Cellist Maya Fridman: ‘The best thing about making music is communicating with my audience’.

Maya Fridman, photo Brendon Heinst

The cellist Maya Fridman was born in 1989 in Moscow, where she developed into a child prodigy. Already while studying at the Schnittke College she won the first prize of the International Festival of Slavic Music. In 2010 she moved to the Netherlands, where she graduated Cum Laude from the Conservatory of Amsterdam six years later.

Fridman naturally juxtaposes contemporary compositions with major works from the last century, moving us with her emotionally charged playing. For two seasons she is ‘musician in residence’ at Gaudeamus. On 26 April she will present the world premiere of Canti d’inizio e fine in Kunststruimte KuuB in Utrecht.

This seven-part composition for solo cello and vocals was created in close collaboration with the Ukrainian-Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin. Fridman: ‘The title Canti d’inizio e fine refers to the cycle of birth, life and death, the underlying theme. Later Maxim also involved images of the Holocaust. That’s a tough subject, all the more so because both of my parents are Jewish. Each movement reflects on a different life situation or crisis, the music is very dramatic and psychological.’

Catharsis

She first heard Shalygin’s music in 2016, during a network meeting of music publisher Donemus. ‘I was immediately attracted to his ideas and asked him to compose a solo piece for me on the spot. His music is very profound and touches me deeply. It makes me think, and makes me experience my life differently. It’s hard to describe precisely, but it transforms and purifies me. It sometimes literally feels like a catharsis.’

For Canti d’inizio e fine they initially corresponded by e-mail, but in the last few months they have met regularly. ‘We work intensively together to find the right sound for every note. It’s great to be able to communicate directly with a composer.’ Despite their close cooperation, however, Fridman does not consider herself a co-composer. ‘Maxim writes the notes, I interpret them. I do sometimes make suggestions for a different interpretation, though. Sometimes he accepts these, sometimes he doesn’t, at other times we arrive at something completely different.’

Trembling cello

When I interview her a week before the premiere, they are still busy working on the finishing touches of the piece. ‘Maxim uses very varied techniques, each of the seven movements has a different approach. The first one is slow and lyrical and sounds a bit like weeping, as if something fragile comes to life.’

‘In the second movement there’s a lot of ricochet, where I bounce my bow on the strings. Here you shouldn’t actually hear a cello, it should sound like a trembling voice. That was quite a challenge, because I had to learn how to create that effect with a traditional way of playing.’

In the following section Shalygin uses Arabic tinted decorations. Fridman: ‘There are also very fast crescendi and decrescendi on one note, it reminds me a little of choral singing. In the fourth part I don’t use a bow at all, it consists only of pizzicati. It is Maxim’s intention to make the cello sound like a bass guitar here.’

In the next movement, sound researcher Shalygin uses a so-called BACH bow, that has a curve so that all four strings can be played simultaneously. I still have to practice that’, Fridman laughs. ‘But this challenge is exactly what attracts me in working with Maxim, I learn to push my own limits.’

Todesfuge Paul Celan

Also exciting is the epilogue, in which Fridman must not only play but also sing. Only this movement bears a title, Todesfuge, after Paul Celan’s poem of the same name. Fridman: ‘Although I regularly sing and play simultaneously this is a lot more challenging, because Maxim makes higher demands on my voice than, for example, Louis Andriessen in La voce.’

‘Cello and voice are completely equal. Sometimes they merge, at other times there is more counterpoint. Maxim moreover looks for the extremes, my melodic lines range from extremely high to very low. I am not a trained singer and have taken vocal lessons especially for this purpose.’

In Todesfuge, Celan describes the atrocities and death in a concentration camp. Fridman: ‘Very moving, every time I practice this it makes me want to cry.’ Yet she is not afraid of being overwhelmed by her emotions during the concert. ‘I have lived with this piece for months now, I get up with it and go to bed with it, it grows inside me.’

‘It is precisely because of my personal involvement that I can get the message across even more forcefully. ‘I find this the most attractive in making music: communicating with my audience.’

PS On 26 April only the first five movements were performed. On Sunday 9 September the integral cycle will be premièred in MerkAz at 2 pm.

Maya Fridman plays La voce Louis Andriessen

#CantiDInizioEFine #Gaudeamus #KunstruimteKuuB #LouisAndriessen #MaximShalygin #MayaFridman

Maya Fridman: Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel with hardrock attitude

Abandoned Building. Toned Image, cd-cover The Fiery Angel.

The Russian-Dutch Maya Fridman (Moscow, 1989) plays classical and contemporary music as well as rock, jazz, folk and flamenco. Communication with the audience is her most important goal, so why limit herself to a particular style or genre? The website of the Dutch Cello Biennale rightly describes her as a ‘musical centipede’. In 2016 she was much lauded for her contribution to the music theatre production The Master & Margarita.

Recently she was selected as a finalist for the Dutch Classical Talent Award 2018-19. At Gaudeamus, Foundation for Contemporary Music, she is ‘music pioneer in residence’. As such she played and sang the premiere of Canti d’inizio e fine by Maxim Shalygin last April. The Ukrainian-Dutch composer wrote this Holocaust-inspired composition especially for her.

Fridman once more shows her versatility on her latest cd, The Fiery Angel, for cello and piano. The title refers to Prokofiev’s opera The Fiery Angel that he based on the novel of the same name by Valeri Bryusov. In five acts we follow the fate of the young Renata. As a child she fell in love with the ‘fiery angel’ Madiel, whom she thinks to recognize in Count Heinrich. After a passionate relationship Heinrich abandons her, after which Renata is tormented by demons. Knight Ruprecht tries in vain to save her; eventually she dies at the stake.

Reducing over two hours of music for orchestra and soloists to a version for cello and piano seems quite an unfeasible enterprise. Fridman acknowledges this in the cd booklet. ‘While working on the first part, it still felt like an impossible task.’ She felt trapped in the ‘delirium of Renata’, which prevented her from thinking clearly. But as time went on, the music was so compelling that she completed its arrangement like a madwoman. ‘It seemed as if the radiant image of the angel was fleeting from my hands, just as in Renata’s case’, she writes.

For Fridman, the essence of the story lies in the fusion of ecstasy and suffering. By her death at the stake, Renata sacrifices her own being in order to unite with the angel. Fridman has striven to capture this theme in her arrangement. ‘This music requires dissolution to exist, and faith to surrender. It is the celebration of the Symbolists’ idea that physical reality is nothing nut a distorted echo of another realm.’ High-flown words that Dutch people are wary of, but which are self-evident to Russians.

