New Music Edmonton is proud to put the focus on one of the key figures in contemporary music making here in our community, George Andrix, with some of his most important collaborators. A hugely prolific and innovative composer, performer, educator, administrator, and more, George Andrix has been part of the scene here for decades. For this event, we are especially excited to bring together for the first time three amazing local ensembles who have been collaborating with George Andrix for many years. They will share some of their favourites of his works, and give the world premiere of Now Hear This combining all 12 musicians!
Featuring: The Strathcona String Quartet, bok brass, WindRose Trio and George Andrix
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Festival Pass:
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Program
Strathcona String Quartet
Canyon Anthology (1997)
The Particles
A Brief History of Time
Spirits
Lizards and Snakes
From Shades of Blue (1996)
Choral
Sapphire
WindRose Trio
Pot for solo oboe (2020)
It’s A Crowd (2017)
Adagio, Allegro
Adagio
Scherzando
Bok Brass
Sequences for Brass Quintet (1970)
Sonata
Canon
Song
Fantasia
Passacaglia
INTERMISSION
Combined Ensemble
From Five Pieces for Orchestra (1966)
Numbers 2 and 3
Now Hear This (2024-2025)
Sonata Forte, Meza e Pian
NHT Dreaming
Polka Peculiare
As I Wander
Finale
Strathcona String Quartet: Jennifer Bustin and Shannon Johnson, violin, Miriam Ferguson, viola, Caitlin Laslop, cello.
Windrose Trio: Beth Levia, oboe; Rob Spady, clarinet; Matthew Howatt, bassoon.
Bok Brass: Joel Gray and Russell Whitehead, trumpet; Megan Evans, French horn; Alden Lowrey, trombone; Hannah Gray, tuba.
Program Notes
Canyon Anthology was written after my first 14-day whitewater raft trip playing string quartets in the Grand Canyon. Attempting to portray, or even hint at, the grandeur experienced on such a trip in a mere musical composition, impossible though it may be, seems to be something that composers cannot resist. I was no exception. Although there are a few programmatic elements in the work, it is primarily an abstract expression of my experience. Canyon Anthology was given its first performance on my second Grand Canyon trip.
When I was invited to participate in my first Grand Canyon trip I thought that I should write a new piece for us to play. Sapphire (a hard blue rock) was the result. Its first non-public performance was a trial run in my living room by the Strathcona String Quartet, of which, at that time, I was a member. The first public performance was a few weeks later in the Canyon. Choral is one of several blues-based pieces that was added later to make up Shades of Blue.
Benjamin Britten has written a piece for solo oboe, one movement of which is called Pan. Many years ago, my initial acquaintance with this piece put the idea into my head that I should write a piece for solo oboe and call it Pot. Back in the dark ages of the year 2020 New Music Edmonton, along with everyone else, had to cancel virtually all of their public activities due to the COVID pandemic. NME, in its creative wisdom. came up with the idea of commissioning a series of pieces for solo instrument that could be recorded and broadcast on line to replace their usual live concert series. I was one of those commissioned, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to write Pot.
“Two is company, three’s a crowd.” It’s A Crowd was written for the WindRose Trio, and was first performed (if my memory and inadequate record keeping are correct) on a New Music Edmonton concert in 2017. It was my attempt to show off the virtuosity of the ensemble without making it ridiculously difficult. It is written in a style that I would call lyrical atonality, with a mild seasoning of Jazz here and there.
Sequences for Brass Quintet was commissioned by Composers Theatre, New York City, in 1970 for its second annual May Festival and first performed at that Festival by the Iowa Brass Quintet. At the time of the writing of this piece I was quite convinced that tonality was no longer a viable option for a serious composer of classical music, but it is a malady from which I have since recovered. The formal structures of Sequences are quite traditional, but the pieces are definitely atonal.
In 1967, when I was conductor of the Morehead State University Orchestra. I wanted to program a piece that was in a modern style. I needed something that was suitable for a smaller orchestra that didn’t have the technique of a fully professional group. This brought about my composition of Five Pieces for Orchestra. It turns out that, with a few minor modifications, pieces number 2 and 3 work quite nicely with tonight’s ensemble Piece number 2 consists of a repeated twelve-tone row bass line, over which a few short jazz licks are heard. In piece number 3 each of the twelve instruments is assigned one of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. Each instrument plays its note twelve times, each instrument with a different time interval between repetitions of its note, resulting in the piece ending with all twelve instruments playing their note at the same time. The easiest way to do this was to write the piece backwards
Giovanni Gabrieli wrote a well-known piece for two ensembles (usually played by brass ensembles) entitled Sonata pian’e forte in which one ensemble plays a phrase piano, the other ensemble then plays it forte. Sonata Forte, Meza e Pian uses the same idea for three ensembles. NHT Dreaming is a dreamy slow piece. The title of Polka Peculiare is self explanatory. As I Wander rambles aimlessly. Finale is big band jazz.
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