Marcus-Hecht, Anna

English

Ithaca College

Ithaca CollegeDigital Commons @ ICAll Concert & Recital Programs Concert & Recital Programs3-24-2019Senior Recital: Anna Marcus-Hecht, compositionAnna Marcus-HechtFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/music_programsPart of the Music CommonsThis Program is brought to you for free and open access by the Concert & Recital Programs at Digital Commons @ IC. It has been accepted forinclusion in All Concert & Recital Programs by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ IC.Recommended CitationMarcus-Hecht, Anna, "Senior Recital: Anna Marcus-Hecht, composition" (2019). All Concert & Recital Programs. 6000.https://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/music_programs/6000Senior Recital:Anna Marcus-Hecht, compositionHockett Family Recital HallSunday, March 24th, 20197:00 pmProgramTemporary (2018)Kyle Kelley - soprano saxAmanda Swatling - alto saxAlice DeRagon - tenor saxAlex Kelsey - baritone saxTransfigurations (2018)1. Ignore the Elephant (text by Christine Gaba)2. Mushrooms (Text by Sylvia Plath)3. The Dead Mother's Club (text by Alex Paul)4. From the House of Yemanjá (text by Audre Lorde)Brittany Mechler - mezzoEmily Ramonetti - pianoForest Evening (2017)Seth Barrett - bassoonFive Gems for Piano (2017)1. Rutilated Quartz2. Pyrite3. Snowflake Obsidian4. Fire Opal5. Satin SparYuhe Wang - pianoMindscape (2019)Anna Marcus-Hecht - altoH.R. 899 (2017)Mary Bello, Nathaniel Finke, Peri Margolies, Brittany Mechler, Jake O'Connor,Jennifer Peisner, Mayavati Prabhakar, Emily Ramonetti, Ian Soderberg, AbigailSullivan, Michael Wong - chorusMayavati Prabhakar - soloistKeeghan Fountain - marimbaLeon Yu - piano"Strife Stories"  (2018)from Time's ApprenticeMayavati Prabhakar - RosaWill Giering - 204Hallie Arbital Jacoby - LinNora Marcus-Hecht - KiranAlex Dietz - alto saxAleyna Ashenfarb - trumpetZachary Kalik - pianoSamuel Higgins - bassAndrew Lackland - drumsThis recital is in fulfillment of the degree B.M. in composition. AnnaMarcus-Hecht is from the studio of Evis Sammoutis.Program NotesTemporaryUnlike any other piece I’ve written, the title for Temporary came before the musicalidea for the piece. It grew out of a conceptual idea: what if I could write a piece thatwould destroy itself? That later grew into a more vague, symbolic idea of ephemerality.The frequent sound of key clicks and soundless air blown through the saxophone ismeant to represent rain, washing away all that was built before. The dense harmoniesand rapid asymmetric rhythmic sections are society, building itself up to near chaoticheights. However, nothing can escape the simple destruction of water. As asaxophonist myself, I really enjoyed using techniques that I’ve actually played aroundwith in practice, such as the use of the bell as a percussion instrument. It had beenyears since writing a piece for saxophone, so it was very nice to go back to my musicalroots.TransfigurationsTransfigurations is a song cycle split into sets of two, each set focusing on a specificwomen's issue and featuring one poem written by an Ithaca College student poet andanother written by a renowned published poet. The sets are designed to be bothcomplete pieces on their own and to work as part of the greater cycle. The first setfeatures poetry from Christine Gaba, a senior Writing major, next to a work by SylviaPlath, while the second set features poetry by Alex Paul, a senior English major,juxtaposed with a poem by Audre Lorde. The first set focuses on the disregarding ofwomen’s issues, while the second one explores the cycle of motherhood. The text ofeach piece drives the mood and motivic material, with “Ignore the Elephant” featuringa raucous, stomping motif, “Mushrooms” giving off an eerie, creeping vibe with a slowdissonant march, “The Dead Mothers’ Club” using more standard, romantic harmoniesto reflect the victorian nature of the text, and “From the House of Yemanjá” having anatural, speech-like cadence to the text setting to represent the feeling of storytellingthe text gives off.Forest EveningForest Evening is a piece for unaccompanied solo bassoon meant to invoke the soundsand feelings of walking through a forest in Upstate New York. It is divided into foursections, the first being a leaf floating on the wind. This melodic, rubato section isinterrupted by the second section, a quick, staccato portion representing frogs jumpingand croaking. The third section is very quiet, featuring rapid quintuplet patterns andkey clicks meant to represent walking through a cloud of gnats. The fourth and finalsection reprises the falling leaf theme, but