Fridman reduced the original opera to just under half an hour of music. In four ‘chapters’ she closely follows the original story. The dedication with which she shapes Renata’s obsession sparks from every note. Aggressive, percussive sounds depict her internal ordeal; lyrical, more reflective passages express her longing for love. Fridman plays with a hardrock attitude,  at times she seems to literally wish to shatter her cello. On the gothic cd-cover she poses in a black leather suit, like an angel with wings of fire.

Chapter I opens with strongly accentuated strokes of the cello and boisterous piano chords: the fiery angel knocks at the door. Renata’s anxiety is reflected in shaky flageolets and hesitant piano notes. Sultry piano chords and gently flowing lines of the cello capture the emerging love between her and Ruprecht. However, the idyll is soon disturbed by motoric rhythms and furious strokes of the bow on the cello.

When Ruprecht and Renata go in search of Heinrich, jumpy, expectant solo cello passages alternate with impressionistic piano tinkling and black despair. A loud knock on the body of the cello makes one’s hair stand on end: Heinrich does not (yet) show himself, but ominously makes himself heard. In chapter III he rejects Renata once more, whereupon she asks Ruprecht to kill him in a duel. Angry strokes and repeated, bouncing double stops of the cello are accompanied by an orgy of battering piano sounds.

In the fourth and last movement, Renata seeks refuge in a monastery. Melancholic sighing sounds from the cello and rippling piano runs create the illusion of regained peace. But instead of having been cured, Renata infects the nuns with her delusions. Fridman creates frightening whistling tones, makes her instrument sound like an accordion, and dances a short tango. A series of furious figurations of both instruments is suddenly smothered in a loud, droning cymbal: Renata ends up in the fire.

Fridman and her pianist Artem Belogurov cannot be accused of coquetry. They both play as if their lives depend on it. That Fridman’s intonation sometimes falls prey to her passionate performance is of no real consequence. Like Rostropovich she puts eloquence above perfection.

In the upcoming Gaudeamus Music Week she will present Me, Peer Gynt, a cross-disciplinary production she developed together with pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama. Something to look out for.

#ArtemBelogurov #GaudeamusMusicWeek #MaximShalygin #MayaFridman #SergeiProkofiev #TheFieryAngel #TomokoMukaiyama

Me, Peer Gynt: What does it mean to be oneself?

Pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama descends to the lowest registers of her instrument with some powerful bangs, then keeps the keys pressed down. She attentively watches Maya Fridman, whose fingers slowly creep up the A-string close to the bridge of her cello. The Winter Garden of Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam is saturated with eerily abrasive flageolets. Half a step higher, and yet another half tone higher the cello mixes in with the angelic choral sounds in the background. The tension becomes almost unbearable, until Fridman throws back her head ecstatically while her last sounds seem to dissolve into nothingness.

Thus ends the Epilogue of Alfred Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt. With this haunting movement Fridman concludes her arrangement for cello and piano of some 30 minutes from Schnittke’s two-hour-long orchestral score, titled Me, Peer Gynt. At the premiere on Monday 13 August in the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival the audience is overwhelmed by her intense performance and striking musicianship. Fridman plays the entire score by heart.

Maya Fridman, born in Moscow in 1989, is quite dauntless. Earlier this year the young cellist presented a cd with an adaptation of Prokofiev’s opera The Fiery Angel. No wonder she was nominated for this year’s Grachtenfestival Award and is one of four finalists of Dutch Classical Talent. She is also music pioneer in residence with Gaudeamus, where she will perform Me, Peer Gynt in a multimedia version.  I asked her some questions about this production.

When & why did you decide to make an adaptation of Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt?

This work has always had a very special meaning for me. While I was studying at the music college named after Schnittke in Moscow, I could access his archives and had the opportunity to delve into his scores. The idea to create a dramatic multimedia performance based on Peer Gynt came to me gradually, and took off after I met Tomoko Mukaiyama.

Schnittke wrote Peer Gynt for John Neumeier’s adaptation of Ibsen’s play, and it is undoubtedly one of his masterpieces. Schnittke’s music is being rediscovered and widely performed today, but there are a few works that still remain in obscurity. Unfortunately this goes for Peer Gynt, too, for in my opinion it deserves to be much better known to a general audience. I hope our production Me, Peer Gynt can give this wonderful piece a new life.

Was Schnittke’s own version of the Epilogue for cello, piano and tape an inspiration?

It was a big help to have Schnittke’s arrangement of the Epilogue in front of me all the time. I am not sure if I would have considered re-working Peer Gynt for cello and piano if this version hadn’t existed. Schnittke’s arrangement is extremely refined and minimalistic. The insane intensity is transmitted through the unending cello line, while the piano part seems to live its own life, at the same time serving as a perfect accompaniment.

I learnt a lot from analysing it, but in my arrangement I decided to focus on creating a storyline and introducing the main characters and their drama. It became a sort of a counterpart for the Epilogue where all the themes return, but ‘as incessantly shifting, unstable forms’, as a sort of afterlife of the main character.

What do you consider the core theme of Peer Gynt and what is its relevance today?

Peer Gynt symbolizes a person who has lost himself in the world of appearances. Ibsen poses one of the most crucial questions in life: What does it mean – to be oneself? The subject of Peer Gynt is relevant today as a metaphor of a man who identifies himself through the mirror of the outside world. He loses his connection with his inner core. In the end of his life journey he realizes that he is nothing but an ‘onion’ deprived of individuality – therefore he must dissolve into nothingness.

Of course this is a simplified way of describing such a philosophical parable. Nevertheless it allows me to draw a parallel between Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and many of us who, as Peer Gynt, are absorbed in phantasmagoric adventures and are swamped in social media realities. For me Peer Gynt embodies our constant attempts to identify ourselves as something we are not.

In truth we are nothing, and no knowledge can redeem us from understanding this very emptiness. The inner pain and frustration that drove Peer Gynt so far away from his beloved Solveig is something that touches me deeply in Ibsen’s story. Schnittke’s music is so descriptive and theatrical that it expresses this much more profound and pungent than words can ever do.

Schnittke composed for a ‘continuo’ of two groups of instruments: bells, glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba on the one hand; piano, harpsichord, celesta, and harp on the other. Have you tried to capture these contrasting sound worlds?

