Welcome! Here are the extended program notes for tonight’s show:
WORKS
Julia Wolfe | Forbidden Love (2019) Learn more
Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion | Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part (2021) Learn more
PERFORMERS
Caroline Shaw, vocals
Sō Percussion
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Caroline Shaw
Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She is the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music for Partita for 8 Voices (Roomful of Teeth), and she works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. 2022 will see the release of work with Rosalía (on upcoming album MOTOMAMI), the score to Josephine Decker’s film The Sky Is Everywhere (A24/Apple), the premiere of Justin Peck’s Partita with NY City Ballet, the premiere of the new stage work LIFE with Gandini Juggling and the Merce Cunningham Trust, a premiere for NY Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth, the premiere Wu Tsang’s silent film Moby Dick with live score for Zurich Chamber Orchestra co-composed with Andrew Yee, a second album with Attacca Quartet called The Evergreen (Nonesuch), the premiere of Helen Simoneau’s Delicate Power, tours of Graveyards & Gardens (immersive dance theater work co-created with Vanessa Goodman), and tours with So Percussion featuring songs from Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part (Nonesuch), amid occasional chamber music appearances (Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, Caramoor Festival, La Jolla Music Society). Caroline has written over 100 works in the last decade, for Anne Sofie von Otter, Davóne Tines, Yo Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, LA Phil, Philharmonia Baroque, Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Aizuri Quartet, The Crossing, Dover Quartet, Calidore Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Miro Quartet, I Giardini, Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ariadne Greif, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Britt Festival, Vail Dance Festival, and many others. She has produced for Kanye West, Rosalía, Woodkid, and Nas. Her work as vocalist or composer has appeared in several films, tv series, and podcasts including The Humans, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, Beyonce’s Homecoming, jeen-yuhs: a Kanye Trilogy, Dolly Parton’s America, and More Perfect.
Sō Percussion
For twenty years and counting, Sō Percussion has redefined chamber music for the 21st century through an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker). They are celebrated by audiences and presenters for a dazzling range of work: for live performances in which “telepathic powers of communication” (The New York Times) bring to life the vibrant percussion repertoire; for an extravagant array of collaborations in classical music, pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and theater; and for their work in education and community, creating opportunities and platforms for music and artists that explore the immense possibility of art in our time.
In the 2021-22 season, Sō Percussion returns to live concerts and continues to develop a range of online programs. In December 2021, they return for their seventh featured concert at Carnegie Hall with an all-star cast of collaborators, including Grammy-winning soprano Dawn Upshaw, pianist Gil Kalish, Nathalie Joachim (recipient of their inaugural Andrew W. Siegel Fellowship), Shodekeh Talifero, Caroline Shaw, and more. This fall they will be performing David Lang’s man made with the Cincinnati Symphony, and touring their new Nonesuch Records album Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part with Shaw around the United States.
In addition to Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, Sō welcomed a number of critically acclaimed albums in 2021: Caroline Shaw’s Narrow Sea on Nonesuch Records, A Record Of.. on Brassland Music with indie duo Buke and Gase, and an acclaimed version of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It on new imprint Sō Percussion Editions. This adds to a catalogue of more than twenty-five albums featuring landmark recordings of works by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, and many other composers.
ABOUT THE WORKS - COMPOSER NOTES
Forbidden Love (2019) – Julia Wolfe
Forbidden Love - all the things you aren't supposed to do to string instruments. My first year of college I wandered into a class called Creative Musicianship. One of the first assignments was to write a short piece using a musical instrument in an unusual nontraditional way. I thought “what?” So when Sō asked me to write them a piece using the four instruments of the string quartet, it was the second time this challenge was posed. The beautiful thing about Sō is that they are so open, so collaborative, full of adventure and can-do attitude. Together we discovered and drew out beautiful ethereal and crunchy sounds from this iconic quartet of instruments. In the process I developed a very personal new language (boings, szhings, hammering, and more).
Forbidden Love is dedicated to Jane Heirich - that wonderful teacher who in that life-changing class first asked me to step outside the box.
— Julia Wolfe
Forbidden Love was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall. The World Premiere was given by Sō Percussion at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on June 1, 2019.
Sō Percussion uses Vic Firth sticks, Zildjian cymbals, Remo drumheads, Estey Organs, and Pearl/Adams instruments. Sō Percussion would like to thank these companies for their generous support and donations.
Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part (2020) – Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw
Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion combine forces for a powerful new original set of songs composed together. Shaw’s faultless ear for melody and harmony, combined with Sō’s rhythmic invention and compositional experimentation, make for a world of sonic richness that feels fresh and unique. It is a journey across the landscape of the soul, told through the medium of distinctly contemporary songs which represent Shaw’s debut as a solo vocal artist.
Shared lifetimes of voluminous musical and literary experiences traverse the spiritual realms of the Sacred Harp and the Book of Ruth; the oceanic ruminations of James Joyce; the American roots song I’ll Fly Away filtered through medieval plainchant; and even the pop group ABBA. Sonically, there is no other collaboration to compare it to. Shaw’s voices cycles through the gently intimate, to penetrating rapture, through layers of constructed counterpoint, while Sō Percussion’s nearly endless menagerie of instruments and techniques provides varying accompaniments of drums, piano, marimba, steel drums, electronics, tuned flower pots, toys, synthesizers, and much more.
