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Cancelled-Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Gallicantus
Presented by Princeton Sound Kitchen
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date & time
Tue, Feb 27, 2024
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
ticketing
Free, unticketed
- This event has passed.
Due to performer illness, tonight’s PSK at 8pm is cancelled. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Vocal ensemble Gallicantus performs new works by Princeton University graduate student composers Ellie Cherry, Francisco del Pino, Hannah Ishizaki, Travis Laplante, Hope Littwin, Isaac Santos, Connor Elias Way, Justin Wright.
Program
Ellie Cherry I am You are Who?
Travis Laplante Her Hand
Justin Wright This Night the Sun
Shined Very Brightly
Hannah Ishizak Ah, Ee, Oo, Eh, Oh
Isaac Santos monólogo navideño
Hope Littwin Ave Maria
Francisco del Pino Madrigal
Connor Elias Way Sic vita fluit
About PSK
A lab for Princeton University composers to collaborate with today’s finest performers and ensembles, Princeton Sound Kitchen is a vital forum for the creation of new music. Serving the graduate student and faculty composers of the renowned composition program at the Department of Music at Princeton University, PSK presents a wide variety of concerts and events throughout the year.
Program Notes
Ellie Cherry
I am You are Who?
Have you ever caught yourself doing something (gesticulating with your hands, inflecting your sentences, choosing certain products at the store) in a way that reminded you so much of someone else you had to wonder how much of you is just them? This piece was born three years ago when a combination of circumstances compelled me for the first time to seriously examine what portion of my mannerisms and self-image and worldview were unconsciously borrowed from someone else, and the conclusion made me so uncomfortable that I had to put the piece away, only recently finding the composure to musically revisit this fascinating, frightening idea that we are not only ourselves.
I am You are Who? encapsulates my contemplation of this notion of non-unique identity, the musical structure of the piece being a microcosm of how I’ve responded to it over the years: It begins with sonic material that is repetitive and monophonic, so the only element that distinguishes one singer’s voice from another is the subtle difference between the vowel sounds of the words ‘I’ and ‘you.’ Featuring text that is hypnotically minimal and disorientingly nonsensical, the texture steadily strives towards greater independence of the voices, transforming from monophonic, to homophonic, and finally to heterophonic. As the texture becomes increasingly dense, there emerges a profusion of incidental wordplay from the interaction of the singers’ lines, leaving it to the listener to decide to what extent their meanings are connected.
Travis Laplante
Her Hand
Her Hand contains a story that lies somewhere between a fable and an autobiographical experience from the past decade of my life. It is my hope that this story will be clear enough for the listener to follow if they spend a few moments carefully reading the lyrics before listening. However, understanding the lyrics is not required to experience the music fully. More urgent is that the piece serves as a prayer of remembrance for what matters most to each of us, beneath all of the fear and resulting violence in our world.
Justin Wright
This Night the Sun Shined Very Brightly
And thus, like men already metamorphosed into the yce of the Country, and already past both our sense and reason, stood wee with the eyes of pittie beholding one another.
– Frederick Martens, God’s Power and Providence in the Preservation of Eight Men in Greenland Nine Moneths and Twelve Dayes
In 1596, the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz first laid eyes on an archipelago 400 miles from the North Pole that we now call Svalbard. The following year in England, unrelated to this discovery, the composer John Dowland wrote a set of simple lamentations for his friend Henry Noell’s death. Over the four centuries that followed, Svalbard has undergone many forms of resource exploitation, decimating the population of walruses (then called sea horses) and whales before moving to coal mining. Its interaction with global climate systems has resulted in rapid geological and ecological changes, and its climate is currently warming at a rate roughly six times the Earth’s average.
This piece, inspired by my own travels to Svalbard, is a rework of Dowland’s Lord Hear my Prayer from his Henry Noell Lamentations. Its transformation attempts to mimic some of the many ongoing geological changes that have quickly given the archipelago a new landscape, and retains little of the original structure and harmony. Additional lyrics and spoken words are pulled from the accounts of 17th-century Arctic explorers such as Edward Pellham and Frederick Martens.
Hannah Ishizaki
Ah, Ee, Oo, Eh, Oh
Ah, Ee, Oo, Eh, Oh delves into an abstracted world of syllables, progressing from consonants to vowels. The composition is structured around the phonetic sounds of the vowels in the order of the Japanese alphabet: ‘a’ (Ah), ‘i’ (Ee), ‘u’ (Oo), ‘e’ (Eh), and ‘o’ (Oh). Stark consonant sounds of ‘k’ and ‘sh’ morph into these five distinct vowels to explore the individual timbral differences between them.