In my first version I employed snare drums, timpani, cymbals, glockenspiel, and even tubular bells. Tomoko and I were preparing to surround ourselves with all these instruments and switch in between to create sonorities close to the original ones. But as our work progressed, our perception of the music changed and we dismissed this idea.

In this regard, Schnittke’s arrangement of the Epilogue was my best teacher and guidance: it doesn’t sound any less intense than the densely scored original version. Cello and piano tell the story in their own language, which naturally differs in colours and dynamics. But this is ultimately the goal of any arrangement: to translate the narration into a new form while staying true to its essence, preserving its melodic details and musical monumentality.

How did your collaboration with Tomoko Mukaiyama come about?

For a long time I have been much inspired by the works of Tomoko Mukaiyama. Since the idea to arrange Peer Gynt popped up, I couldn’t have conceived of realizing my project without her. She has a unique ability to create an utterly stunning music performance in which the visual medium becomes an extension of the music while retaining its own presence and reality. I am deeply grateful and honoured that she warmed to my idea enthusiastically.

We met for the first time in April 2017, at her house. Two months later we played our first concert together, during the Japanese Erotica Film Festival at the EYE museum. It is a great joy to play together with Tomoko and I sincerely enjoy our working process.

From the start we decided to split tasks. Tomoko would be responsible for the visual part and direction, I would be responsible for the musical part (arrangement). Naturally we would discuss all our decisions and I am super grateful to Tomoko for all her insightful and wise comments on the arrangement.

Tomoko made an installation/stage design using large pieces of fabric. She worked together closely with Ting Gong, with whom she realized several projects before, and with light designer Pavla Beranova and technical director Yutaka Endo.

I am deeply grateful to Gaudeamus for supporting me in this project and look forward to our performances of Me, Peer Gynt in September, when music, light and installation will unite into a whole.

Me, Peer Gynt, 6 September Korzo Theater, The Hague; 7 September Gaudeamus, Utrecht

#AlfredSchnittke #GaudeamusMusicWeek #Grachtenfestival #HenrikIbsen #MayaFridman #MePeerGynt #TomokoMukaiyama

Gaudeamus nominee Scott Rubin: ‘All performance is to an extent composition’

Scott Rubin 2019

Scott Rubin (1989) is one of the five nominees for the Gaudeamus Music Award 2019. The prize is intended for composers under 30, but the Chicago based Rubin defies a strict interpretation of the concept of  composer. – Or of the performer for that matter.

He plays the viola himself, but develops his works in close collaboration with dancers and movement artists. What we see and hear onstage is rather more the outcome of a communal process than the achievement of one particular person. ‘I often act as a performer myself, but I wouldn’t like to use labels that privilege one activity over another.’

All three works he submitted for the Gaudeamus Award involve dancers and motion-sensitive live electronics. Naked to the Sky (2016) calls for 5 performers (4 musicians + movement artist) and was written for/with the Toronto based Thin Edge New Music Collective. Ironic erratic erotic (2017) was composed for/with Jack Adler-McKean, Adam Goodwin and Yuri Shimaoka for a project in Berlin.

In tensions (2018) was developed in collaboration with the cellist Polina Streltsova and movement artist Marie Albert, and was premiered in Paris earlier this year. It will be performed by the fearless cellist Maya Fridman and Emma Evelein in Theater Kikker on Saturday 7 September.

Rubin admits having hesitated to apply for the Gaudeamus Award: ‘I rarely take part in competitions because so few new music institutions support works with dancers. However, Gaudeamus seemed open minded. I’ve been following the festival for years now and have many friends and colleagues who participated in the past. I applied because I thought I had something unique to say and this competition would provide the platform to say it.’

‘I thought that sending a family of interdisciplinary works would convey a cohesive message that contemporary music festivals aren’t just about who writes the best scores for the best musicians. They are about the total collaborative process and audio-visual performance, what the audience sees and hears, and the psychological and theatrical states of the performers.’

‘To me the relation between performer/composer is fluid, non-binary, and intensively collaborative. Everyone creates, it’s just a matter of when. In my honest opinion, all performance is to an extent composition – it’s a question of how far in advance you plan, your relationship to the material and those you created it with, and your attitudes towards flexibility and expressivity.’

‘In my compositional work, I rely a lot on performers to be sensitive and improvise to the best of their abilities at any given moment. They are as much responsible for the success of the project as I am. During the creation process, their material often helps me create structure, so it’s not beneficial to discuss it with regards to ownership or authorship. I often think of myself more as a director or large-scale decision-maker rather than a composer.’

In the Gaudeamus festival he will not be playing his viola on stage. ‘But since all of my works feature live electronics I’m required to perform live from the tech table, often improvising and balancing the marriage between audio and motion data generated by what the performers are doing.’

‘I’ll bring my viola to Utrecht for rehearsal purposes, though. Hopefully I can find some people to jam with…’

I interviewed the five nominees on 4 September in TivoliVredenburg (picture by Co Broerse).

#GaudeamusAward #MayaFridman #NakedToTheSky #ScottRubin #TheaterKikker #TivoliVredenburg

#Corona-classics 2: Maxim Shalygin: growling & screeching saxophones on CD ‘Todos los fuegos el fuego’

A rainy day in #corona quarantine seems the ideal moment to listen to a CD about fire. So I slide Todos los fuegos el fuego by the Ukrainian-Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin into my laptop.

‘All fires the fire’ is named after the collection of eight short stories by Julio Cortázar. The CD also  contains eight pieces, which together form a suite for the exceptional line-up of saxophone octet.

Maxim Shalygin composed it in 2019 for the Amstel Quartet and the Keuris Quartet, who also recorded it.

Since you’re here: due to the corona lockdown my income has dwindled to virtualy nill. Your support is welcome, however small the amount. Thanks, Thea! 

Transfer to NL82 INGB 0004261694, TJM Derks Amsterdam or through PayPal (friends option).

Shalygin (Kamianske 1985) studied composition at the conservatories of St. Petersburg, Kiev and The Hague. Since 2011 he has lived in the Netherlands, and four years later I met him personally. He helped me out when I went to interview his compatriot Valentin Silvestrov for Radio 4 and learnt that the reclusive composer only speaks Russian. Shalygin gratefully seized the opportunity to meet his idol. We had a very animated conversation, in which Silvestrov’s loquaciousness was matched by Shalygin’s enthusiastic interpretation.

