“Superb chemistry.”

— Daniel Kushner, CITY Newspaper

Breath & Fire album (release OCt 17, 2023)

Listen on Spotify, Applemusic, and Bandcamp!

As part of the glassblowing process, breath & fire both play a part as the glass expands, pops, morphs, and becomes a new work. When we imagine breath, there is a sense of expansion and contraction, a connection to and awareness of the current moment. When we think about fire, there is energetic movement, intensity, heat.

This album - this new work - has been like the glass, created through the energies of breath & fire as part of its own process of coming to life. The pieces on the album strongly invoke stillness or motion, and the recording process of matching spaces to the mood or pace in the music seeks to further draw out these energies as you listen.

“Beauty, electricity and passionate drive... ”

— David Srebnik, All Art is Personal

breath & fire
fivebyfive:

Laura Lentz, Artistic Director & flute, alto flute, bass flute
Marcy Bacon, clarinet, bass clarinet
Ken Luk, electric guitar
Eric J. Polenik, bass
Haeyeun Jeun, piano
Marc Webster, Executive Director & recording engineer

Dreadlocked: Marc Mellits
Pale as Centuries: Sarah Kirkland Snider
Dreams of Glass and Water: Kari Telstad Sundet
Heavy: Evan Williams
Lead Me Home: Brittany J. Green
…of breath and fire: Amy Nam
Öldurót: Ólafur Arnalds
Tamboreño: Miguel del Águila

Marc Webster plays B3 organ on Dreadlocked and electronics on Dreams of Glass and Water and Lead Me Home
Kristen Shiner McGuire plays percussion on Heavy
Amy Nam plays electric harp on …of breath and fire
Laura Lentz plays glass flute on the ending of …of breath and fire

PROGRAM NOTES

Dreadlocked
Marc Mellits, composer
Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, enjoying hundreds of performances throughout the world every year, making him one of the most performed living composers in the United States. From Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, to prestigious music festivals in Europe and the US, Mellits’ music is a constant mainstay on programs throughout the world. His unique musical style is an eclectic combination of driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations that all combine to communicate directly with the listener. Mellits' music is often described as being visceral, making a deep connection with the audience. “This was music as sensual as it was intelligent; I saw audience members swaying, nodding, making little motions with their hands” (New York Press). He started composing very early, and was writing piano music long before he started formal piano lessons at age 6. He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Cornell University, and Tanglewood. Mellits often is a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements or sections. His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, colorful, and always has a sense of forward motion.

“Dreadlocked originally appeared in Mellits’ operetta M/W as well as part of the Paranoid Cheese Project. The music relies on rich thematic and harmonic development incorporated into a repetitive acoustical canvas. The rhythmic interplay creates a myriad of mathematical sequences, expanding and contracting as the musical lines shift harmonic planes. It is music that is tonal within modes yet eschews traditional tonality. The repetitive nature of the music propels itself into spiraling dances, always with a forward motion, into sometimes dark and sometimes bright areas of a spectral musical canvas. This particular edition of Dreadlocked was created for fivebyfive.”

Pale as Centuries
Sarah Kirkland Snider, Composer

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “poignant, deeply personal” (The New Yorker). Recently named one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” by The Washington Post, Snider’s works have been commissioned and/or performed by the New York Philharmonic; San Francisco Symphony; National Symphony Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; the Birmingham Royal Ballet; Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo Emily D’Angelo; percussionist Colin Currie; vocalist Shara Nova; eighth blackbird; A Far Cry; and Roomful of Teeth, among many others. The winner of the 2014 Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lebenbom Competition, Snider’s recent projects include Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; Mass for the Endangered, a Trinity Wall Street-commissioned prayer for the environment for choir and ensemble; and an opera on 12th-century polymath St. Hildegard von Bingen, commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects. The 22/23 season will see world premieres for Renée Fleming and Will Liverman; Decoda Ensemble; and the Emerson String Quartet, in their final commission, to premiere on their farewell tour. Penelope and Unremembered, her two genre-defying LP song cycles, earned critical acclaim from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Gramophone Magazine, and Pitchfork, among others. In Fall 2020, Nonesuch Records and New Amsterdam Records co-released Snider’s third LP: Mass for the Endangered, performed by English vocal ensemble Gallicantus, to wide critical acclaim. In Fall 2022, Nonesuch Records and New Amsterdam Records will release The Blue Hour, a collaborative song cycle with composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, and Caroline Shaw for vocalist Shara Nova with A Far Cry string orchestra, on text by Carolyn Forché. A founding Co-Artistic Director of Brooklyn-based non-profit New Amsterdam Records, Snider has an M.M. and Artist’s Diploma from the Yale School of Music, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. Her music is published by G. Schirmer.