Isaac Santos
monólogo navideño
The text used in this work is derived from a poem by my late grandmother, Salvadora Ortiz. Said poem is from a collection she published in 2013, Musa: Pensamientos Del Alma; it is titled Monólogo Navideño or Christmas Monologue.
In this particular verse, she expresses resentment and sadness towards her mother’s absence in her life—a sentiment she carried till her death. At the time of her passing, my therapist had recommended I create something in honor of her. When I received the opportunity to write a piece for the vocal group Gallicantus, I thought it the most opportune time to recognize her life. My grandmother considered herself many things: a singer, a painter, a poet… but most of all, always a mother. She cared deeply for anything living.
In this composition, I hope to communicate feelings of grief, hope, love, and passion.
Hope Littwin
Ave Maria
I walked the Camino de Santiago this summer, a 500 mile Christian pilgrimage in Spain walked by the likes of Saint Francis of Assisi, etc. I was surprised to notice that rather than feeling deep, spiritual peacefulness, I mostly felt rage against the patriarchy. When I returned from the month-long walk, people asked me if the experience inspired any music and I initially said no, just rage and revelation, but when the opportunity to write for Gallicantus emerged, I immediately knew I wanted to write them an Ave Maria. Some part of me knew that seed had been planted on the Camino. Here’s to mother worship.
Ave Maria
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
Translation:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and in the hour of our death. Amen.
Francisco del Pino
Madrigal
Based on Summer in St. Petersburg (or: My Nerves are Shot) by Rebekah Smith
The contemplation of abstract sequences (even the mundane, like, in this case, the order of the letters of the alphabet) has always had for me a strange fascination. There is something of a penitential quality to them, a sense of journey that is as accepted as it is inexorable. I find that quality beautifully captured in Rebekah Smith’s work, a stream-of-consciousness text where the alphabet sequence is like a clock ticking away, relentless, unforgiving.
Connor Elias Way
Sic vita fluit
The text of this piece, a Latin epigram by the Welsh poet John Owen, touches on the inherent melancholy bound up in the human experience. My setting is an attempt to evoke certain facets of this melancholy, such as the unsettling feeling of time slipping away.
About the Performers
Ellie Cherry is an electroacoustic composer fundamentally compelled by the belief that as an artist she is first and foremost an observer: be it the acoustic properties of the bark of a beech tree or the childhood experiences of an audience member, every element in our shared reality is worthy of consideration. Her composition therefore takes a holistic approach, in which spectral theory, physics, psychoacoustics, and historical and political context are all thoughtfully intertwined. She is particularly interested in exploring how new music composition can provide an effective platform for activism, frequently addressing topics such as environmentalism, gender and class inequality, and trauma.
Francisco del Pino is a Buenos Aires-born composer and guitarist with an affinity for music that is meticulous, expressive, and patient. Drawing influence from both classical and vernacular traditions, his work revolves around process and pattern and is usually characterized by an extensive use of counterpoint. Francisco’s debut album Decir, a song cycle on texts by Argentinian poet Victoria Cóccaro, was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2021. His music has been described as of “sheer beauty” (Bandcamp Daily), “lucid, entrancing” (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN), and “ethereal, yet heavy, distinguished, yet humble—and always beautiful” (Classical Post). Francisco is a PhD candidate in the Music Department and a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities.