Exploring boundaries

As a matter of course I hereafter immersed myself in Shalygin’s own music. This is characterized by a great intensity and a zest for exploring boundaries. He challenges musicians to conjure sounds from their instruments that they never suspected existed. Shalygin’s work often has a spiritual slant, making him a kindred spirit of Silvestrov.

In 2017, during the Gaudeamus Music Week, I was captivated by his Lacrimosa, composed for seven violins. A year later he composed the impressive cycle Canti d’inizio e fine for the intrepid cellist Maya Fridman. In this cycle he not only asks her to fiercely flog her instrument, but to simultaneously sing.

Todos los fuegos el fuego also presents a wide range of playing techniques. Thus Shalygin tries to create a musical equivalent of the storytelling techniques with which Cortázar shapes his magical-realistic world. The Argentine author himself described his prose as incantatoria, that has the double meaning of ‘enchantment’ (in the sense of a magic spell) and ‘chant’ (as in song, singing). This concept refers both to the hypnotic atmosphere in Cortázar’s work, and to the care he dedicated to constructing his sentences. His syntax arose partly intuitively, from delays and accelerations that express the underlying emotion or atmosphere rather than the message itself.

Shifting layers

This is exactly how Shalygin goes about in Todos los fuegos el fuego. All eight pieces consist of different layers that slide over, under and through each other in ever changing formations and tempi. The pace is usually low, with elongated lines meandering through the space without any recognisable metre – there is no such thing as thumping along with the beat. Nor loudly singing along for that matter. Shalygin does not write Ohrwurms, but concentrates on contrasts between slow movements in one register versus faster motifs in the other. Like a shaman he draws attention to the sound itself and invites us to listen to our inner self.

International Combustion Engine opens with sustained tones that are slowly layered on top of each other, cautiously ornamented with languid trills. A melody built from small steps in the upper voices is interspersed with fierce growls in the lower registers. Death of a Mosasaur has a more narrative nature. A wistful motif of one step up, one step down followed by a jump up wanders desolately through the various registers. Gradually an unwieldy pulse develops, as if a waddling Mosasaur is approaching. A soprano sax blasts out piercing, staccato cries like morse-signs. This apparent cry for help is smothered in low roars and ends in abrupt silence.

Incantation

The other movements also abound in overlapping and repetitive patterns, sudden interruptions, decelerations and accelerations. Tones mysteriously swell up out of nowhere, are played with audible breath or with tongue-slaps that create ear-splitting attacks. At other times, the saxophonists make their lips vibrate while playing, like a softly snorting horse. Spring, Breaking creates an intoxicating atmosphere with subtly pulsating sounds, Endless Mordent is a study in eruptive grace notes.

In Ashes in Birth screeching and rhythmically teeming lines gradually advance towards rattling valves that die away into nothingness. But the most beautiful movement is Stairway to Decay, a melancholic lament that is roughly disturbed by ‘out of tune’ sounds, as if decay sets in. The texture gradually becomes more dissonant, while from afar a mumbled prayer develops, like an incantation. When the saxophonists start articulating more clearly, we finally discern the text: ‘Todos los fuegos el fuego’. – Mesmerizing and haunting.

The eight saxophonists effortlessly master the extended techniques in Shalygin’s score. Moreover they are completely attuned to each other: breathing and playing as one living entity they sound like a majestic organ.

– Thanks to Todos los fuegos el fuego the drizzly day was over before I knew it.

#AmstelQuartet #corona #JulioCortázar #KeurisQuartet #MaximShalygin #MayaFridman #TodosLosFuegosElFuego #ValentinSilvestrov

Marion von Tilzer composes Ten Songs of Change: ‘We are a drop in an immense ocean’

Recently Ten Songs of Change by composer-pianist Marion von Tilzer appeared on CD and LP. She composed this I Ching-inspired cycle of poetry and music for and with cellist Maya Fridman; author Lulu Wang selected the poems. Von Tilzer: ‘In China the I Ching (The Book of Changes) has the status of our Bible’.

‘Maya and I met in the winter of 2018 and immediately got into a conversation about mysticism,’ Marion von Tilzer (1968) explains enthusiastically. Shortly after, Fridman suggested devoting a composition for cello, piano and voice to The Book of Changes. She wanted to collaborate with the Chinese author Lulu Wang, who lives in the Netherlands.

This idea immediately struck a chord with Von Tilzer: ‘I thought it was a wonderful prospect to be able to work with two such extraordinary artists, and fortunately Wang was willing to participate. Then Maya and I started brainstorming.’

Chinese Bible

Both had to acknowledge not to have an in-depth understanding of the Chinese book of proverbs. Von Tilzer: ‘Although I regularly read a translation that I had acquired in 1992, the book remained cryptic to me. Through the project I learned to understand it better, partly thanks to the insights and ideas of Lulu Wang. We often think of The Book of Changes as an oracle book, but it is a classic literary work that in China has the status of our Bible. Philosophical movements like Taoism and Confucianism converge in it.’

In the end, Von Tilzer decided to take the eight trigrams that form the basis of The Book of Changes as a starting point. These are Heaven; Lake; Fire; Thunder; Wind; Water; Mountain and Earth, concepts with which she feels a connection: ‘Each trigram has its own atmosphere and also refers to seasons, parts of the day, emotions and even sounds. In those underlying stories I heard music.’

Marion von Tilzer: ‘Ten Songs of Change is a fabric of experiences and moods that reflect the constant changes in nature.’

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She gives some examples: ‘The spiritual association of “Mountain” is silence, which manifests positively as introspection and negatively as stagnation. The time experience involves the early morning and the sound suggests deep, subdued tones. My music here is hushed, with a great emphasis on the low C in cello and piano.’

‘The trigram “Wind” stands for gentleness, among other things, and is set for solo cello. It is very peaceful, as if a gentle breeze is rustling through the strings. “Lake” is associated with evening, innocence and reflection and, in terms of sound, with splashing and murmuring. I taped the piano strings to shorten the tone. Combined with pizzicati from the cello, this creates a light-hearted atmosphere.’

From morning song to lullaby

The eight trigrams are arranged so that the cycle runs through the complete twenty four hours of day and night. Von Tilzer added a prologue and an epilogue: ‘It begins with a morning song and ends with a lullaby. In the prologue, Maya, improvising on her cello and with her voice, responds to a tape recording of a love song sung by a young woman of the Mosuo tribe. In the epilogue, Maya sings a poem by Li Shangyin (813-858) in Chinese, while simultaneously performing a written-out cello part.’

