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Fleeting Realms
Bruce Babcock composer
Joyce Wai-chung Tang composer
Nora Morrow composer
David Maki composer
Craig Madden Morris composer
Joseph Summer composer
FLEETING REALMS is an inviting compilation of chamber music featuring six composers. Though the album obviously mixes different compositional voices, the different pieces share many characteristics. FLEETING REALMS is defined by a pervasive uplifting quality. Many of the album’s works feature driving rhythms and a joyfully relaxed sensibility. Even dissonance is used playfully or as a counter weight to beautiful lyricism. Such consistency in manner across six pieces by six diverse composers is obviously remarkable, and it makes FLEETING REALMS a very special musical collection.
The album’s tone is set by three works: Bruce Babcock’s Irrational Exuberance, Joyce Tang’s Snowy Landscapes, and Nora Morrow’s Luca’s Dream. Each is powerful, yet gentle, and exudes a kind of musical warmth that draws the listener into the rest of the album. Irrational Exuberance, for alto saxophone, cello, and piano, is thematic and rhythmically active, and features conversational imitation between its three instruments. Although interior sections of Irrational Exuberance are more subdued, Babcock’s work is markedly hopeful and confident.
Tang’s Snowy Landscapes and Morrow’s Luca’s Dream perfectly embody the subject matter of their titles. Luca’s Dream is scored for solo vibraphone, and Morrow clearly exploits its bell-like sound to emphasize the work’s overall innocence. A fantasia of sorts, Luca’s Dream moves through a series of different melodic ideas, which are united by their rhythmic energy. Beginning in a very sweet, diatonic space, Luca’s Dream becomes increasingly chromatic until its final section, which returns to the gentleness that carries through most of the work. Snowy Landscapes is more texturally active than these other two works, but is nonetheless beautiful and welcoming. Scored for piano trio, Snow Landscapes begins and ends with sections of long violin and cello melodies accompanied by a resonant piano part. In between, we hear more contrapuntal and energetic textures, which, like Irrational Exuberance, feature playful imitation between the trio’s instruments.
David Maki’s Five Impromptus for Two and Craig Madden Morris’s Crosscurrents are also notable because they are the album’s most dissonant works. Nevertheless, they approach their dissonance with a warmth and playfulness that fits well with the character of the other works on FLEETING REALMS. Crosscurrents, for example, begins with dissonant solo piano, which eventually gives way to a stately and Romantic cello part whose lyricism comes to dominate the rest of the piece.
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Artist Information
Bruce Babcock
Applauded by Aaron Copland, inspired by Desmond Tutu, and mentored by Hugo Friedhofer and Earle Hagen, Bruce Babcock has spent his working life composing music for the musicians of Los Angeles. Successful in both film and television, and the concert hall, he is known for vibrant, sonorous, expressive pieces that immerse audience and performers alike in an inclusive and exuberant celebration of the musical art.
Joyce Wai-chung Tang
Joyce Wai-chung Tang’s works have been described by Ablaze Records as “incisive and brilliant…terrific and fresh compositional voice,” and have been premiered and performed worldwide. Her works span orchestral, chamber, solo, vocal, choral, electro-acoustic, and theatrical genres, many of which have been jury-selected for performances in major festivals and conferences.
Nora Essman Morrow
Nora Essman Morrow, born in New York City, has been a musician all her life. As a child Morrow composed songs on the guitar and improvised stories at the piano. She attended the Precollege Division of Manhattan School of Music and The High School of Music and Art in NYC.
David Maki
David Maki is a composer and pianist based in the Chicago area. Maki’s compositions have been performed widely at regional, national and international venues by many diverse ensembles and musicians. His music has been described as “fresh and unusual” by All Music Guide, “vivid, languid, introspective” by American Record Guide and “meditative and beautiful” by Fanfare Magazine. Recordings of his music can be found on the Albany Records and Avid Sound Recordings labels.
Craig Madden Morris
Craig Morris has been composing music since the age of 11. He studied composition with Shirley Bloom, Kevin Scott, and Joelle Wallach and also studied violin, piano, and voice. He played violin with the Bronx Symphony Orchestra for many years and presently plays with the Ridgewood Symphony. He has sung professionally as a cantor for over 40 years. His music has been performed by the Ridgewood Symphony, the Bronx Symphony Orchestra, the Brno Philharmonic, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, the Fifth International Music Festival of Buenos Aires, and the Chamber Music Society of Formosa. His compositions include piano sonatas, orchestral suites, violin, cello and clarinet concerti, a concert duet for soprano and tenor, choral compositions, and a sacred service for the Sabbath. Arise My Love and The Rubaiyat were chosen as finalists in the 2010 Meistersingers Choral Competition.
Joseph Summer
Joseph Summer began playing French horn at the age of 7. While attending the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina at age 14 he studied composition with the eminent Czech composer Karel Husa. At age 15 he was accepted at Oberlin Conservatory, studied with Richard Hoffmann, Schönberg’s amanuensis, and graduated with a B.M. in Music Composition in 1976. Recruited by Robert Page, Dean of the Music Department at Carnegie Mellon University, Summer taught music theory at CMU before leaving to pursue composition full time.
