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Collected Works of Beth Mehocic

Beth Mehocic composer

Release Date: January 14, 2022
Catalog #: NV6410
Format: Digital & Physical
21st Century
Orchestral
Orchestra

The music of composer Beth Mehocic comes together as a fulfilling and enticing whole in the COLLECTED WORKS OF BETH MEHOCIC. This all encompassing album merges the many corners and triumphs of Mehocic’s library, with commissioned pieces, tone poems, and various styles colliding in celebration of her extensive breadth of repertoire. Find early works like Piece by Piece alongside the more recent Left of Winter, Picasso’s Flight, and others with performances from Trio Casals, Croatian Chamber Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Altius Quartet, Zagreb Festival Orchestra, and more.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Piece By Piece Beth Mehocic Moravian Philharmonic Chamber Players | Markéta Soldánová, flute; Tomáš Kuzník, bass clarinet; Ondřej Moťka, trumpet; Jan Pátek, bass trombone; Vít Mužík, violin; Pavel Harnoš, contrabass; Ladislav Bilan, percussions; Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor 10:48
02 Somewhere Between D and C# Beth Mehocic Ovidiu Marinescu, cello 7:08
03 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - I. Moderato Beth Mehocic Croatian Chamber Orchestra | Miran Vaupotić, conductor; Charlene Farrugia, piano 6:03
04 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - II. Lento Beth Mehocic Croatian Chamber Orchestra | Miran Vaupotić, conductor; Charlene Farrugia, piano 4:41
05 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - III. Allegretto Beth Mehocic Croatian Chamber Orchestra | Miran Vaupotić, conductor; Charlene Farrugia, piano 7:06
06 Left of Winter Beth Mehocic Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava | Jiří Petrdlík, conductor 6:53
07 Picasso’s Flight Beth Mehocic Altius Quartet | Joshua Ulrich, violin; Andrew Giordano, violin; Andrew Krimm, viola; Zachary Reaves, cello 7:17
08 Tango Concerto - I Beth Mehocic Zagreb Festival Orchestra | Ivan Josip Skender, conductor; Charlene Farrugia, piano; Franko Božac, accordion & bandoneon 4:37
09 Tango Concerto - II Beth Mehocic Zagreb Festival Orchestra | Ivan Josip Skender, conductor; Charlene Farrugia, piano; Franko Božac, accordion & bandoneon 4:37
10 Tango Concerto - III Beth Mehocic Zagreb Festival Orchestra | Ivan Josip Skender, conductor; Charlene Farrugia, piano; Franko Božac, accordion & bandoneon 4:34

All proceeds from sales go to UCLA research for glioblastoma.

PIECE BY PIECE
Recorded June 23, 2016 at Reduta Hall in Olomouc, Czech Republic
Session Producer & Engineer Pavel Kunčar

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN D AND C#
Recorded July 5, 2017 at Rose Recital Hall in Philadelphia PA
Recording Session Producer Brad Michel
Recording Session Engineer Eugene Lew
Editing and Mixing Shaun Michaud, Brad Michael, Levi Brown, Lucas Paquette

CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA
Recorded July 2, 2018 at Studio Bajsić HRT in Zagreb, Croatia
Session Producer Krešimir Seletković
Session Engineer Luka Rojc
Assistant Engineer Branko Starc
Editing and Mixing Shaun Michaud, Lucas Paquette

LEFT OF WINTER
Recorded September 14, 2018 at Dům Kultury in Ostrava, Czech Republic
Session Producer Vít Mužík
Co-Producer Bob Lord
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák, Jan Košulič
Assistant Engineer Maroš Hlatký
Editing & Mixing Lucas Paquette, Shaun Michaud

PICASSO’S FLIGHT
Recorded January 3 – 7, 2019 in Grusin Hall, Imig Music Building at the University of Colorado in Boulder CO
Session Engineer Kevin Harbison
Assistant Engineer Levi Brown
Session Producer, Editing & Mixing Brad Michel

TANGO CONCERTO
Recorded October 18, 2020 at Blagoje Bersa Concert Hall in Zagreb, Croatia
Session Producer Krešimir Seletković
Session Engineer, Editing & Mixing Jan Košulič
Orchestra Director Ivana Hauser
Orchestra Manager Tin Matijević

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
Mastering Brad Michel, Lucas Paquette, Shaun Michaud, Melanie Montgomery

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

Artist Information

Beth Mehocic

Composer

Dr. Beth Mehocic was the Composer-in-Residence, Music Director, and Full-Professor for the Dance Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and wrote over 100 works for orchestra, concert band, chamber music, dance ensembles, theater, and film. Her works have been performed throughout the United States, Japan, China, Korea, and Europe, and she had works performed in several Las Vegas Hotels including The Mirage, Caesar’s Palace, and the Las Vegas Hilton. Several of her works have been recorded for PARMA Recordings.

