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Christopher BiggsVictoria Cheah Viet Cuong Emily Koh Joseph Sowa

PRISM Quartet

Surfaces and Essences

PRISM Quartet

Timothy McAllister soprano saxophoneZachary Shemon alto saxophoneMatthew Levy tenor saxophone Taimur Sullivan baritone saxophone

Prized Possessions and Surfaces and Essences were recorded on August 30–31, 2018 at the First Presbyterian Church of Ypsilanti, MI Motion Lines, heteronym/, and Tell: Quartet were recorded on January 29, 2017 at Brandeis University, Slosberg Recital Hall AcknowledgementsThis recording was made possible with generous support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, and the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.

The Aaron Copland Fund for Music

Five New Treasures for Saxophone Quartet Nurtured by PRISM By Frank J. Oteri

In its first 35 years on the scene, the PRISM Quartet has proven that the saxophone quartet is one of the most versatile chamber music ensembles, capable of expressing music created in an extraordinary range of styles—from works that exploit a level of homogenous blending perhaps only otherwise attainable by a string quartet to wild, raucous scores involving improvisation and myriad extended techniques. PRISM has now served as a muse for generations of composers, so it is perhaps fitting that, for this latest addition to their extensive discography, the group features a set of new works written for them by five younger composers, only one of whom was born before PRISM came into existence.

Philadelphia-based Viet Cuong (b. 1990) is already a rising star in the wind band and orchestral communities, writing works that have received top awards (e.g. the Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize for his band composition Sound and Smoke) or which have been chosen for performance in the most prestigious showcases for emerging composers (e.g. his Moxie was performed earlier this year as part of Minnesota Orchestra’s Future Classics). Cuong has also already created a formidable body of chamber music compositions that have been championed by groups including Eighth Blackbird, the JACK Quartet, Sō Percussion, and Music from Copland House. His 2014-15 saxophone diptych, Prized Possessions , which was written expressly for PRISM, presents two completely different approaches. The first movement, “Mother’s Monster,” is a slow, dirge-like chorale in which, through portamento glides, chords seemingly slide into one another. In contrast, the frenetic second movement, “Beggar’s Lace,” explores heterophonic textures, bonafide quartertones, and “loud” rests. According to the composer, the work “focuses on balancing fleeting, quickly vanishing ideas with other material that’s allowed to obsessively linger until almost no longer welcome.”

The music of composer and multimedia artist Christopher Biggs (b. 1979), who also serves as the Director of SPLICE

Institute, frequently explores the intersection between live instrumental performance and interactive electronics. His 2017 saxophone quartet, Surfaces and Essences, however, is completely acoustic, although it is chock full of unusual sonorities and techniques. The score contains a library of timbres, including growls, multiphonics, tender legatos, pointillistic percussive pizzicatos, and a “scale” of vibrato from pure tone to heavy. Perhaps the most fascinating sonorities of the piece, which are exclusive to the alto saxophone part, are the ones involving a Remo Spring Drum Thunder Tube—a handheld percussion instrument featuring a long vibrating spring attached to the head of a drum. At various times during the piece, the tube is carefully inserted into the bell of the alto sax which creates a wide array of distorted sounds somewhat suggestive of the ring modulators that were ubiquitous in music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. In addition to these fascinating explorations of timbre, the music also seamlessly juxtaposes Carterian overlaps of triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets with passages in parallel rhythm. Biggs was inspired by Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, a 2010 book co-written by American cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter and French psychologist Emmanuel Sander, which outlines how people organize information in order to make sense of it. “Categories and concepts are ... modified and extended through analogy, while the essence is always maintained.”

