Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Nick Photinos

Soo Yeon Lyuh

Ether

Bobby Ge, piano
Soo Yeon Lyuh, haegeum

This piece is an ode to the years of friendship I shared with the cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, who played a key role in my life as a musician. Leaving Seoul and arriving in the San Francisco Bay Area, I found myself immersed in a sea of musical influences, a vast wave of unfamiliar sounds. It was Joan who graciously invited me to join her in jam sessions, opening my eyes to the art of improvisation and forever changing my musical journey. Whenever we improvised together, it felt as if we went beyond the here and now, venturing “into the ether.” We forgot all the shackles that pull us down and liberated our creative spirit.

In this composition, I use the intertwining melodies of the cello and haegeum to represent the joy of our time together. Moreover, I let the piano parts emerge in some unexpected ways, indicating how, in the present day, I often fondly reminisce about the emotions we shared during our times. Joan, my dear friend, this music is for you.

kennedy taylor dixon

mirror, mirror

mirror, mirror, on the wall

there’s more to the story

after all
isn’t there?

Lucy McKnight

crinkle cuddle crumple crunch

Ellie Cherry

Fractured, Shattered, Filigreed

This is a piece about ice and how amazing I think it is : )

Nathan Schram

Plant Church

1. The Beginning
2. Stepping Out
3. Social Psilocybin
4. Coming Home

Soo Yeon Lyuh is a composer, improviser, and master of the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument. Hailing from Daegu, South Korea by way of Princeton, New Jersey, Lyuh draws inspiration from traditional Korean music to perform a meld of improvisatory and experimental sounds. She is currently pursuing her second PhD in composition at Princeton University, after receiving the first doctorate in Korean music at Seoul National University. As a performer, Lyuh possesses flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire. For twelve years, she was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, which traces its roots to the 7th Century Shilla Dynasty and is Korea’s foremost institution for the preservation of traditional music. To weave authentic styles into new musical domains, Lyuh relocated in 2015 to the San Francisco Bay Area and drew inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. In 2017, she was invited to collaborate in a series of concerts with the Kronos Quartet, and this work set her on the path of becoming a composer. As a composer, Lyuh asks classically trained performers to think outside the box, drawing out fresh sounds that, once understood, sound organic. Although these sounds are uneasy to visualize with notation, Lyuh can communicate a lot of them and often demonstrates the parts by joining and performing with the ensemble. Ultimately, Lyuh is all about making a bridge between cultures across borders, and breaking down any walls.

Lucy McKnight (she/they) is an artist who works with colors, textures, and sounds to create environments where she and others can explore intense emotions and ways of surviving them. She is interested in using touch, connection, movement, and sound to build mutually cathartic experiences. Recent mediums include wood, strings, pots, paint, ceramics, tinfoil, magnets, fabric, her cello, her own body and voice, and her friends’ bodies and voices. Her work has been performed across the US and in Europe by artists including Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Yarn/Wire, ~Nois, Parker Ramsay, Dither Quartet, Longleash Trio, and Transient Canvas. In her spare time, she loves to swim in natural bodies of water, with particular affinity for the Pacific Ocean off the coast of her hometown, Los Angeles. Currently, she and her three deeply affectionate cats live in her wildly colorful home in Trenton, New Jersey while she works on her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University.

Four-time Grammy Award-winning cellist Nick Photinos is one of the most innovative and multifaceted cellists of our time. An ardent advocate of new music, he has worked closely with many of the foremost composers of this era and has premiered hundreds of works throughout his career. He has received Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year Award, the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, the inaugural Chamber Music America Visionary Award, the Naumburg Award, and the Concert Artists Guild Grand Prize. Described as a “commanding soloist” (ClevelandClassical.com) whose “virtuoso cello playing is scintillating” (Chicago Classical Review) and “outstanding for his exquisite precision” (SFCV.org), Photinos has collaborated and toured with an incredible array of artists including rock/pop artists Björk, Wilco, Bryce Dessner, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, film composer Gustavo Santaolalla, classical artists Dawn Upshaw, Philip Glass, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and jazz artists including Sheila Jordan, Laurence Hobgood, Zach Brock, and Matt Ulery. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Toronto, Utah, and Atlanta Symphonies, the last with whom he recorded Jennifer Higdon’s On a Wire. He has performed across the globe including the Sydney Opera House, the Barbican in London, KBC Hall in Seoul, Carnegie Hall in New York City, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver. Photinos recently gave solo debuts in Australia, Romania, and Canada, as well as solo and chamber concerts throughout the United States. He has performed across nine US states and returned as a soloist to the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, where he has taught since 2007. In 2019 he reached millions of listeners on “Live from Here” with Chris Thile and on Netflix’s original movie The Two Popes. Photinos’ recordings span the Cedille, Nonesuch, New Amsterdam, Greenleaf, and Naxos labels. He recorded for Wilco on their Grammy- nominated album The Whole Love, and with Autumn Defense on their album Once Around. His debut solo album, Petits Artéfacts, deemed “a bold solo debut from one of the most notable artists in contemporary music today” by PopMatters, was released on the New Amsterdam label in 2017 and features first recordings of the most acclaimed names in new music (David Lang, Bryce Dessner, David T. Little, Andrew Norman) as well as a younger generation of groundbreaking composers (Pascal Le Boeuf, Molly Joyce, Florent Ghys, Angelica Negrón). During Photinos’ 24-year tenure as the founding cellist and co-Artistic Director of Eighth Blackbird, he performed over 1000 concerts and premiered hundreds of new works, including Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet and works by Andy Akiho, Michael Gordon, Amy Beth Kirsten, David Lang, David T. Little, Nico Muhly, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Julia Wolfe, and Pamela Z, among many others. Eighth Blackbird held multi-year residency positions at the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Chicago, and at the University of Richmond. Photinos currently serves as Professor of Chamber Music and Eminent Scholar at the University of Cincinnati, and previously served on the faculties of the Longy School of Music of Bard College, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern University. He is faculty at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and performs in the Grossman Ensemble at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. For more information, go to nickphotinos.com.

Nathan Schram is a member of the Attacca Quartet and the Founder & Artistic Director of Musicambia, an organization that develops music education programs in prisons throughout the United States. Albums of his original music have been released on New Amsterdam and Better Company Records. He has a wife and daughter and adores living in Princeton.