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Lock & Key Vol. II

New Chamber Works

Kenneth A. Kuhn composer
Carol Barnett composer
Herbert A. Deutsch composer
Philippe Kocher composer
Sarah Wallin-Huff composer

Release Date: February 12, 2021
Catalog #: NV6335
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Clarinet
Piano
Wind Ensemble

LOCK & KEY VOL II is the second presentation of five composers drawing from the well of inspiration – in highly heterogeneous ways and from a plethora of sources, yet all united by a common theme: the profound depths of the human experience. The pieces all revel exuberantly: in the natural beauty of Iceland, the nostalgia evoked by a distantly familiar melody, the random augury of a deck of tarot cards, late 19th Century anthems adapted for woodwind quintet, or the kinetic energy of musical gestures. Confidently asserting that all facets and walks of life can be a source of music if you listen closely enough, LOCK & KEY VOL II features brand-new chamber works by Sarah Wallin-Huff, Herbert Deutsch, Kenneth Kuhn, Carol Barnett, and Philippe Kocher.

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"Each track shines in its own light while touching on the universal themes of the human experience"

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 2 Nostalgic Melodies: No. 1 Kenneth A. Kuhn Amy Advocat, clarinet; Yoko Hagino, piano 5:13
02 2 Nostalgic Melodies: No. 2 Kenneth A. Kuhn Amy Advocat, clarinet; Yoko Hagino, piano 4:50
03 Shaker Suite "Canterbury": I. Scenes of Glory Carol Barnett Šárka Adamíková, flute; Weronika Flisek, oboe; Jindřich Molinger, french horn; Daniel Svoboda, clarinet; Jan Šmíd, bassoon 2:44
04 Shaker Suite "Canterbury": II. Purest Blessing Carol Barnett Šárka Adamíková, flute; Weronika Flisek, oboe; Jindřich Molinger, french horn; Daniel Svoboda, clarinet; Jan Šmíd, bassoon 3:09
05 Shaker Suite "Canterbury": III. Ministration Carol Barnett Šárka Adamíková, flute; Weronika Flisek, oboe; Jindřich Molinger, french horn; Daniel Svoboda, clarinet; Jan Šmíd, bassoon 3:56
06 Shaker Suite "Canterbury": IV. The Good Samaritan Carol Barnett Šárka Adamíková, flute; Weronika Flisek, oboe; Jindřich Molinger, french horn; Daniel Svoboda, clarinet; Jan Šmíd, bassoon 3:11
07 Iceland Invention Herbert A. Deutsch Belfiato Quintet | Jan Souček, oboe; Jiří Javůrek, clarinet; Kateřina, Javůrková; french horn; Ondřej Šindelář, bassoon 5:14
08 Projektionen II: I. Philippe Kocher Belfiato Quintet | Jan Souček, oboe; Jiří Javůrek, clarinet; Kateřina Javůrková, french horn; Ondřej Šindelář, bassoon 3:35
09 Projektionen II: II. Philippe Kocher Belfiato Quintet | Jan Souček, oboe; Jiří Javůrek, clarinet; Kateřina Javůrková, french horn; Ondřej Šindelář, bassoon 6:05
10 The Oracle Sarah Wallin-Huff Agnes Schwartz, violin; Pola Benke, cello; Elizabeth LaCoste, flute/piccolo; Ryan Glass, Bb clarinet; Masako Klassen, piano 13:32

TWO NOSTALGIC MELODIES
Recorded July 6, 2020 at Futura Productions in Roslindale MA
Session Producer Brad Michel
Session Engineer John Weston

“SHAKER SUITE: CANTERBURY”
Recorded June 8, 2020 at Dům Kultury města Ostravy (The Ostrava House of Culture) in Ostrava, Czech Republic
Session Producer Jan Košulič
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák

ICELAND INVENTION
Recorded May 26, 2020 at Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic
Session Producer Jan Košulič
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák

PROJEKTIONEN II
Recorded May 18, 2020 at Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic
Session Producer Jan Košulič
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák

THE ORACLE
Recorded October 27, 2019 at Barefoot Recording Studio in Hollywood CA
Session Producer Sarah Wallin-Huff
Session Engineer David Martinez