Boston-based Joseph Sowa (b. 1984), who has received awards from ASCAP and the Barlow Endowment, writes concert and sacred music that has been nurtured by an unusual combination of influences including poetry and linguistics, schemata theory, meteorology, and cartooning. Sowa’s program notes for his brief 2016 Motion Lines, his second composition for saxophone quartet (the first is Monet’s Gardens from 2009), gather a group of four texts that resonated with the piece’s musical idea. A passage about comics from Wikipedia is joined by literary quotes from science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, poet Robert Frost, and Elizabeth Thomas, co-author of a series of romantic epistles published in London in 1732 under the title Pydales and Corinna. According to a subsequent correspondence with the composer, he

chose Thomas’ text because it contained “both ray imagery and the word perplexion” which “captured the labyrinthine feeling” he was aiming to convey musically. Sowa’s music—which contrasts quiet and loud, homophony and hocketing, jagged rhythms and sustained tones—was conceived to be “more associative than linear”; creating a sonic narrative which, like animation, gives

“something static a sense of movement.”Singapore-born, Atlanta-based composer and double-bassist

Emily Koh (b. 1986), who has also received ASCAP and Barlow awards and whose compositions have been performed around the world, creates music that is characterized by explorations of small sonic details. The titles of her compositions are often mash-ups of various words or are inspired by Singlish, the colloquial patois spoken in Singapore. Her 2016 heteronym/, the title of which connotes two or more identically-spelled words that have different sounds and meanings, is the second of three works she has composed for saxophone quartet thus far (the others are homonym and cryptonym:); it can either be performed as the middle movement of a three-part suite with the others or as a stand-alone work as it is presented here. The work begins with an unaccompanied baritone saxophone traversing a series of cadenza-like, narrow-ranged quartertonal figurations and tremolos after which the tenor enters with similar material, at first barely audible. Shortly after the minute mark there’s a brief pause and the alto sax joins in a manner equally surreptitious. Finally, the soprano completes the quartet, after which each instrument is foregrounded from time to time, but never for very long, as the others intrude with imitative textures against metrical shifts that occur almost every measure.

Finally, New York City-born composer Victoria Cheah (b. 1988) holds a Ph.D. in musical composition from Brandeis University. She has participated in the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt and her music has been presented on the MATA Festival and by Guerilla Opera. Her compositions, which explore hierarchy and ambiguity, often involve drones which subtly shift over long durations. Tell: Quartet, is her second saxophone quartet for PRISM; the first, and yes i said yes (2007) was the by-product of her winning the 2006 PRISM Quartet/

Walden School Commissioning Award. Tell: Quartet is one of a series of seven Tell works she has created thus far for various instrumental combinations; according to her, this overarching title relates to a change in a person’s behavior in a game of poker as well as a mound formed by the accumulated remains of ancient settlements. In the work for saxophone quartet, a succession of very similar five pitched chords (s, a, t + a multiphonic diad in the bari) move with glacial slowness, crescendoing and decrescendoing in quintuple meter. The baritone stays on the same diad until the halfway point, then everyone drops out except for the soprano; its quietly sustained single pitch is gradually joined, in succession, by alto, tenor, and bari. Toward the end, all four are finally playing together once more, repeating a new cluster chord, over and over, but then there’s just silence. In her program notes, Cheah writes: “Accumulation, repetition, clues, and red herrings are key to our existence, and in our relationships with others. Is what we see (hear) always what we get? or may we read (listen) between the lines?”

Composer and music journalist Frank J. Oteri is the Composer Advocate at New Music USA, the Editor of its Web Magazine NewMusicBox, and the Vice President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). His 2004 quartertone saxophone quartet Fair and Balanced?, written for PRISM in honor of their 20th anniversary, appears on their CD Dedication.

PRISM Quartet

Intriguing programs of great beauty and breadth have distinguished the PRISM Quartet as one of America’s foremost chamber ensembles. “A bold ensemble that set the standard for contemporary-classical saxophone quartets” (The New York Times), PRISM has performed in Carnegie Hall on the Making Music Series, in Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and throughout Latin America, China, and Russia under the auspices of the United States Information Agency and USArtists International. PRISM has also been presented to critical acclaim as soloists with the Detroit Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra, and conducted residencies at the nation’s leading conservatories, including the Curtis Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory. Two-time recipients of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, PRISM has commissioned nearly 300 works, many by internationally celebrated composers, including Pulitzer Prize-winners Julia Wolfe, William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Zhou Long, and Bernard Rands, and MacArthur “Genius” Award recipients Bright Sheng, Tyshawn Sorey, and Miguel Zenón. PRISM’s discography includes releases on Albany, BMOP/Sound, ECM, innova, Koch, Naxos, New Dynamic, New Focus, and its own label, XAS Records. The Fifth Century, PRISM’s ECM recording with The Crossing under Donald Nally, was awarded a 2018 Grammy for Best Choral Performance. In 2016, PRISM was named by its alma mater, the University of Michigan, as the first recipient of the Christopher Kendall Award in recognition of its work in “collaboration, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.” The PRISM Quartet performs exclusively on Selmer saxophones.

