Viewing entries in
Large Works With Voices
The Source
ensemble 4 singers (SATB) with live electronics, 7 instruments (violin, viola, cello, electric guitar, electric bass, drums/percussion, keyboard/sampler)
duration 65 minutes
libretto Mark Doten
commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, Judy and Allen Freedman, Justus and Helen Schlichting
premiere October 22-25, 2014, BAM Next Wave Festival (Daniel Fish, director)
publisher Unsettlement Music
recording The Source, New Amsterdam Records (2015)
Mellissa Hughes sings in The Source, BAM Next Wave Festival 2014
notes The Source is a modern-day oratorio, and a patchwork of songs based on American primary-source texts. The subject is Chelsea Manning, the US Army Private who infamously leaked hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010.
The text, culled and arranged by librettist Mark Doten, sets Manning's words and sections of the classified material known as the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diary.
The music, like the text, draws from diverse sources. Auto-tuned recitatives, neo soul ballads, icy string trios and moments of cracked-out musical theater are peppered with (and sometimes structured around) samples that bridge sonic worlds.
The Source was premiered at the BAM Next Wave Festival in October 2014 - in a production by Beth Morrison, directed by Daniel Fish, with video designed by Fish and Jim Findlay - to four sold-out performances and rave reviews. (More about this production below). The Source was released as an album on New Amsterdam Records in October 2015.
“‘The Source’ prompts dinner table conversation. It offers a fresh model of how opera and musical theater can tackle contemporary issues: not with documentary realism - film and television have that covered - but with ambiguity, obliquity, and even sheer confusion.”
Excerpt from the 2014 production of THE SOURCE at BAM Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn; directed by Daniel Fish, with video design by Jim Findlay and Daniel Fish
“[S]ome of the most expressive socially engaged music in recent memory—from any genre.”
notes on the text from librettist Mark Doten The central fact of the classified materials that Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning leaked is their almost ungraspable scope. They include 483,000 Army field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and 251,000 diplomatic cables; these were released, along with video of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, by WikiLeaks and its media partners in 2010. The reporting at the time focused less on what the leaks revealed about America’s conduct of wars and diplomacy, than on the personalities involved.
The libretto for The Source is made from a patchwork of primary-source documents, including:
The US military documents leaked by Pfc Manning and released by WikiLeaks: these are known as the "Iraq War Logs" and "Afghan War Diary"
Internet chats between Manning and former hacker Adrian Lamo, later published by Wired.com (see below for more information)
Tweets from Lamo regarding his decision to turn in Manning
an array of questions that journalists have posed to Julian Assange
selections of interviews, radio, social media and popular music, drawn primarily from the same time period as the leaks
“And as the texts felt cut up, a la Naked Lunch, and reassembled, so did Hearne’s music sound like myriad influences exploded and roughly pasted back together, the work of a true twenty-first century polyglot.””
THE SOURCE - ALBUM RELEASED OCTOBER 2015
produced by Nick Tipp, Jesse Lewis and Ted Hearne
recorded by Jesse Lewis at Avatar Studios (Manhattan) and Systems Two Studios (Brooklyn)
Nathan Koci, music director
Ted Hearne, Mellissa Hughes, Samia Mounts, Isaiah Robinson, Jonathan Woody, vocalists
Courtney Orlando, violin
Anne Lanzilotti, viola
Leah Coloff, cello
Taylor Levine, electric guitar
Greg Chudzik, electric bass
Ron Wiltrout, drums
The interactive use of auto-tune in The Source was developed by Philip White
and Ted Hearne in their work as the vocal/electronics duo R WE WHO R WE.
PRODUCTION
Jesse Lewis, editing, recording engineer
Philip White, vocal processing design
Kyle Pyke, recording engineer
Tom Kennedy, engineering assistant
Nick Tipp, mastering
Ryder Bach, mix assistant
Carl Saff, mastering
Seth Gadsden, art
Laura Grey, graphic design
WORKS
LARGE WORKS WITH VOICES
Farming (2023, 60 min.)
24 voices, 6 instruments
Place (2018/2020, 80 min.)
6 voices, 18 instruments
In Your Mouth/Dorothea (2019)
voice and ensemble; voice and piano
Sound from the Bench (2014/2017, 40 min.)
mixed choir with 2 electric guitars and percussion
Coloring Book (2015, 30 min.)
vocal octet
The Source (2014, 65 min.)
7 instruments, 4 voices
Partition (2010, 20 min.)
mixed choir with full orchestra
Katrina Ballads (2007, 60 min.)