Six poems are woven through the cycle, hence the description ‘poetry concerto’. Contrary to expectation, these are not verses from The Book of Changes: ‘Lulu Wang intended to make a text selection to match my music, but gradually felt that poems would be a better fit. She chose poetry from the Tang and Song Dynasties (618-1279), a period that is considered the golden age of Chinese culture. ‘The poems are close to the emotions of the trigrams and the music, it is a fabric of experiences and moods that reflect the constant changes in nature.’

INTUITIVE TRUTH

Von Tilzer is convinced text and music together tell one story: ‘During rehearsal, Lulu suggested poems, and Maya and I chose which one best suited the mood. Her selection is recited on the album by Lei Qiu, in Mandarin. Maybe a shame if you don’t know Chinese, but the language is so musical and fits the composition so well that it shouldn’t be a problem. Moreover, there are English translations in the booklet.’

Has the project brought her new insights herself? ‘Definitely! I have realized that we are guided by our constantly changing thoughts, which continue day and night and determine from moment to moment how we experience life. Moreover, it have come to understand that not everything can be fathomed with our intellect; there is also a deeper, intuitive truth.’

‘All 7 billion people, while different as individuals, are also connected to the energy of the earth itself, in essence we are all equal. Each of us is but a drop in an immense ocean, a soothing thought.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Wr_8TBpm0

This article first appeared in Dutch in the music journal Luister.

#IChing #LeiQiu #LuluWang #MarionVonTilzer #MayaFridman

Maxim Shalygin composes Severade for 9 cellos & sound sculpture: ‘At first I had no idea what to do with all those new instruments’

The Ukrainian-Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin has established himself firmly in our Dutch musical life with his adventurous pieces. Last October, his choral work While Combing Your Hair, dedicated to the Belarusian dissident Maria Kaleshnikava, was a great success.

In September, the Dag in de Branding festival staged the first public performance of Severade, a full-length work for cellist Maya Fridman, Cello8tet Amsterdam and 25 mechanical instruments by Rob van den Broek. Who is he and what is the background of Severade?

Maxim Shalygin was born in 1985 in Kamianske, a medium-sized town about 450 kilometres southeast of Kyiv. Although he was not born into a musical family, at the age of six he went to the local music school and then to musical college, the preliminary course of the conservatory. There he studied bayan with Alexander Kornev, with piano and conducting as subsidiary subjects.

IRINA IVASHENKO – THE IDEAL MENTOR

In his biography we further read that he studied composition with Irina Ivashenko. But a search for her name on the internet or social media yields no mention at all. Who is she? She was one of the teachers at the music college in Kamianske and I had composition lessons from her from the age of fourteen. – On a voluntary basis, because composition was not on the curriculum. Irina taught me in her spare time and did not charge a penny for it. The last two years before I went to the conservatoire, we met up other almost every day.’ 

She played an important role in his life, Shalygin continues: ‘We became good friends and at one point she dedicated just about all her free time to tutor me. Not only composition, but also harmony, solfeggio, music history, analysis and even art history, poetry and film. She was extremely versatile, it was an incredible time for me. I realise more and more that in those four years she taught me all the important basics. No composition teacher after her taught me as much as she did.’

What made her teaching so special? ‘Besides her broad interest and knowledge of music and culture in general, her way of teaching was remarkable. She had an interesting approach for every subject. For example, to my first lesson in harmony I brought along a tome that everyone at school used. She immediately told me never to bring it again, because we would be studying harmony from music history itself.’

‘For each subject we addressed, she gave examples of the great works from the canon, which she played at the piano – by heart. And after I had played through a few pages of my own new piece, she selected a few bars and explained why I should keep them and discard the rest. Step by step, she thus guided me through my first compositions. Thanks to her, I developed a profound knowledge of musical structure.’

ST. PETERSBURG CONSERVATOIRE  – DISAPPOINTMENT

After completing his training, Shalygin did not move on to the Kyiv Conservatoire, but went to Saint Petersburg instead. ‘This was because Irina considered the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire the best place to study composition. She still had contacts with some of her former teachers and they advised me to attend the class of Boris Tishchenko. But I was very disappointed with the composition department and the education in general. Soon I withdrew to the library. There I listened to recordings and studied scores that were not available in my hometown.’

After a year he returned to Ukraine. In retrospect, his short stay in Saint Petersburg was fruitful, because ‘I realised that it was time to choose my own path. I left in April, before the end of the academic year, and that same summer I was accepted into the Kyiv Conservatoire, where I found the freedom I was looking for.’

‘Here the teaching was aimed at helping you find your own individual voice as a composer, while at the same time you were thoroughly trained in music theory. I still remember the analysis class of Mykola Kovalinas, who had developed his own method. This immensely stimulated my imagination. There were times I would be studying a score for 12 hours a day!’

In 2010, he obtained his master’s degree with the Triple Concerto for violin, cello, piano and orchestra. He then came to the Netherlands, where a year later he completed a second master’s degree in composition with Cornelis de Bondt and Diderik Wagenaar at the Royal Conservatoire. He has been living and working in The Hague ever since. The ties with Ukraine remain warm, however; Ukrainian television followed his trail in The Netherlands for an hour-long documentary that will be broadcast in November 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLyfjFAp0is

In December, his Severade for 9 cello’s and the newly built sound sculpture will be performed three times. The composition is part of a ‘project for life’ on which Shalygin has been working since 2017. This ever-expanding cycle of full-length compositions for equal instruments is encapsulated under the umbrella title S I M I L A R. Up to now three ‘chapters’ have been completed.

In 2017, Lacrymosa for 7 violins was premiered in the Gaudeamus Music Week; two years later followed by Todos los fuegos el fuego for 8 saxophones; both have been released on CD. In April 2021 Severade, its third movement sounded for the first time in an empty TivoliVredenburg. Chapters four through six are already in the making, for 4 pianos; 5 recorders and 6 percussionists respectively.

SEVERADE – 9 CELLOS AND SOUND SCULPTURE

Shalygin composed the 75-minute Severade for Cello Octet Amsterdam and Maya Fridman, for whom he previously composed the ground-breaking Canti d’inizio e fine. Severade is a contraction of ‘sever’, the Russian word for ‘north’ and serenade. Especially for this composition, artist Rob van den Broek developed 25 mechanical wooden instruments, which function as extensions of the acoustic cellos. These are controlled by the nine musicians and together form a spectacular sound sculpture.

