CONNECTING WITH THE COMMUNITY
PAST EVENTS
Cultural Joy Program: June 3, 2024
CELEBRATING THE FOLK MUSIC OF ARGENTINA
For this cooperative series, Connessa Collective will curate and present an interactive lecture-chamber recital designed for 2nd grade students at Foussat Elementary in Oceanside, CA. This lecture-recital educates students on the musical traditions of Argentina, encourages them to participate in the music using percussive techniques, and inspires conversation and connection.
Connessa Collective, an award-winning San Diego-based chamber ensemble known for its exceptional musicality, is recognized for bringing heartfelt flute performances to audiences. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, our mission is to cultivate connection among diverse communities and promote cultural awareness through high-level educational chamber music experiences. We create intriguing concert programming focused on living composers and world music.
Wednesdays@Noon Concert Series: April 24, 2024
THE FRENCH CONNECTION: EXPLORATION OF SOUND THROUGH FLUTE QUARTETS AND DUOS
With its beginnings as an award-winning San Diego-based chamber ensemble known for its exceptional musicality, Connessa Collective is recognized for bringing heartfelt performances to audiences. As a pending 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, our mission is to cultivate connection among diverse communities and promote cultural awareness through high-level educational chamber music experiences. We create intriguing concert programming focused on living composers and world music. For this Wednesdays@Noon Concert Series performance, Connessa will perform a program for featuring music by Gary Schocker, Jacques Castérède, Momo Sakura, Christopher Caliendo, Astor Piazzolla, Daniel Dorff, Nicole Chamberlain and Catherine McMichael.
I. Gathering
II. In the Wood
III. In the Air
Flutist-composer-pianist Gary Schocker (b. 1959; he/him) is an accomplished musician of outstanding versatility. In addition to being the most published living composer for flute, Gary Schocker has composed sonatas and chamber music for most instruments of the orchestra, written several musicals and children's musicals and performed flute internationally with some of most critically acclaimed orchestras.
In three movements, Nymphs is a beautifully picturesque piece that alternates in mood between dreamy and spritely, pensive and flirtatious. In Greek mythology, nymphs were usually associated with fertile, growing things, such as trees, or with water. They were not immortal but were extremely long-lived, and they were distinguished according to the sphere of nature with which they were connected. For example, the Oreads (oros, “mountain”) were nymphs of mountains and grottoes; the Napaeae (nape, “dell”) and the Alseids (alsos, “grove”) were nymphs of glens and groves; the Dryads r Hamadryads presided over forests and trees.
I. Flutes pastorales
II. Flutes joyeuses
III. Flutes rêveuses
IV. Flutes légères
Born in Paris, Jacques Castérède (1926-2014; he/him) studied composition at the renowned Paris Conservatory and won the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome in 1953. A prolific composer, his works include ballets, concertos, symphonies, ensemble and chamber music. Castérède's music is essentially melodic, often using modal scales on top of rich and varied structures, and his compositional style was heavily influenced by the expressionism of Ravel and Debussy and the jazz devices used by Milhaud.
Flûtes en vacances features four movements, and the title of each evokes unique imagery of flutists on a holiday. The first movement, which translates to “pastoral flutes,” is quintessentially of the French style and paints an impressionistic picture of frolicking in the grand outdoors. The second movement, which translates to “joyful flutes,” bounces and dances merrily throughout. A theme from Castérède’s ‘Twelve Studies’ etude book serves as a clear inspiration for Movement III, which translates to “dreamy flutes." As a final exclamation point, the fourth movement, which translates to “light flutes,” has a feather-light melody that soars to the piece's conclusion.
