a conceptual impetus
rather than direct allusion: the layers of the hocket were taken apart, modified and reorganized in order to gain a completely different dramatic role: in my work, each line of the polyphony is progressively introduced in four separate sections, each one dominated by a different instrument (first, viola, then second violin, cello and finally first violin). Since the process is cumulative, it is only in the last presentation that all four voices join together to render a sort of equivalent to the obsessive climax of the second movement of op. 135.

Interstices: layer I (1997) / layer II (2012) Juan Pampin
"We (the undivided divinity that operates in us) have dreamed the world.
We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space,
and firm in time; but we have allowed tenuous and eternal interstices of
irrationality in its architecture, to know that it is false."
Jorge Luis Borges, "Avatars of the Tortoise"

From: Juan Pampin <pampin@uw.edu>
To: John Richards <john@jackquartet.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 11:43 PM
Re: Interstices score and parts
Dear John,
A little bit of history about the piece: I wrote this string quartet back in
1997 when I was a doctoral student at Stanford with Jonathan Harvey.
The piece won the Stanford String Quartet competition, the price was a
performance of the piece by the Stanford String quartet but by the time
the jury awarded the prize the group had dissolved so they decided to
hire the Arditti Quartet to play it during their visit to campus in 1998.
The piece was later premiered in London in 2000 by a string quartet lead
by David Alberman (former Arditti 2nd violin and member of a group
called Sinfonia 21). After that I decided to put the piece "on hold", not
so much because I didn't like it, but because I always wanted to write an
electronic part for it, something I couldn't do when I composed it because
I didn't had the time (had to turn in the score literally in a couple of
weeks!) and -mainly- because at that time I didn't have the tools I needed
to do the kind of thing I wanted to process the ensemble in real time (I
didn't want to write a "tape" for it). So that's why I decided to revisit the
piece now, get the score copied (score and parts were still hand-written!)
and finally compose the electronic part I wanted so, while the score is
dated 1997, your performance will be the premiere of the new version of
the piece! If you listen to the Arditti recording, you will notice also that I
have changed a few things on the score, some of these changes come
from the London performance and others were made recently during the
composition of the electronic part, these changes are really minor, I
wanted to keep the score as close to the original version as possible.
OK, that's it, please let me know if you have any questions, I'm really
looking forward to work with you!
Best, JUAN

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: JACK Quartet
The JACK Quartet electrifies audiences worldwide with "explosive virtuosity"
(Boston Globe) and "viscerally exciting performances" (New
York Times). David Patrick Stearns (Philadelphia Inquirer) proclaimed
their performance as being "among the most stimulating new-music concerts
of my experience." The Washington Post commented, "The string
quartet may be a 250-year-old contraption, but young, brilliant groups
like the JACK Quartet are keeping it thrillingly vital." Alex Ross (New
Yorker) hailed their performance of Iannis Xenakis' complete string
quartets as being "exceptional" and "beautifully harsh," and Mark Swed
(Los Angeles Times) called their sold-out performances of Georg Friedrich
Haas' String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct. "mind-blowingly good."

Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist
John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland, JACK is focused
on the commissioning and performance of new works, leading them to
work closely with composers Helmut Lachenmann, György Kurtág,
Matthias Pintscher, Georg Friedrich Haas, James Dillon, Toshio Hosokawa,
Wolfgang Rihm, Elliott Sharp, Beat Furrer, Caleb Burhans, and
Aaron Cassidy. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Jason
Eckardt, Zeena Parkins, Simon Steen-Anderson, Walter Zimmermann,
Matthias Pintscher, Bent Sørensen, and Toby Twining.

The members of the quartet met while attending the Eastman School
of Music, and they have since studied with the Arditti Quartet, Kronos
Quartet, Muir String Quartet, and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
The quartet has performed to critical acclaim at Wigmore Hall (London),
Les Flâneries Musicales de Reims (France), Ultraschall Festival für
Neue Musik (Germany), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), Festival
Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany),
Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany),
Library of Congress, Kimmel Center, La Biennale di Venezia
(Italy), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), and Carnegie Hall.