“Everything Gallicantus touches seems to turn to gold” – Adrian Horsewood, Early Music Today. Literally meaning ‘rooster song’ or ‘cock crow,’ Gallicantus was a name used in monastic antiquity for the office held just before dawn, which celebrated the renewal of life and offered a sense of gratitude and optimism for the coming day. The membership of the group shares a wealth of experience in consort singing, and is bound by a belief in the rhetorical power of great Renaissance music. Under the direction of Gabriel Crouch, Gallicantus creates performances and recordings which explore narratives and draw out unifying themes within their apparently diverse repertoire. Gallicantus has performed in many significant venues and festivals in the UK (Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields Festival, York Early Music Festival, Temple Winter Music Festival), as well as Germany, Austria (Trigonale Festival), Poland (Wroclaw Festival), Italy, and the low countries (Utrecht Early Music Festival). In the USA the group holds regular residencies at Princeton and Yale Universities, and in 2017 made its Carnegie Hall debut in New York. Gallicantus has released six CDs, each garnering lavish praise. With Hymns, Psalms and Lamentations (Signum), dedicated to the music of Robert White, critics acclaimed “impassioned, exciting music” (The Times), whilst Gramophone magazine declared: “What an outstanding disc … The opening of the Lamentations could stand as a kind of illuminated initial at the beginning of a gorgeous manuscript, so transparent and luminous is it.” Their second recording Dialogues of Sorrow: Passions on the Death of Prince Henry (1612), was described as “one of the best choral releases of the year” by TheArtsDesk.com, possessing “singing of clarity, suppleness and poignancy” (Daily Telegraph); whilst International Record Review proclaimed “… this is a well sung, intelligently produced and exhaustively researched project, which deserves great success.” The 2012 release The Word Unspoken, featuring music by William Byrd and Philippe de Monte was equally well received, with The Sunday Times saying “The intensity of the music is reflected in Gallicantus’s beautifully shaped performances.” It was named ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone magazine, which noted that “the ensemble’s view is delivered with such intelligence and rhetorical persuasiveness that the cumulative weight of their Byrd, in particular, is well-nigh symphonic in effect.” The group’s fourth CD—the remarkable Lagrime di San Pietro by Lassus—cemented Gallicantus as one of Europe’s foremost early music ensembles, earning a second consecutive ‘Editor’s Choice’ selection from Gramophone, as well as nomination for a coveted Gramophone Award in 2014. The group’s 2017 release, Queen Mary’s Big Belly, garnered another ‘Editor’s Choice’ award from Early Music Today, for its “sumptuous music performed with supreme artistry … brilliant, both musicologically and artistically”; and their most recent recording—Sibylla (2018)—earned the ‘star review’ in Choir & Organ magazine, and was singled out by Gramophone magazine for its definitive recording of the Prophetiae Sibyllarum by Lassus: “this warrants a top recommendation, for Gallicantus surpass the mixed ensembles technically and edge The Hilliards’ more reverential account interpretatively.” The group’s most recent release is Mass for the Endangered, a new composition by Sarah Kirkland Snider released on the Nonesuch / New Amsterdam labels, which has garnered high acclaim from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ and elsewhere, and reached number one on the iTunes classical album charts in September 2020.
Hannah Ishizaki is a composer and sound artist based in New York City. Her music seeks to foster connections between musicians and the audience through the explorations of the physicality of music performance. Hannah finds inspiration in the process of composition, leading her to experiment with a wide range of instruments and sound generating methods— from acoustic instruments in an orchestra to digital sensors to rocks and zippers. Immersed in the world of collaboration, Hannah has worked with dancers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists, to connect the seemingly unconnected and create innovative and multidisciplinary projects. Recently, Hannah was named one of five 2023 Hildegard commission winners, which is presented by National Sawdust and generously supported by The Onassis Foundation and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Travis Laplante is a composer, improviser, and saxophonist. Laplante leads the acclaimed tenor saxophone quartet Battle Trance, as well as Subtle Degrees, his duo with drummer Gerald Cleaver. Recently, Laplante has composed long-form works for new music ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, and the ~Nois Saxophone Quartet. Laplante is also known for his raw solo saxophone concerts and being a member of the avant-garde quartet Little Women. He has performed and / or recorded with Tyshawn Sorey, Caroline Shaw, Ches Smith, Peter Evans, Sō Percussion, Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, International Contemporary Ensemble, Michael Formanek, Buke and Gase, Darius Jones, Mat Maneri, Julia Bullock, and Matt Mitchell, among others. Laplante has released 12 critically acclaimed albums as a leader or co-leader on New Amsterdam Records, Aum Fidelity, Skirl, Tripticks Tapes, Out of Your Head Records, and NNA Tapes. Laplante has toured his music extensively and has appeared at many major international festivals such as The Moers Festival (Germany), Jazz Jantar (Poland), Saalfelden (Austria), Jazz em Agosto (Portugal), Earshot (Seattle), Hopscotch (North Carolina), and the NYC Winter JazzFest. As a composer, Laplante has been commissioned by the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), the JACK Quartet, Roulette Intermedium, Yarn/Wire, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the MATA festival, and The Jerome Foundation.