The idea for this came about more or less by accident, says Shalygin: ‘Normally I compose for purely acoustic instruments, and this time I had nine cellos in mind. But while I was thinking about my piece, I met Rob and suddenly an idea sprang to mind: maybe we can build an instrument that a cellist can operate while playing.’ That turned out to be easier said than done: ‘If we had known how long and difficult the road would be to reach a satisfactory result, we probably wouldn’t have started our endeavour.’

‘But once we had jumped in at the deep end, we didn’t want to give up. The entire process of developing, experimenting and trying out took a year and a half. I still remember how I felt when I received the first instruments from Rob. For a day I stared at them in my otherwise empty studio. I had no idea what to do with them, even though it had been my own initiative. But gradually I began to understand how I could use these new instruments in my piece. Once that coin dropped, writing Severade was actually a light and exciting journey.’

Each of the eight tutti cellists plays their own cello as well as a set of three wooden instruments, strung with horsehair strings and tuned differently. These are driven by a (silent) motor, operated by the respective cellist. The most important object is a long, pipe-shaped sound box to the left of the musician, which resembles a rectangular cello. A thick string is rubbed by a wooden wheel, creating mysterious, long-drawn-out bourdon tones.

FAIRYTALE-LIKE RITUAL

Next to it is a rotating wooden tube, whose eight strings are struck by as many mallets, creating tinkling pizzicati. A smaller wooden cylinder with eight thinner strings is plucked by a rotating wheel and creates a loop of ever-changing chords. Soloist Maya Fridman resides on a platform in the centre, like a high priestess. She operates a so-called dodecagon, a twelve-sided kind of lyre. Its walls consist of 150 randomly tuned metal bars which are triggered by an uncontrolled bouncing ping-pong ball.

With his mechanically driven sound sculpture, Shalygin reflects on the development of the cello. He seamlessly blends the sounds of the age-old acoustic instrument with those of a futuristic ‘robot cello’. In the ear-catching, but extremely complex sound fabrics, it is often impossible to distinguish where the music comes from. The constantly resounding drones seem to stop time and create an almost mythical feeling of infinity.

Severade is a sequence of slowly building climaxes and diminuendos sloping down to near-silence. Sonorous chorales of ascending and descending glissandi are juxtaposed with virtuoso layers of titillating pizzicati, angelic flageolets and alienating microtones.

The slow pass, the melancholic, often descending melodic lines and sustained notes create a serene and ritualistic atmosphere, which is reinforced by hauntingly repeated short strokes. The interaction between solo cello and tutti is like one breathing organism. As a listener, you are irrevocably carried away on a nocturnal journey through a fairytale landscape.

With his combination of acoustic and mechanical instruments, Shalygin weaves a convincing blend  out of Slavic emotionality and Western sobriety – precisely the ‘northern serenade’ to which the title Severade refers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6KCMSu5_9Y

Severade can be heard 3 times in December 2021
1 Dec: De Vereeniging Nijmegen
2 Dec: Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ Amsterdam
(During the introduction I will speak with Shalygin and Van den Broek)
3 Dec: 12 TivoliVredenburg Utrecht

Update 27 November: unfortunately all concerts have been cancelled because of the new corona measures.

#CelloOctetAmsterdam #MaximShalygin #MayaFridman #RobVanDenBroek #Severade

Maya Fridman and North Netherlands Orchestra shine in cello concertos J.P. De Graaff

The adventurous label TRPTK produces special CDs all the time, and the Russian-Dutch cellist Maya Fridman is a regular guest. If I counted correctly, some eight CDs by – and with her – have already been released, some of them solo.

Recently the ninth disc appeared, on which she and the North Netherlands Orchestra (NNO) give a dazzling performance of two cello concertos by Jan-Peter de Graaff (1992).

De Graaff, born in 1992 in Papendrecht and raised on the island of Terschelling, loves the grand gesture. He decided to embrace the symphony orchestra against the advice of his composition teacher Martijn Padding, who considered it hopelessly outdated. Nor does De Graaff shy away from using equally ‘old-fashioned’ genres such as the concerto; he has already produced five of them.

Rimpelingen (Ripples), his Concerto No. 4 for cello and orchestra (2017), impressed cellist Maya Fridman so deeply that she asked De Graaff to write a new concerto for her. No wonder, because he lets the soloist explore all the possibilities of the instrument, while not skimping on beautiful melodies along the way.

De Graaff is a master at sculpting with sounds, loosely adhering to traditional harmonies without becoming predictable. Ripples is essentially an extended solo for the cello, subtly supported by interjections from the orchestra in ever changing colours, like ripples on a swaying water surface. His overwhelming wealth of ideas does at times put your attention to the test, though.

In Concerto No. 5, The Forest in April (2021) De Graaff again deftly folds the orchestral voices around a virtuoso, varied cello part. The piece is inspired by our destructive relationship with nature, which is expressed in a fierce battle between soloist and orchestra in the second movement. Ominous dissonant harmonies and thundering percussion seem to herald the Apocalypse here.

Fridman’s impassioned recitation is matched by the equally empathic and precise playing of the NNO conducted by Sander Teepen (No.4) and Nicolò Foron (No.5). The crisp and well-balanced recording technique gives their performance extra depth.

https://open.spotify.com/album/63LMv9K2zHkj3udl6okRDt

#JanPeterDeGraaff #MayaFridman #NoordNederlandsOrkest #TRPTK

Merel Vercammen and Maya Fridman release CD Rejoice: hushed music performed with passion

With their latest album, violinist Merel Vercammen and cellist Maya Fridman once again underline their reputation as adventurous musicians who prefer to avoid the beaten track. The album is named after the sonata for violin and cello of the same name composed by Sofia Gubaidulina in 1981. Angel was written for the same combination by Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin (2020); Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks adds a choir to this in Plainscapes (2002).

Vasks is the only one who still resides in his native country. Gubaidulina moved to Germany immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union; Shalygin has been living in the Netherlands since 2010. Their different homelands are certainly no political allies, but the composers share a spiritual inclination that is often experienced as Eastern European. Vasks and Shalygin in particular show some affinity with Arvo Pärt with their elongated lines and tranquil soundscapes; Gubaidulina defies comparison. A true sound sorceress, she manages to extract so many nuances from a single note that one remains glued to one’s seat.

