"[Dancing] continually underscores its presence in the contemporary United States, yet transcends that rootedness with a music anyone can appreciate who has the ear to do so. Very worthwhile! Hersh is a voice." – Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
Notes by the composer:
Madam's Tavern is scored for solo violin and a phantom choir of 15 recorded violins. All the parts on this recording were performed by Mary Rowell, for whom the piece was composed. In 2014, Mary and I shared a residency at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California. On a dark, rainy January night, she told me about her dream of opening a tavern in her native Vermont, where thinkers, writers, musicians, and artists of all sorts could spontaneously gather to share their work and ideas. When I made this piece for her, I set it in her tavern, and imagined her alone, surrounded by the echoes of the voices and sounds to which she had helped give expression. This epigraph is at the top of the score: “At dusk, Madam sits alone in the darkening tavern. Snow falls.” (Mary Rowell, violin)
Loop was composed in 2006 for cellist Victoria Ehrlich and the Adesso Trio. Its structure is reflected in its title: a closed moment in time which folds back on itself, reappears in slightly altered ways, and, at its conclusion, hints at continued looping. (Jonah Kim, cello; Brenda Tom, piano; Patricia Niemi, vibraphone)
I Love You, Billy Danger was composed in 2012 for pianist Brenda Tom. When I was writing the piece, Ms. Tom was preparing a performance of the Liszt sonata, and I wanted to incorporate some of the dramatic gestures, sweeping themes and virtuoso passagework that fuel the Romantic master’s composition. Who is Billy? He's the leather-jacketed, swaggering bad boy, unpredictable, attractive, by turns tender and dangerous. I hope some of his spirit lives in the piece. (Brenda Tom, piano)
Night was composed in 2013 and is scored for clarinet and marimba, with a second percussion part adding the colors of pitched gong, suspended cymbal, and tam-tam. Much of the piece’s inspiration grew out of the warm, evocative timbres of these instruments. Night opens with quick bursts of wispy, intertwined flurries, then settles into an extended melodic section. The instruments take turns defining the music that follows - first the marimba, that combines with the metallic percussion to create a rhythmic pulse, then the clarinet, with its mini-cadenza. When they rejoin each other, the opening flurries return and disappear into the night. (José González Granero, clarinet; Patricia Niemi, marimba; Nick Matthiesen, percussion)
Dancing at the Pink House was composed in 2006 for Patricia Shands, whose own pink house is unique on the shady streets surrounding the University of the Pacific campus. It combines dance rhythms with lyrical sections and echoes of swing-era clarinet music, as well as quotations from "America the Beautiful," which first peeks out from behind a cloud of piano chords, and, near the conclusion, makes a full-blown appearance. (Patricia Shands, clarinet; James Winn, piano)
credits
released October 9, 2023
Mary Rowell, violin
Jonah Kim, cello
Patricia Shands, clarinet
Patricia Niemi, vibraphone & marimba
Nick Matthiesen, percussion (Night)
Brenda Tom, piano (Loop, I Love You, Billy Danger)
James Winn, piano (Dancing at the Pink House)
Loop, Night, and Billy Danger: Recorded and mixed by David Luke at Opus Studios, Berkeley; edited by Robert Shumaker.
Dancing at the Pink House: Recorded and mixed by Adam Munoz at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley; edited by Carl Serpa & Jeffrey Crawford.
Madam's Tavern: Recorded by Randy Crafton at Kaleidoscope Sound in Union, New Jersey; mixed by David Luke at Opus Studios.
CD Mastering by David Luke
Produced by Howard Hersh, Brenda Tom, Justin Hersh, and Benjamin Lyon, with the assistance of Karen Wright and Carl Serpa. The recording of Dancing at the Pink House was made possible in part through a Scholarly and Artistic Activity Grant from the University of the Pacific.
Special thanks to the private donors who helped underwrite this recording, including Maureen and John Chowning, Benjamin Lyon, Martha Rockwell, Robert Sharpe, and Tim Walden.
California-born composer Howard Hersh studied piano in Los Angeles and composition at Stanford University. Terry Riley calls
him "one of the masters of California's thriving new music scene," and Pauline Oliveros adds, "his sensitive and exciting music belongs in the American canon."
He lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains....more
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