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Princeton Sound Kitchen presents JACK Quartet
Presented by Princeton Sound Kitchen
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date & time
Tue, Nov 28, 2023
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
ticketing
Free, unticketed
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String quartet JACK perform two concerts—each with a different program—over two consecutive nights, featuring new works by Princeton University faculty and graduate student composers. New works by Kennedy Taylor Dixon, Liam Elliot, Bobby Ge, Travis Laplante, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Lucy McKnight, Christian Quiñones, Nathan Schram, Juri Seo, Max Vinetz, Connor Elias Way, Justin Wright.
Program
Travis Laplante String Quartet No. 1
Justin Wright J’étais
Max Vinetz Wax Catalog
Juri Seo Just Intonation Etudes
Program Notes
Travis Laplante
String Quartet No. 1
String Quartet No. 1 is the first significant string quartet that I’ve composed. I’ve always found the naming of a piece of music or art solely with a number to be intimate, as if sharing a specific time in one’s life without anything superfluous. This may seem like a paradox, but the potential to feel unspeakably close to each other through sound and listening, without a requirement of concrete meaning, is a mystery that drew me to music at an early age.
I attempted to compose a piece where the natural tunings of just intonation could hopefully add an emotional, alluring, and lyrical quality without de-emphasizing other aspects of music.
The process of composing this piece has opened up my ears to perceive deeper subtleties in tuning and harmony. This in itself is a great gift for me as a human, for it assists in the ability to listen and respond to other people and nature with greater sensitivity.
I began composing in February of 2023 in Princeton, NJ and continued to work on the composition throughout the next seven months. Much work took place during the School of 3 Lights Residency in Whitefield, ME during early June of 2023. I finished the piece in a furnaceroom in Putney, Vermont during June, July, and August of 2023.
Justin Wright
J’étais
i. pppp
ii. pppp
iii. ppp
iv. pppp
v. pppp
An ode to the string family’s quieter sounds, and the contemplative feeling as we transition through autumn, from the first cool breezes and changing colors to the barren branches and first snowfall. The name J’étais (French for “I was”) represents the fall nostalgia, and is also a homonym for “jeté,” a bowing technique used all over this piece.
Goodbye autumn. See you next year.
— INTERMISSION —
Max Vinetz
Wax Catalog
- left, beklemmt
- transfigured song
At the outset, Wax Catalog was a study of integrating Extended Heimholtz-Ellis Just Intonation (HEJI) into the fabric of my own musical language. I found the task daunting at first, and didn’t quite understand how, or even why HEJI would find its place in my own music. To make this project more personal to me, as opposed to being solely based in a musical or theoretical technique, I decided to draw musical materials from two string quartets that were formative in my music education: Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2, and Beethoven’s String Quartet in Bb Major, Opus 130. I used materials from the 2nd movement from Bartok, and from the “Cavatina” from the Beethoven quartet, as these movements held a lot of emotional weight for me.
As I dug deeper into my studies, I realized that I had already been exploring just intervals in my earlier works without even thinking about it whatsoever. At this point, the compositional process began to feel more comfortable, and akin to my typical practice where improvisation and intuition make their way into my formal decision-making. Both movements of this quartet make extensive use of a technique I like to call “intentional misremembering,” in which I channel my favorite parts of the source material (as opposed to its literal, notational representation) into the final, composed music itself.
The title Wax Catalog refers to the Edison phonograph wax cylinders that Béla Bartók used to capture field recordings and thousands of folk songs from his travels to remote Eastern European villages in the early 20th century.
Juri Seo
Just Intonation Etudes
- 3-Limit – Pythagoras’ Lament
- 5-Limit – Sarabande in Giant Tiny Steps
- 7-Limit-TheWell-TunedBlues
- 11-Limit – An End to Suffering
- 13-Limit – Gigue in 13
- 17-Limit – 17 Farewells (Epilogue)
Just Intonation Etudes is my first attempt at merging extended just intonation with old-school harmony and counterpoint. The new intervals subtly redefine the harmonic syntax by altering our perception of consonances and dissonances. My goal was to ensure my love for humor and speed survives the difficulty (of composing, of performing) as well as the seduction of justly tuned sonorities.