This also applies to Rejoice! The work has five movements, named after aphorisms on joy and introspection by the Ukrainian religious philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda. The sonata opens with sparse, slowly gliding strokes in the highest registers of the violin, now ending in a small flourish, then in a cautiously rising or falling second. The violin and cello engage in a compelling duet in which thoughtful pizzicati, fiery glissandi and loudly swelling tones gradually condense into a tangle of swirling eddies, evoking the atmosphere of a swarm of mosquitoes.

A line from the violin, that seems to be shimmering in the heat, meanders from low to high on a bed of droning sounds from the cello, which unexpectedly shoots up in pitch. At about the golden section, in ‘Rejoice, rabbi’, the violin plays a cheerful tune that then descends into a depth of stillness in a series of steps played with bouncing bow. Vercammen spins stratospheric flourishes and rustlings above Fridman’s deep, sonorous lines, which seem to want to anchor her to the earth like a good-natured mother. The cello ends this mesmerizing sonata with a few firm strokes and veiled pizzicati.

Shalygin’s Angel also exudes a tranquil atmosphere, with fragile violin lines against a drone of double stops on the cello. Sudden silences, slowly repeated notes and stepwise motifs string together to form a passionate, heavenward-reaching argument, which concludes with a series of ascending glissandi that sound like pleas.

In Plainscapes, inspired by the vast plains and impressive landscapes of his homeland, Vasks treats us to a three-part impression of the seasons in which the choir acts as accompanist to the two instruments. Conducted by Daniel Reuss, they sing subdued, softly undulating vocalises against ethereal lines from violin and cello. The elegiac atmosphere is sometimes broken by faster and louder figurations from both strings and singers, though the overall sound remains strikingly homogeneous.

During a fierce passage by the strings, the voices of the choir fan out further and further, and the solo violin even seems to be getting drowned out for a second. Then the singers break into jubilant flute motifs, like chirping birds at the break of day. The mood changes momentarily, with a loud, dissonant cry of fear from the choir, whereafter the ethereal tranquillity of the beginning returns. Plainscapes ends with singers and instrumentalists unanimously glissandoing upwards, into the heavens.

Rejoice! is an album to be cherished. Not only do Vercammen and Fridman master the smallest subtleties of their instruments, but Daniel Reuss and Cappella Amsterdam, bring the most delicate inflections of their parts to life with verve, as well. The recording technique is equally flawless, with a spaciousness that perfectly matches the sacred atmosphere of the music.

https://youtu.be/MzhQXPtQJWw

#CappellaAmsterdam #MayaFridman #MerelVercammen #PēterisVasks #SofiaGubaidulina

Composer Heather Pinkham messages extraterrestrials: ‘Seek and you will find you are not alone in this world’

Pianist and composer Heather Pinkham wants to connect people. During the covid pandemic, she organised Music for Empty Spaces at Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. On 3 October, her piano concerto Nowhere No-When will have its Dutch premiere at De Doelen in Rotterdam. It will be repeated in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw the day after.

We meet at the Ysbreeker, former temple of new music in Amsterdam. Heather Pinkham (1989) lives in Hilversum, but is in town to give piano lessons. She holds master’s degrees in piano, Italian, musicology and composition, has toured Eastern Europe as a choir accompanist, sings herself and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Media Composition. In her daily practice, she gives solo recitals, teaches piano and plays with ensembles and orchestras. In addition, she composes for renowned musicians such as Vincent van Amsterdam, Maya Fridman and Ralph van Raat – who, not coincidentally, is also her life partner.

Dizzying array of skills

It is almost dizzying to read through all her different roles. How should we categorise her? Pinkham: ‘The piano has always been central to everything I do, so I think that comes first. Even when I compose, I start at the piano, or I play something on the MIDI keyboard. In terms of my career, I see myself first and foremost as a pianist-composer. The other things I do mainly because I enjoy them. For example, I still sing, but purely as a hobby.’

She grew up in an artistic family in Mendocino, a coastal town in California: ‘It’s 155 miles north of San Francisco and only has a thousand inhabitants. There wasn’t much to do there – except enjoy the beautiful nature. Our house was in the middle of a forest, surrounded by giant sequoias. My father was a photographer, painter and digital artist, my mother had her own business. She imported Tibetan-Indian meditation accessories, such as singing bowls, and sold them to other companies. Unfortunately, she passed away a year and a half ago, my father died three years before. I do have an older brother, who is a specialist in information technology.’

Home-schooled

The siblings did not attend primary school: ‘My parents were a bit hippie-ish, and for the first eight years, our mother taught us; we only had separate teachers for science and maths. We took their lessons with a group of children who were also home-schooled. Every two months, we had to go to the town of Boonville to have our learning assessed and to check that we were at the right level. Because we didn’t go to school, we had a lot of time to do fun things. I went horse riding and my brother and I often played football, did fencing and karate, and took lessons in ceramics, drawing and painting.

Her parents were great music lovers, says Pinkham: ‘They were both big fans of Keith Jarrett. My father had broad tastes; he loved such diverse bands and artists as The Beatles, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan, Kraftwerk, Fleetwood Mac and Enya. My mother was particularly fond of Irish folk music, ragtime and folk. However, she was quite sensitive to noise, so there was little music played at home. But when we went swimming together, we sang the folk song You are my sunshine at the top of our voices, and during road trips we often listened to The Beatles or Paul Simon.’

Love at first listen

At the home of one of her girlfriends, there is a piano: ‘I was about six years old and played it a little: it was love at first listen and I asked my mother for piano lessons. It was a difficult time for me, for my parents had just divorced, and now I think I became interested in the piano because I wanted to express something that I couldn’t put into words.’

https://youtu.be/0AIXI40-OBY

‘My mother first bought a keyboard because she wanted to be sure I was serious. I improvised pieces and eventually we got a Kawai upright piano. My father came back home when I was about nine and moved into the basement; my parents remained good friends after their divorce. When I played the piano, he often came to listen. Later, my parents told me that I had already composed a melody when I was eighteen months old.’

She gets a nice piano teacher, who takes her to classical concerts at the annual Mendocino Music Festival. ‘One day, I heard a pianist playing with the festival orchestra there. I was deeply impressed by how he connected with the orchestra and how powerful their ensemble sounded. Wow, he’s doing what I dream of doing, I thought, and I knew: one day I want to be there myself! The nice thing is that Ralph and I have performed there together in the last two editions.’