Tokyo-born Momo Sakura (b. 1971; she/her) is an international kimono flautist, composer and sound healer based in Perth, Western Australia who has written over 400 solo, chamber and orchestral works. For her, music is more than an art form—it’s a universal force for healing and connection. To share this incredible magic with the world, Momo has spent the past four decades composing, teaching, and performing traditional Japanese flute music, often alongside renowned artists. In 2021, Momo combined her love for storytelling and music to launch a live-streamed worldwide concert that was developed for Japanese literature and performed with narration. Today, she travels the world delivering healing musical performances as The Kimono Flautist. Momo’s performances are inspired by the sounds of Ryuichi Sakamoto and the many audience members who are visibly moved by her work.
Under the Sakura Trees paints an expressive picture of a bewitching and magical world peered at from beneath the branches of the celebrated cherry blossom tree. In the short but sweet piece, each flute's voice contributes to an ethereally flowing soundscape.
Christopher Caliendo (b. 1976; he/him) has composed and performed in multiple areas of the music industry over the last 20 years. Winner Henry Mancini Film Scholarship, Caliendo is the first composer in Vatican history to be twice commissioned by the Vatican under John Paul II and the first composer in Hollywood history to rescore an existing film for SONY Pictures. Christopher Caliendo's unusual blending of musical style and instrumentation while respecting popular and serious musical culture has generated a personal catalog of over 500 works that include sacred music, opera, folk, gypsy, tango, classical, jazz to popular music - and he continues to enjoy arranging and composing music for a 21st century audience whose musical needs are as varied as his own.
In the words of the composer, Por siempre, para siempre ("forever and ever") is “a tango adagio, filled with memory, longing and pathos. A way of saying, 'I’m sorry.' In this piece, the two flute parts play off each other and pass the melody and countermelodies, embodying the feeling of apology and forgiveness.
La Milonga is inspired by the bright, up-tempo Argentine peasant dance of the same name. The milonga is one of the ancestral dance forms that helped shape the Argentine tango during the early part of the 20th century. It is a lively, often humorous dance which was heavily influenced by the African candombe, as African workers settled into Buenos Aires during its economic boom in the late 19th century. As Argentine peasants and soldiers, commonly called compadritos, watched African workers dance the candombe, some of its elements were incorporated into the milonga over time.
It is critical to note that African workers in Buenos Aires at this time were liberated enslaved peoples. As is often the case, the candombe was performed as a form of resistance against harsh injustice, and the dance form was even banned within the city of Montevideo for some time. Despite this, its rhythms and steps were deeply impactful on the tango we know from Argentina and all of South America. This piece captures the traditional spirit of one of Argentina's great cultural traditions while incorporating American popular harmonies and jazz influences.
One of the most important South American composers of the 20th century, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992, he/him) was an Argentine musician, composer and virtuoso on the bandoneón (a square-built button accordion). He left traditional Latin American tango bands in 1955 to create a new tango that blended elements of jazz and classical music.
Libertango is a portmanteau word created by Piazzolla himself. It combines libertad (meaning liberty in Spanish) and tango. Because Piazzolla was not in favor of the politics in Argentina in the early 1970s and wanted to have a fresh start as a musician, he went to Italy and composed this piece in Milan in 1974. The widespread popularity of Libertango contributed to Piazzolla’s flourishing musical career in Europe. Percussive foot stomps, seductive melodic lines and signature rhythmic patterns can all be heard in this well-beloved piece.
Daniel Dorff (b. 1956; he/him), a prodigious composer and dear friend, studied composition at Cornell and University of Pennsylvania. While he learned the craft of composition at university, his voice and aesthetics are influenced by American popular music, which in turn is an outgrowth of French impressionism.
Year of the Rabbit was written soon after Dorff returned from a trip to Taiwan, where he visited the Palace Museum and saw thousands of renderings of the Chinese Zodiac in every type of style and media of 2D and 3D art. In January 1999, during the Year of the Rabbit celebration, Dorff received a commission request and chose to honor his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law -- who were all born during a Year of the Rabbit. This piece sounds decidedly French, using chords in parallel motion that don't remain within one key. The melody and harmony are connected through this motion, with contrasting jazzy solos sprinkled throughout the piece.