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Stanislav Vavřínek

Conductor

Stanislav Vavřínek is one of the most prominent Czech conductors and has been Chief Conductor of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice since 2018. Having graduated from the Conservatory in Brno where he studied flute and conducting, he continued his education at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Subsequently, he also took master classes with Roberto Benzi in Switzerland, culminating with a concert in which he conducted the Biel Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Vít Muzík

Violinist

Czech violinist and producer Vít Muzík (b. 1972) is one of the most multifaceted musicians working on the contemporary classical music scene. His abilities both as a performer on the concert stage and in the recording booth have led to appearances on more than 60 recordings in the Navona and Ravello catalogs, making him one of PARMA Recordings' most frequent collaborators.

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Ovidiu Marinescu

Cellist, Composer

Ovidiu Marinescu is internationally recognized as a cellist, composer, conductor, and educator. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall (New York), the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Holywell Room in Oxford, Oriental Art Center in Shanghai, and has appeared as soloist with the London Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, the National Radio Orchestra of Romania, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Helena, Great Falls, Portsmouth, and Newark Symphonies, Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Philharmonic, Limeira Symphony in Brazil, Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain, and most of the professional orchestras in his native Romania. The album LONDON CELLO CONNECTION features Marinescu and London Symphony Orchestra in eight newly commissioned cello concertos by North American composers.

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Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava

Orchestra

The Janáček Philharmonic is a world-class symphony orchestra based in Ostrava, Czech Republic and an emerging figure on the international performance scene. With over 100 top-level musicians, the orchestra aims to introduce unique, quality repertoire while showcasing their own recognizable sound.

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Jiří Petrdlík

Conductor

Jiří Petrdlík (b. 1977) is appreciated as one of the most respectable conductors of his generation. He studied piano, trombone, and conducting — 1995–2000 at Prague Conservatory, and 2000–2005 at Academy of Performing Arts Prague — with Hynek Farkač, Miroslav Košler, Miriam Němcová, Radomil Eliška, and Tomáš Koutník, and took part in the masterclasses of the New York Philharmonic Principal Conductor Kurt Masur and the BBC Philharmonic Principal Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. Petrdlík also successfully took part in several competitions, including the Donatella Flick Conductor Competition in London.

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Altius Quartet

Ensemble

The Colorado-based Altius Quartet has dedicated itself to expanding traditional notions of the string quartet. Members Hannah Kennedy and Andrew Giordano (violins), Allyson Stibbards (viola), and Erin Patterson (cello) are equally at home as performers, mentors, and educators, and strive to fulfill each of those roles at the highest possible level. Altius has received critical acclaim for their recordings, including Fanfare Magazine describing their 2017 release Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 7, 8, and 9” as “visceral and wrenching”. Altius was also hailed as “rich” and “captivating” by the renowned music blog I Care If You Listen.

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Zagreb Festival Orchestra

Orchestra

The Zagreb Festival Orchestra was founded in 1989, comprised of the top classical performers in Croatia and formed with the intent to record a single album. That intent was fulfilled with OVERTURES, a record of composer Gioachino Rossini’s greatest operatic works conducted by the acclaimed maestro Michael Halász, a resident conductor at the Vienna State Opera for 20 years, and produced by six-time GRAMMY Award winner Martin Sauer.

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Croatian Chamber Orchestra

Croatian Chamber Orchestra

Orchestra

The Croatian Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1988 and has since hosted more than 600 artists and premiered nearly 100 works by Croatian and foreign composers. The orchestra has collaborated with eminent maestros such as Nikolai Alexeev, Johannes Wildner, Enrico Dindo, Berislav Klobučar, Milan Horvat, Igor Gjadrov, Gleb Nikitin, Alan Buribaev, Uroš Lajovic, Daniel Bortolosy, Michał Dworzynski, Lawrence Rene, Nicholas Milton, Tibor Boganyi, Nikša Bareza, Saša Britvić, Vjekoslav Šutej, Ivan Repušić, Guido Mancusi, Michalis Economou, and others. Chief Conductors were Kazushi Ono, Pavle Dešpalj, Dian Tchobanov, and Miran Vaupotić.

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Notes

Piece by Piece for Flute, Bass Clarinet, Trumpet, Bass Trombone, Violin, Contrabass, and Percussion was originally commissioned by the Erick Hawkins Dance Company of NYC in honor of their former director and composer-in-residence, Lucia Dlugoszewski who is renowned as a pioneer in avant-garde music techniques and experimental music. While employing several of Lucia’s favorite instrumental techniques such as extended ranges, pitch bends, rapid glissandos and muting techniques, this work is in no way an imitation of any of her work. It captures her sound ideal within more of a musical structure but gives the illusion at times of being rhythmically free even though Piece by Piece is completely metered.