JACK has recent and upcoming performances at the SONiC Festival
as hosts of the Extended Play Marathon at Miller Theatre, Vancouver
New Music (Canada), Strathmore Hall, cresc...Biennale für Moderne
Musik (Germany), National Gallery of Art, Newman Center for the Performing
Arts, Le Poisson Rouge performing with pianist Ursula Oppens,
Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts performing with composer/gui–
tarist Steven Mackey, Carnegie Hall Choral Institute performing with the
Young People's Chorus of New York City, the Wittener Tage für Neue
Kammermusik (Germany) performing string octets with the Arditti
Quartet, and the Athelas New Music Festival (Denmark).

Throughout 2012-2014, JACK will join legendary pianist Maurizio
Pollini as a part of his Perspectives series with performances at the
Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), Suntory Hall (Japan), Cité de la
Musique (France), Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Germany), and Teatro
alla Scala (Italy). Additionally this year, JACK will be the featured
ensemble for the 2012 Finale® National Composition Contest in partnership
with MakeMusic and the American Composers Forum.

JACK has led workshops with young composers at Princeton University,
Yale University, the American String Teachers Association of
New Jersey, University of Iowa, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany), New
York University, Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University,
Eastman School of Music, University at Buffalo, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, University of Huddersfield
(United Kingdom), University of Washington, University of Victoria
(Canada), and Manhattan School of Music. In addition to working
with composers and performers, JACK seeks to broaden and diversify
the potential audience for new music through educational presentations
designed for a variety of ages, backgrounds, and levels of musical experience.

COMPOSERS
HUCK HODGE writes music that explores the embodied poetics of organized
sound, perceptual illusion and the threshold between design and intuition. His
output is diverse and comprises a wide range of symphonic, chamber and multimedia
works.

Hodge is the winner of the Rome Prize, the Gaudeamus International Composition
Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Goddard Lieberson Fellowship
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Aaron Copland Fellowship
from the Bogliasco Foundation and commissions from Music at the Anthology,
the American Composers Forum, the American Academy in Rome, Musik der
Jahrhunderte and Muziek Centrum Nederland, among many other awards and
commissions.

Praised by the New York Times for his “harmonically fresh work… full of
both sparkle and thunder”, his music has been the subject of numerous international
radio broadcasts and is regularly performed at major festivals throughout
the world (ISCM, Nuova Consonanza, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, MaerzMusik,
Laboratoire Instrumental Europeén, etc.). He has had performances of his work
at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and has collaborated with members of
Ensemble Modern and the Berlin Philharmonic, the ASKO Ensemble,
l’Ensemble Aleph, the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble, the JACK
Quartet and the Talea Ensemble. His music is licensed and distributed by
Alexander Street Press.

Hodge received his MA and DMA from Columbia University, where he
studied Composition with Tristan Murail and Fred Lerdahl. Prior to this, he
studied Music Theory and Computer Music at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart,
where his teachers included Georg Wötzer and Marco Stroppa. During this
time, his studies were supported with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). He is
currently Assistant Professor in Composition at the University of Washington.

JOËL-FRANÇOIS DURAND (b. 1954, Orléans, France) is Professor of Music at the
University of Washington, where he has taught composition, analysis, and
theory since 1991. He has been Associate Director of the UW School of Music
since 2002. Durand was awarded the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professorship
in 2003.

Durand studied mathematics, music education, and piano in Paris, then
composition with Brian Ferneyhough in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany (1981-
84). During that time he also attended masterclasses with György Ligeti,
Luciano Berio and Luigi Nono. In 1982 Durand was awarded a scholarship
from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange), and a Darmstadt Institute
Scholarship for his String Trio. In 1983 his piano piece "…d'asiles déchirés…"
received a prize at the Third International K.H. Stockhausen Composition Competition
in Brescia (Italy).

He left Europe in 1984 to pursue a Ph.D. in Composition (awarded in 1988)
at the University of New York, Stony Brook (USA), where he studied with
Bülent Arel. He also studied electronic music with Daria Semegen. Durand
was awarded scholarships from the Fulbright Foundation and from the French
Ministry of Culture. He received the "Kranichsteiner Musikpreis" from the
Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkurse in 1990.