III. Preservation Hall
Rolling with the punches, Nicole Chamberlain (b. 1977; she/her) has been flexible in carving out her own path in both her life and career. Her initial plan was to become an animator who composed original soundtracks, but the original plan that 18-year-old Chamberlain set for herself did not turn out to be the dream she wanted after all. At the age of 32, she left a career in web and graphic design to pursue a financially insecure life as a full-time composer and flutist. More than 10 years later, she plows ahead realizing this is the adventure she really craved.
French Quarter was composed for Perimeter Flutes to premiere at the 2013 National Flute Association Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. The piece is split into quarters and explores different areas of the historic French Quarter in New Orleans. The first movement opens the piece with its crowded Bourbon street. The second movement is the whirling powdered sugar that dances in the air on a windy day from tourists eating the beignets. The third movement echoes the music heard from the jazz institution known as Preservation Hall. Finally, we exit the French Quarter being carried out by a jazz funeral to and from the St. Louis Cemetery, where many a jazz legend is laid to rest. The piece makes use of some extended flute techniques, like beat boxing, to replicate percussion, double bass sounds, and sometimes even wind to capture the atmosphere of the French Quarter.
I. Rós Bothan (Rose Cottage)
II. Céile Teagamhach (The Doubtful Wife: A Reel)
III. Loch Solas (Lake Solace: Air Mo Mathair)
IV. Gearr Riomball (Describe a Circle: A Jig)
Catherine McMichael (b. 1954; she/her) is an American pianist, arranger, composer and publisher who is a trained pianist with a BA in piano performance and an MA in chamber music from the University of Michigan. Two of her works for flute have won the Best Newly Published Music award from the National Flute Association (Floris and La Lune et les Etoiles). Her composition projects in the past three years include commissions from such diverse groups as the Saginaw Bay Orchestra (full orchestra), Ithaca Talent Education (for string orchestra), The Canadian Brass (brass quintet), and University of Massachusetts at Amherst (chorus, saxophone, piano; and tenor, saxophone, piano).
A Gaelic Offering includes four pieces in the traditional style: rowdy, raw, rambunctious when fast; achingly personal when slow. Movements are entitled Rose Cottage, The Doubtful Wife, Lake Solace, and Describe a Circle (A Jig). This music is meant to be enjoyed like country cooking - with gusto!
City of Encinitas Art Night: March 9, 2024
A MUSICAL COLLECTION CELEBRATING WOMEN AND NON-BINARY VOICES
Connessa Collective, an award-winning San Diego-based chamber ensemble known for its exceptional musicality, is recognized for bringing heartfelt flute performances to audiences. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, our mission is to cultivate connection among diverse communities and promote cultural awareness through high-level educational chamber music experiences. We create intriguing concert programming focused on living composers and world music. In honor of International Women's Day 2024, Connessa will perform a program for the City of Encinitas Art Night featuring music by women and non-binary composers, as well pieces inspired by and dedicated to women.
Chrysanthe Tan (they/them) is a Cambodian-Greek-American composer, violinist, and poet named by Arts Boston as “1 of 10 Contemporary LGBTQ Composers You Should Know in 2018.” Their work incorporates spoken word, looping pedals, sleepy voice memos, hints of Greek folk music, nostalgic Cambodian pop, cat cameos, electronic sampling, sensory soothing, and a healthy dose of oversharing.
It's the middle of the night, and you — a band of travelers — are stargazing in the woods. Taking turns, you lead the way down an enchanted path, passing around a melismatic cadenza and spilling the stories you've never shared before. At daybreak, you stumble upon a glendi and dance a tsamiko.
