The Squid's Ear Magazine

Frey, Jurg

120 Pieces of Sound

Frey, Jurg : 120 Pieces of Sound (elsewhere)

Two distinct works by Swiss composer and bass clarinetist Jurg Frey: the 1st, recorded in Connecticut, a quintet composition from 2009 for bass clarinet, cello, violin, keyboard and electric guitar, Frey's harmonies creating an open instrumentation for the clarinet and cello; the second a 1997 composition for multitimbral field recordings and bass clarinet.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Jurg Frey-composer, bass clarinet, field recordings

Ordinary Affects-ensemble

Laura Cetilia-cello

Morgan Evans-Weiler-violin

J.P.A. Falzone-keyboard

Luke Martin-electric guitar


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Label: elsewhere
Catalog ID: elsewhere 003
Squidco Product Code: 26667

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Track 1 recorded at Wesleyan University, IN Middletown, Connecticut, on November 10th, 2017.

Track 2 recorded at Tonlabor, in Bern, Switzerland, in December, 2012.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Jurg Frey's unique compositional approach places him at the cutting edge of contemporary classical music while simultaneously maintaining a touch of impressionisticomantic aesthetics in its roots.

The album 120 Pieces of Sound contains two of Frey's significant compositions: "60 Pieces of Sound" (2009) and "L'ame est sans retenue II" (1997-2000). Frey and the Boston-based ensemble Ordinary Affects (Laura Cetilia, Morgan Evans-Weiler, J.P.A. Falzone, Luke Martin) performed and recorded "60 Pieces of Sound" in New England in 2017, in which Frey's clarinet and Cetilia's cello played the pitches in the two-part melody written in the score, while the rest played the open instrumentation part with undetermined sounds. The resulting music was a unique series of harmonies created by open instrumental sounds with a faintly recognizable melody hidden in the core of the ensemble's evenly tempered sounds. The impressions of the chords move along at the edge of consonance and dissonance with the afterglows of each chord in the subsequent silence, hovering somewhere between meditative calmness and disquieting shadow, while bringing an organic warmth and a feeling of breathableopen air into a minimal musical structure.

"L'ame est sans retenue II" was written for field recordings and bass clarinet. Frey first edited the field recording parts from the materials he recorded in Berlin in 1997, and later added his bass clarinet sound with a certain pitch as an underlying tone that would blend with the field recordings. Frey's bass clarinet is discreet and almost unrecognizable, often hidden under the complex layers of the field recordings, and yet clarifying the harmonization of the field recordings from inside.

Presenting these two pieces "60 Pieces of Sound" and "L'ame est sans retenue II" back to back on this album brings out the fundamental aesthetic of Frey's compositions in regards to how he approaches the 'harmonization' and 'openness' of the music."-elsewhere



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

"Jürg Frey was born in 1953 in Aarau, Switzerland. Following his musical education at the Concervatoire de Musique de Genève, he turned to a career as a clarinetist, but his activities as composer soon came to the foreground. Frey developed his own language as a composer and sound artist with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces. His work is marked by an elementary non-extravagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach. His compositions sometimes bypass instrumentation and duration altogether and touch on aspects of sound art. He has worked with compositional series, as well as with language and text. Some of these activities appear in small editions or as artist's books as individual items and small editions (Edition Howeg, Zurich; weiss kunstbewegung, Berlin; complice, Berlin). His music and recordings are published by Edition Wandelweiser. Frey has been invited to workshops as visiting composer and for composer portraits at the Universität der Künste Berlin, the Universität Dortmund and several times at Northwestern University and CalArts. Some of the other places his work has developed are the concerts at the Kunstraum Düsseldorf, the Wandelweiser-in-Residence-Veranstaltungen in Vienna, the Ny music concerts in Boras (Sweden), the cooperation with Cologne pianist John McAlpine, the Bozzini Quartet (Montréal), QO-2 (Bruxelles), Die Maulwerker, incidental music, as well as the regular stays in Berlin (where during the last years many of his compositions were premiered). Frey is a member of the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble which has presented concerts for more than 15 years in Europe, North America and Japan. Frey also organizes the concert series moments musicaux aarau as a forum for contemporary music."

-Other Minds (http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Frey.shtml)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Cellist and electronic musician Laura Cetilia is a performer, composer, educator, and presenter. A daughter of mixed heritage, she is at home with in-betweeness. As a composer, her music has been described as "unorthodox loveliness" by the Boston Globe and and her debut solo album was hailed as "alternately penetrating and atmospheric" in Sequenza 21. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 as a "complex cybernetic entity" that "understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present." Mem1 has held artist residencies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. In her viola/cello duo, Suna No Onna, she has worked closely with and premiered works by composers André Cormier, Jürg Frey and Antoine Beuger, among others. As a product of the now-dwindling public school music program, Laura believes in the right to accessible music education and is a Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks, a non-profit organization that provides free after-school music education programs for children in urban neighborhoods of Providence, RI. There she teaches cello, is co-director of the media lab and the curator of the Ars Subtilior experimental music series. She is also a proud mother of one."

-Laura Cetilia Website (http://laura.cetilia.org/about/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Morgan Evans-Weiler, violinist, composer, improviser and teacher, is currently living in the Boston area working as a freelance musician and teacher.

He completed his bachelor's degree at Western Michigan University with a double degree in Music Composition and Performance studying with Renata Knific, Richard Adams, and Curtis-Curtis Smith. He studied violin further with Laura Bossert and jazz with Peter Cassino in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Currently he studies composition, theory, musicology, history and just about everything else with Peter Evans.

While in Michigan, he co-founded, performed with, and composed for the Nuevo tango band Barefoot Tango and the songwriting collective Blackwater Valley Songs. He also performed with the Traverse City and Battle Creek Symphony Orchestras, and the annual New Music Project. While in the Boston area, he has performed with the Modern American Music String Quartet, Longitude and various jazz and free-jazz groups. He has played in and composed music for performances at The Regattabar, Lilypad, and Pickman Hall (Longy School of Music) in Cambridge, as well as numerous halls and art spaces throughout Michigan.

Recently, he performed a full concert of music at Outpost 186 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The concert included performances of several of Morgan's new works as well as performances of the works of Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Steve Reich and Ornette Coleman.

He continues to compose and perform in the Boston area."

-Morgan Evans-Weiler Website (https://morganevansweiler.wordpress.com/about/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"J.P.A. Falzone is a keyboard player and vibraphonist, a composer and song writer. He is the coordinator of Providence Research Ensemble and Providence Keyboard Ensemble."

-Squidco 3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Luke Martin is an experimental composer, performer, and writer living in Minneapolis, MN. He plays guitar and no-input mixing board, often with people in and around the Wandelweiser Group, and is part of the ensemble Ordinary Affects. Luke's work is mainly oriented toward thinking - particularly by way of silence as such - a positive relation between music and truth.

-Luke Martin Website (http://www.lukecmartin.com/about.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. 60 Pieces Of Sound 32:00

2. L'ame Est Sans Retenue II 40:03

Related Categories of Interest:


Avant-Garde
Quintet Recordings
Electro-Acoustic
Field Recordings
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Duo Recordings
European Improvisation and Experimental Forms
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
New in Compositional Music

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