American composer and music producer Hope Littwin grew up in dance and theater before she took to music, first as a singer-songwriter then as a classical singer and now as a composer and music producer. She loves to collaborate with artists of all kinds on embodied, expressive works. Hope’s compositions fuse chamber music, vocal music, electronics, choreography and storytelling. She has been commissioned by choirs, chamber ensembles, theater and dance companies to lead the creation of original works that pull from the idiosyncratic desires and abilities of the ensembles that she is engaged with. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. The Daily Princetonian says Hope Littwin’s music explores the “euphoric realm, where the physicality of musical expression is fully embraced—where music is not only something we do, but something we are.” Hope’s original works are available for streaming on band camp and YouTube, her albums can be found on Spotify and iTunes. Find Hope on Instagram @hopelittwin
Isaac Santos is a composer of contemporary concert music based in New Jersey and originally from Broward County, Florida. Much of Isaac’s current output is inspired by visual art, nature, and everyday life. Through his compositions, he aspires to create deeply affective music that engages introspectively with some of our most deep and poignant emotions.
Rebekah Smith is a translator, writer, scholar, bookmaker, and editor at Ugly Duckling Presse.
Connor Elias Way is a composer based in Brooklyn, NY whose music explores resonance through carefully wrought networks of imitative counterpoint and a spectrally-informed approach to sonority and timbre. His music has been performed by groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, JACK Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Contemporaneous, Sō Percussion, Arx Duo, Bergamot Quartet, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Current projects include a forthcoming solo marimba work for Jisu Jung and an album-length project for the Irish singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and harpist Parker Ramsey which will premiere in Dublin in October of 2024 thanks to a commission from the Arts Council of Ireland. He is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University.
Justin Wright is a composer, cellist, and multimedia artist from Montreal, Canada. After finishing his masters in molecular biology, Justin left science and started performing in bands of all sorts before eventually teaching himself how to compose, using the techniques he learned in recording studios. Justin’s primary composition tools, for both electronic and acoustic music, are his cello, Ableton Live, a modular synthesizer, and a 4-track tape machine. Lately, Justin has focused on filmmaking, early music, virtual reality, and in situ composition. He has opened for artists such as Johann Johannsson, Hauschka, Thomas Mapfumo, Lubomyr Melnyk, Colin Stetson, Okkyung Lee, and Mount Eerie. Justin’s most recent album, A Really Good Spot, was released in July 2022 on Beacon Sound and First Terrace Records. This past summer, Justin traveled to Svalbard, an archipelago close to the North Pole, and serenaded the glaciers with the most northerly cello performances in history.
About PSK
A lab for Princeton University composers to collaborate with today’s finest performers and ensembles, Princeton Sound Kitchen is a vital forum for the creation of new music. Serving the graduate student and faculty composers of the renowned composition program at the Department of Music at Princeton University, PSK presents a wide variety of concerts and events throughout the year.
Program Notes
Ellie Cherry
I am You are Who?
Have you ever caught yourself doing something (gesticulating with your hands, inflecting your sentences, choosing certain products at the store) in a way that reminded you so much of someone else you had to wonder how much of you is just them? This piece was born three years ago when a combination of circumstances compelled me for the first time to seriously examine what portion of my mannerisms and self-image and worldview were unconsciously borrowed from someone else, and the conclusion made me so uncomfortable that I had to put the piece away, only recently finding the composure to musically revisit this fascinating, frightening idea that we are not only ourselves.
I am You are Who? encapsulates my contemplation of this notion of non-unique identity, the musical structure of the piece being a microcosm of how I’ve responded to it over the years: It begins with sonic material that is repetitive and monophonic, so the only element that distinguishes one singer’s voice from another is the subtle difference between the vowel sounds of the words ‘I’ and ‘you.’ Featuring text that is hypnotically minimal and disorientingly nonsensical, the texture steadily strives towards greater independence of the voices, transforming from monophonic, to homophonic, and finally to heterophonic. As the texture becomes increasingly dense, there emerges a profusion of incidental wordplay from the interaction of the singers’ lines, leaving it to the listener to decide to what extent their meanings are connected.