Durand has composed for a wide variety of instrumental combinations. His
music has been commissioned and performed by many leading ensembles and
orchestras in Europe, the US, Brazil, and South Korea, including Ensemble
Intercontemporain, London Sinfonietta, Contrechamps, Arditti Quartet, ASKO,
Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble Köln, Recherche, musikFabrik, New York
Philomusica, Counter) Induction, EarPlay, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre
Philarmonique de Radio France, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin.
Durand's work for orchestra, Athanor, was premiered by the BBC Symphony
Orchestra in 2003 and was released on a CD (Mode Records) of his music in
2004.

A book on his music, Joël-François Durand in the Mirror Land, edited by
Jonathan W. Bernard, was released in 2006 by the University of Washington
Press, in collaboration with Perspectives of New Music.

As a guest composer and lecturer, Durand has contributed to the University
of California at San Diego where he was Visiting Assistant Professor in Composition
in 1994; the "Centre de la Voix" in Royaumont, France where he was codirector
of the composition course in September 1993; the "Civica Scuola di
Musica" in Milan, Italy (1995); the Royal Academy for Music in London, UK
(1997); the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany;
the "VIII. Internationaler Meisterkurs für Komposition des Brandenburgischen
Colloquiums für Neue Musik," Rheinsberg, Germany (1998); and Washington
State University, Pullman, Washington (2004), among others.

In addition to his activities in music composition, Durand founded a company,
Durand Tonearms LLC, in 2009 to produce high-end tonearms for phonograph,
the Talea and the Telos, which have been received to great acclaim by the
audiophile community. The Talea includes an invention to adjust the angle of
the stylus on the record while playing that is the subject of a patent application
filed by the C4C, UW. In 2010, Durand was named a UW Entrepreneurial Fellow
in recognition for development and production of the tonearms.

Joël-François Durand is listed in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians.

JUAN PAMPIN is Associate Professor of Music Composition at University of
Washington and founding faculty member of the Center for Digital Arts and
Experimental Media (DXARTS), for which he currently serves as Director. He
received an MA in Composition from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de
Musique de Lyon, France and a DMA in Composition from Stanford University,
where he studied with composer Jonathan Harvey.

Juan Pampin’s works explore the territory delineated by the concepts of
site, memory, and materiality through the use of algorithmic strategies to produce
aural phenomena. His compositions, including pieces for instrumental,
digital, and mixed media, and have been performed around the world by worldclass
soloists and ensembles such as Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Arditti
String Quartet, Sinfonia 21, Susana Kasakoff, Melia Watras, among many
others.

RICHARD KARPEN (b. 1957) is one of the leading composers and researchers of
electroacoustic music internationally. He is known not only for his pioneering
compositions for live and electronic media, but also for developing computer
applications for composition, live/interactive performance, and sound design.

Karpen is currently Director of the School of Music at the University of
Washington after previously serving at the UW as Founding Director of the
Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) and Divisional
Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a Professor of
Music Composition. He has been the recipient of many awards, grants and
prizes including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, the ASCAP
Foundation, the Bourges Contest in France, and the Luigi Russolo Foundation in
Italy. Fellowships and grants for work outside of the U.S. include a Fulbright to
Italy, a residency at IRCAM in France, and a Leverhulme Visiting Fellowship to
the United Kingdom. He received his doctorate in composition from Stanford
University, where he also worked at the Center for Computer Research in Music
and Acoustics (CCRMA). Karpen is a native of New York, where he studied composition with Charles Dodge and Gheorghe Costinescu.

Karpen's works are widely performed in the U.S. and internationally. While
he is primarily known for his work in electronic media, Karpen has also composed
symphonic and chamber works for a wide variety of ensembles. Furthermore,
he has composed works for many leading international soloists such as
soprano Judith Bettina, violist Garth Knox, trombonist Stuart Dempster, flutists
Laura Chislett and Jos Zwaanenberg, guitarist, Stefan Östersjö, and oboist Alex
Klein. Along with numerous concert and radio performances, his works have
been set to dance by groups such as the Royal Danish Ballet and the Guandong
Dance Company of China. Karpen's compositions have been recorded on a
variety of labels including Wergo, Centaur, Neuma, Le Chant du Monde, DIFFUSION
i MeDIA, Fleur du Son, and Capstone.