Stumbling upon a glendi in the woods draws from Greek folk music and dance traditions but is not meant to be an exact invocation. It contains two movements to be performed without pause: "Skaros" is a roaming, improvisatory movement loosely inspired by the skaros, a nomadic shepherd's song from Epirus, which is played in the middle of the night to lead sheep to graze. This movement contains a plethora of ornaments and virtuosic runs to be taken at the pace of the players. "Tsamiko" is a popular Greek dance in 3/4 time. It follows a long-short step pattern, or 2+1 beat pattern. If played at a steady tempo, this movement works as an actual tsamiko; if any Greek dancers in the audience are inspired to get out of their seats, they can rest assured that the meter and form will carry through until the end. A “glendi” is a party, a celebration, a jamboree. At a glendi, dancing is a given. The tsamiko is a mainstay at glendis across the Greek diaspora.
Program notes by the composer
I. Sandra
II. Alicia
III. Rocio
IV. Belen
Martín José Rodríguez Peris (he/him) is a composer, musical director and saxophonist from Spain. He first studied with La Artesana in Catarroja, where he learned musical theory and saxophone under Bort and Claverol. As a saxophonist, he played with the Banda Sinfónica de la Unión Valenciana en Madrid, the Cuarteto de Saxofones Adolfo Sax, the Cuarteto Real de Saxofones and the King's Royal Household Band.
Concierto para cuatro features four movements, each named after a different woman and with its own unique personality. It is not widely known to whom these four four movements were inspired or dedicated, which gives performers and listeners the permission to speculate as to who they might have been – and what relationship they may have had with the composer.
The first movement, “Sandra,” straddles the line between lively and chaotic. It is a whirlwind of sounds that collide with dissonance in one moment and consonance in the very next – almost evoking a childish (or teenage?) energy. The second movement, “Alicia,” begins with a whisper as tenderly as a lover’s before introducing an intense, driving middle section in which a wildly beating heart is distinctly heard. At the top of “Rocio,” the concerto’s jazzy third movement, appears the intriguing style marking “Take 5” – which is immediately reminiscent of Paul Desmond’s iconic jazz standard of the same name, first performed in 1959 by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Could Rocio have been a favorite dance partner, or jazz clubgoer? As a final exclamation point, “Belen” inspires the fourth movement – a fiery dance that lifts and transports the listener with its traditional sounds of Spain.
Program notes by Valerie McElroy
Journey Chalan is a newly composed work spearheaded by Connessa’s very own Leilani Gjellstad (she/her) and Valerie McElroy (she/her). The piece is inspired by an improvisational performance of Raga Madhuvanti by two bansuri flutes, tanpura, and tabla on Pandit (Master) Hariprasad Charausia’s 2009 album, The Last Word in Flute. The middle section of Journey Chalan directly quotes from Pandit Chaurasia’s performance, while the opening and closing sections feature earnest deconstructions of complex Hindustani forms simplified by the limitations of Western ears and instruments.
The word “chalan” means “flow” or “drift,” and the piece is meant to celebrate the flow of the ascending and descending pitch patterns of the charming Raga Madhuvanti, which takes its name from the Hindi word for honey. This raga is associated with romantic love and likely has roots in Carnatic traditions. It became popular in the 1940s and is meant to be played in the late afternoon or early evening during the summer season. The use of keyless bansuri flutes in Hindustani classical music allows for expressive slides between pitches, while tanpura and tabla accompaniment add a rich tonal spectrum and dynamically driving rhythms. Journey Chalan ultimately seeks to aurally depict the evolutionary experience of a sincere Western music-fluent listener attempting to honor and appreciate the complex Hindustani classical music tradition.
Program notes by Valerie McElroy
Raimundo Pineda (he/him) is a composer, flutist, educator, and conductor from Venezuela. Pineda’s music is not only brimming with wonderfully vital South American rhythms and excitement, but it also contains a deeper side which seems to invoke the powers of Darkness and Passion. The following comments describe Las piruetas de Mariana.
