Friday, June 3, 7:00pm

Center for Visual Arts Courtyard

Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University

Left Edge Percussion

Terry Longshore, Artistic Director

Strange and Sacred Noise

by John Luther Adams

Performers:

Zachary Bass | Delaney Jai | Parker Stockford | Terry Longshore

Program:

Strange and Sacred Noise (1991–1997) John Luther Adams (b. 1953)

I. …dust into dust…

II. solitary and time-breaking waves

III. velocities crossing in phase space

IV. triadic iteration lattices

V. clusters on a quadrilateral grid

VI. …and dust rising…

Program notes:

“Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise…in most cultures, the theme of noise lies at the origin of the religious idea…Music, then, constitutes communication with this primordial, threatening noise – prayer.”—Jacques Attali

Noise – complex, aperiodic sound – touches and moves us in profound and mysterious ways. Strange and Sacred Noise is a celebration of noise as a metaphor for turbulent phenomena in the world around us, and a gateway to ecstatic experience.

Grounded in the elemental violence of nature and the self-similar forms of linear fractals, this music is a convergence of sonic geography and sonic geometry. Each piece in the cycle is conceived as its own distinct and separate sound world, evoking the immediacy and presence of a place.

…dust into dust… is a free translation of the Cantor set and Cantor dust into musical form. The Cantor set begins with a line segment. From this segment, the middle third is removed, leaving two segments. From each of these, the middle third is removed…and so on to infinity, dissolving into “a strange dust of points, arranged in clusters, infinitely many yet infinitely sparse.”

Originally regarded as nothing more than a mathematical curiosity, the Cantor set was later discovered to be a remarkable model of the self-similar nature of intermittent noise in electrical transmissions. Electrical transmissions contain within them periods of steady signal alternating with bursts of noise. Within this noise are minute periods of silence. The patterns of these signal/noise/silence cycles appear to remain constant, no matter how long or brief a period of time is sampled.

In …dust into dust… I have attempted to simulate this dynamic natural form in musical time. The sounds of the piece also resemble the phenomenon they simulate. After all, snare drums are the quintessential noise instrument. Insistent, accented figures are interrupted by periods of steady, pianissimo drum rolls. However, the apparently continuous sound of a drum roll is actually intermittent in nature, containing within it countless minute gaps of silence. Over the course of the piece the accented figures gradually dissolve into quiet dust (rolls) and then silence, which gradually expands again into dust and explosive noise.

The title …dust into dust… evokes not only the dynamics of noise, but the way of all flesh and the transitory nature of everything.

solitary and time-breaking waves echoes the natural phenomenon in which waves of varying periods converge to form a single, massive soliton or solitary wave. The work is scored for four percussionists, playing four tam-tams. These instruments should range in size from very large to small, embracing as wide a band of “colored” noise as possible. All players roll continuously throughout the piece. The piece is dedicated to James Tenney. The use of tam-tams was inspired by his solo work, Koan: Having Never Written a Note for Percussion.

velocities crossing in phase space is a temporal canon of continuous acceleration and deceleration, in the proportions 7:5:3:1. Changes in velocity in the individual parts occur relative to a constant (and often unheard) pulse of mm. 160. Complex relationships between parts occasionally converge in moments of coincidence between parts. The piece is scored for four drummers, who play a total of ten drums. velocities crossing in phase space is modeled after Canon X by Conlon Nancarrow and Meditation on Thunder by Peter Garland.

triadic iteration lattices is modeled on the Sierpinski gasket: an Eiffel Tower of reiterated nesting triangles. Scored for four sirens, this piece is dedicated to Edgard Varèse and Alvin Lucier, and traverses an expanding field of rising and falling glissandi.

clusters on a quadrilateral grid is a sonic sculpture modeled on the Menger Sponge: an enigmatic quadrilateral with an infinite surface area and a volume of zero. Four percussionists play four marimbas, four vibraphones, and four sets of orchestra bells. The piece is dedicated to the memory of Morton Feldman.

…and dust rising… is the sixth and final section of the cycle Strange and Sacred Noise. Like the opening section, …dust into dust…, it is modeled on the Cantor set and the Cantor dust, and scored for piccolo snare drum, snare drum, small field drum, and large field drum. Out of silence, points of dust emerge to become relentless, reiterated noise. 

Biographies:

For John Luther Adams, music is a lifelong search for home—an invitation to slow down, pay attention, and remember our place within the larger community of life on earth.

Living for almost 40 years in northern Alaska, JLA discovered a unique musical world grounded in space, stillness, and elemental forces. In the 1970s and into the ’80s, he worked full time as an environmental activist. But the time came when he felt compelled to dedicate himself entirely to music. He made this choice with the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to change the world. Since that time, he has become one of the most widely admired composers in the world, receiving the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy Award, and many other honors.

In works such as Become Ocean, In the White Silence, and Canticles of the Holy Wind, Adams brings the sense of wonder that we feel outdoors into the concert hall. And in outdoor works such as Inuksuit and Sila: The Breath of the World, he employs music as a way to reclaim our connections with place, wherever we may be.

A deep concern for the state of the earth and the future of humanity drives Adams to continue composing. As he puts it: “If we can imagine a culture and a society in which we each feel more deeply responsible for our own place in the world, then we just may be able to bring that culture and that society into being.”

Since leaving Alaska, JLA and his wife Cynthia have made their home in the deserts of Mexico, Chile, and the southwestern United States.

Left Edge Percussion is a contemporary percussion group in residence at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, led by artistic director Terry Longshore. The group tours and performs throughout the Northwest and actively collaborates on innovative projects with composers and artists of various media. The members of the group have been featured around the globe at prestigious festivals, competitions, conferences, and workshops and bring a diverse array of influences and collective energy to the ensemble. Left Edge Percussion has commissioned, co-commissioned, or premiered works by Joseph Bertolozzi, David Bithell, David Crowell, Josh Gottry, Bryan Jeffs, Terry Longshore, Ivan Trevino, Alejandro Viñao, and Drew Wright.

In addition to regular performances at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, recent Left Edge Percussion performances include the Teatro Principal in Guanajuato, Mexico, the Center for New Music in San Francisco, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, Gold Lion Arts in Sacramento, Northwest Percussion Festival, Britt Music & Arts Festival, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show, Hipbone Studio in Portland, Ashland World Music Festival, the Oregon Fringe Festival, the Schneider Museum of Art’s Art Beyond, and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). In 2022 Left Edge Percussion will perform at the Bang on a Can Long Play Festival in New York City.

Terry Longshore is a percussionist whose genre-crossing work exhibits the artistry of the concert stage, the spontaneity of jazz, and the energy of a rock club. Based in Ashland, Oregon, he maintains an energetic career as a performer, composer, and educator. He serves as Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, where he directs Left Edge Percussion and is Chair and Graduate Coordinator of the Music Program.

Whether collaborating with artists of diverse media, composing live music for dance and theatre, or premiering works by today’s most ground-breaking composers, Terry Longshore brings a dynamic voice to every musical encounter. He is the co-artistic director of flute and percussion duo Caballito Negro and intermedia duo Left Edge Collective, and performs actively as a member of the Portland Percussion Group and Flamenco Pacifico. He has also performed extensively with prominent ensembles Skin & Bones, Conundrum, Sonoluminescence, and red fish blue fish. He has appeared at numerous festivals and concert series including the Bang on a Can Marathon (NYC), the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, the Britt Music & Arts Festival, Makrokosmos Project (Portland), the Transplanted Roots International Percussion Symposium (Montreal and Guanajuato), Musik i Väst Festival (Sweden), the Cabrillo Music Festival, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Festival of New American Music, the Northwest Percussion Festival, The Oregon Fringe Festival, Center for New Music (San Francisco), and numerous times at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). His compositions for percussion have been performed at festivals and competitions throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Longshore has premiered over 100 compositions for solo percussion, percussion ensemble, chamber ensemble, symphony orchestra, and the theatre. With nearly 100 tracks on Spotify and other music platforms, his recordings include multiple CDs for composer Mark Applebaum on the innova and Tzadik labels, the percussion music of Iannis Xenakis on Mode Recordings, music of percussion maverick William Kraft on Albany, and Michael Gordon’s Natural History on Cantaloupe Music. He also champions new solo and chamber works for percussion by commissioning, organizing, and participating in consortium commissions from a diverse body of composers. Terry Longshore is a Marimba One Vibe Artist, a Yamaha Performing Artist, and an artist endorser for Zildjian Cymbals, Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, Remo Drumheads, Gon Bops Percussion, and Beato Bags. He is a member of the Black Swamp Percussion Education Network, and is a trained HealthRHYTHMS facilitator.

Terry Longshore holds bachelor’s degrees from the California State University at Fresno (Business Administration – Computer Applications and Systems) and Sacramento (Music – Percussion Performance) and master’s and doctoral degrees in Contemporary Music Performance from the University of California, San Diego. His education includes significant study of Spanish flamenco and the classical music of India, including study at the Ali Akbar College of Music. His teachers include Steven Schick, Daniel Kennedy, Swapan Chaudhuri, Ronald Holloway, David Glyde, Chuck Flores, and Kartik Seshadri. He enjoys fly fishing, cycling, hiking, and especially traveling the world with his wife Jennifer and hanging out with his children, Madeleine and Maxwell.