L-R: Matthew Levy, Zachary Shemon, Taimur Sullivan, Timothy McAllister. PRISM Quartet photos by Ara Howrani.

Keep in TouchVisit PRISM online at prismquartet.com, and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, and YouTube.

Viet Cuong

Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the music of Viet Cuong explores the unexpected and whimsical, with the goal of making peculiar sounds, techniques, and combinations feel enchanting and oddly satisfying. His music has been performed on six continents and he has received honors from the Barlow Endowment, Copland House, Theodore Presser Foundation, Yaddo, and ASCAP.

vietcuongmusic.com

Christopher Biggs

Christopher Biggs is a composer whose “original and unique musical language” blends dense, contrapuntal textures with direct, visceral expression. His music presents a “masterful combination between acoustic instruments and electronics” (Avant Scena), and has been described as “heartbreakingly beautiful” (Classical Music Review), and a “sonic foodfight” (Jazz Weekly). His recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media. Biggs resides in Kalamazoo, MI where he teaches composition and technology at Western Michigan University and is the Director of SPLICE Institute.

christopherbiggsmusic.com

Photo by Phillip Parsons Photo by Abderrahman Anzaldua

Joseph Sowa

Noted for its visceral immediacy and reflective depth, the music of Joseph Sowa grows from a love of reference and metaphor. Nurtured by diverse influences—including cartooning, linguistics, meteorology, poetry, and schemata theory—he cultivates intricate textures and vivid colors to produce surprising twists and compelling flourishes. He has received awards from ASCAP, the American Prize, and the Barlow Endowment.

josephsowa.com

Emily Koh

Described as “the future of composing” (The Straits Times, Singapore), Emily Koh’s music reimagines everyday experiences by sonically expounding tiny oft-forgotten details. Her works have been described as “beautifully eerie” (New York Times), and

“subtley spicy” (Baltimore Sun). She is the recipient of the Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, 2019 Young Artist Award (Singapore), Copland House Residency Award, and Barlow Endowment General Commission. She serves on the composition faculty of the University of Georgia.

emilykoh.net

Photo by SnoStudios Photo by Ivan Koh

Victoria Cheah

Victoria Cheah is a composer working in multiple media and genres, exploring hierarchy, ambiguity, and the concert ritual. Her work has been commissioned/presented by Wavefield Ensemble, MATA Festival, Guerilla Opera, Ensemble Dal Niente, Vertixe Sonora, Marilyn Nonken, Transient Canvas, Trio de Kooning, PRISM Quartet, and performed by many others. Victoria is currently production manager of Talea Ensemble and a co-director of Score Follower.

victoriacheah.com

Photo by Jason Thorpe Buchanan

Prized Possessions (2014) by Viet Cuong (b. 1990) 1 Mother’s Monster 6:19 2 Beggar’s Lace 5:37 3 Surfaces and Essences (2017) by Christopher Biggs (b. 1979) 13:304 Motion Lines (2016) by Joseph Sowa (b. 1984) 3:235 heteronym/ (2016) by Emily Koh (b. 1986) 7:246 Tell: Quartet (2016) by Victoria Cheah (b. 1988) 8:47

Executive Producer/Mastering: Matthew LevyProducers: PRISM Quartet (all tracks) with Joseph Sowa (track 4), Emily Koh (track 5), Victoria Cheah (track 6)Session Engineers: Eric Wojahn (tracks 1-3), James Praznik (tracks 4-6)Editing: Levy (track 1-3), Sowa (track 4), Jason Rogers and Koh (track 5), Cheah (track 6)Mixing: Levy (all tracks) with Sowa (track 4), Koh (track 5), Cheah (track 6)Design: OfficeOfDevelopment.com

XAS Records is the label of the PRISM Quartet©Ⓟ PRISM Quartet, Inc. 2020All Rights Reservedwww.prismquartet.com

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