with a darker tone. The final statement ofthe piece, which is meant to be the bassoonist getting frightened and runningbackwards through the forest, quotes all the previous themes rapidly in reverse. Assomeone who has lived in the Ithaca area my whole life and spent much of mychildhood roaming through the woods, this piece is an homage to the forests I grew upwith.Five Gems for PianoFive gems for piano, as one can probably surmise from the title, was written with adifferent stone in mind for each movement. While the whole work is tied togetherthrough the common theme of quartal harmony, chords in 2nd or 3rd relationships toeach other, and a short motif first introduced in the opening movement, each section isdefined by aspects of the gems they were named after. Rutilated Quartz, the onlymovement who's gem was chosen after the fact, is a chorale, structured like a quartzcrystal, but the non-traditional harmonic structure acts like spines of rutile throughoutthe movement. Pyrite features a very sparkling sounding accompaniment, like lightbouncing off a pyrite cluster. Snowflake obsidian was chosen for the third movementfor two reasons: firstly because the movement is a nocturne, a form which reminds meof snowfall, and secondly because the climax of the movement is meant to represent avolcanic explosion, as obsidian is a form of volcanic glass. Fire Opal acts as amovement as it does as a gemstone: fast, flashy, and sneaks into your head like a veinof opal sneaks into cracks of other minerals. The final movement, Satin Spar, is meantto encompass all the previous movements and connect them through their commonthemes under a ghostly white veil of nostalgia. While most of the movement is madeup of preexisting material, the final moments of the piece seem to float up, utilizing asoft, rising motif similar to the soft fiber-optic properties of satin spar.MindscapeWriting Mindscape was a very interesting experience for me. It combined myknowledge of composition with my experience recording my own voice, but pushedboth into areas I had never thought to explore. The story of the piece is that it showsthe singer's conversation with their own intrusive thoughts. The thoughts begin assmall, startling intrusions, then begin to take the place of the singer's own voice. Thesinger gets more and more overwhelmed by these thoughts as they erupt into utterchaos, but by the end they come to terms with the thoughts and no longer fight thethoughts, but sing with them in harmony.H.R.899One of the political issues most frequently tossed around in this education-focusedmusic school is the discussion of education secretary Betsy Devos. Nearly everyone Ihave spoken to on this campus has an opinion about her, and more often than not thatopinion is negative. This piece is one of those opinions. The text for this piece comesfrom two sources, the first being directly from the proposed bill "H.R. 610," whichdetails the programs Secretary Devos proposes to cut such as the ESSA andElementary and Education Act. The listing of these cut programs and protections iswritten in dissonant harmony with a crunchy marimba background, meant to unsettlethe audience. The second half of the piece draws its text from an open letter written byan eight-year-old girl. The text reads "Dear Secretary Devos, I love my public school. Itis the place I've been in this school for four years, please leave our public schoolsalone. Do not tear it down ever. I love schools and I love everything about it." Allgrammatical flaws are preserved in the text setting for the sake of emphasizing theidea of innocent children. This is aided in the music with a gentile pianoaccompaniment, standard tonal harmony, and a folk song-esque melody."Strife Stories"“Strife Stories” is one of many numbers from my original musical, Time’s Apprentice, ashow about oppression, abuse, and freedom from the perspective of the servant to thegod of time. This song in particular follows a family of revolutionaries as they recounthow they escaped the shackles of their draconian government and why they need tofight back. As a whole, this recital covers a lot of heavy topics, and after a while thatcan be a bit draining. After a full evening of politically charged music and storiesending in death or disaster, “Strife Stories” is here to end on an uplifting note, on amessage of hope. That there’s always a way to freedom, it’s never too late for freedom.

Senior Recital: Anna Marcus-Hecht, composition

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Senior Recital: Anna Marcus-Hecht, composition

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