11 instruments, 5 voices
ORCHESTRA
In Thrall (2019, 15 min.)
wind ensemble
Brass Tacks (2018, 6 min.)
large orchestra
Miami in Movements (2017, 35 min.)
large orchestra with video
Dispatches (2015, 18 min.)
large orchestra
Respirator (2015, 13 min.)
chamber orchestra
Stem (2013, 25 min.)
large orchestra
Law of Mosaics (2012, 30 min.)
string orchestra
Erasure Scherzo (2012, 6 min.)
large orchestra
Word for Word (2011, 10 min.)
large orchestra
Shizz (2010/2017, 4 min.)
versions for large orchestra and chamber orchestra
Build a Room (2010, 20 min.)
concerto for trumpet and orchestra
Patriot (2007, 9 min.)
large orchestra
SOLO WORKS
Lobby Music (2021, 7 min.)
solo cello, with electronics
Inheritance (2021, 5 min.)
solo piano
The Luminous Road (2020, 2 min.)
solo piccolo
Distance Canon (2020, 3 min.)
solo violin
Another National Anthem (2019, 5 min.)
solo piano
DaVZ23BzMH0 (2016, 7 min.)
solo cello, with electronics
Parlor Diplomacy (2011, 20 min.)
solo piano
Nobody's (2010, 4 min.)
solo violin or viola
CHAMBER MUSIC
(2-5 instruments)
Exposure (2017, 18 min.)
string quartet
To Be the Thing (2017, 10 min.)
voice, electric guitar and percussion, with live electronics
The Answer to the Question That Wings Ask (2016, 11 min.)
string quartet and narrator
Furtive Movements (2013, 14 min.)
cello and percussion
Interlude for Fingers (2013, 4 min.)
two vibraphones
Candy (2011, 8 min.)
electric guitar quartet
Thaw (2009, 12 min.)
percussion quartet
Ghostspace (2009, 8 min.)
mixed quartet (accordion, electric guitar, piano, drums)
Vessels (2008, 10 min.)
trio (violin, viola, piano)
Crib Dweller (2007, 8 min.)
mixed quintet (bass clarinet, elec. guitar, trumpet, trombone, horn)
23 (2005, 8 min.)
mixed quintet (flute, horn, elec. guitar, piano, drums)
Warning Song (2006, 7 min.)
voice and cello, with electronics
One of Us, One of Them (2005, 8 min.)
piano and percussion
Forcefield (2004, 5 min.)
viola and vibraphone
MEDIUM TO LARGE ENSEMBLE MUSIC
(6-16 instruments)
To Be Whole Is To Be Part (2021, 7 min.)
14 musicians
Authority (2019, 30 min.)
10 musicians
Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures [Speed is Pure] (2019, 40 min.)
for Pam Tanowitz Dance 4 horns, electric guitar, voice with live processing
One Like (2016, 7 min.)
14 musicians
For the Love of Charles Mingus (2016, 9 min.)
6 violins
Baby [an argument] (2016, 11 min.)
10 musicians
By-By Huey (2014, 10 min.)
sextet (fl, bcl, vln, vc, pno, perc)
"The Cage" Variations (2014, 20 min.)
6 instruments (fl, cl/bcl, vln, vc, pno, perc) with baritone solo
Crispy Gentlemen (2012, 15 min.)
7 instruments (fl/picc, cl/bcl, vln, vla, vc, pno, perc)
But I Voted for Shirley Chisholm (2012, 8 min.)
11 instruments+tape
Randos (2012, 8 min.)
7 instruments (L'Histoire septet)
Cutest Little Arbitrage (2011, 12 min.)
6 instruments (2 sax, trombone + rhythm section)
Is it Dirty (2010, 8 min.)
16 instruments with 2 singers
versions for 10 instruments and 6 instruments
Eyelid Margin (2009, 12 min.)
10 instruments (brass quintet + 5 double-reeds)
Snowball (2008, 6 min.)
8 instruments (bcl, tpt, tbn, vln, acc, egtr, pno, dr)
version for 7 instruments (bcl, bn, tpt, tbn, vln, db, perc)
Illuminating the Maze (2008/2016, 15 min.)
6 instruments (tpt, hn, tbn, egtr, pno, dr)
version for 11 instruments
Music from "Body Soldiers" (2008, 10 min.)
5 instruments + singer
Cordavi and Fig (2007, 8 min.)
13 instruments
Antiphon (2003, 8 min.)
