Three Madrigals by Max Grafe

Hailed as adept and imaginatively scored by the Woodstock Times, and bright, colorful, full of fascinating hues and
a well woven tapestry of sound and program by I Care If You Listen magazine, the music of Max Grafe (b. 1988) is
rapidly emerging onto the American contemporary classical music scene. Mr. Grafes work has recently been performed
by the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, newEar Contemporary
Chamber Ensemble, and bassoonists Elizabeth Garrett and Sasha Gee Enegren; the 2014/2015 season will see the
premiere of a new work with dance as part of the New York City Ballets 2015 New York Choreographic Institute and the
premiere of a new work written for the New Juilliard Ensemble under Joel Sachs.

Mr. Grafe has received several prestigious awards for student composers, including several named scholarships for
graduate study at the Juilliard School, a fellowship for study at the 2012 Aspen Music Festival and School, a 2011 Jacobs
School of Music Deans Prize, a 2007 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and a competition-based
scholarship for undergraduate composition study at Indiana University.


Mr. Grafe is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition as a CV Starr Doctoral Fellow of the
Juilliard School, where he also received a Master of Music degree in composition in 2013. He received a Bachelor of
Music degree in composition with a concentration in bassoon from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in
2011, graduating with music departmental honors and a general honors notation. He has also taken classes in the
preparatory division of Mannes College of Music and graduated with honors in composition and bassoon.



















Squarepushers by Amanda Feery

Before writing Squarepushers, I envied writers and performers. I had also convinced myself that every other
composer was in their element during the process of writing a piece, happily number-crunching dots on a
page. I believed their eight hour day started with a heel-click and traversed into sunset with a terrific sense of
accomplishment. Their large chunk of work when it came to clock-out time showed their dedication and
enthusiasm, so they rightfully deserved that 3 hour marathon of The Sopranos!

When I felt comfortable enough, I started to record little bursts of song. The patterns and fragments of
melody for Squarepushers evolved from those recordings. From there, I notated bits and blips on scraps of
manuscript paper. My desk resembled the work window in a music sequencer or video editor. I moved the
squares of paper around my desk as if they were on the screen of my laptop.

For Squarepushers, I wanted to loosen the grip I have on my musical ideas, and move the control into the
hands of the performers. There are patterns in the piece that are just cellular springboards that the
performers can jump from. There are also more developed melodic phrases; some that are strictly
harmonized and others that can be treated like a rubber band. I wondered how the patterns
and melodies would fall onto each other vertically, and how the elasticity would affect the overall pace of the
piece. I almost felt a tiny flicker of satisfaction almost!

Writing Squarepushers helped me accept the fact that I dont have to justify how I work. I dont know why I
forced myself to work in such a rigid way. Maybe I was trying to do it the same way all the famous dead lads
did it, but whatever the reason, the obsessive Beethoven madness wasnt working. I've been extremely lucky
to work with Quince. They took complete control over the material and have really made the piece their own
without batting one of their lovely eyelids. I have them to thank for, more than performing the piece so
beautifully, a genuine sea change in how I make music.


Amanda keeps fortune-cookie sized slips of paper and poorly labelled audio files on her desk and computer, which she
eventually weaves together to make a piece. Through her music making she has met and worked with inspiring teachers
and peers in the realms of composition, improvisation, theatre, and film.

Current work includes a vocal/multimedia work based on the diary entries of Donald Crowhurst, 'Spells from the Ice
Age', an EP of improvisations recorded on neglected pianos, and a lot of faffing around. She is currently a doctoral
fellow at Princeton University.





Le Salve by Jonathan Sokol

Both musically and poetically, Le Salve is a marked moment in time, wrought from and bound to memory,
which breathes and behaves in a space specific to that memory. And though the author, Jessica Rooney, was
aware of my affinity with the concept of memory and my propensity for textural evolution and development
when writing the text, it was her narrative flow with which I became most invested. Or, most transformed,
musically speaking. Her commingling of hyper-sibilance and syllabic similarity with candid narrative imagery
found an instant musical counterpartsuch to the effect that I remember thinking Wow, the piece is writing
itself!and the combination of these disparities has ever since affected my output.