I. Pythagoras’ Lament
Twelve perfect fifths, when purely tuned, do not neatly add up to an octave. The gap between B# and C, about 1/4 of a semitone, is known as the Pythagorean comma. In this overture-like movement, I offer a musical explanation. A series of fifths land on the comma, a cosmic dilemma.
II. Sarabande in Giant Tiny Steps
The legendary tune Giant Steps by John Coltrane is renowned for its distinctive root motions. When you stack three major thirds like that in 5-limit just intonation, instead of reaching a full octave, you fall short by a not-so-tiny interval known as the Lesser Diesis, about 5/8 of a semitone (as a result of the compounding errors of the syntonic comma.) It had been my dream to modulate to the lesser diesis ever since I first encountered it some dozen years ago, and I’ve finally done it here. Giant Steps serves as an introduction. What follows is a sarabande built upon the Giant Steps progression, tuned justly.
III. The Well-Tuned Blues
To highlight the sound of the seventh harmonic, I decided to write a funky tune in blues scale. It features a mutant sequential progression that alternates between the harmonic dominant 7th and the subharmonic half-diminished 7th chords. This movement captures my favorite combination of goofiness and intricacy.
IV. An End to Suffering
After three movements with clever programs, I struggled to name this one. The undecimal comma (about 1/2 of a semitone) is so common that it didn’t latch onto any concrete idea. At this moment of the piece, I knew I needed something calm so I decided to write a song-like melody. The title alludes to Buddhist meditation and is the title of a beautiful book by Pankaj Mishra.
V. Gigue in 13
Having determined that the piece has characteristics of a suite, it seemed fitting to add a gigue. This gigue has 13-unit metric structure, with alternating bars of 6/8 and 7/8. The middle section has a 13:8 polyrhythmic layer (which comes across as irregular syncopations). Ben Johnston would have agreed that the 13:8 polyrhythm does have something to do with the tridecimal neutral sixth interval, which defines the tonal center here; it is between major and minor, but slightly more minor.
VI. 17 Farewells (Epilogue)
This movement cadences 17 times. It’s like saying goodbye. Sometimes easy, sometimes not.
Performers
JACK Quartet:
Christopher Otto, violin
Austin Wulliman, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello
Support staff:
Julia Bumke, Executive Director
JACK Quartet is represented by
Pink Noise Agency, a BIG Arts Group company
What is 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
Travis Laplante
String Quartet No. 1
String Quartet No. 1 is the first significant string quartet that I’ve composed. I’ve always found the naming of a piece of music or art solely with a number to be intimate, as if sharing a specific time in one’s life without anything superfluous. This may seem like a paradox, but the potential to feel unspeakably close to each other through sound and listening, without a requirement of concrete meaning, is a mystery that drew me to music at an early age.
I attempted to compose a piece where the natural tunings of just intonation could hopefully add an emotional, alluring, and lyrical quality without de-emphasizing other aspects of music.
The process of composing this piece has opened up my ears to perceive deeper subtleties in tuning and harmony. This in itself is a great gift for me as a human, for it assists in the ability to listen and respond to other people and nature with greater sensitivity.
I began composing in February of 2023 in Princeton, NJ and continued to work on the composition throughout the next seven months. Much work took place during the School of 3 Lights Residency in Whitefield, ME during early June of 2023. I finished the piece in a furnaceroom in Putney, Vermont during June, July, and August of 2023.
Justin Wright
J’étais
i. pppp
ii. pppp
iii. ppp
iv. pppp
v. pppp
An ode to the string family’s quieter sounds, and the contemplative feeling as we transition through autumn, from the first cool breezes and changing colors to the barren branches and first snowfall. The name J’étais (French for “I was”) represents the fall nostalgia, and is also a homonym for “jeté,” a bowing technique used all over this piece.
Goodbye autumn. See you next year.
