Writing down the notes

Young Chang

The danger in playing other people’s work too much is that the music

can resemble what Alan Terricciano calls “museum practice,” especially

when the scores come from late composers.

“It’s important to remember this is a living practice,” said the

composer. “Composition is a wonderful thing to do if you’re a musician.”

He and three other faculty members from UC Irvine will present their

works at the Composers Concert today, part of the UCI Chamber Series.

“I think it’s very important for the students to hear their faculty’s

compositions,” Terricciano said. “It demonstrates that we believe, as

fully as possible, in practice.”

The program will include Terricciano’s “To Asylum” for piano and tape

(which refers to recorded music), Bernard Gilmore’s “Duo for Bassoon and

Cello,” Christopher Dobrian’s “There’s Just One Thing You Need to Know”

for piano, synthesizer and interactive computer systems and Michael

Zbyszynski’s “Daguerreotype” for cello and live electronics.

“I think there’s a very wide range of styles and I think the digital

pieces are kind of on the cutting edge,” said Gilmore, a professor of

music in the composition department at UCI.

Zbyszynski’s work will involve using electronics to alter the sound of

the cello -- to refocus, refract and reflect it in a way similar to how a

camera lens creates different perspectives for photos.

The UC Berkeley graduate wrote “Daguerreotype” for cellist Hugh

Livingston, whom he met there.

The title refers to an archaic photographic technique that required

longer exposure times lasting sometimes as long as a minute. The subjects

of the pictures were, as a result, required to hold their poses.

“I started thinking about how that’s different from a snapshot,” the

composer said. “A snapshot is a frozen slice of time whereas a

daguerreotype portrait is a longer section, a meditation.”

Zbyszynski wrote his piece for Livingston to similarly achieve with

music what daguerreotype did with images.

“Sort of like taking a daguerreotype of him and outfitting him in a

certain pose and forcing him in a certain frame that’s, to some degree,

artificial,” Zbyszynski said. “And making him assume that position for

the duration of my piece.”

“Daguerreotype” also looks at the difference between composed music

and improvised music, as Livingston will improvise for part of the work.

Terricciano’s “To Asylum” was also inspired by something from the

past.

The composer, who is a professor of dance at UCI, started his project

after reading a poem by Mary Oliver about Robert Schumann. The verses

reflect on the late composer’s time in an asylum toward the end of his

life and also trace back to when he fell in love with his wife Clara.

“The poem inspired me to think of how we deal with our memories and

how, when you’re close to someone and it’s a bad time for them, we use

our old memories or fond memories to deal with that,” Terricciano said.

The recorded part of his work is a collage of Schumann’s compositions

and some of his wife’s, who was also a composer. The newly-composed score

is for the piano.

Terricciano, who has performed in the Composers Concert in years past,

said he is flattered to be a part of the show partly because it’s “a

healthy thing to put out work.”

“I think it’s very important for students to understand that their

faculty, their professors, are active musicians and that what we do is

still vital,” he said.

FYI

* What: Composer’s Concert

* When: 8 p.m. today

* Where: Winifred Smith Hall at UC Irvine. The university is at the

corner of Campus and University drives

* Cost: $10

* Call: (949) 824-4259