ICA New Music Weekend 2021: Scenes from a Collaboration

Scenes from a Collaboration

Clarinetist Dr. Liam Hockley and Composer Dr. Ray Evanoff

 

This joint presentation between clarinetist Dr. Liam Hockley and composer Dr. Ray Evanoff will survey their eight-year collaboration through the lens of the highly nuanced embouchure and articulation techniques they developed. These techniques emerged from a shared interest in examining and deconstructing the mechanisms of instrumental technique to access rich sonic and expressive possibilities. For example, they developed subtle gradations of conventional articulations as well as a nomenclature for specific embouchure adjustments including the positioning of the mouthpiece relative to the embouchure and the degree of jaw/muscular pressure against the reed.

With the assistance of audio and score examples, this presentation will examine the specificity, variety, and reproducibility of these techniques, elucidating their sonic and executional natures and their motivating aesthetics for both performer and composer. The presentation will highlight the central role that Hockley and Evanoff’s extended dialogue and workshop process served in developing these techniques, tracing them from an incipient and ultimately problematic form in their first collaboration, Notables for piccolo and E-flat clarinet, through increasingly nuanced and mature incarnations in Narratives for solo E-flat clarinet, Tangents to Overwhelm for solo bass clarinet, Overwhelm for solo clarinet, and Follow for solo basset horn.

When: 10/17/2021 | 1:30 pm

Featuring: Dr. Liam Hockley, clarinet; Dr. Ray Evanoff, composer

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