“Once again, the magic of parenthood promotes the creation. In this opportunity, the energy and vitality of my first daughter, Mariana, made me try to picture some of her favorite games, her running and pirouettes trying to escape from being held and the calmness. As a musical work, it might not be very profound – and in some parts, even simple-minded – but I think the main idea has been accomplished: to paint a sonorous picture with all the elements I could watch in her first steps and adventures, sprinkling the listeners with humor and children's vitality.”
“La magia de la paternidad nuevamente es promotora de la creación. En esta oportunidad la energía y vitalidad de mi primera hija: Mariana, me llevó a tratar de retratar algunos de sus juegos favoritos, sus carreras y sus piruetas tratando de escapar del abrazo y la calma. Como obra musical tal vez no tenga mucha profundidad y peque en ciertos pasajes de alguna ingenuidad, pero el objetivo principal me parece que se ha logrado: pintar un cuadro sonoro con todos los elementos que pude observar en sus primeros pasos y sus muchas peripecias, salpicando con humor y vitalidad infantil a los oyentes.”
Program notes by the composer
Rolling with the punches, Nicole Chamberlain (she/her) has been flexible in carving out her own path in both her life and career. Her initial plan was to become an animator who composed original soundtracks, but the original plan that 18-year-old Chamberlain set for herself did not turn out to be the dream she wanted after all. At the age of 32, she left a career in web and graphic design to pursue a financially insecure life as a full-time composer and flutist. More than 10 years later, she plows ahead realizing this is the adventure she really craved.
French Quarter was composed for Perimeter Flutes to premiere at the 2013 National Flute Association Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. The piece is split into quarters and explores different areas of the historic French Quarter in New Orleans. The first movement opens the piece with its crowded Bourbon street. The second movement is the whirling powdered sugar that dances in the air on a windy day from tourists eating the beignets. The third movement echoes the music heard from the jazz institution known as Preservation Hall. Finally, we exit the French Quarter being carried out by a jazz funeral to and from the St. Louis Cemetery, where many a jazz legend is laid to rest. The piece makes use of some extended flute techniques, like beat boxing, to replicate percussion, double bass sounds, and sometimes even wind to capture the atmosphere of the French Quarter.
Program notes by the composer
Special Guest Performance: May 4, 2024
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOUNDSCAPE OF EXTENDED FLUTE TECHNIQUE
As special guest performers for the VM Studio Spring Flute Recital 2024, Connessa will perform a program for featuring the dazzling music of Nicole Chamberlain.
With its beginnings as an award-winning San Diego-based chamber ensemble known for its exceptional musicality, Connessa Collective is recognized for bringing heartfelt performances to audiences. As a pending 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, our mission is to cultivate connection among diverse communities and promote cultural awareness through high-level educational chamber music experiences. We create intriguing concert programming focused on living composers and world music.
I. Bourbon Street
II. Beignets
III. Preservation Hall
IV. St. Louis Cemetery
Rolling with the punches, Nicole Chamberlain (b. 1977; she/her) has been flexible in carving out her own path in both her life and career. Her initial plan was to become an animator who composed original soundtracks, but the original plan that 18-year-old Chamberlain set for herself did not turn out to be the dream she wanted after all. At the age of 32, she left a career in web and graphic design to pursue a financially insecure life as a full-time composer and flutist. More than 10 years later, she plows ahead realizing this is the adventure she really craved.
French Quarter was composed for Perimeter Flutes to premiere at the 2013 National Flute Association Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. The piece is split into quarters and explores different areas of the historic French Quarter in New Orleans. The first movement opens the piece with its crowded Bourbon street. The second movement is the whirling powdered sugar that dances in the air on a windy day from tourists eating the beignets. The third movement echoes the music heard from the jazz institution known as Preservation Hall. Finally, we exit the French Quarter being carried out by a jazz funeral to and from the St. Louis Cemetery, where many a jazz legend is laid to rest. The piece makes use of some extended flute techniques, like beat boxing, to replicate percussion, double bass sounds, and sometimes even wind to capture the atmosphere of the French Quarter.
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