Bok Brass
Program (performed Oct 27, 2024 in Edmonton, AB)
Snapshots of Home (2024) – Betty Ling
Stolen Stars (2020) – Mari Alice Conrad
Counter Chronometer (2024*) – Ben Whittier
burdock (2024*) – Emilie LeBel
After the Rain – Jocelyn Morlock
Aquacultures – Scott Smallwood
i. the warming
ii. excursions
iii. beluga
iv. cove
v. shrimp
vi. farewell
vii. the depths
*commissioned by New Music Edmonton with the assistance of the Edmonton Arts Council
Program Notes
Snapshots of Home: It recently occurred to me that I haven’t gone home to Shenzhen, China, in four years; Covid made it impossible for me to return home, plane tickets were too expensive, I had to take spring and summer classes because of my degrees, and my visa was rejected for traveling abroad. Because of these reasons, my memories of Shenzhen have been reduced to mere impressions; snapshots in time. I turned the most impressionable snapshots into an acoustic love letter to my hometown, since my now-blurry memories of it are similar to how the audience might imagine it. I captured five places within Shenzhen in this work:
Nanshan Mountains, the vast and mysterious homes to Shenzhen’s wildlife; Qianhai Street, an orchestra of boisterous traffic jams; Nantou Spring Festival Market, a bustling flower market, and the frequent host of festivals; The historical building in Nanyuancun, which my friends would tell scary stories about;
Finally, Zhongshan Park, a playground for children and hot-spot for the elderly to practice Tai-chi. In this five-movement piece, tranquility meets commotion, as exuberance meets languor; tradition meets innovation, as Chinese classicism pairs with Western modernism—all to paint an auditory picture of Shenzhen as I know it.
stolen stars – for brass quintet and lighting effects: In 1878, Thomas Edison and his team claimed the invention of the light bulb unaware of the impending impact it would have almost 150 years later. The light bulb could be a revolutionary metaphor representing human attempts at controlling nature, an industrial tool to extend our billable hours, or a means to reclaim our sense of safety. Unmistakably, the light bulb has changed the developing world. This same light, however, has irreverently robbed the restorative balm of the night, has stolen the stars that once glimmered like jewelry in the sky, and has disrupted the rhythm of the earth and the creatures that call it home. This composition explores the enchantment and curiosity of the night stars and the lights that have stolen them.
Counter Chronometer is a work for brass quintet, written for Bok Brass with support from New Music Edmonton and guidance from Emilie Lebel. The piece is inspired by the swirling and shifting of clock gears, but instead of arriving in a timely and orderly fashion, there is something wrong with this clock. I’ve seen many different broken clocks over my lifetime, and I’ve always found them more interesting than their highly accurate and functional counterparts. Using this as inspiration, this quintet features inconsistent rhythms, chime interjections, and just a little bit of chaos.
burdock for brass quintet: Arctium is a genus of biennial plants commonly known as burdock. Native to Europe and Asia, several species have been widely introduced in Alberta. Burdock plants have dark green leaves that are generally large, coarse, and ovate that are woolly underneath. Burdock’s clinging properties are an excellent mechanism for seed dispersal. Burdock in Alberta occupies a conflicting role as beautiful and useful, and problematic as an invasive species.
After the Rain: Trombonist Neal Bennett commissioned Jocelyn Morlock for a new piece for solo trombone in 2012. The resulting work, After the Rain, was inspired by Max Ernst’s surrealist painting of a devastated post-apocalyptic landscape entitled Europe After the Rain II (1941). Morlock’s handling of solo trombone could not be more different than the powerhouse fireworks of her piece for trombone ensemble with percussion, Sequoia. Rarely straying from the instrument’s middle register and exploring a handful of multiphonics, After the Rain captures the essence of Ernst’s painting: alien, forlorn, and hauntingly beautiful.
Aquacultures: In contemplating the word Aquaculture, which normally refers to the industry of sheries and the human consumption of seafood, I wonder about the word as a more general term for cultures who rely on water, human and otherwise. What is the culture of the creatures we refer to as seafood? How can we understand the importance of water, and all of the diverse life it cultivates?
The sounds in this piece are, in some cases, recordings of actual water and underwater environments, including the sounds of animals. These recordings were collected by the composer in Colorado and Washington in the US, the Northwest Territories and Nova Scotia in Canada, and Brisbane, Australia; Other sounds are inspired by water, its fluidity, its necessity, and its myste
![Mari Alice Conrad — Atmospheric Etudes: No. I - Troposphere [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/x5SyMfyk5LY/maxresdefault.jpg)