“The title of the piece comes from a stanza in a Nathaniel Bellows poem I set in my song cycle, Unremembered: “The meadow lost its golden hue/ The trees let go their leaves/ The air grew colder, cleaner, blue/ Pale as centuries.” I loved the wintry image conjured here, and it inspired the ruminative, searching guitar chords that open the piece. I then heard a contrasting melodic fragment in piano, cheeky and spritely, and wondered how these two mismatched ideas might fit together. The rest of the piece is an attempt to do that: to reconcile their differences and discover the common ground between them. I decided to use the last line of the stanza as the title. I liked the mystery of the images as a simile, as potentially incongruent as the two main ideas of my piece.”

Dreams of Glass and Water
Kari Telstad Sundet, composer
Kari Telstad Sundet is a composer from Averøy, currently living in Kristiansund, Norway.

She holds a master’s degree from Griegakademiet in Bergen and spent 1 year as an exchange student at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw, Poland. She also spent a year at Toneheim Folkehøgskule.

Kari primarily writes electronic music and chamber music, focusing especially on combining the two.

Kari Telstad Sundet’s Dreams of Glass and Water was written in 2022. She writes, “So many of my memories of the seasons changing have to do with what the water looks like. In the cold light of early spring, the ocean becomes liquid, silver glass, and the half melted ice in the rivers and creeks are crystalline mirrors. My inner summer night has a blood red ocean with golden shards of glass strewn across the surface, and my winters are full of glass chandeliers that appear when the rain in the trees suddenly freezes. In this piece, soundscapes from the west coast of Norway merge with musical images inspired by these dreamlike memories. I wanted the ensemble to represent another aspect of the landscape depicted in the electronics, with waves rolling across the piano keys, wind flowing through the melodies of the flute, and silvery light beaming from the guitar strings.”

Heavy
Evan Williams, composer
Drawing from inspirations as diverse as Medieval chant to contemporary pop, the music of composer and conductor Evan Williams (b. 1988) explores the thin lines between beauty and disquieting, joy and sorrow, and simple and complex, while often tackling important social and political issues. Williams’ catalogue contains a broad range of work, from vocal and operatic offerings to instrumental works, along with electronic music.

“Heavy was inspired by the instrumentation of Levels, the ensemble that commissioned the original version of the piece: bass clarinet, trombone, viola, electric guitar, and percussion. The work exploits dark timbres and strong gestures. This arrangement commissioned by fivebyfive makes use of the even darker timbres of bass flute and double bass, while adding the high, sharp timbres of flute and piano.

While the work is not programmatic in nature, the word “heavy” also inspires the emotional content of the work. We often think of some emotions, experiences, or stories as “heavy,” sometimes filled with deep sorrow or anger. The work alternates between these two emotions.”

Lead Me Home
Brittany J. Green, Composer
Brittany J. Green is a North Carolina-based composer, creative, and educator. Her music facilitates intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses at the intersection of sound, video, movement, and text. Recent works engage sonification and black feminist theory as tools for sonic world-building, exploring the construction, displacement, and rupture of systems. Her artistic practice includes spoken and electronic performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential projects, and acoustic and electroacoustic chamber and large ensemble works. Her music has been featured at NYC Electronic Music Festival, WoCo Fest, and Experimental Sound Studio. Her collaborators include the International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Transient Canvas, Castle of our Skins, Emory University Symphony Orchestra, and Wachovia Winds. Brittany holds awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP Foundation, and New Music USA. She is a doctoral candidate at Duke University, pursuing a PhD in music composition as a Dean’s Graduate Fellow.

“Lead Me Home is a reflective piece that draws material from Thomas Dorsey's hymn, Precious Lord, Take My Hand. Shimmering gestures meld in and out of each other like a kaleidoscope as ethereal, glittering harmonies slowly rise out of the electronics. This piece is a meditation on silver linings, reflecting on the beautiful moments of hope that shined through despite overwhelming isolation and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic. This arrangement for flute, clarinet, electric guitar, bass, and piano was written with gratitude for fivebyfive.”

…of breath and fire*
Amy Nam, composer
Twin Cities-based composer and harpist Amy Nam (née Thompson) writes and performs music out of a desire to nourish her own sense of curiosity, as well as that of her listeners. Her musical output responds to the personal discoveries she makes from allowing her mind to roam laterally in undirected exploration of the world.

Recently, the American Composers Orchestra selected Nam’s work Mimi’s Song for their June 2023 EarShot Readings in New York City. Nam has received awards from the BMI Foundation, the Eastman School of Music, and the Lyra Society, among others, and her music has been performed and workshopped by ensembles including the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, M5 Mexican Brass, and the Tennessee Valley Music Festival Orchestra.

