ORISON (2015)
FOR CELLO AND ELECTRONICS
8 minutes
Program Notes
Orison is an old-fashioned word for prayer. Before writing this piece, I watched a Youtube of Rostropovich playing the complete Bach Cello Suites in a huge cathedral space. I was particularly taken by the Sarabandes. He played them quite slowly and took all the repeats, which made them very long. The slow tempi and the Cathedral’s intense natural reverb directed my ears toward the cello sound itself rather than particular notes or phrases. In those moments it seemed the music’s essence was not Bach’s beautiful writing, but the long tones and rich double stops reverberating through the cavernous, stone space. The impulse for Orison came directly from that listening experience. While ostensibly a solo, Orison’s simple material, bathed in reverb and long, gradually decaying echoes, becomes a kind of duet with the sound itself. Each tone is a question, calling out to a vast, unknowable space, and with every reverberation the cellist must listen carefully, searching for an answer before moving on to the next thought.
Orison was made possible by the generous support of the Metropolis Ensemble, New Music USA, Rodney McDaniel, Carol Whitcomb, Hermine Drezner and Jan Winkler and premiered January 12, 2016 at (le) Poisson Rouge, New York, NY by Ashley Bathgate
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Recent Performances
August 18-19, 2023 Reiefestival, Bruges, Belgium. Nina Vanhoenacker.
August 8, 2023 Charles Ives Music Festival, MoCA Westport, CT. CIMF Artist-Faculty.
April 30, 2022 Bang on a Can LONG PLAY, Public Records, Brooklyn, NY. Ashley Bathgate.
May 3, 2020 Bang on a Can LIVE Marathon. Ashley Bathgate.
October 18, 2019 Detroit Institute of Arts Friday Night Live! Series, Detroit, MI. Ashley Bathgate.
October 15, 2019 West Chester University, West Chester, PA. Ashley Bathgate.
June 22, 2019 Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, Princeton, NJ. Christina Gullans.
November 18, 2017 The Egg, Albany, NY. Ashley Bathgate.
September 8, 2017 Dots+ Loops Festival, Cupo, Brisbane, Australia. Ashley Bathgate.
January 25, 2017 Sears Recital Hall, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH. Ashley Bathgate.
December 10, 2016 Purdue Convocations, Loeb Playhouse, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. Ashley Bathgate.
December 1, 2016 Bovard Auditorium, USC, Los Angeles, CA. Ashley Bathgate.