– Beth Mehocic

Somewhere between D and C# was originally written for the Modern Dance choreography of Cathy Allen. In her choreographer’s program notes she states: “In a modern world we usually balance somewhere between tranquility and chaos. It’s our connections with our surroundings and our relationships that pluck us from the edge and bring us the harmony and peace we seek.”

In traditional or classical music, the pitch C# would normally resolve up to D as in the D major scale. In non-traditional or contemporary music, C# could resolve down to C and there would be no major scale such as we are used to hearing. So the music is a metaphor for teetering on the edge of what is expected. Which way will this struggle resolve? Where will the edge take us? Somewhere Between D and C# is a type of tone poem based on my original poem:

Somewhere Between D and C#
We teeter on the edge,
somewhere between D and C#,
not knowing whether to resolve
up or down.
Suspended by time and space
within a shape
that still appears unresolved
by design.

And yet, we keep teetering
on that edge between D and C#,
with constant consonant memories
of dissonant times.
We teeter somewhere
between D and C#,
where desired resolutions
magically appear.

– Beth Mehocic

The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was written in 1974 when I was 21 years old and a senior at the Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University. It was premiered at Powers Auditorium in Youngstown OH on May 15, 1975, by the Dana Symphony Orchestra with William Solcum conducting and Dolores Fitzer on piano. This concerto was the first large-scale work composed by a student to be programmed on the Dana Concert Series.

When I went to graduate school to study composition, the faculty wasn’t interested in this concerto because it was “too conventional.” This was at the height of the avant-garde experimental period and they thought this was too traditional, so I put the score away. It sat on a shelf for 41 years until 2016, when I sent it to the conductor of the Las Vegas Philharmonic who was very interested in programming it. His enthusiasm renewed my interest in the piece. I then revised it and added some orchestration to the original composition in 2016-17 and presented it to PARMA Recordings, who were interested in recording it. I received a generous grant from Dr. Carole Rae who made this wonderful recording possible.

I am very fortunate that the concerto was recorded by the renown Croatian Chamber Orchestra under the brilliant direction of Miran Vaupotić and the incredible performance of award-winning pianist Charlene Farrugia. They along with the PARMA engineering team have brought this concerto back to life with this masterful recording. This recording is a dream come true that I thought would never happen.

— Beth Mehocic

In 2014, I was asked as the Composer-in-Residence for the Dance Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to compose this seven-minute work for orchestra, which was originally used for a men’s dance choreographed by UNLV dance faculty member Richard Havey as a prelude to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Left of Winter is a programmatic piece about young men going off to war for the first time. As the troops march into the train station, they wait for their unit to depart. While “at ease,” the young men reminisce about what life was like before the military. There is even a funeral dirge while the men begin to panic at the thought that they might not return, but in the end, they are called back to attention with the trumpet call and they fall back in line and march onto the train.

— Beth Mehocic

Picasso’s Flight for String Quartet is about the composer’s family’s African Grey parrot, Picasso, who sits in his cage and dreams about flying. The African Grey is one of the most beautiful and intelligent of all parrots but it has its problems. It’s not a good flyer! It is somewhat awkward and unbalanced in flight, yet it attempts and struggles to be a good flyer. He does all these amazing jumps, turns, and balances in his cage, but when he is left out all he can do is basically flap his wings and glide to the floor. Back in his cage, you can see that he is already thinking about getting out and what he’d like to do the next time. You can almost sense that this is the bird’s dream to be soaring in the clouds, but of course that never happens. The sound effects in the strings give the illusion of wings fluttering.

— Beth Mehocic

After working with celebrated pianist, Charlene Farrugia on my Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, in 2018 we decided to do another collaboration and Charlene suggested that I might write a double concerto for her and her husband, the renown accordionist, Franko Bozac.  I was honored and excited about this possibility even though I have never written for accordion or bandoneon.  Since I have been the composer-in-residence for the Dance Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for over 30 years, I got the inspiration to write a tango concerto to be able to showcase both the accordion and bandoneon.

When the concerto starts with the trills in the orchestra, you hear this wall of color and then around two minutes into it, you start to hear the tango rhythm quietly in the timpani as it eventually takes over.  There are three movements but they are attacca which means that there is no pause between them.

I want to thank Charlene and Franko for their support on this project and especially to Franko for his invaluable help with his suggestions for the accordion/bandoneon technique.

— Beth Mehocic