The thrill in this collaboration lies partly in the sense that each entity adds dimensions to the other’s music which revitalizes them both. Shaw gives voice and melody to the years of experimentation in rhythm, color, and complexity which defines Sō’s work over two decades and more than twenty albums. Sō opens a world of sonic possibilities and rhythmic virtuosity which dramatically expands Shaw’s palette beyond the vocal and string writing which she is best known for.
In this collection of ten songs, forces alternate between tightly crafted orchestrations and spontaneous duets between Shaw and each of the four members of So Percussion. The title song of the set features Shaw’s unadorned voice setting her own words, accompanied by Josh Quillen’s lyrical strumming on the steel drums. In Lay All Your Love On Me, Shaw and Adam Sliwinski concoct a stately motet for voice and marimba out of the chorus from ABBA’s famous hit song. In Long Ago We Counted, Jason Treuting unleashes cascades of his signature drumming underneath otherworldly loops of Shaw’s voice. With Some Bright Morning, Eric Cha-Beach simmers various layers of ambient drones under Shaw’s gradually unfolding synthesis of I’ll Fly Away and the 13th-Century plainchant Salve Regina.
Other songs build layers of instrumentation as blocks of rhythm and sound underneath Shaw’s voice. Find the Line announces itself with a progression of flower pot harmony, which builds surprisingly into an uplifting, anthemic celebration of life and devotion. Two songs take their titles from lines in James Joyce’s Ulysses: the Flood is Following Me, and A Veil Upon the Waves. Both are thick with layers of ambivalence and reflection. Soon our Transient Comforts Fly builds interlocking rhythms reminiscent of Steve Reich, which Shaw elevates with a yawp of spiritual ecstasy from the Sacred Harp tradition.
ABOUT THE VENUE
ABOUT THE 22/23 SEASON
Exploring the Mysteries Within
Third Angle’s 22/23 Season takes you on a journey wilder than ever before, across genre-bending music, through boundary-defying venues, and beyond groundbreaking immersive experiences to explore the ultimate unknowable frontier—the human mind.
We’ll touch the thin line between reality and psychosis, deromanticize and destigmatize artists’ mental health challenges, heal through collective creation, and confront long-held prejudices against people with visible and invisible disabilities.
Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion is generously supported by
Ronni Lacroute
George Rowbottom
Oregon Cultural Trust
Regional Arts and Culture Council
Third Angle graciously thanks all of the generous donors who make our work possible
$10,000 +
Ronni Lacroute
National Endowment for the Arts American Rescue Plan
Marie Lamfrom Foundation
Fred W. Fields Fund of Oregon Community Foundation
The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation
Oregon Cultural Trust
Jeanne Feldkamp & Dan Diephouse
John Montague & Linda Hutchins ‡
Ronald W. Naito MD Foundation
The Regional Arts & Culture Council, including support from the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and the Arts Education & Access Fund
Linda Czopek ‡
$5,000-$9,999
Bodecker Foundation*
Jackson Foundation
Michael Reed & Carol Mayer-Reed
George Rowbottom
$1,000-$4,499
Anonymous
New Music USA
Oregon Arts Commission
Sir James and Lady McDonald Cultural Fund of Oregon
Community Foundation
The Amphion Foundation
Truman Collins
Mary P & Steve Hedberg
Jane Jarrett & David McCarthy
Valdine Ritchie Mishkin
Sean Schwartz
M Judith Stoner
Sarah Tiedemann & Charles Reneau
Elizabeth Uzelac
Lisa Volle
$500–$999
Howard Bierbaum
Judy Cooke
Justin Dune
Jeanne Giordaro
Julie & Chuck King
David & Julie Machado
Patricia Raley
Louise Roman
Kathleen Stephenson-Kuhn
$250–$499
Carole Alexander
Linda Hathaway Bunza
Edward & Jeanette Feldhousen
Wendy Hawkins
Zeljka Carol Kekez
Fran Rothman
Christine Liu & Justin Smith
Arlene Warner
$100–$249
Carl & Margery Post Abbott
Katie Abbott
Tim Anderson
Rhonda Barton
Barbara Camp
Lars Campbell & Rebekah Phillip
Paul Charosh
James Clark
Keith Clark
Jean Coberly
Linda S Craig
Douglas Detrick
Elizabeth Dye
Elizabeth Dyson
Kit Gillem
Emily Goddard
Howard Greisler
Linda Feldkamp
Laura Hassell & Carla E. Jimenez
David Hattner & Kristie Leiser
Jon & Marjorie Hirsch
Sarah Jesudason
Alan & Sharon Jones
Caroline Kahn
Ron Laster / Print Results
Sidne Lewis
Nathan Martel
Jeffrey Mills
Jen Mitas
Jordan Murphy
John Nastos
Catherine Paglin
Trude Parkinson
Rhonda P. Hill & Erik Reel
Barbara & Edward Slaughter
Susan D Smith & Don Hermanns
Rebecca Stefoff
William Tennant
Jane M Terzis
Kirsten Volness
Robin Van Doren
Pat & John Zagelow