The music is, naturally, a direct reflection of the text. The opening shhh becomes a recurring element, and
dovetails into the following string of s-words. Sung at different speeds, the individual words become lost in
sibilance and blossom into a textural cloud, in turn becoming a backdrop against which harmonious chords
emerge, as if conjuring or extracting memories from the cloud.

The nature of these chords is bittersweetness. Though direct and familiar-soundingand to a degree, a play
on the nature of some a capella and barbershop arrangementsthere is an element of disquiet as the chords
ceaselessly seek rest and closure. Whether falling in tumbles or rising in stretches, the chords often become
disassembled in conjunction with the narrative, until, re-composed at the end, they descend exposed and
unresolved.




Jonathan Sokol is continually stretching his musical imagination with artistic collaborators in poetry, modern dance, and
experimental film. He has been recognized with awards, honors, and premieres from ASCAP, the Boston Modern
Orchestra Project, Boston New Music Initiative, the Boulder Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony,
HOLOGRAPHIC, Indiana University, the Millay Colony For the Arts, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, and Zzyzx
Quartet, among others.

He proudly serves as adjunct faculty at Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music and joined the faculty for
Brevard Music Center in 2013. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Indiana University.
More information at jonathansokol.com













Decantations for voices by Ravi Kittappa

A few weeks ago I gave a talk to students at A.R. Rahmans KM Music Conservatory (http://kmmc.in) in
Chennai, India. It was especially exciting to present Decantations to a crowd of Indian students, many of
whom were able to understand the Tamil text. Normally when I present the piece I have to take a moment to
explain what a sruti box is, but that wasnt necessary in this presentation.

I was a bit surprised by how much the students felt that the piece was Indian music. Structurally, the piece
is constructed of building and shifting harmonies - vertical music. I dont think of Carnatic or Hindustani
music in this way at all. But it makes sense that for the younger generation, the characteristics of what make
up their music go far beyond the traditional theoretical qualities of raagam, taalam, rhythm, and harmony.
The students also eagerly engaged the text of the piece, inquiring as to whether I have political intentions
in my work; I replied that their engagement of the text was politically" satisfying enough.

All of the aspects of Indian culture that I could describe with rather stringent terms like ancient, sacred, or
traditional are far less strict for this generation. Openness and change are essential to the shaping of their
modern cultural identity--especially when reconciling it with past and present global perspectives. It is
obvious to them that a long and rich cultural history does not equate to an unchanging and stagnant culture.

They know that the planted stone will not reply and that there are answers within themselves. I am very
curious to hear what comes out of India in the next several years.

**Note: The Quince blog featured a post that I made discussing Decantations and the motivation behind it. If
you havent already read it, you can do so here: http://www.quince-ensemble.com/blog/recording-
decantations-by-ravi-kittappa


Ravi Kittappa is a composer currently living in Oakland, CA. The Janacek Philharmonias recent premiere of his work,
exordium, was described as an enticing work of pulse and counterpoint (New Music Box). Ravi has been
commissioned and premiered by Color Field Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, ECO Ensemble, Quince Contemporary
Vocal Ensemble, percussionist Owen Weaver, and Talea Ensemble among others. He has been honored to be selected as
a participant at international festivals like Ostrava Days, Bowling Green New Music Festival, MATA Festival, and the Bang
on a Can Summer Institute. In Spring 2012, Ravi founded the Harlem-based new music and arts fundraising series,
Permutations, which he co-curates with pianist, Karl Larson. Ravi studied philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University
and music at Columbia University. He is currently a Ph.D fellow in music composition at University of California, Berkeley.











Hommage by David Grant


David Grant holds degrees in music composition from Northwestern University (DMA), San Francisco State University
(MA) and Columbia College (BA). My primary composition instructors were Jay Alan Yim, Augusta Read Thomas, Josh
Levine, Ronald Caltabiano and Gustavo Leone.

