PANAYIOTIS KOKORAS: T-TOTUM (2009) Panayiotis Kokoras, snare drum “T-totum” for snare drum and electronics is a sound composition exploring the motion of rotation. The percussionist interacts with the electronic part using various drivers to excite the snare drum. Complex sound morphologies require from the performer to develop a virtuosity on sound and its intrinsic quantum rhythmology. In T-totum abstract sound objects create parallel stories by associating them with everyday sounds like an airplane, helicopter, footsteps, wind, and seashore. Kokoras is an internationally award-winning composer and computer music innovator. Since fall 2012 he has been appointed Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas. Born in Greece, he studied classical guitar and composition in Athens, Greece and York, England. Kokoras's sound compositions use timbre as the main element of form. His concept of "holophony" describes his goal that each independent sound (phonos), contributes equally into the synthesis of the total (holos). In both instrumental and electroacoustic writing, his music calls upon a "virtuosity of sound," emphasizing the precise production of variable sound possibilities and the correct distinction between one timbre and another to convey the musical ideas and structure of the piece. DAVID TADDIE: A RIFT IN TIME (FOR VIOLIN, CELLO, AND ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC ACCOMPANIMENT) (2001) Cabrini Duo (Michael Finckel, cello and Andrea Schultz, violin) A Rift in Time was commissioned by the Cabrini Duo (Michael Finckel, cello and Andrea Schultz, violin) who premiered it in February, 2002. The tape part makes extensive use of violin and cello samples, which have been processed and re-synthesized, as well as purely electronic sounds. As I was completing the piece, the tragic events of September 11th took place - an event which a New York Times editorial described as “one of those moments in which history splits, and we define the world as ‘before’ and ‘after.’” David Taddie has written music for band, orchestra, choir, solo voice, and a wide variety of chamber ensembles as well as electroacoustic music. His music has been widely performed in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia by numerous soloists and ensembles. His principal teachers were Bain Murray, Edwin London, Donald Martino, Bernard Rands, and Mario Davidovsky. He has received several prestigious awards including ones from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, and the Music Teachers National Association. He is Professor of Music at West Virginia University and director of the Electronic Music Studio. Michael Finckel enjoys a wide-ranging career as cellist, conductor, teacher, and composer. His passion for contemporary music has involved him in performances with many of New York’s leading new-music groups including Speculum Musicae, Ensemble Sospeso, Columbia Symphonietta, Group for Contemporary Music, SEM Ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, and the American Composer’s Orchestra, as well as performances with members of the New York Philharmonic under the directions of Pierre Boulez and Leonard Bernstein. From 1984 to 1995 he held the Gheris Chair as Principal Cellist of the Bethlehem Bach Choir Orchestra and earlier served as principal cellist of the Vermont State Symphony and the Orchestra of Our Time in New York. Finckel has recorded for the Dorian, Opus One, New World, CRI, Vanguard, Vox/Candide and ECM/Warner Bros. Labels. Violinist Andrea Schultz enjoys an active and versatile musical life as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician.  She currently performs and tours with a wide array of groups, including the New York Chamber Ensemble and the Orchestra of St. Luke's.   A devotee of contemporary music, Andrea is also a member of the contemporary chamber ensemble Sequitur and has been involved in the premieres of more than a hundred works with groups that include Either/Or, Cygnus, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Locrian Chamber Players, the NY Composer's Circle, the League of Composers, and others.  She has recorded contemporary chamber music for the Naxos, Albany, New World, and Phoenix labels.   She was a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble for many years, touring the US, Britain, Japan, and Australia; and has performed as guest with the Cassatt String Quartet, Perspectives Ensemble, Apple Hill Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Mostly Mozart. MITCHELL HERRMANN: MANICHEA (2014) Adam Hirsch, tenor saxophone As in the ancient Gnostic religion of Manichaeism, disparate and conflicting forces vie against one another for dominance. Sound worlds collide, struggle, and merge, within which the saxophonist acts as a fluctuating force of agency. Mitchell Herrmann is a composer and video artist studying at Oberlin College and Conservatory. Although his primary focus is on acousmatic music,Herrmann’s previous work has included experimental film and acoustic music. His compositions have been particularly influenced by his study of phenomenological approaches to musical perception. In 2015, the Klang! International Composition Competition awarded Herrmann first place in the student category, and he was also selected as a finalist for the SEAMUS Allen Strange composition award. In October of 2014, he was the youngest composer accepted to study with Jonty Harrison in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Herrmann has studied composition under Peter Swendsen, Tom Lopez, and Josh Levine, and participated in master classes or lectures by George Lewis, Robert Normandeau, Pierre Jodlowski, and Bertrand Dubedout. Adam Hirsch is a composer, songwriter, and improviser from Los Angeles. He makes music with saxophones, computers, analog electronics, and his voice, among other things. His work ranges from chamber music to free improvisation to pop experiments. His mentors and teachers in saxophone, composition, and improvisation have included Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, Peter Swendsen, Ben Wendel, Zeena Parkins, and John Bischoff. Adam currently lives in Oakland, CA as an MFA student in Electronic Music & Recording Media at Mills College, and tours around the US under the moniker Native Eloquence. adamjhirsch.com CHRISTOPHER BAILEY: COMPOSITION FOR S#!