STILL (2016) for solo piano
2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Finalist
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James Romig, composer
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Ashlee Mack, pianist; principal commissioner
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Ashlee Mack in performance at the Clyfford Still Museum (Denver, Colorado) • October 5, 2017
"hypnotic... distills music to its barest essences" — citation, 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music
"profoundly meditative, haunting" — The Wire
"a vast space, both broad and deep" — Fanfare
"unfolds in sparse, slow-moving beauty" — San Francisco Chronicle
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES / PRESENTATIONS
10-12-19 Eastern Illinois University
11-02-19 Waterloo–Cedar Falls Symphony: Replicas, for piano and orch
12-02-19 The Stone (NYC)
11-02-19 Waterloo–Cedar Falls Symphony: Replicas, for piano and orch
12-02-19 The Stone (NYC)
PAST PERFORMANCES / PRESENTATIONS
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09-22-19 Webster University
09-12-19 Illinois State University 09-04-19 Western Illinois University 06-22-19 Petrified Forest National Park 05-05-19 Timucua Arts Foundation 04-03-19 Rochester, New York 04-11-19 Lawrence Conservatory 02-26-19 Wake Forest University 02-21-19 University of Louisville 02-10-19 Tolstefanz, Germany 01-24-19 Cincinnati Conservatory 11-01-18 Figge Art Museum (Davenport, IA) 10-11-18 University of Denver 10-07-18 Montauk: Clermont, IA 10-06-18 Cedar Rock: Quasqueton, IA 10-04-18 Porter House: Decorah, IA 09-28-18 St. Ambrose University 09-23-18 University of Wisconsin–Whitewater 07-25-18 Darmstadt Musikinstitut (Germany) 03-10-18 Milwaukee Art Museum 03-08-18 University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee 02-02-18 Butler University 01-26-18 Knox College 12-17-17 Everglades National Park 12-08-17 University of Miami 11-28-17 Murray State University 10-25-17 Carleton College 10-23-17 University of Minnesota 10-19-17 University of Tennessee–Knoxville 10-11-17 University of Northern Colorado 10-06-17 Metropolitan State University 10-06-17 Clyfford Still Museum 10-05-17 Clyfford Still Museum 10-05-17 University of Denver 10-04-17 University of Colorado–Boulder 10-02-17 University of Nebraska–Kearney 09-29-17 Bradley University 09-28-17 Illinois Wesleyan University 09-22-17 Northern Illinois University 09-20-17 Illinois College 09-19-17 Western Illinois University |
Still at the Milwaukee Art Museum • March 10, 2018
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James Romig, composer
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Ashlee Mack, pianist
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RECORDING
Ashlee Mack's recording of Still is now available (cd and digital download) from New World Records
Purchase at: Amazon • iTunes • New World Records
Purchase at: Amazon • iTunes • New World Records
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VIDEO (COMPLETE) |
AUDIO (EXCERPT) |
PROGRAM NOTE
Still, for solo piano, was commissioned in 2016 by Ashlee Mack, Carl Patrick Bolleia, Louis Goldstein, Michiko Saiki, and Paola Savvidou, with additional support provided by the Clyfford Still Museum (Denver, Colorado). The work was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and a recording by Ashlee Mack is available on New World Records. Still has been performed in concert halls, art museums, historic homes, and in plein air performances at national parks.
As the work unfolds over the course of approximately 54 minutes, a strand of 24 pitches (a linear concatenation of eight unique trichords) is gradually revealed via a series of 43 iterations of equal duration performed without pause. Each iteration comprises three, four, five, or six pitch-classes, progressing successively in a repeating pattern of 3–4–5–6–5–4–3.... Because iterations containing a larger number of pitches also incorporate a higher degree of musical activity, seven large-scale arcs of rhythmic
density are formed over the duration of the piece. On the musical surface, each of the 43 iterations contain a similar arc of intensity, resulting in a fluctuation of moment-to-moment activity that corresponds isomorphically to the work's large-scale structure.
The music is inspired by the paintings of American abstract expressionist Clyfford Still, who felt that his work was best appreciated when shown in a gallery containing only his work. He preferred not to sell his paintings, and on the rare occasions when he did he endeavored to keep the works together in groups. Collections that he parted with during his lifetime can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, the San Francisco Museum of Modern art, and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo. Aside from these exceptions, and a smattering of single paintings and small collections held elsewhere, most (95%) of his work was held in storage during his lifetime. After his death in 1980, his estate searched for an American city willing to house the enormous collection, and In 2011 the Clyfford Still Museum opened in Denver, Colorado.
When visiting the Clyfford Still Museum, one wanders intuitively from work to work, making a variety of connections between different paintings. Each visitor has a unique experience, but because all the works come from a single creator a "big picture" eventually emerges. The goal of this piano piece is to create a similar environment, allowing a listener to develop a notion of the work’s entirety by listening to multiple iterative variations of harmony and rhythm (color and form). The inner repetitions and associations within and between the sections of music are likely to provide each listener with a unique experience, determined by whichever musical features are noted, remembered, and compared. It is the hope of the composer that Still is in some ways a "museum of sound" that provides each listener with a variety of aesthetic pathways to wander and explore.
As the work unfolds over the course of approximately 54 minutes, a strand of 24 pitches (a linear concatenation of eight unique trichords) is gradually revealed via a series of 43 iterations of equal duration performed without pause. Each iteration comprises three, four, five, or six pitch-classes, progressing successively in a repeating pattern of 3–4–5–6–5–4–3.... Because iterations containing a larger number of pitches also incorporate a higher degree of musical activity, seven large-scale arcs of rhythmic
density are formed over the duration of the piece. On the musical surface, each of the 43 iterations contain a similar arc of intensity, resulting in a fluctuation of moment-to-moment activity that corresponds isomorphically to the work's large-scale structure.
The music is inspired by the paintings of American abstract expressionist Clyfford Still, who felt that his work was best appreciated when shown in a gallery containing only his work. He preferred not to sell his paintings, and on the rare occasions when he did he endeavored to keep the works together in groups. Collections that he parted with during his lifetime can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, the San Francisco Museum of Modern art, and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo. Aside from these exceptions, and a smattering of single paintings and small collections held elsewhere, most (95%) of his work was held in storage during his lifetime. After his death in 1980, his estate searched for an American city willing to house the enormous collection, and In 2011 the Clyfford Still Museum opened in Denver, Colorado.
When visiting the Clyfford Still Museum, one wanders intuitively from work to work, making a variety of connections between different paintings. Each visitor has a unique experience, but because all the works come from a single creator a "big picture" eventually emerges. The goal of this piano piece is to create a similar environment, allowing a listener to develop a notion of the work’s entirety by listening to multiple iterative variations of harmony and rhythm (color and form). The inner repetitions and associations within and between the sections of music are likely to provide each listener with a unique experience, determined by whichever musical features are noted, remembered, and compared. It is the hope of the composer that Still is in some ways a "museum of sound" that provides each listener with a variety of aesthetic pathways to wander and explore.
ABOUT THE COMPOSER
James Romig composes music in response to an increasingly fragmented and accelerated world, creating highly self-referential works that evolve isomorphically and reveal themselves gradually. Endeavoring to reflect the intricacies of the natural world, his compositional paradigms exert influence on both small-scale iteration and large-scale design, obscuring boundaries between form and content. Critics have described his music as “profoundly meditative, haunting” (The Wire), “a complex quilt of sound” (Moline Dispatch), and “rapturous, slow-moving beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle). Still, for solo piano, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His works have been performed by such notables as Talujon, Harpverk, Iktus, JACK, Khasma, Helix, Chronophonie, Altered Sound, Suono Mobile, Cadillac Moon, Due East, Collide-O-Scope, flutist Harvey Sollberger, violinist Erik Carlson, pianists Ashlee Mack and Taka Kigawa, and the Quad City Symphony. Recordings of his music have been released by New World, Navona, Blue Griffin, and Perspectives of New Music. Guest-composer visits include Eastman, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, Illinois, Northwestern, and the American Academy in Rome. Artist residencies include Copland House, Centrum, Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Petrified Forest. He holds degrees from the University of Iowa (BM, MM) and Rutgers University (PhD), where he studied with Charles Wuorinen. Milton Babbitt provided additional mentoring and served on Romig's PhD dissertation committee. Since 2002, he has been on faculty at Western Illinois University, where he heads the composition area. His music is published by Parallax Music Press (ASCAP).
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Pianist Ashlee Mack has given recitals in Germany, Italy, and across the United States. Specializing in contemporary music, she has premiered works by many notable composers including Christian Carey, Matthew Heap, David Maki, Robert Morris, Lawrence Moss, Paul Paccione, Bruce Quaglia, James Romig, Edward Taylor, and David Vayo. In 2012, she and Katherine Palumbo founded the Khasma Piano Duo, an ensemble dedicated to performing music from the 20th and 21st centuries. Their albums are available on CD Baby, Amazon, and iTunes. Other solo and chamber recordings by Mack can be heard on Navona Records, Parallax Music Press, Perspectives of New Music/Open Space, and New World Records, with upcoming releases on Innova and Parma. An avid hiker and nature enthusiast, she has been an artist-in-residence at Wupatki National Monument, Everglades National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, and Centrum in Fort Worden State Park, WA. In 2017, she premiered James Romig’s 55-minute piano solo, Still, which was recognized as a Finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She has since presented the work more than twenty times, including performances at the Clyfford Still Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic Cedar Rock estate in Quasqueton, IA. Mack is Director of Piano Studies at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. For more information, please visit www.khasmapianoduo.com/ashlee-mack.
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