Berkeley

However, in 2007 she did not enrol at a conservatoire, but at the University of California in Berkeley: ‘My mother wanted to make sure I had something to fall back on if things didn’t work out. And my piano teacher had lost her love of music due to the strict teaching methods at the conservatory and wanted to protect me from the same disappointment. Fortunately, in the United States, in addition to pure conservatories, there are also music programmes that are integrated into the university, which is why I went to Berkeley. Moreover, you can take two subjects at the same time, so I also studied Italian, thinking that I could always become a translator.’

In 2008, she even moved to Italy for a year, where she continued her double degree at the University of Padua. ‘I spoke Italian quite well, but that has faded a bit, I’m trying to pick it up again now.’ Was there a big difference between the teaching in Padua and Berkeley? Pinkham: ‘Absolutely, the teachers were stricter in Italy. They offered much less freedom in how you wanted to interpret certain things and also what you wanted to play. Berkeley was also quite conservative – music history pretty much ended with Debussy –, but in Padua it stopped even earlier.’

https://youtu.be/dVhWo8XvPyc

Lacking role models

It’s surprising that contemporary music was mainly absent in Berkeley. Pinkham sighs: ‘Indeed, composers such as Steve Reich or Terry Riley weren’t discussed, let alone female composers like Ann Southam, whose work really touched and influenced me. Even John Adams was not on the curriculum, even though he lives in Berkeley and is the most performed orchestral composer in America. This was partly due to one of the teachers, Richard Taruskin. He took offence at some of Adams’ pieces, particularly his opera The Death of Klinghoffer.

That Pinkham decided to study composition at the advanced age of twenty-seven, is mainly thanks to her partner Ralph van Raat, whom she met by chance after a trip through the Netherlands: ‘On the return flight, he sat next to me and we got talking. After eight hours, we still hadn’t finished talking, and now we’ve been together for ten years. I was always writing songs, accompanying myself on the ukulele, like a singer-songwriter. One day Ralph said: why don’t you start composing? It had never occurred to me that I could become a composer; I simply had no role models. It was only when Ralph suggested it that I thought, maybe I could do it.’

She takes private lessons with Anthony Fiumara and follows him to Tilburg when he becomes a teacher at Fontys University of Applied Sciences there in 2018. ‘I was able to start my master’s degree right away. Anthony was a great tutor. Like my first piano teacher, he was very encouraging and gentle. I really needed that – I was trying something new, after all. He was very open to all possible styles, which was nice because I don’t want to pin myself down to one style. I admired his enormous knowledge of repertoire. When I brought something in, he often said: ah, that reminds me of this or that composer – simply off the top of his head.’

Covid pandemic

She obtains her master’s degree in composition in 2020. That same year, the covid pandemic largely shuts down concert life. She doesn’t let this discourage her, but organises the concert Music for Empty Spaces. Twelve composers – ranging from Jacob ter Veldhuis to Aspasia Nasopoulou and Bianca Bongers – write a short piece for as many soloists, in which they express their experience of home isolation through music. She herself composes Days Blur for cellist Maya Fridman: ‘In her, I recognise my own love for diverse styles, extended techniques and singing. So I wrote a piece that is somewhere between a song and a contemporary composition.’

With her project, she wants to create connection: ‘The pandemic caused such a sudden break in the bond between people, which I found very sad.’ Could her desire for connection have something to do with her parents’ divorce? ‘I do think that experience influenced my composing; it was a very turbulent time for me.’ During the pandemic, she also composed Crooked Still for solo piano, in which she evokes feelings of uncertainty and confusion with the help of extended techniques and an unclear tonal centre. ‘The title refers to the fact that everything was still crooked at that moment.’

The sadness she felt at the death of her parents also found its way into her music: ‘I wrote the song I am not there for my father, for the soprano Elisabeth Hetherington and Tibetan singing bowls.’ Is this also a subdued tribute to her mother? Her eyes fill with tears: ‘Yes, a little bit for both of them. It was originally only for my father, but my mother died just before the premiere, which was very sad. I also wrote a composition for two pianos for my father, in which I quote Within You, Without You by the Beatles. Now I’m working on a piece for my mother, who loved ragtime; I’m going to use a quote from You Are My Sunshine.’

Extraterrestrial life

In October, Ralph van Raat will perform the Dutch premiere of her piano concerto Nowhere No-When with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Why this title? ‘When I wrote the concerto in 2019, I was interested in the concept of intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is the title of an article about the Fermi paradox, named after the Italian scientist Enrico Fermi, who at one point wondered: what are we actually talking about? The chance that life exists in the universe is much greater than the chance that it does not, yet we have no evidence of intelligent life. If it exists, we should have made contact with it, but this is not the case. Why not? That is the paradox. ‘One of the answers is that intelligent extraterrestrial life has never existed. It is nowhere, so there is no when, either.’

‘I wrote Nowhere No-When based on the idea: what if it really doesn’t exist? Then we are alone in the universe, a lonely feeling… all the more so because no one will come to save us. By chance, I came across a NASA recording of light waves, whose frequencies and intensity they had converted into sound. It has seven or eight rhythms and a kind of small bass line. I used that as the basis for the beginning, and it is taken up by the timpani and the piano.’

https://youtu.be/SR-_BSGbyoY

NASA recording
 
It sounds as if there are also electronics involved. ‘Well,’ says Pinkham, ‘the NASA recording sounds integral and I repeat it several times in a loop. You could call that electronic, but otherwise it’s purely acoustic. In the first part, the piano goes in all directions, searching for that intelligent life, and towards the end it sends out a kind of radio signal.’

‘The second movement revolves more around the question: what if we are alone? That lonely thought is reflected in an almost floating solo part for the piano. Later, a form of acceptance emerges, that we may have to try a little harder to solve the problems we have, because no one is coming to save us.’

Is it true that she has included a message to extraterrestrials? ‘Yes, in that lonely solo passage I have incorporated the code language Cicada 3301. This is based on a kind of internet puzzle that people try to solve via all kinds of websites. Someone concluded that coded messages were being sent via the music on those sites. The code is based on diphthongs, each representing a different letter.’ And what does it spell out? ‘Seek and you will find you are not alone in this world.’

A comforting thought, Pinkham agrees: ‘This also has to do with my parents. After their divorce, they never dated again, and as they grew older, my mother started to feel somewhat lonely. But they still had each other, which forms the basis of that comforting message.’

This article was first published in the Sept-Oct issue of the Dutch music magazine De Nieuwe Muze

#AnthonyFiumara #HeatherPinkham #JohnAdams #MayaFridman #NowhereNoWhen #RalphVanRaat