International new music violinist and Palo Alto native Karen Bentley Pollick returns to CCRMA after recent performances at the “Music of Changes” festival in Klaipeda, Lithuania, SPECTRUM-NYC, “Wayward Music Series” in Seattle, and “Alive: New Music at The Dairy Center” in Boulder. She will be presenting a diverse program fusing music and videos from Lithuania, Germany, France, Venezuela and America.

Ethereal Baltic harmonies haunt Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s Serenity Diptychs. Stuart Diamond creates contemplative and insightful videos to both the epic Ciaccona by Johann Sebastian Bach, and Dominique de Williencourt’s soulfully evocative Mont Ararat that simulates a duo of duduks on scordatura viola.

Franco-Venezuelan composer and Visiting Scholar at Stanford, Servio Marin continues his foray into visonuality by fusing music, theatre, performance arts, multimedia, and dance. His new piece Sonic Talisman explores visual and aural interrelations, studying and analyzing the physics of sound by itself, as well as the role it plays inside the context of several music repertory languages.

A visonual work depicts a living picture, a visual-sound poem in which the viewer is invited to enter, and is subtly enveloped by an impregnating drizzle of sense.

Program notes are available at http://www.kbentley.com/visonualityccrma/

The complete program is as follows:

Serenity Diptychs for violin, tape, and still images (2015) by Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė. Photographic imagery and video by Philip VanKeuren; visual and digital production by Melissa Tran

Ciaccona from Partita #2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (1720) by Johann Sebastian Bach. Video by Stuart Diamond (2017) [World Premiere]

Mont Ararat for solo viola (2011) by French composer Dominique de Williencourt. Video by Stuart Diamond (2017) [World Premiere]

Sonic Talisman, visonual arts, instrumental-computer music, video performance, created by Servio Marin for virtuoso violinist Karen Bentley Pollick (2017) [World Premiere]

with the participation of

Maggie Davis, sign language poetry

Nette Worthey, narration

Daniel Bereket, trumpet

Carlos Sanchez, guitar

Yula Cisneros, dance

Son Tung Nguyen, dance

Timothy Lee, dance

Katie Renati, dance

Amber Levine, dance

Chocolate Heads, arts-performance and dance

Emiliano Samora Montoya, actor

Sabine MacQuarrie, poetry

Leo Hammes, paintings

Servio Marin, composer-director

Program notes

Serenity Diptychs for violin, tape and still images (2015)

When I first encountered photographic diptychs of Philip Van Keuren, I was struck by the “endless pairs of things” and the unexpected dialogues appearing between the images. According to the artist “often the more “distance” between the shear physicality of the paired images, light-dark, near-far, etc. results in a stronger emotive resonance, creating the “conversation” between images. The diptychs pair seemingly ordinary but disparate visual, cultural, and historical entities in order to illuminate and amplify their equivalent fictive, numinous, poetic, and emotional qualities. Two realities are placed side by side that would never be adjacent in the real world”.

The idea of pairing became a focal point in “Serenity Diptychs”. The piece itself takes a form of an enlarged diptych consisting of two distinctly different adjacent musical worlds – one of a dynamic nature and another of transcendence, stillness and reflection. The first part with its continuous forward motion resembles a hike up a high mountain. Endless and tireless repetitive patterns are swirling ceaselessly and accumulating energy until the very top of the mountain is reached. There… everything suddenly becomes still. One just stands in awe, mesmerized by the breathtakingly spacious vistas and mountain ranges overlapping each other in a far distance. Thus, the second part reflects this state of heightened sensitivity where stasis bears a somewhat ecstatic quality.

The relationship between music and images can be perceived as a diptych as well. Each of them is governed by unique shaping principles – sounds are following a linear logic of time, whereas images display multidimensional nature of space in a non-linear fashion. Images are changing as flashbacks of memories, randomly appearing in the mind without any emotional involvement or attachment with no particular narrative. Music is independently creating a coherent flow and revealing its own story line.

Another pairing is formed between solo violin and tape part where real acoustic sound is merged with imaginary voices.

www.zibuokle.com  •  http://philipvankeuren.blogspot.com  •  http://parlavue.com

Ciaccona from Partita #2 in D minor, BWV 1004 by Johann Sebastian Bach is a masterpiece that demands the pinnacle of virtuosity. Yet, at the same time, it offers a blank canvas upon which the greatest of violinists can paint a vision of their own universe. As artists mature and play lesser works, they generally refine their performances. But with a timeless work like this, performances deepen as the artist delves into a lifetime of musical and life insights.

