VIPA Composition @ Ateneo Musical del Puerto

Program

Valencia International Contemporary Ensemble

Gregor Schulenburg, flutes; Luis Fernandez Castelló, clarinets;
Linda Jankowska, violin; Mariel Roberts, cello;
Dimitri Vassilakis, piano;
Carlos Amat Arocas, conductor

Carlos David Perales

Pocchissimo / In termini estremi, Nº4

Legatissimo / In termini estremi, Nº2

for piano and electronics

Violet Burney

Weight

for clarinet, violin, and piano

This is a very personal piece about my experience with weight loss, judgement, and how my body has been perceived at different points in my life. There are several sections that flow into each other and represent different points in my journey.

Sierra Wojtczack

Reflect, Refract

for bass clarinet, violin, and piano

Throughout writing this piece, I imagined a mirror. At times, the mirror wants to break into shards, but realizes it still has an image to maintain–or a reflection to keep composed. Other times, shards have already fallen, and light refracts into different directions. Some of the ways these images are portrayed include syncopation, short rhythmic figures, and irregular phrasing. In a way, all these images depict how we see ourselves and how the perception of the self depends on one’s situation.

Victor Xie

Trio ’24

for violin, cello, and piano

Hannah Mufuka

Nova’s Return

for clarinet, violin, and cello

As a composer, I am most intrigued by life itself. I believe that the world we live in is a magical place, and I enjoy interpreting this through music. “Nova’s Return” tells a captivating story of cosmic cycles and rebirth. The title evokes imagery of stars and the perpetual renewal of nature. This piece reflects the idea that all elements in nature are continually repurposed, forming an endless circle of life. Stardust, which shapes our bodies and the world around us, symbolizes this eternal cycle. The piece feels both intimate and grand, light and heavy, and constantly shifts perspectives while maintaining the same material. The composition captures the essence of life’s seamless continuity, beginning and ending in the middle, mirroring the endless flow of existence without a definitive start or end.

Emmanuel Berrido

Wondering, Wandering

for flute and clarinet

WONDERING, WANDERING is my impression of a casual conversation in between people who are close to each other. Some times, the instruments come out of each other’s lines, some times their music overlaps; some times they interrupt each other, or finish each other’s music. Sometimes there are awkward silences, and some other times the dialogue flows just fine.

Houde Xu

Break Away from Village II

for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano

The inspiration of Break Away from Village derive from the contradiction of the village. On barren land, villagers seem to coexist in peace, but they constantly fight over trivial interests, staging absurd scenes. The composer felt that life was short and pursuing worldly interests was not as worth as transcending conflicts. There are two themes that separately symbolize selfishness and selflessness, which intertwine and collide in the music to show the complexity and intensity of conflicts. At the end of the piece, the selfish theme is reappeared alone, breaking expectations and hinting the composer’s view that selfish people may seem to win, but their innermost being are empty and lonely, and true wisdom and happiness is breaking away from conflicts.

Mary Denney

Neon Graveyard

for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello

The idea for Neon Graveyard came to me after visiting the vibrant–to put it politely–city of Las Vegas for the first time. A natural-born introvert who grew up in a small town, I found the entire experience to be completely overstimulating but nonetheless compelling. This piece seeks to capture those feelings, particularly through asymmetrical rhythmic patterns and heavy, dissonant clusters that constantly interrupt everything, even in the slower, more solemn sections. I had never visited a place quite like it before, with its bright lights and seemingly endless strip of casinos. But what struck me the most was that it was devoid of any natural life at all. Everything I encountered that was supposed to be “alive”, such as plants or animals, were merely plastic or mechanical facsimiles, covered in flashing neon lights. Sans the hundreds of thousands of people that crowd the Strip every year, Las Vegas, a city nestled in the depths of the Mojave Desert, would be a graveyard. Upon this realization, I couldn’t help but imagine the city completely deserted and empty, with those giant flashing neon signs blinking for the attention of absolutely no one at all.

Daiwei Lu

Bertini, Berens, and Beyer in Beijing:
12 progressive studies for 5 players

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

This composition is a recontextualization of European method books from the 1800s. The three names in the title—Henri Bertini, Hermann Berens, and Ferdinand Beyer—were widely active composers in the 19th century but are now mostly only known for their piano method books. These method books are published and widely distributed in China, becoming a symbol of “early-stage piano education.” This was also done by the absence of piano’s virtuosic passages in this composition.

This work is divided into 12 sections, each with an easily distinguishable, or even mechanical, technical theme. Moreover, in this composition, five players play slices—sometimes unrecognizable—from the three composers’ method books.

Overall, as a result, the music remains mechanical, with a “deconstruction” of different basic musical elements and symbolizations—such as etude fragments, pentatonic scales, and triads—mixed together, creating a sense of a melting pot in the practice of contemporary piano education.

Jinwei Sun

Progressed

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

Inspired by the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, a tech-creators in fabric, this piece will transform the idea of his fabric pleats into my music. Created by Miyake in the 1980s when he returned from Europe, “Miyake Pleats” are new methods of pleating that provide beauty and flexibility of the extremely light polyester fabric.

After looking into Miyake’s techniques for creating the fabric, I translate the process of producing synthetic fabric to my musical pleats: liquified, extruded, extended, solidified, and spooled. Those five steps are embraced through the piece in different sections. The piece intends o translate the visual aspects of the fabric pleats to make a permanent sonic image of the pleats’ temporary movement.

Zhishu Chang

I Want a Third Pill

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

Austin White

Some Impressions

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano