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March 19th, 8pm
National Opera Center
330 Seventh Ave. – Marc A. Scorca Hall, 7th fl.

TICKETS here ($20)………………………………………………………………………. LIVE STREAM here

PROGRAM NOTES

The Exchange (2019)

Inspired by the architecture and history of Milwaukee’s Grain Exchange
Commissioned by Access Contemporary Music for ‘Doors Open Milwaukee’

Charles Neidich, clarinet; Hikaru Tamaki, cello

I first saw a picture of Milwaukee’s Grain Exchange in this 360 view. I could imagine walking in and looking up in wonder at its soaring ceilings and hand painted frescos, a feeling more reminiscent of a cathedral than a place of commerce. I was impressed by its beauty, its grand proportions and sense of open space. The light streaming through the dome skylight and towering windows seemed to convey a sense of optimism and American “can do”.

I imagined the bustling comings and goings of the people, then and now. The space started to feel like a kind of piazza, echoing its Italianate architecture. I imagined it in its hey-day, the center of a flourishing grain trade; the haggling and deal making, arguments and agreements of the marketplace, and the social exchanges. I wanted my new composition to reflect the spirit of exchange in this “piazza”, a marketplace but also a place to congregate, then as now. – DK 2019 …This pre-pandemic piece is in stark contrast to what the world has since experienced.

Dialogue with the Ghost (2004)

Commissioned by Martha McGaughey, Mannes College

Hikaru Tamaki, cello

Dialogue with the Ghost is a question and answer, a dialogue of opposites, exploring lyric and percussive possibilities of the cello. Composing it was my process of dialoguing with my inner ghost.

Ikarus – duo for Binya (2016)

Commissioned by the Community Music Center of Portland; Katja Garloff & Asher Klatchko

Kinga Augustyn, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola

Ikarus – duo for Binya was written in memory of a young musician, a beloved son who died tragically at 17. He was a boy of great promise, I got to know him through the music and writings he left behind – videos of his classical performances on viola and violin, and the brilliant rap songs that he wrote, sang and recorded. Several of his melodies and beats serve as themes in the Ikarus duo.

Call of the Dance (2017 – 2021)

Commissioned by Carl Gutowski

I. Fantasy (2017) II. a deafening silence – an elegy (2020) III. Call of the Dance (2021)

Carl Gutowski, flute; Marcia Eckert, piano

Call of the Dance is a life cycle suite commissioned by flutist, Carl Gutowski. It journeys through love, death and regeneration in its three movements, each commemorating a significant life event. The first movement, Fantasy was written as a wedding gift for Carl’s niece. The relationship between the two instruments echoes that of the couple it celebrates. Piano and flute are equal partners, flowing between discussion, duet, argument and canonic imitation, each voice having the chance to be leader and follower. They fall in and out of sync with each other, but are always linked in harmonious partnership.

a deafening silence – an elegy follows. It was written for Carl’s older brother, whose death at the age of 30 was a sudden tragedy for the family and all who knew him. The piano begins with a thunderous crash, flute enters on an alarming high note and tumbles down to a breathy whisper over the piano’s decaying sound. A pulsing emerges, remembering the living, breathing, creative force that he was. The piece ends with an improvisatory Song of Remembrance, embracing the beautiful sadness of a life cut short. The third movement emerges out of silence, re-examining earlier themes and coming back to life in a celebratory dance.

Pandemic Diary (2021) – Premiere

Max Lifchitz

On the first day of the lockdown, like everyone else, I was listening to the news. Overwhelmed with emotion, I went to the piano and improvised what became the first few phrases of Pandemic Diary. I wrote the piece like a diary, intermittently between other projects and completed it at the end of 2021. I’d been hoping that the pandemic would be over by the time I finished the piece. But since that didn’t happen, I veered away from the triumphant ending I’d imagined to convey my feeling of our situation at the close of 2021.

Colossus 1067 (2021) – NY Premiere

Commissioned by Gus Foster in celebration of his 40-year retrospective at the Harwood Museum in Taos, NM

Dan Block, tenor sax; Steve Sandberg, piano
Frank Wagner, double bass; David Meade, drums

A roller coaster can be a metaphor for life’s uncertainties and the variety of perspectives we gain along the way. My recent composition, Colossus 1067 is inspired by Gus Foster’s panoramic photograph taken on one of the last wooden roller coasters in the U.S. You can see it here. (Scroll across to see the full photo.)

This 8-foot wide panorama has the serendipity of a roller coaster, the joy of a beautiful day at the amusement park, the repetitions, resonances and occasional blur of the rotating camera, and the suggestive metaphor of “Einstein’s Clock” which says that anything that rotates can be a clock. Along with that come head-spinning layers of meaning. I wanted the music to express the unique spirit of this particular photograph. Each instrument has its role but changes it up from time to time. Piano, bass and drums portray the clatter of the coaster and the machinery of its gears. Sax is most often the protagonist.