††¥ PIANO WITH DRUM SAMPLES, CONCRèTE SOUNDS, AND PROCESSING (summer 2010 – spring 2013) Shiau-Uen Ding, piano The "Composition" brings together a number of these threads. As per a request from pianist Shiau-Uen Ding, my goal was to combine my interests in musique-concrète, electronica/techno, and live computer music as part of a large-scale solo piano work. I decided to work with a crappy piano as the live sound material, combined with results from my musique-concrète database "engine", along with re-orchestrated inter-interpolated electronica beats. Work on this piece was partially funded by an Allan Strange Award from the Washington (State) Composers Forum. Born outside of Philadelphia, PA, Christopher Bailey turned to music composition in his late 'teens, and to electroacoustic composition during his studies at the Eastman School of Music, and later at Columbia University. He is currently based in Boston. His music explores a variety of musical threads, including microtonality, acousmatic and concrète sounds, serialist junk sculpture, ornate musical details laid out in flat forms, and constrained improvisation. A native of ******, pianist Shiau-uen Ding is an energetic performer of traditional and contemporary repertoire. She has performed in France, Germany, Belgium, China, and throughout the US. She was called a “daredevil” by The New York Times for her perfor,mance at Bang on a Can marathon and “a powerful force on the new music scene” by Array for her performance at Spark Festival in Minneapolis. She has collaborate with internationally renowned performers and composers, including Steve Reich, Michael Kugel, George Tsontakis (who refers to her rendition of his “Ghost Variations” as a “monster performance”), and Moritz Eggert, who dedicated his Hämmerklavier XIX: Hymnen der Welt (Afghanistan bis Zimbabwe) to her. She has recorded for Capstone, Centaur, Innova, and Electric Music Collective. MARK ZAKI: reFRACTion (2012) Mark Zaki, violin reFRACTion is an object that reflects its own history. Revealed through iterations of fragmented material, its final form is realized through the accretion of layered sound over time. From a simple and transparent opening statement, a foundation is derived which subsequently remains below the surface. Fragments are captured, processed, and added to a slowly evolving fabric. There’s no attempt to apprehend any musical narrative directly, the piece only does so in retrospect. The ear chooses between current and past events as histories begin to emerge and compete with one another – often productively, but also in ways that can be unresolved. To a certain extent, reFRACTion could be viewed as metaphor – a palimpsest of existence, where the past is covered up but continues to visibly influence the present. Building on his many diverse interests, composer and violinist Mark Zaki’s work ranges from historically-informed and traditional chamber music to electroacoustic music, mixed-media composition, and music for film. Currently on the faculty at Rutgers University-Camden, he is the director of the Music Program and the Rutgers Electro-Acoustic Lab (REAL). JASON CHARNEY: FOREIGN MASONRY (2014) Gavin Goodwin, baritone saxophone “Foreign Masonry” takes its title from Jorge Luis Borges’ story "The Aleph," about a man who discovers a singularity under an acquaintance's cellar stairs in which he can experience the entire universe at once. At the very end of the story, he alludes to other Alephs that may exist in the world, such as inside the pillar in a Cairo mosque's central court. This mysterious column and its inner cosmos are imagined in several ways: as the long, closed tube formed by fingering the baritone saxophone's lowest note, its harmonic series, and the "alif," the vertical first letter of the Arabic alphabet that shares a lineage with the story’s title. Melodic contours in the piece were loosely traced from Arabic orthography, translations of a few phrases from Borges' story. The piece was written for Gavin Goodwin, who performs on this recording. Jason Charney’s work in sound and media addresses the connection between science, observable phenomena, and performative gesture. He received the 2012 Allen Strange Award from SEAMUS and was a finalist for the 2015 ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commissioning Competition. He holds degrees from Bowling Green State University and the University of Kansas. Originally from Edmonton, saxophonist Gavin Goodwin has performed as a soloist, chamber player and ensemble player in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Throughout undergraduate his degree he was member of University of Alberta ensembles such as the Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Contempo New Music Ensemble and from 2010-2012 held the baritone saxophone chair with the New Edmonton Wind Sinfonia. Gavin has performed at conferences such as the 36th U.S. Navy Band Saxophone Symposium in 2013 and the World Saxophone Congress XVI in the summer of 2012. He is a recipient of the Government of Alberta Arts Graduate Scholarship. Gavin Goodwin is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree studying saxophone with Dr. John Sampen at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH. SHIH-WEI LO: THINGS HOPED FOR, THINGS UNSEEN (2012) Shannon Chieh, harp Things Hoped For, Things Unseen is dedicated to the Principal harpist of the Philharmonic, Shannon Chieh, for her concert “La Vie sans Frontières,” which was held to evoke attention toward the death penalty, an issue that has caused numerous discussions and arguments. The ultimate goal of those debates, however, is to gain the consensus to support human rights as well as to respect life. This process, changing from discrepancy to concurrence, serves as the main spirit of this piece, in which the harp and the electronic music encounter, interact, settle, and move together toward the same direction sonically. Shih-Wei Lo’s work is often informed by the diverse articulations of time and space in various domains such as art, literature, culture, and politics, and may be viewed as a process of transfiguring these into music, providing audience with a contemplative medium. He received his MM from the University of Washington and his BFA from National ****** Normal University. Currently he is pursuing a DMA in Composition at Columbia University as a Dean’s Fellow. A leading harpist and teacher in Asia, Shannon Chieh has been principal harpist with the National Symphony and faculty of National ****** Normal University since 1999. Former principal harpist with the Knoxville and San Antonio symphony orchestras, Ms. Chieh presented her New York debut recital in Carnegie Hall in 2000. Since then, she has been active in the international harp scene, including served as soloist and jury member at Japan International Harp Competition and Singapore Harpfest. Currently, Ms. Chieh also serves on the Board of Directors of the World Harp Congress. Ms. Chieh is the artistic director of Pink Moon Music Theatre where she has produced many multimedia music theatre works and concerts since 2003. Her newest project is the First ****** International Harp Festival 2015, where she serves as the founder and music director of the event that involves near 40 musicians and artists worldwide.