Last summer, the National Gallery of Art enlisted Liquid Music curator Kate Nordstrum as “guest artistic director” to illuminate works within their transporting exhibition True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780-1870. In the months that followed, Nordstrum and her selected ensemble yMusic had the immense pleasure of immersing themselves in paintings by artists who sought to capture light and atmosphere in breathtaking landscapes, seascapes and skyscapes. We want to share with you their thoughtful program, which would have taken place this Sunday, April 19, with images from the exhibition and musical accompaniment.
Fritz Petzholdt, Tree Crowns in a Forest (Ariccia?), c. 1832, oil on paper, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, Gift of John Schlichte Bergen and Alexandra van Nierop, Amsterdam
The Program
Tessellations by Gabriella Smith
Cribbea by yMusic
Peter Inn by yMusic
Music in Circles by Andrew Norman
Zebras by yMusic
Flood by yMusic
Year of the Horse by Sufjan Stevens/arranged by Rob Moose
Their Stenciled Breath by Caroline Shaw
Maré by Gabriella Smith
A Note From Liquid Music Curator Kate Nordstrum (Guest Artistic Director)
yMusic is one of the first ensembles I worked with as a fledgling curator in 2010. A decade on, I continue to be inspired by the way they navigate the ever-evolving landscape of new music. As individuals and as a group, they are dynamic, hungry to share their musical passions, and deeply emotionally engaged in any project they commit to. It’s been a pleasure to “grow up” together in music and to shape this special program for the National Gallery of Art. We hope that it illuminates the exhibition True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780-1870 and inspires the imagination. Many thanks to Danielle Hahn for inviting me to take on this guest artistic director role and to yMusic for their creativity and openness.
Photo by Graham Tolbert
A Note From yMusic
As an instrumental chamber ensemble, we spend a significant amount of rehearsal time exploring timbres and colors. Wrangling six individual performances, a tangled mix of strings, winds and brass into one cohesive performance requires some effort, and often we lead each other to discover new sounds by describing our ideas with visual prompts.
Visual thinking has always been a hallmark of our process, and we’d like to think it shows; after many of our concerts, audience members come to us and can vividly describe a scene that unfolded in their imagination while hearing us play.
We were immediately excited when Liquid Music curator Kate Nordstrum approached us with the idea of programming a concert for the National Gallery that would map our repertoire to specific works of art. It felt very natural for us to tie our repertoire to paintings from the en plein air tradition. Our rhythmic patterns interweave as though they are streets in a city, rows of farming, or leaves on a tree. Sometimes shocking and even violent dissonance occurs and evokes jagged rocks or the threat of a distant volcano. Surprising textures, unusual instrumental combinations and unconventional sound techniques can convey a hot summer day or a cool breeze by the water, perhaps even an ocean spray by a grotto.
We have had a blast matching each piece on this program with specific landscape styles based on our experiences of inhabiting these soundscapes. But as music is ephemeral and intangible, we invite you to let your imagination run wild! Bring your own personal canvas along with your open ears and paint the landscape of your imagination.
Rocks, Trees, Caves
Gabriella Smith (b. 1991)
Tessellations
Tessellations is a short piece about patterns – patterns that fit into each other like an Escher print, additive patterns, subtractive patterns, patterns that disintegrate and dissolve into chaos and then re-form. –Gabriella Smith
Achille-Etna Michallon, French, 1796 – 1822, The Oak and the Reed, 1816, oil on canvas, The Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Nocturnes
yMusic
Cribbea; Peter Inn
Cribbea and Peter Inn represent yMusic’s first foray into composition. The melodies, textures, harmonic progressions, and form of these works were written collaboratively by all six members of the group. Mining the ensemble’s fluency in multiple musical idioms, as well as their skills as arrangers, improvisers, and interpreters of contemporary music, these pieces mark a new chapter for the sextet as it enters its second decade.