Travis Laplante
Her Hand
Her Hand contains a story that lies somewhere between a fable and an autobiographical experience from the past decade of my life. It is my hope that this story will be clear enough for the listener to follow if they spend a few moments carefully reading the lyrics before listening. However, understanding the lyrics is not required to experience the music fully. More urgent is that the piece serves as a prayer of remembrance for what matters most to each of us, beneath all of the fear and resulting violence in our world.
Justin Wright
This Night the Sun Shined Very Brightly
And thus, like men already metamorphosed into the yce of the Country, and already past both our sense and reason, stood wee with the eyes of pittie beholding one another.
– Frederick Martens, God’s Power and Providence in the Preservation of Eight Men in Greenland Nine Moneths and Twelve Dayes
In 1596, the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz first laid eyes on an archipelago 400 miles from the North Pole that we now call Svalbard. The following year in England, unrelated to this discovery, the composer John Dowland wrote a set of simple lamentations for his friend Henry Noell’s death. Over the four centuries that followed, Svalbard has undergone many forms of resource exploitation, decimating the population of walruses (then called sea horses) and whales before moving to coal mining. Its interaction with global climate systems has resulted in rapid geological and ecological changes, and its climate is currently warming at a rate roughly six times the Earth’s average.
This piece, inspired by my own travels to Svalbard, is a rework of Dowland’s Lord Hear my Prayer from his Henry Noell Lamentations. Its transformation attempts to mimic some of the many ongoing geological changes that have quickly given the archipelago a new landscape, and retains little of the original structure and harmony. Additional lyrics and spoken words are pulled from the accounts of 17th-century Arctic explorers such as Edward Pellham and Frederick Martens.
Hannah Ishizaki
Ah, Ee, Oo, Eh, Oh
Ah, Ee, Oo, Eh, Oh delves into an abstracted world of syllables, progressing from consonants to vowels. The composition is structured around the phonetic sounds of the vowels in the order of the Japanese alphabet: ‘a’ (Ah), ‘i’ (Ee), ‘u’ (Oo), ‘e’ (Eh), and ‘o’ (Oh). Stark consonant sounds of ‘k’ and ‘sh’ morph into these five distinct vowels to explore the individual timbral differences between them.
Isaac Santos
monólogo navideño
The text used in this work is derived from a poem by my late grandmother, Salvadora Ortiz. Said poem is from a collection she published in 2013, Musa: Pensamientos Del Alma; it is titled Monólogo Navideño or Christmas Monologue.
In this particular verse, she expresses resentment and sadness towards her mother’s absence in her life—a sentiment she carried till her death. At the time of her passing, my therapist had recommended I create something in honor of her. When I received the opportunity to write a piece for the vocal group Gallicantus, I thought it the most opportune time to recognize her life. My grandmother considered herself many things: a singer, a painter, a poet… but most of all, always a mother. She cared deeply for anything living.
In this composition, I hope to communicate feelings of grief, hope, love, and passion.
Hope Littwin
Ave Maria
I walked the Camino de Santiago this summer, a 500 mile Christian pilgrimage in Spain walked by the likes of Saint Francis of Assisi, etc. I was surprised to notice that rather than feeling deep, spiritual peacefulness, I mostly felt rage against the patriarchy. When I returned from the month-long walk, people asked me if the experience inspired any music and I initially said no, just rage and revelation, but when the opportunity to write for Gallicantus emerged, I immediately knew I wanted to write them an Ave Maria. Some part of me knew that seed had been planted on the Camino. Here’s to mother worship.
Ave Maria
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
Translation:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and in the hour of our death. Amen.
Francisco del Pino
Madrigal
Based on Summer in St. Petersburg (or: My Nerves are Shot) by Rebekah Smith
The contemplation of abstract sequences (even the mundane, like, in this case, the order of the letters of the alphabet) has always had for me a strange fascination. There is something of a penitential quality to them, a sense of journey that is as accepted as it is inexorable. I find that quality beautifully captured in Rebekah Smith’s work, a stream-of-consciousness text where the alphabet sequence is like a clock ticking away, relentless, unforgiving.
Connor Elias Way
Sic vita fluit
The text of this piece, a Latin epigram by the Welsh poet John Owen, touches on the inherent melancholy bound up in the human experience. My setting is an attempt to evoke certain facets of this melancholy, such as the unsettling feeling of time slipping away.