His music is objective, non-teleological and irregularly repetitive. His primary influences include natural environmental
sounds, the music of Morton Feldman, Igor Stravinsky and Steve Reich, and the music of Latin America, particularly from
Brazil and Cuba. Recordings of his music are available at www.davidcgrant.com.

Notable ensembles and performers who have played his work include the Northwestern Contemporary Music Ensemble
under the supervision of Oliver Knussen, Lukas Fels, Graeme Jennings, the New York New Music Ensemble, the San
Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, the Fonema Consort, Quince Vocal Ensemble, the Color Field Ensemble, the
AI Ensemble based in New York City, and the Fine Arts Music Society and Claraconbrio both based in Chicago. His works
have also been performed at summer music festivals including the June in Buffalo contemporary music festival, the
SICPP festival in Boston, the Sonic Fusion Festival in Scotland and at the Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, Oregon.

He is also a performer and play keyboard with the group Maurice, an experimental jazz/rock band that plays throughout
the Chicago area. Maurice can be heard at mauricechicago.bandcamp.com. David currently teach music theory,
composition and music history at Columbia College, North Central College and DePaul University.














so evenings die by Morgan Krauss


Morgan Krauss (b. 1985) is a composer currently living in Chicago. Morgan has always been fascinated by the nuances
and complexities of a sound that is revealed through varied recurrence. Prior to composing concert music Krauss had a
long engagement with electronic music and noise. During this period she realized her partiality for musical instances
and specificities. When Morgan found herself taken by these small fragments of sonic moments she would loop them
incessantly allowing her to create new aural prospects through listening. This curiosity drove her to uncover new ways to
properly convey what these sounds meant and how they would translate within the setting of a concert hall.


Krauss' current ambitions in her works are to produce tactile explorations based on one's physical awareness and
elements of allurement. Her music is focused on the concealed instability of seemingly fixed gestures where the
interaction between performer and the score creates yet a third entity, often guided by improvisation and the clashing
of emotional opposites. Krauss received her Bachelor of Music in Composition at Columbia College Chicago, and
continues her studies by pursuing a Doctorate of Music at Northwestern University.










Communiqu by Anthony T. Marasco

Communiqu is an aleotoric, quasi-improvisatory, and highly interactive piece that focuses on love,
loss, travel, and communication in the Digimodernist Age. Throughout the piece, a narrator tells the
story of Karen during her two-year stint in Glasgow, Scotland as an intern at the museum of modern art.
Throughout her time overseas, Karen and our nameless narrator correspond regularly through emails and
phone calls, but once our narrator confesses to having romantic feelings for her, she ends their regular
stream of communication. While our narrator thinks that this means things are over between them, Karen
realizes that she reciprocates these romantic feelings, but cant quite come to terms with that just yet. In an
attempt to relay her mutual feelings without truly confronting them, she sends a series of anonymous, cryptic
postcardscontaining terms of endearment written in foreign languagesto our narrator over the course of
a year and a half while she travels across Europe for work.






Anthony T. Marasco is a composer and sound artist who takes influence from the aesthetics of today's Digimodernist
culture, exploring the relationships between the eccentric and the every-day, the strict and the indeterminate, the raw
and the refined, and the retro and the contemporary. An internationally recognized composer, he has received
commissions from performers, ensembles, and institutions such as WIRED Magazine, Phyllis Chen, the American
composers Forum + Mural Arts Philadelphia, Toy Piano Composers, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, the Rhymes
With Opera, New Music Edmonton, Data Garden, andPLAY Duo, Dirty Paloma, Lebanon Valley College, MakeSh/ft Maker
Community, Color Field Ensemble, the soundSCAPE International Composition and Performance Exchange, and the
University of Scranton. Marasco also builds and designs custom interactive computer systems and electroacoustic
instruments for his own use and for the works of others.
www.atmarasco.com