And for centuries, scholars have puzzled over what appear to be mathematical structures embedded in the Ciaccona (and for that matter in many other works of Bach). Do the proportions between the Minor and Major modes, the number and nature of variations, and how they interchange, reflect some deeper mathematical or even cosmic meaning? Some suggest that the almost perfect proportions of the 64 variations presented in three contrasting sections mirror The Golden Ratio – a set of satisfying proportions that underlie masterpieces of architecture, paintings, and even in nature itself. That in some way, Bach’s genius allowed him to intuit the very nature of reality, and that his creative mind was so attuned to his own essence that the music he wrote exemplified these structural truths. Or such conjecture could simply be the arbitrary musings of academics – philosophical meditations that have little to do with the art of a workaday composer, who wrote the work in grief, and perhaps tribute, after returning from a trip to discover that his wife (and the mother of seven of his children) had died.

Stuart Diamond’s own journey into this soundscape begins with his recent video, searching for the intersections where sound, proportion, and mathematics encompass their own visual dance. An initial foray of a lifetime endeavor into recreating, revisualizing, and rethinking the work by creating new drafts of the Ciaccona, unfolding anew in an infinite set of variations and iterations.

Mont Ararat evokes a voyage and recalls the sound of the duduk and ancestral chants of Armenian monks.  It pays tribute to the suffering Armenian people throughout history, based on melodies heard in the Christian monastery of Echmiadzin, at the foot of the famous Mount Ararat where the Ark of Noah is said to have landed. Williencourt was inspired to create this shorter and slightly modified version of his original cello work, Opus 2,  after listening to the violist Michel Michalakakos, to whom he dedicated this work.  The bass string is lowered by two pitches to reproduce the double sound of the duduk. Commissioned by Festival “Forbidden Music 2012″ in Marseille, the world premiere took place on Thursday May 17, 2012 at the Abbey of La Prée under the 19th Rencontres around La Prée.

Dominique de Williencourt’s work for solo viola is strikingly original in its sound design. By using the scordatura effect of detuning the lowest string, the viola is transformed into an other worldly instrument – haunting, yet powerful. Stuart Diamond’s video searches out the mysteries of this music surrounding Mont Ararat – a mythic mountain that holds ancient secrets – from its monasteries, and its Christian and nationalistic symbolism, to the lost remnants of Noah’s Ark.

www.de-williencourt.com • www.stuartdiamond.com

One of the violin pieces inside Sonic Talisman is the D1-Duetto, featuring Karen’s violin and surrounding sound music system. I was so impressed by Fernando Lopez-Lezcano’s Grail (the Giant Radial Array for Immersive Listening), that I was inspired to write a theatrical, visonual duetto for violin and this speaker system. In fact, as a Visiting Scholar at CCRMA, trying to get in touch with the latest innovations on music research, I insisted that Fernando let me hear, with his system GRAIL, one of my music spatialization pieces, Impresiones Fugitivas (Editions Mego, REGRM 012, Austria, 2014) so that by using a very familiar piece, as reference, I could by ear, immediately recognize what is added or subtracted by Grail, and most important, what can be done with it that could not be accomplished 40 years ago.

Performer Bios

Karen Bentley Pollick has performed as violinist with Paul Dresher’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble since 1999 and performs a wide range of solo repertoire and styles on violin, viola, piano and Norwegian hardangerfele. A native of Palo Alto, California, she studied with Camilla Wicks in San Francisco and with Yuval Yaron, Josef Gingold and Rostislav Dubinsky at Indiana University where she received both  Bachelors and Masters of Music Degrees in Violin Performance.  She was concertmaster of the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1984 and has participated in the June in Buffalo and Wellesley Composers Conferences. She has appeared as soloist with Redwood Symphony in the world premiere of Swedish composer Ole Saxe’s Dance Suite for Violin and Orchestra, as well as with the Alabama Symphony and orchestras in Panama, Russia, Alaska, New York, Colorado and California. She has performed in recital with Russian pianist/composer Ivan Sokolov at the American Academy of Rome, Seattle and New York City, throughout the Czech Republic with cellist Dennis Parker at the American Spring Festival, and in England at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. She premiered David Jaffe’s Violin Concerto “How Did It Get So Late So Soon?” with the Lithuanian National Opera & Ballet Theatre Orchestra in August 2016 and gave the US premiere with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra in November 2016. 

In 2009, Pollick formed the duo Prophet Birds with Australian pianist Lisa Moore, and the Double Duo with Paul Dresher and Joel Davel. In 2011, she received a major grant from the Alabama State Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for her 2010 “Solo Violin and Alternating Currents” concerts in Birmingham, Seattle and at Music Olomouc 2011. In 2012,  she launched Violin, Viola & Video Virtuosity with New York video artist Sheri Wills with concerts in Brooklyn and Seattle. Pollick has several recordings of original music, for which she has received three music awards from Just Plain Folks, including Best Instrumental Album and Best Song. On her own record label, Ariel Ventures, she has produced numerous albums and music videos. Pollick performs on a violin made by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume in 1860 and a viola made in 1987 by William Whedbee and resides in Colorado.

