Kinds of ~Nois
~Nois’ sophomore record released in March 2024 on Bright Shiny Things. Learn more about pieces, composers, and get the scores.
Featuring the music of the Kinds of Kings Composer Collective, 5 world premiere recordings of compositions written in collaboration with ~Nois for the record.
Program Notes & Scores
“Hazel” (2022) by Gemma Peacocke
Saxophone quartet. 10’
Lost in the Forest
Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood–
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.
– Pablo Neruda
“Eternal Present” (2023) by Shelley Washington
Saxophone quartet. 15’
“Count Me In” (2022) by Maria Kaoutzani
Saxophone quartet. 9’
“BIG Talk” (2017) by Shelley Washington
Baritone Saxophone duo. 14’
BIG Talk was written as a personal response to the repulsive prevalence of rape culture that can be observed in catcalling and sexual harassment that female-identifying persons experience and endure on a daily basis. Many women experience these situations enough to psychologically alter their self-perception and their perception of others in a long-lasting negative way: fear, anger, depression- emotions that seep deeper into the self and permeate deeper into society.
This unrelenting, churning duo is written to be somewhat of an endurance piece that incorporates all aspects of the body- the muscular ability to play the piece, the wind to power the horn, the focus to see it through... I carefully considered the everyday endurance of a constant barrage of physical and verbal abuse, how we as women bear the brunt of the cultural burden, how we are expected to silently maintain physical and emotional poise to align with many "social graces" and how sick of it I am. How sick of it we are. The piece, the poetry, and the visual components are all linked to send a very clear and targeted message: stop perpetuating rape culture by any and every means necessary.
“Shore to Shore” (2019) by Maria Kaoutzani
Saxophone quartet. 9’
From the shores of her home in Cyprus to the shores of America, Kaoutzani’s work explores the unknown through dense multiphonic textures and amorphous microtonality. The work concludes with a sorrowful and polyphonic recounting of the “Lullaby of Saint Marina”, a traditional Cypriot folk song that was sung to Maria as a child by her grandmother.
“Dwalm” (2020) by Gemma Peacocke
Saxophone quartet. 9’
There is a strangeness to the duality of the word dwalm. It is an old Scottish word with two meanings: a stupor or daydream (as in the phrase in a dwalm), and to faint or fall ill. It comes from the Old English word dwolma, which means confusion.
What is strange is that a daydream is such a light and lovely drifting of the mind, whereas fainting or falling ill is a sudden wrenching. Perhaps though, they are different surfacings of the same darkness.
This piece for ~Nois is half lullaby, half keen; both songs to set someone to rest, whether by drifting off or being bid a final, fearsome farewell.
Commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for the Blackbird Creative Lab