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Lewis, Morgan Santos

VP, Audio Production Jeff LeRoy
Recording Sessions Director Levi Brown
International Recording Sessions Manager, Editing & Mixing (8-9) Jan Košulič
Audio Director, Editing & Mixing (Tracks 3-9) Lucas Paquette
Editing & Mixing (1-2) Brad Michel
Mastering Shaun Michaud

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland, Sara Warner

Artist Information

Kenneth A. Kuhn

Composer

Kenneth A. Kuhn (Ken) (b. 1954) is a retired electrical engineer specializing in electronic circuit design who had the privilege of growing up with a great appreciation of classical music. Over the years classical music enhanced mental skills valuable for Kuhn’s engineering career. Composing music and designing electronic circuits are very interrelated as each enhances the other. He began composing music in his youth in the 1960s and learned how to compose by carefully listening to the many classical composers. His favorite composers include Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. Ken composes because, “There is music I want to hear but since no one has written it then I must write it myself.”

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Carol Barnett

Composer

Carol Barnett writes audacious and engaging music. She is known for breaking the mold with meter changes, differing tonal centers, unusual instrument combinations, and her love of fast tempi. Despite these typical thumbprints, Barnett’s works are diverse, uncovering the needs of each piece and each text with her characteristic integrity. Barnett’s varied catalog includes works for solo voice, piano, chorus, diverse chamber ensembles, orchestra, and wind ensemble. 

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Herbert Deutsch

Composer

Herbert Deutsch was a composer, author, educator, and performer, and was Professor of Music at Hofstra University for 57 years. He is a composer of music in various media and his work has been widely performed, and commissioned works have been featured at national and regional conferences. In 1972, Deutsch co-founded the Long Island Composers Alliance. During his career at Hofstra, he founded Jazz Ensemble, Electronic Music Studios, New Music Ensemble, and created the B.S. Degree programs in Jazz, Composition/Theory and Music Business. He received the George Estabrook Distinguished Alumni Award in 1996 and the Hofstra Alumni Achievement Award in 2001. The Music Department has established the Herbert Deutsch Award for highest honors in Music Education.

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Philippe Kocher

Composer

Philippe Kocher (born 1973) is a musician, composer and researcher. He studied piano, electroacoustic music, music theory, composition and musicology in Zurich, Basel, London and Bern. He is a lecturer for music theory, composition, and computer music at the Zurich University of the Arts. He is also affiliated with the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) in Zurich.

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Sarah Wallin Huff

Sarah Wallin Huff

Composer

Sarah Wallin Huff is a music lecturer at California Polytechnic University of Pomona, teaching “History of Technology in Music,” for which she published an original textbook with Great River Learning in 2019. She received her M.A. in Music Composition at Claremont Graduate University in 2008, and was the Professor of Composition and Advanced Theory — as well as conductor of the Chamber Ensemble — at The Master’s University in Santa Clarita from 2012-2016.

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Notes

Both of these exquisitely beautiful melodies have the characteristic of reminding one of pleasant memories – thus the title. Although fragments of the melodies seem familiar I have no clue as to where they came from as these melodies had been haunting my mind for many years and were going to keep doing so until I finally wrote them so they could escape to the world. My original concept was for tenor and piano but having no words I optimized the piece for clarinet because it is especially capable of the desired mood, sonority, and necessary expression. Both melodies are constructed with the same concept of a main melody with subordinate themes and variations. The variations represent different ways of experiencing nostalgia.

For No. 1 there is a brief piano introduction followed by the main theme with clarinet and piano with bittersweet harmony. The piano then plays a brief subordinate theme followed by a variation of the main theme in duet. The piano and clarinet then interact in counterpoint with a tender third theme marked affettuoso. The main theme is then majestically performed followed by a sonorous clarinet ending and brief piano close.

For No. 2 there is a brief piano introduction followed by the main theme with clarinet and piano. A variation of the main theme follows. The middle section marked affettuoso is a beautiful counterpoint between the clarinet and piano. This is followed by yet another variation of the main theme. The piano then builds to a majestic concluding performance of the main theme with clarinet followed by a brief piano closing.

— Kenneth A. Kuhn

It was 2014, and I was researching an opera project, to be set in the great 19th century Amoskeag textile mills of Manchester, NH, and the Shaker community of Canterbury, some thirty miles to the north. As a preliminary study, I thought of writing several short fantasies based on Shaker hymn tunes. And although I had occasionally enjoyed playing the woodwind quintet literature, I had not yet written one. To remedy that lacuna, I wrote Shaker Suite: Canterbury with my colleagues in the Augsburg College resident woodwind quintet in mind.