This “Time Photograph” as Foster calls it, is a “short story”, “captur(ing) a few seconds…in an elongated narrative”. It can be read left to right or all at once, where past, present and future all co-exist. Cross rhythms portray their convergence and the real-time clank and jolt of the coaster. Sax and piano make their climb and plummet, as bass tremolos climb slowly upward and burst into pizzicato. The texture things to a bass vamp conveying the skeletal rails of the track seen from a distance. Momentum stills into the piano’s slow chords, allowing a moment for reflection.

The “1067” in the title refers to the number of rotations the camera made – almost 3 full rotations (360 x 3 =…). The artist appears twice in the photograph. If the 3rd rotation had completed, we would have seen him a 3rd time.

TICKETS here ($20)

LIVE STREAM here

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January 25, 2021
HocTok Interview
https://www.hoctok.com/debra-kaye.html

January 24, 2021
Turning in Time
Kinga Augustyn, violin
Facebook Livestream presented by the Freeport Memorial Library
Freeport, NY

Click Here to Watch
https://fb.me/e/d5ZqjXf5N

January 13, 2021
Turning in Time
Broadcast on Classical Discoveries’, Viva 21st Century Marathon, WPRB/Princeton
Princeton, NJ

November 14, 2020
The New Colossus (Premiere of expanded version for electric guitar & mezzo soprano)
Jessica Bowers, mezzo soprano; Gene Pritsker, electric guitar
Presented by Composers Concordance
Michiko Studios
149 W. 46th St.
New York, NY 10036

October 30, 2020
Visions
Max Lifchitz, piano
Presented by North/South Consonance
Streaming from National Opera Center
New York, NY

October 22, 2020
Give Her the Fruit of Her Hands
3 songs for voice & violin
Kate Fogg, soprano; Gloria Vollmers, violin
Presented by the Bangor Public Library and the League of Women Voters in Celebration of the Woman’s Right to Vote
Streaming from the Bangor Public Library
Bangor, ME

October 9, 2020
Turning in Time
Kinga Augustyn, violin
Streaming from Glacier Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall
Kalispell, MT

August 24, 2020 issue
Flute Examiner
https://thefluteexaminer.com/fantasy-for-flute-and-piano-by-debra-kaye/

July 6, 2020
Turning in Time
Kinga Augustyn, violin
Streaming presentation of The Violin Channel

Summer 2020
PARMA Recordings
Summer Nuggets Playlist

April 26, 2020
Turning in Time
Kinga Augustyn, violin
Presented by M Institute for the Arts
Streaming from Wronski Violin Shop
New York, NY

March 29, 2020
Composers with Drinks Podcast, Dialogues with the Distant Mountains
https://anchor.fm/cwdltm/episodes/Distance–Isolation-ec44un

Sneak Preview of What I’ve Been Working On

May 2020
I’ve been pouring the pandemic into this piano piece.

Here’s a sneak preview, a short midi-clip from in order to remember.…ever felt this way?

Taos Time – an artist residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico (How it stays with me and begot my first CD And So It Begins)

We used to joke about it…Taos seemed to have its own sense of time, subjective and changing, like the drama of its light, piercing the storm clouds. At 8000 feet, closer to the heavens, there was something palpably different about the place. I read a layman’s guide to quantum physics – how everything is vibration and that the earth itself vibrates at a very low hertz, I sat on my porch and tried to listen to it. If you could hear it anywhere, I was sure it was here. I didn’t exactly hear it, but maybe that’s what I felt. My biggest fear while I was there was that I would forget the wonder of the place and of time expanding before me – 3 months to compose, explore and just be.

The first night there I woke at 4 in the morning, went to the window and it was full of stars, big ones, little ones, yes, like diamonds in the sky. I sat at the piano and improvised what later would become the first of the Visions. And it turned out, through that group of pieces and now with Roxanne Rea’s dreamscape video of them, I haven’t forgotten, when I clear the decks (the mind and all) I can still return to that open sense of fresh air and possibility.

When I returned to New York City after the first summer, (I had the great good fortune of two summers in Taos) I gave a concert of new and recent work, collaborating with performers who had been commissioning and playing my pieces. This was the first of several concerts that culminated in my recent CD And So It Begins. The title piece, a sextet for strings and tenor saxophone, was written during my second summer in Taos. (That summer I also met my now partner, writer Roger Aplon, who was my next-door neighbor at the Wurlitzer.)

The return to New York City was culture shock at first. Walking through crowded Harlem streets, I enveloped myself in a Native American folk tune that I had sung while walking off the grid on Indian land – Now I walk in Beauty, beauty is before me, beauty is behind me, above and below me. Through the sirens and screeching cars, I heard a man singing a gospel version of This Little Light of Mine. We smiled at each other, each continuing our song. This was the impetus for another piece, this time to integrate these experiences (and these tunes). The Beauty Way, the opening piece on the CD, is a trio for viola da gamba, a 7 string pre-cursor to our modern strings. It weaves together three folk tunes to describe what the Navajo call the “beauty way”, those times when we are in harmony with all that is.

Now with the CD out, a cap and summary of a certain period, and so it begins, the end, the beginning…

“…unique sound and feel…perfectly executed tracks. This music is focused, inspirational, and precise. This is an album that will surely stand the test of time.” – Babysue