9 instruments (3 cl, bcl, 3 tpt, tbn, pno)
CHORAL MUSIC
Texting With Your Dad in the Anthropocene (2019, 12 min.)
Animals (2018, 9 min.)
Fervor (2018, 3 min.)
What it might say (2016, 5 min.)
Coloring Book (2015, 30 min.)
Consent (2014, 7 min.)
Ripple (2012, 10 min.)
Privilege (2009, 14 min.)
Mass for St. Mary’s (2008, 10 min.)
Music for youth choir:
The Definition of Crisis (2020, 2-5 min.)
Room for Something (2011, 8 min.)
Away (2010, 6 min.)
Because (2006, 6 min.)
Murder on the Road in Alabama (2003, 6 min.)
SONG AND SOLO VOICE
Freefucked (2022)
voice and solo cello, with vocal processing and fixed electronics
Translation: Two Cigar Butts (2021)
two singers with electronics (optional piano and/or bass)
In Your Mouth/Dorothea (2019)
voice and ensemble; voice and piano
To Be the Thing (2017, 10 min.)
voice, electric guitar and percussion, with live electronics
Intimacy and Resistance (2010, 5 min.)
voice and piano
Charleston Songbook (2008, 20 min.)
voice and piano w/ lead sheets
I Remember (2007, 8 min.)
for three sopranos, or one soprano with electronics
I Carry Your Heart (2007, 5 min.)
voice and piano
Warning Song (2006, 7 min.)
voice and cello, with electronics
COLLABORATIVE WORKS
We Are Radios (2018)
Miami in Movements (2017)
The Answer to the Question That Wings Ask (2016,)
Hand Eye (2015)
New Dances for the League of David (2014)
You're Causing Quite a Disturbance (2013)
R WE WHO R WE (2013)
Histories (2012)
SOUND FROM THE BENCH
ensemble SATB choir, two electric guitars, drums/percussion
commissioned by The Crossing and Volti
text Jena Osman
premiere May 16, 2014, San Francisco: Volti, Robert Geary, conductor
June 15, 2014, Philadelphia: The Crossing, Donald Nally, conductor
with Taylor Levine and James Moore, electric guitars, and Ron Wiltrout, drums
premiere new version February 2, 2017, The Gardner Museum, Boston;
February 3, 2017, National Sawdust, Brooklyn:
The Crossing, with Taylor Levine, James Moore and Ron Wiltrout
publisher Unsettlement Music
recording The Crossing (Cantaloupe Music, 2017)
“The piece is scored for two electric guitars and drums alongside the chorus, and the relations between the two groups — the mechanized, scarily protean sounds of the instruments on one side and the distinctly human singing on the other — turns into a deft and fertile metaphor. It helps that Hearne writes with such technical assurance and imaginative scope. The cantata ranges widely in approach, from sculptural pastiches to vast dramatic anthems to utterances of limpid tenderness (one late movement is a gentle, lovely pop song whose rhythms slowly drift out of phase.)”
“In ‘Sound from the Bench,’ Hearne confronted big-picture issues with a huge variety of ideas bumping into each other... Two electric guitars and a percussionist resembled emergency alarms, often with a vocal obbligato that kept the piece from being merely industrial. Compelling, densely packed harmonies were served up by female voices. ”
Featured as Q2's album of the week for the week of April 17, 2017
notes Sound From the Bench is a 35-minute cantata for chamber choir, two electric guitars and drums, with a libretto by Jena Osman. It was co-commissioned by Volti and The Crossing.
why these texts?
Sound From the Bench is a reaction to Jena Osman's incredible book "Corporate Relations," a collection of poems that follows the historical trajectory of corporate personhood in the United States. The five movements combine language taken from landmark Supreme Court Cases with words from ventriloquism textbooks.
I was instantly drawn to Osman's work because of its rich intertextuality: she appropriates a variety of texts from diverse sources and assembles them into a powerful bricolage. I strive toward a similar polyphony of oppositional voices and perspectives in my music, and to bring the chaotic forces of life into the work itself. It was this impulse, and the unabashedly political tone of Osman's poetry, that made me want to set some part of "Corporate Relations" to music.
why electric guitars?
Sound From the Bench is built around the tension between the human voice and electric guitar. The electric guitar can sound like literally anything. Through circuitry, programming, and analog and digital manipulation, the pitches and rhythms a guitarist plays can be utterly transformed, erasing all human touch. It speaks through an amplifier and could easily drown out any voice. These cyborg-esque qualities contrast the human voice, both in its inescapable limitations and the complex differences found in every individual vocal timbre.
what does "no mouth" mean?
