Anna Clyne, Postponeless Creature (MusicNOW commission, world premiere)
Duration: 12 minutes
Instrumentation: Vocals, chamber ensemble and tape
Copyright/publisher: Boosey & Hawkes
The composer writes:
Set for three female voices and chamber ensemble, Postponeless Creature is the third in a collection of five poems that frame As Sudden Shut, a 75-minute multimedia chamber opera created in collaboration with visual artists and directors the Quay Brothers and writer Steve Weiner. Through a weaving of text and music with stop-motion animation, choreography and carefully constructed lighting and stagecraft, As Sudden Shut will be a multi-sensory path into the wildly explosive imagination of Emily Dickinson. This incredibly eerie poem is set sparsely to create space for the other visual and staging elements to be explored.
It’s coming — the postponeless Creature —
It gains the Block — and now — it gains the Door —
Chooses its latch, from all the other fastenings —
Enters — with a “You know Me — Sir”?
Simple Salute — and certain Recognition —
Bold — were it Enemy — Brief — were it friend —
Dresses each House in Crape, and Icicle —
And carries one — out of it — to God —
About the composer:
London-born Anna Clyne is a Grammy-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, combining resonant soundscapes with propelling textures that weave, morph and collide in dramatic explosions. Her work, described as “dazzlingly inventive” by Time Out New York, often includes collaborations with cutting-edge choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers and musicians worldwide.
In August 2013, Clyne’s Masquerade, a BBC Radio 3 commission, had its world premiere on the famed Last Night of the Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop. Other recent premieres include The Violin, a multimedia collaboration with artist Josh Dorman and violinists Cornelius Dufallo and Amy Kauffman; The Lost Thought, performed by Trio Mediæval with conductor Julian Wachner, and A Wonderful Day for the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Clyne recently served as composer-in-residence for Brazil’s Festival Inverno do Campos do Jordão, the Mizzou New Music Festival with Alarm Will Sound, 21c Liederabend and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. She has been appointed as composer-in-residence for the Orchestre National d’Ile de France from 2014 to 2016.
Other commissions include works for the American Composers Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Houston Ballet, London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Metropolis Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Southbank Centre and VIA, among others. Clyne’s work has been championed by some of the world’s finest conductors, including Marin Alsop, Pablo Heras-Casado, George Manahan, Jeffrey Milarsky, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Alan Pierson, Andre de Ridder, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Osmo Vänskä. Her work has been performed in venues ranging in diversity from New York’s (Le) Poisson Rouge to Carnegie Hall — and hosts of concert halls and alternative venues across the globe.
Appointed by Music Director Riccardo Muti, Clyne is currently the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence through the 2014/15 season. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awards from Meet the Composer/the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS. She was recently nominated for the 2014 Times Breakthrough Award (U.K.) and is the recipient of a grant from Opera America to develop As Sudden Shut, a multimedia collaboration with the Quay Brothers.
World premieres for the 2014/15 season include Rest These Hands for solo violin and string orchestra to be premiered by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and soloist Jennifer Koh at Carnegie Hall; The Seamstress, a violin concerto to be premiered by the CSO and soloist Jennifer Koh at Orchestra Hall; Postponeless Creature for vocal trio and chamber ensemble to be premiered by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Chorus at Harris Theater, and Secret Garden for drumkit and tape, to be premiered by Colin Currie at the Southbank Center in London.
In 2012, Tzadik Records released a full album of Clyne’s music, titled Blue Moth, showcasing a diverse range of her instrumental and ensemble with tape pieces, including Roulette, fits + starts and Steelworks. Recent releases include Night Ferry with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti on the CSO Resound label, and Prince of Clouds featuring Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra on Cedille Records. In September 2014, VIA Records released The Violin.
Clyne holds a first-class bachelor of music degree with honors from Edinburgh University and a master of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Marjan Mozetich, Marina Adamia, Julia Wolfe and Nils Vigeland.
For more information about Anna Clyne, visit annaclyne.com.