A Collection of Hymns and Anthems Adapted to Public Worship, compiled by Henry Clay Blinn and originally published by the Shakers of East Canterbury, NH, in 1892 was an excellent resource. The four hymn tunes I chose are each distinctive in tempo and character, and “The Good Samaritan” has the added attraction of being the only hymn in the entire collection to be set in a minor key.

The march-like melody of “Scenes of Glory” is stated twice at the beginning of the movement by the clarinet and oboe, then broken into fragments, never re-appearing in its original form.

The lilting melody of “Purest Blessing” also appears intact at the beginning of the movement, partially stated by the horn, then taken over by the oboe. The original 6/8 time signature has been stretched to 9/8 to make the tempo flow more easily. After a short development section, the original tune reappears in slightly telescoped form.

“Ministration” is built on the downward scale of the hymn’s first phrase, but the entire melody doesn’t appear until twenty bars from the end, in a simple four-part hymn texture.

After an eight-bar introduction, “The Good Samaritan” melody is heard in the oboe. As with all these settings, the fun begins when the tune is broken up to be tossed back and forth between the instruments, creating interesting textures and contrasting moods. This is another marching tune, and owes the sprightliness of its setting to the influence of Malcolm Arnold’s Sea Shanties for Wind Quintet.

Other stylistic influences include Samuel Barber’s Summer Music, and Irving Fine’s Partita for Wind Quintet as well as his lovely choral suite The Hour-Glass.

— Carol Barnett

Nancy’s son Daniel and his partner Eric were married in Iceland. At that time, same sex marriage was not legal throughout the USA. Many members of both families flew from both East and West United States for the wedding, spending a long happy weekend with each other and travelling that beautiful nation.

— Herbert A. Deutsch

One of the main features of Projektionen II is its polyphony. The counterpoint of the four instruments is lively and eloquent, often rather dense or even breathless. Projektionen II is also a piece about the kinetic energy of musical gestures. Sometimes, the energy is distributed amongst the ensemble, as the musicians play their lines independently. Sometimes, it is coordinated, as the musicians play rhythmically coordinated. In any case, it is the driving force that keeps the music moving forwards.

There are not many extramusical influences in my music. Through its structures and gestures, the music should express itself. As compositional tools, I use several rulesets or algorithms to build these musical structures. Even though this approach is quite technical and abstract, I am convinced that music can speak and evoke images and emotions. This action, however, takes place in the listener’s perception and imagination; the only thing I can do as a composer is to provide a sufficiently large amount of stimulating musical details.

The two movements of Projektionen II have an almost identical beginning. From this starting point, the music follows each time a different chain of associations. The second movement goes on an even longer journey; the music evolves up to a point where the initial polyphony is abandoned and replaced by repetitive homophonic chords.

— Philippe Kocher

Written in 2016, “The Oracle” was constructed from a framework of fifty randomly drawn tarot cards, lending the work both an element of chance (in that the process of drawing the cards and their placement in five tarot spreads was random) and an element of “foreordained knowledge” (or pre-compositional structure, based on interpretations of those their cards and their positions). Its distinct aural experience is the culmination of classic aleatorism and modern formula.

Each instrument of the quintet represents an important part of the tarotscape:

– The violin, cello, flute, and clarinet represent the elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth (respectively). Each element and its instrumental representative interact with each other in the same way that our own desires, experiences, and moods interact within ourselves.

– The piano represents all the Major Arcana of the deck: the major milestones we encounter in each of our lives. Its octaves are segmented to represent different branches of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life where each card falls. In other words, the closer to the Divine Source a card sits, the higher on the piano its melody lies, and vice versa.

“The Oracle” has thus emerged as a multi-faceted, deeply layered, story-driven reflection of the human condition. It unfolds into an engaging tale of emotion, power, and character that may be interpreted in countless ways, according to the listener’s own personal experience.

— Sarah Wallin-Huff

It is the third piece “The Oracle” that is the crème de la for me with its incredible depth and creative complexity. Dynamics take deep hold here with sudden bursts and calming moments. I really hear the room when flute and clarinet parts elevate along with the brilliant staccato keyboard hits. There are moments when time seems to fall apart and then strings back together in a wonderful interplay among the musicians. (Wesley Derbyshire of Hi-Res Edition)

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Lock & Key