No mouth is Osman's paraphrase of the central reasoning behind the majority in Bellotti v. First National Bank, the 1978 case upon which Citizens United is based: because corporations don't have a literal mouth, they cannot literally speak, therefore advertising is their only available method of communication and must be considered speech (and is entitled to First Amendment protections as such).
The phrase the very heart, also found in the second movement, is excerpted from Justice White's dissent in this case: "It has long been recognized, however, that the special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only the economy but the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process."
about the third movement
The central movement sets words from the oral argument to Citizens United. My brain started firing when I realized this poem of Jena's was a literal erasure of the Supreme Court document – every phrase appeared in order, and in a position approximating the horizontal spot it appeared on the page. When I printed out the full 83-page oral argument and blacked out every phrase that Jena hadn't included, the remaining words jumped out at me and started to take on new meanings and inferences. That strange, new energy helped propel the decontextualized text into music.
The time at which the phrases appear approximate and in some way preserve the place at which they appear in the original document. The music between Osman's text, that which fills the "blank pages," sometimes includes a quote from Thomas Tallis's motet Loquebantur Variis Linguis (the text is: "The Apostles spoke in different tongues – Alleluia.") Aside from loving this music, I liked the image of our Justices as apostles.
"personhood"
What could this word even mean when it is applied to non-human things? The courts have systematically granted constitutional rights to corporations since the Civil War - we concede that a corporation can "speak" even though it has no mouth – and these rights have come at the expense of both the private citizen and the government.
a corporation is to a person as a person is to a machine
friends of the court we know them as good and bad, they too are sheep
and goats ventriloquizing the ghostly fiction
a corporation is to a body as a body is to a puppet
putting it in caricature, if there are natural persons then there are those
who are not that, buying candidates. there are those who are strong on
the ground and then weak in the air. weight shifts to the left leg while
the propaganda arm extends.
(Jena Osman, from Corporate Relations)
- program notes by Ted Hearne, with passages after Eric Howerton's review of Corporate Relations for "The Volta Blog"
listen:
WORKS
LARGE WORKS WITH VOICES
Farming (2023, 60 min.)
24 voices, 6 instruments
Place (2018/2020, 80 min.)
6 voices, 18 instruments
In Your Mouth/Dorothea (2019)
voice and ensemble; voice and piano
Sound from the Bench (2014/2017, 40 min.)
mixed choir with 2 electric guitars and percussion
Coloring Book (2015, 30 min.)
vocal octet
The Source (2014, 65 min.)
7 instruments, 4 voices
Partition (2010, 20 min.)
mixed choir with full orchestra
Katrina Ballads (2007, 60 min.)
11 instruments, 5 voices
ORCHESTRA
In Thrall (2019, 15 min.)
wind ensemble
Brass Tacks (2018, 6 min.)
large orchestra
Miami in Movements (2017, 35 min.)
large orchestra with video
Dispatches (2015, 18 min.)
large orchestra
Respirator (2015, 13 min.)
chamber orchestra
Stem (2013, 25 min.)
large orchestra
Law of Mosaics (2012, 30 min.)
string orchestra
Erasure Scherzo (2012, 6 min.)
large orchestra
Word for Word (2011, 10 min.)
large orchestra
Shizz (2010/2017, 4 min.)
versions for large orchestra and chamber orchestra
Build a Room (2010, 20 min.)
concerto for trumpet and orchestra
Patriot (2007, 9 min.)
large orchestra
SOLO WORKS
Lobby Music (2021, 7 min.)
solo cello, with electronics
Inheritance (2021, 5 min.)
solo piano
The Luminous Road (2020, 2 min.)
solo piccolo
Distance Canon (2020, 3 min.)
solo violin
Another National Anthem (2019, 5 min.)
solo piano
DaVZ23BzMH0 (2016, 7 min.)
solo cello, with electronics
Parlor Diplomacy (2011, 20 min.)
solo piano
Nobody's (2010, 4 min.)
solo violin or viola
CHAMBER MUSIC
(2-5 instruments)
Exposure (2017, 18 min.)
string quartet
To Be the Thing (2017, 10 min.)
voice, electric guitar and percussion, with live electronics
The Answer to the Question That Wings Ask (2016, 11 min.)
string quartet and narrator
Furtive Movements (2013, 14 min.)
cello and percussion
Interlude for Fingers (2013, 4 min.)