Baron François Gérard, French, 1770 – 1837, A Study of Waves Breaking against Rocks at Sunset, oil on millboard, Private Collection, London
Capri/Naples/Volcanos
Andrew Norman (b. 1979)
Music in Circles
Music in Circles is one of yMusic’s all-time favorite pieces to play. The folklore surrounding the work is that Andrew Norman composed it one hot New York City summer at his writing desk, which had been placed as close as possible to the life-saving air conditioner. Stumped by writers block, he started transcribing the sounds of the machine, ultimately crafting a fanciful piece that whips silence into gorgeous streaks of color and melody. Andrew writes music that is nearly impossible for performers to phone in. We can never resist the raw power and emotion in this piece, which can leave us nearly breathless. We love where this work takes us, and while it was inspired by a machine, it’s just as easy to imagine creaking ships, whipping winds and stormy seas.
Johann Jakob Frey, Swiss, 1813 – 1865, Cloud Study (4), oil on paper, mounted on canvas, Private Collection, London
Giuseppe de Nittis, Eruption of Vesuvius, 1872, oil on wood panel, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris
Capri/NapLes/Volcanos
yMusic
Zebras; Flood
Zebras and Floods are two of the newest pieces we have written as a group. Zebras was initiated during a recording session at Red Bull Studios, continued at a writing session at my apartment, and finished during a residency at USC. We debuted the song at the Bower Ballroom in January. Flood was written with the dual goals of having uptempo instrumental and a virtuosic feature for Alex Sopp. We purposefully wrote the bulk of the piece for just trumpet, bass clarinet, violin and viola and left room for the flute and cello to engage in conversant and dueling material. –Rob Moose
Rome and the Roman Campagnia
Sufjan Stevens (b. 1975)
Year of the Horse (arr. Rob Moose)
Year of the Horse, Year of the Dog, Year of the Dragon, and Year of the Boar are some of yMusic’s favorite pieces to perform. They started their lives as electronic works on Sufjan Steven’s 2001 record, Enjoy Your Rabbit, and were adapted by myself and a variety of other arrangers for string quartet in 2008. When yMusic first formed and was in desperate need of repertoire, I brought in a new arrangement of Year of the Dog as a candidate for our very first concert. We loved it, and it quickly achieved a consistent presence in our live shows. In the decade since that first performance, we have adapted and enjoyed many pieces from that album. yMusic’s Year of the Dog and Year of the Boar were recently collected on a limited-edition vinyl collaboration with visual artist Gregory Euclide. Tonight’s performance of Year of the Horse will be seamlessly connected to its programmatic neighbor, Their Stenciled Breath from Carbone Shaw’s Draft of a Highrise.
Léon-François-Antoine Fleury, The Tomb of Caecilia Metella, c. 1830, oil on canvas, Gift of Frank Anderson Trapp, 2004.166.16
Rome and the Roman Campagnia
Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)
Their Stenciled Breath from Draft of a High-Rise
Their Stenciled Breath from Draft of a High Rise by Caroline Shaw started out in the composer’s mind as a riff on architectural renderings and their depictions of people - evocative yet surreal, uncanny valley-esque figures interacting with nearly there concrete and steel constructions flanked by gauzy flora. The piece, however, was being constructed during the last presidential election, and when texted about the work, Caroline admitted, “it’s not a political piece exactly, but more like my response (both consciously and subconsciously) to the political shitstorm of fall 2016... so I guess that would qualify.”
The work lives in a funny place and time; it’s a solid concept distracted by current events - something that feels very familiar these days. –Nadia Sirota
Michel Dumas, French, 1812 – 1895, Fountain in the Roman Campagna, c. 1838 – 1840, oil on canvas, mounted on wood panel, Private Collection, London
Water: Coasts, Falls, Waves
Gabriella Smith (b. 1991)
Maré
Maré is the Portuguese word for “tide”. I wrote Mare while in residence at Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil. The artist colony was right on the beach of a beautiful island in the Baía de Todos os Santa’s called Ilha de Itaparica. The slope of the beach into the ocean was very gradual, so the horizontal distance between low and high tide was extreme. When the tide was high, it would come all the way up almost to the gates of the artist colony. And when it was low, it would retreat far away, leaving behind a huge expanse of beautiful beach. So the rhythm of the tides became integrated into the rhythm of our daily lives. Maré is inspired by these tidal movements and the way in which they became a part of me during my time there. –Gabriella Smith
August Kopisch, German, 1799 – 1853, View of Capri, oil on wood panel, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris
Read and view more paintings from the National Gallery of Art’s “True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870” here.
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