“Inspired by the glass instruments created by glass artist Madeline Rile Smith,...of breath and fire features sonic timbres kaleidoscopically merging and detaching, blurring and evolving in imitation of hot glass which expands, pops, and morphs in the presence of breath and flame. "Both glass- blowing and music-making depend on mutual understanding of subtle gestures for communication," writes Smith. "The act of creating music, just like glass, relies on a delicate state of interdependence."
In emphasis of the similarities between the acts of creation involved in the two disciplines, the musical gestures heard in this piece entice listeners to imagine the birth of Smith's beautiful instruments. A sudden crescendo suggests glass glowing under the heat of a focused flame; tiny pitch bends may bring to mind the image of molten glass being stretched out like a thread. Evocative rather than literally descriptive, the music grants listeners free license to connect their visual imaginings of liquid glass with sound. This piece was commissioned by and is dedicated to the chamber ensemble fivebyfive whose unique instrumentation, rich with timbral possibilities, offers an ideal sonic palate for painting analogies between visual and musical movement.”

*This commission has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Öldurót
Ólafur Arnalds, composer
Ólafur Arnalds is an Icelandic multi-instrumentalist and producer from Mosfellsbær, Iceland.[1] He mixes strings and piano with loops and beats, a sound ranging from ambient/electronic to atmospheric pop.He is also the former drummer for Hardcore punk and metal bands Fighting Shit, Celestine, and others. In 2020, Ólafur was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music, for his title theme to Apple TV+ series Defending Jacob. In 2021, he was nominated in two categories at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.[3] "Loom (feat. Bonobo)" was nominated in the Best Dance/Electronic Recording category and "The Bottom Line" was nominated in the Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals category.

Öldurót by Icelandic musician Olafur Arnalds comes from his 2016 album Island Songs. In 2018, fivebyfive bassist Eric J. Polenik arranged this beautiful song for fivebyfive. Öldurót is one of several Icelandic words for ocean waves.

Tamboreño
Miguel del Águila, composer
Three-time Grammy nominated American composer Miguel del Aguila was born in Uruguay. In over 135 works that combine drama, driving rhythms and nostalgic nods to his South American roots, he has established himself among the most distinctive and highly regarded composers of his generation. His music, which enjoys over 200 performances yearly, has been hailed as “brilliant and witty” (New York Times), “sonically dazzling” (LATimes) and “expressive and dramatic” (American Record Guide). He was 2021 composer in residence with Danish Chamber Players/Ensemble Storstrøm, after residences with Orchestra of the Americas, New Mexico Symph, Fresh Ink, CTSummerfest, Talis, and Chautauqua. Reccent commissions include works for Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Eroica Trio and Fivebyfive. He was honored with 3 Latin Grammy nominations, Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, New Music USA/Music Alive, Magnum Opus Award, Lancaster Symph. Composer of the Year, and Copland Foundation among others.

“Tamboreño was written in 2020. The title, a made-up word related to Tambor, (Spanish for drum), illustrates the highly rhythmical nature of this piece which conveys a group of drummers first warming up and then improvising together on different Latin inspired rhythms. The piece contains no improvised sections; its goal is to give the impression of a spontaneous jam session among friends. As the work progresses the music becomes more intense and dramatic finally triggering a joyous, upbeat ending where music and musicians seem stuck on their own frenzy. Tamboreño describes imaginary events happening during the traditional ceremony of tempering the drums by the fire performed by the Candombe players of Uruguay before a performance.”

recording Notes

First Presbyterian Church, Pittsford, NY

Tracks: Heavy, Dreams of Glass and Water, Pale as Centuries.

This church is an absolute favorite space for local chamber music groups. It was built in 1863 with a wooden chancel and lots of wood paneling which provide wonderful live but warm acoustics, but with a relatively short reverb to match the album’s quicker paced pieces.

Asbury First United Methodist Church, Rochester, NY

Tracks: Öldurót, Lead Me Home

This church was built in 1953 in the style of a traditional Episcopal church. It has a large traditional "stone cathedral" style of reverb with lots of wash that we thought was perfect for the spiritual mood of Öldurót and the meditative mood of Lead Me Home.

Rosch Recital Hall, Fredonia, NY

Tracks: …of breath and fire.

The 500-seat Juliet Rosch Recital Hall, part of the University’s School of Music, opened in the Spring of 2005. A classic shoebox concept, the room has adjustable acoustics to accommodate a wide variety of musical events from classical to amplified jazz. We choose this hall for “…of breath and fire” to give us a larger sounds to match the pieces formable mood of Amy Nam’s piece.

Blue on Blue Recording Studio, Rochester, NY

Tracks: Dreadlocked, Tamboreno, drums on Heavy

Blue on Blue Recording Studio was designed by award-winning architect Fran Manzella and is owned and operated by fivebyfive recording engineer Marc Webster.

The live room is constructed as a room within a room with floating floors and features a variable response, with one end more "live" and the other more "dead", allowing for a different sound based on placement. The control room has a mix of absorption and diffusion to produce a very accurate listening environment.

We used Blue on Blue Recording for tracks and overdubs where we wanted the explicit control a studio can provide, as well as for all editing, mixing, and mastering.

A note from fivebyfive…

We are so grateful to the composers on this album who shared music that inspires us!

This is music that we love that speaks deeply to us. We hope that this album resonates as much with you as it does with us.

-fivebyfive