— INTERMISSION —
Max Vinetz
Wax Catalog
- left, beklemmt
- transfigured song
At the outset, Wax Catalog was a study of integrating Extended Heimholtz-Ellis Just Intonation (HEJI) into the fabric of my own musical language. I found the task daunting at first, and didn’t quite understand how, or even why HEJI would find its place in my own music. To make this project more personal to me, as opposed to being solely based in a musical or theoretical technique, I decided to draw musical materials from two string quartets that were formative in my music education: Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2, and Beethoven’s String Quartet in Bb Major, Opus 130. I used materials from the 2nd movement from Bartok, and from the “Cavatina” from the Beethoven quartet, as these movements held a lot of emotional weight for me.
As I dug deeper into my studies, I realized that I had already been exploring just intervals in my earlier works without even thinking about it whatsoever. At this point, the compositional process began to feel more comfortable, and akin to my typical practice where improvisation and intuition make their way into my formal decision-making. Both movements of this quartet make extensive use of a technique I like to call “intentional misremembering,” in which I channel my favorite parts of the source material (as opposed to its literal, notational representation) into the final, composed music itself.
The title Wax Catalog refers to the Edison phonograph wax cylinders that Béla Bartók used to capture field recordings and thousands of folk songs from his travels to remote Eastern European villages in the early 20th century.
Juri Seo
Just Intonation Etudes
- 3-Limit – Pythagoras’ Lament
- 5-Limit – Sarabande in Giant Tiny Steps
- 7-Limit-TheWell-TunedBlues
- 11-Limit – An End to Suffering
- 13-Limit – Gigue in 13
- 17-Limit – 17 Farewells (Epilogue)
Just Intonation Etudes is my first attempt at merging extended just intonation with old-school harmony and counterpoint. The new intervals subtly redefine the harmonic syntax by altering our perception of consonances and dissonances. My goal was to ensure my love for humor and speed survives the difficulty (of composing, of performing) as well as the seduction of justly tuned sonorities.
I. Pythagoras’ Lament
Twelve perfect fifths, when purely tuned, do not neatly add up to an octave. The gap between B# and C, about 1/4 of a semitone, is known as the Pythagorean comma. In this overture-like movement, I offer a musical explanation. A series of fifths land on the comma, a cosmic dilemma.
II. Sarabande in Giant Tiny Steps
The legendary tune Giant Steps by John Coltrane is renowned for its distinctive root motions. When you stack three major thirds like that in 5-limit just intonation, instead of reaching a full octave, you fall short by a not-so-tiny interval known as the Lesser Diesis, about 5/8 of a semitone (as a result of the compounding errors of the syntonic comma.) It had been my dream to modulate to the lesser diesis ever since I first encountered it some dozen years ago, and I’ve finally done it here. Giant Steps serves as an introduction. What follows is a sarabande built upon the Giant Steps progression, tuned justly.
III. The Well-Tuned Blues
To highlight the sound of the seventh harmonic, I decided to write a funky tune in blues scale. It features a mutant sequential progression that alternates between the harmonic dominant 7th and the subharmonic half-diminished 7th chords. This movement captures my favorite combination of goofiness and intricacy.
IV. An End to Suffering
After three movements with clever programs, I struggled to name this one. The undecimal comma (about 1/2 of a semitone) is so common that it didn’t latch onto any concrete idea. At this moment of the piece, I knew I needed something calm so I decided to write a song-like melody. The title alludes to Buddhist meditation and is the title of a beautiful book by Pankaj Mishra.
V. Gigue in 13
Having determined that the piece has characteristics of a suite, it seemed fitting to add a gigue. This gigue has 13-unit metric structure, with alternating bars of 6/8 and 7/8. The middle section has a 13:8 polyrhythmic layer (which comes across as irregular syncopations). Ben Johnston would have agreed that the 13:8 polyrhythm does have something to do with the tridecimal neutral sixth interval, which defines the tonal center here; it is between major and minor, but slightly more minor.
VI. 17 Farewells (Epilogue)
This movement cadences 17 times. It’s like saying goodbye. Sometimes easy, sometimes not.
Performers
JACK Quartet:
Christopher Otto, violin
Austin Wulliman, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello
Support staff:
Julia Bumke, Executive Director
JACK Quartet is represented by
Pink Noise Agency, a BIG Arts Group company
What is 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.