About the Performers
Ellie Cherry is an electroacoustic composer fundamentally compelled by the belief that as an artist she is first and foremost an observer: be it the acoustic properties of the bark of a beech tree or the childhood experiences of an audience member, every element in our shared reality is worthy of consideration. Her composition therefore takes a holistic approach, in which spectral theory, physics, psychoacoustics, and historical and political context are all thoughtfully intertwined. She is particularly interested in exploring how new music composition can provide an effective platform for activism, frequently addressing topics such as environmentalism, gender and class inequality, and trauma.
Francisco del Pino is a Buenos Aires-born composer and guitarist with an affinity for music that is meticulous, expressive, and patient. Drawing influence from both classical and vernacular traditions, his work revolves around process and pattern and is usually characterized by an extensive use of counterpoint. Francisco’s debut album Decir, a song cycle on texts by Argentinian poet Victoria Cóccaro, was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2021. His music has been described as of “sheer beauty” (Bandcamp Daily), “lucid, entrancing” (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN), and “ethereal, yet heavy, distinguished, yet humble—and always beautiful” (Classical Post). Francisco is a PhD candidate in the Music Department and a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities.
“Everything Gallicantus touches seems to turn to gold” – Adrian Horsewood, Early Music Today. Literally meaning ‘rooster song’ or ‘cock crow,’ Gallicantus was a name used in monastic antiquity for the office held just before dawn, which celebrated the renewal of life and offered a sense of gratitude and optimism for the coming day. The membership of the group shares a wealth of experience in consort singing, and is bound by a belief in the rhetorical power of great Renaissance music. Under the direction of Gabriel Crouch, Gallicantus creates performances and recordings which explore narratives and draw out unifying themes within their apparently diverse repertoire. Gallicantus has performed in many significant venues and festivals in the UK (Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields Festival, York Early Music Festival, Temple Winter Music Festival), as well as Germany, Austria (Trigonale Festival), Poland (Wroclaw Festival), Italy, and the low countries (Utrecht Early Music Festival). In the USA the group holds regular residencies at Princeton and Yale Universities, and in 2017 made its Carnegie Hall debut in New York. Gallicantus has released six CDs, each garnering lavish praise. With Hymns, Psalms and Lamentations (Signum), dedicated to the music of Robert White, critics acclaimed “impassioned, exciting music” (The Times), whilst Gramophone magazine declared: “What an outstanding disc … The opening of the Lamentations could stand as a kind of illuminated initial at the beginning of a gorgeous manuscript, so transparent and luminous is it.” Their second recording Dialogues of Sorrow: Passions on the Death of Prince Henry (1612), was described as “one of the best choral releases of the year” by TheArtsDesk.com, possessing “singing of clarity, suppleness and poignancy” (Daily Telegraph); whilst International Record Review proclaimed “… this is a well sung, intelligently produced and exhaustively researched project, which deserves great success.” The 2012 release The Word Unspoken, featuring music by William Byrd and Philippe de Monte was equally well received, with The Sunday Times saying “The intensity of the music is reflected in Gallicantus’s beautifully shaped performances.” It was named ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone magazine, which noted that “the ensemble’s view is delivered with such intelligence and rhetorical persuasiveness that the cumulative weight of their Byrd, in particular, is well-nigh symphonic in effect.” The group’s fourth CD—the remarkable Lagrime di San Pietro by Lassus—cemented Gallicantus as one of Europe’s foremost early music ensembles, earning a second consecutive ‘Editor’s Choice’ selection from Gramophone, as well as nomination for a coveted Gramophone Award in 2014. The group’s 2017 release, Queen Mary’s Big Belly, garnered another ‘Editor’s Choice’ award from Early Music Today, for its “sumptuous music performed with supreme artistry … brilliant, both musicologically and artistically”; and their most recent recording—Sibylla (2018)—earned the ‘star review’ in Choir & Organ magazine, and was singled out by Gramophone magazine for its definitive recording of the Prophetiae Sibyllarum by Lassus: “this warrants a top recommendation, for Gallicantus surpass the mixed ensembles technically and edge The Hilliards’ more reverential account interpretatively.” The group’s most recent release is Mass for the Endangered, a new composition by Sarah Kirkland Snider released on the Nonesuch / New Amsterdam labels, which has garnered high acclaim from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ and elsewhere, and reached number one on the iTunes classical album charts in September 2020.