Servio Marin is a Franco‐Venezuelan composer (his musical compositions have been performed in Europe, America and at the “International Computer Music Conference” in Vancouver, Alberta and Hong Kong), conductor (“Orquesta Radio National ” and ” Coral Filarmónica “, Caracas Venezuela ‐ 1977‐1983), computer music programmer (Center for computer Research in Music and Acoustics ‐CCRMA‐ Stanford University, 1983‐ 1987), composer researcher (Groupe de Recherches Musicales ‐ GRM Maison de la Radio et Télévision Française, Paris ‐1973‐77).

Servio Marin has been a professor of music, visual arts and language in several universities in the United States and Venezuela (University of California, San Diego, National University, Stanford University, San Diego Mesa College, University of San Diego, Chapman University, Universidad Central de Venezuela and Universidad Metropolitana ‐1977 to 2000). He worked in Paris with Max Deutsch, École Normale de Musique, with Pierre Schaeffer and Guy Reibel and François Bayle in the Musical Research Group of INA. At UCSD, Servio Marin worked with Brian Ferneyhough, John Silber, George Lewis and Allan Kapro, composition, improvisation, experimental music theater and “performance arts”. He holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from University of California at San Diego” (1993) and a Master in Computer Music from Stanford University, where he worked with John Chowning at CCRMA (1987), and is active as a performing musician and researcher in the field of folk music and Latin American dance.

Daniel Bereket is a trumpeter that has performed in several genres and formats. He started playing classical piano at the age of 5, and started playing classical trumpet at the age of 11. Daniel joined the El Camino Youth Symphony at the age of 13, performing throughout Poland and Germany with the orchestra. He then switched to jazz trumpet at the age of 15. Daniel was previously a member of the SF Jazz High School All-Stars and performed with the group in San Francisco, Monterey, and New York. Now, he plays with the Stanford Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble and other small ensembles around Stanford.

Maggie Davis is a sophomore studying Computer Science. She is hard-of-hearing and has studied American Sign Language at Stanford for two years. She currently works as a teaching assistant for First-Year ASL.

Timothy Lee is graduating in June with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. He enjoys exploring expressive movement through dance, climbing, and robotics.

Amber Levine is an undergraduate architectural design student and dance minor. She loves to participate in interdisciplinary art projects and is especially interested in the overlap between dance and sculpture/design.

Yula Cisneros Montoya is a Mexican born, U. S. based dancer, choreographer and dance educator. She trained and performed professionally at the State Choreographic School and Shevchenko Theater for Opera and Ballet in Kiev, Ukraine. She lived in Mozambique where she founded YucisBallet Studio and worked at the National Dance School in Maputo. She also established two dance projects: Programa de Apoio à Dança with support from the Norwegian Embassy and Pós-AMATODOS with support from the American Embassy in Maputo. She completed her BFA in Dance at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. She has taught dance courses at University of California Santa Cruz. Currently she collaborates as a dancer with Chocolate Heads Movement Band under the direction of Aleta Heys.

Katie Renati has been dancing socially since she was a child growing up in France. She discovered Latin dance when she moved to the Bay Area in 1987, and fell in love with the diversity of its music, its polyrythmes, and its cultural heritage. Katie has been sharing her passion with others, teaching street Latin dance for the last 5 years in Palo Alto. When not dancing, she is busy managing innovation projects for international companies in Silicon Valley.

Carlos A. Sánchez  is an eclectic multidisciplinary musician, engineer and researcher. He started playing guitar and gigging around the world at a very young age as the main guitarist of a renowned and recognized Flamenco Ballet. He also studied classical guitar at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Sevilla as well as being a guitar instructor for many years. As a musician he’s been composing original works and collaborating with bands and musicians in projects playing different roles, instruments and genres or involved in recordings and productions. At the same time, he completed his Superior CS Engineering Degree at Sevilla University and for many years he worked for the Spanish government, Aeronautics and IT Consulting companies in almost every position from programmer to software architect and director. His research and development projects are mostly oriented to putting the technology at the service of music, creation and improvisation, trying to free the creative mind from displays, mice and keyboards, developing software and hardware to achieve this goal mainly towards a mobile portable platform for a one-man-band with Raspberry PIs and Android phones.

Chocolate Heads—an interdisciplinary performance troupe– was founded in 2009 by Aleta Hayes–Stanford alum, choreographer/director, and Theater & Performance Studies Lecturer. Chocolate Heads has performed at events and in theaters and art spaces throughout the Stanford Arts District including: Stanford TedX, the d.school, the McMurtry Art and Art History Building, the Cantor Museum, the Bing Concert Hall, the Windhover Contemplation Center, Memorial Auditorium, the Anderson Collection and the newly renovated Roble Theater in Roble Gym. During the Spring quarter the Chocolate Heads will be performing at Memorial Church in a special all dance and music Sunday morning service on May 21; they will also present a performance installation on May 5 at the Pace Gallery, Downtown Palo Alto, inspired by the current David Hockney exhibit.