two vibraphones
Candy (2011, 8 min.)
electric guitar quartet
Thaw (2009, 12 min.)
percussion quartet
Ghostspace (2009, 8 min.)
mixed quartet (accordion, electric guitar, piano, drums)
Vessels (2008, 10 min.)
trio (violin, viola, piano)
Crib Dweller (2007, 8 min.)
mixed quintet (bass clarinet, elec. guitar, trumpet, trombone, horn)
23 (2005, 8 min.)
mixed quintet (flute, horn, elec. guitar, piano, drums)
Warning Song (2006, 7 min.)
voice and cello, with electronics
One of Us, One of Them (2005, 8 min.)
piano and percussion
Forcefield (2004, 5 min.)
viola and vibraphone
MEDIUM TO LARGE ENSEMBLE MUSIC
(6-16 instruments)
To Be Whole Is To Be Part (2021, 7 min.)
14 musicians
Authority (2019, 30 min.)
10 musicians
Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures [Speed is Pure] (2019, 40 min.)
for Pam Tanowitz Dance 4 horns, electric guitar, voice with live processing
One Like (2016, 7 min.)
14 musicians
For the Love of Charles Mingus (2016, 9 min.)
6 violins
Baby [an argument] (2016, 11 min.)
10 musicians
By-By Huey (2014, 10 min.)
sextet (fl, bcl, vln, vc, pno, perc)
"The Cage" Variations (2014, 20 min.)
6 instruments (fl, cl/bcl, vln, vc, pno, perc) with baritone solo
Crispy Gentlemen (2012, 15 min.)
7 instruments (fl/picc, cl/bcl, vln, vla, vc, pno, perc)
But I Voted for Shirley Chisholm (2012, 8 min.)
11 instruments+tape
Randos (2012, 8 min.)
7 instruments (L'Histoire septet)
Cutest Little Arbitrage (2011, 12 min.)
6 instruments (2 sax, trombone + rhythm section)
Is it Dirty (2010, 8 min.)
16 instruments with 2 singers
versions for 10 instruments and 6 instruments
Eyelid Margin (2009, 12 min.)
10 instruments (brass quintet + 5 double-reeds)
Snowball (2008, 6 min.)
8 instruments (bcl, tpt, tbn, vln, acc, egtr, pno, dr)
version for 7 instruments (bcl, bn, tpt, tbn, vln, db, perc)
Illuminating the Maze (2008/2016, 15 min.)
6 instruments (tpt, hn, tbn, egtr, pno, dr)
version for 11 instruments
Music from "Body Soldiers" (2008, 10 min.)
5 instruments + singer
Cordavi and Fig (2007, 8 min.)
13 instruments
Antiphon (2003, 8 min.)
9 instruments (3 cl, bcl, 3 tpt, tbn, pno)
CHORAL MUSIC
Texting With Your Dad in the Anthropocene (2019, 12 min.)
Animals (2018, 9 min.)
Fervor (2018, 3 min.)
What it might say (2016, 5 min.)
Coloring Book (2015, 30 min.)
Consent (2014, 7 min.)
Ripple (2012, 10 min.)
Privilege (2009, 14 min.)
Mass for St. Mary’s (2008, 10 min.)
Music for youth choir:
The Definition of Crisis (2020, 2-5 min.)
Room for Something (2011, 8 min.)
Away (2010, 6 min.)
Because (2006, 6 min.)
Murder on the Road in Alabama (2003, 6 min.)
SONG AND SOLO VOICE
Freefucked (2022)
voice and solo cello, with vocal processing and fixed electronics
Translation: Two Cigar Butts (2021)
two singers with electronics (optional piano and/or bass)
In Your Mouth/Dorothea (2019)
voice and ensemble; voice and piano
To Be the Thing (2017, 10 min.)
voice, electric guitar and percussion, with live electronics
Intimacy and Resistance (2010, 5 min.)
voice and piano
Charleston Songbook (2008, 20 min.)
voice and piano w/ lead sheets
I Remember (2007, 8 min.)
for three sopranos, or one soprano with electronics
I Carry Your Heart (2007, 5 min.)
voice and piano
Warning Song (2006, 7 min.)
voice and cello, with electronics
COLLABORATIVE WORKS
We Are Radios (2018)
Miami in Movements (2017)
The Answer to the Question That Wings Ask (2016,)
Hand Eye (2015)
New Dances for the League of David (2014)
You're Causing Quite a Disturbance (2013)
R WE WHO R WE (2013)
Histories (2012)