Hannah Ishizaki is a composer and sound artist based in New York City. Her music seeks to foster connections between musicians and the audience through the explorations of the physicality of music performance. Hannah finds inspiration in the process of composition, leading her to experiment with a wide range of instruments and sound generating methods— from acoustic instruments in an orchestra to digital sensors to rocks and zippers. Immersed in the world of collaboration, Hannah has worked with dancers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists, to connect the seemingly unconnected and create innovative and multidisciplinary projects. Recently, Hannah was named one of five 2023 Hildegard commission winners, which is presented by National Sawdust and generously supported by The Onassis Foundation and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Travis Laplante is a composer, improviser, and saxophonist. Laplante leads the acclaimed tenor saxophone quartet Battle Trance, as well as Subtle Degrees, his duo with drummer Gerald Cleaver. Recently, Laplante has composed long-form works for new music ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, and the ~Nois Saxophone Quartet. Laplante is also known for his raw solo saxophone concerts and being a member of the avant-garde quartet Little Women. He has performed and / or recorded with Tyshawn Sorey, Caroline Shaw, Ches Smith, Peter Evans, Sō Percussion, Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, International Contemporary Ensemble, Michael Formanek, Buke and Gase, Darius Jones, Mat Maneri, Julia Bullock, and Matt Mitchell, among others. Laplante has released 12 critically acclaimed albums as a leader or co-leader on New Amsterdam Records, Aum Fidelity, Skirl, Tripticks Tapes, Out of Your Head Records, and NNA Tapes. Laplante has toured his music extensively and has appeared at many major international festivals such as The Moers Festival (Germany), Jazz Jantar (Poland), Saalfelden (Austria), Jazz em Agosto (Portugal), Earshot (Seattle), Hopscotch (North Carolina), and the NYC Winter JazzFest. As a composer, Laplante has been commissioned by the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), the JACK Quartet, Roulette Intermedium, Yarn/Wire, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the MATA festival, and The Jerome Foundation.
American composer and music producer Hope Littwin grew up in dance and theater before she took to music, first as a singer-songwriter then as a classical singer and now as a composer and music producer. She loves to collaborate with artists of all kinds on embodied, expressive works. Hope’s compositions fuse chamber music, vocal music, electronics, choreography and storytelling. She has been commissioned by choirs, chamber ensembles, theater and dance companies to lead the creation of original works that pull from the idiosyncratic desires and abilities of the ensembles that she is engaged with. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. The Daily Princetonian says Hope Littwin’s music explores the “euphoric realm, where the physicality of musical expression is fully embraced—where music is not only something we do, but something we are.” Hope’s original works are available for streaming on band camp and YouTube, her albums can be found on Spotify and iTunes. Find Hope on Instagram @hopelittwin
Isaac Santos is a composer of contemporary concert music based in New Jersey and originally from Broward County, Florida. Much of Isaac’s current output is inspired by visual art, nature, and everyday life. Through his compositions, he aspires to create deeply affective music that engages introspectively with some of our most deep and poignant emotions.
Rebekah Smith is a translator, writer, scholar, bookmaker, and editor at Ugly Duckling Presse.
Connor Elias Way is a composer based in Brooklyn, NY whose music explores resonance through carefully wrought networks of imitative counterpoint and a spectrally-informed approach to sonority and timbre. His music has been performed by groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, JACK Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Contemporaneous, Sō Percussion, Arx Duo, Bergamot Quartet, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Current projects include a forthcoming solo marimba work for Jisu Jung and an album-length project for the Irish singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and harpist Parker Ramsey which will premiere in Dublin in October of 2024 thanks to a commission from the Arts Council of Ireland. He is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University.
Justin Wright is a composer, cellist, and multimedia artist from Montreal, Canada. After finishing his masters in molecular biology, Justin left science and started performing in bands of all sorts before eventually teaching himself how to compose, using the techniques he learned in recording studios. Justin’s primary composition tools, for both electronic and acoustic music, are his cello, Ableton Live, a modular synthesizer, and a 4-track tape machine. Lately, Justin has focused on filmmaking, early music, virtual reality, and in situ composition. He has opened for artists such as Johann Johannsson, Hauschka, Thomas Mapfumo, Lubomyr Melnyk, Colin Stetson, Okkyung Lee, and Mount Eerie. Justin’s most recent album, A Really Good Spot, was released in July 2022 on Beacon Sound and First Terrace Records. This past summer, Justin traveled to Svalbard, an archipelago close to the North Pole, and serenaded the glaciers with the most northerly cello performances in history.