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Shifting Direction

Texas Tech University Contemporary Music Ensemble
Eric Allen conductor

Joan Tower composer
Jennifer Jolley composer
Jennifer Higdon composer

Release Date: November 15, 2024
Catalog #: NV6681
Format: Digital

A resilient voice for new music, Eric Allen conducts the Texas Tech University Contemporary Music Ensemble in SHIFTING DIRECTION, a collection of three works by composers Joan Tower, Jennifer Jolley, and Jennifer Higdon. Elevated by Allen’s precise conducting and careful attention to detail, SHIFTING DIRECTION provides three unique listening directions for contemporary music enjoyers to delight in.

In Petroushskates, Tower paints an image of a carnival on ice, a whirling winter affair inspired by the thematic material of Stravinsky’s Petrushka as it appears in the opening Shrovetide fair sequence. Weaving and flowing, the music creates the graceful effect of seeing a figure skating routine.

Jolley’s Blue Glacier Decoy pays tribute to the path of modern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown, who revered the glacier and incorporated its landscape and movement into her work.

SHIFTING DIRECTION closes with a bang — or rather, a zap — with Higdon’s Zaka, a word which is defined as doing the following at great speed: zap, sock, race, turn, drop, sprint. The ensemble moves at an electric pace to capture the essence of the term.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Petroushskates Joan Tower Texas Tech University Contemporary Music Ensemble | Eric Allen, conductor; Spencer Hartman, flute; Hsiao-Ju Chen, clarinet; Lauren Pokorzynski, violin; Daria Miskiewicz, cello; Se-Hee Jin, piano 5:47
02 Blue Glacier Decoy Jennifer Jolley Texas Tech University Contemporary Music Ensemble | Eric Allen, conductor; Julia Griffith, flute; Hamed Shadad, clarinet; Kayla Abel, bass clarinet; Natalie Wilson, alto saxophone; Taylor Burks, vibraphone; Hyejin Go, piano 6:51
03 Zaka Jennifer Higdon Texas Tech University Contemporary Music Ensemble | Eric Allen, conductor; Kennzie Greenlee, flute; Hamed Shadad, clarinet; Nilshmid Santiago Jimenez, violin; Daria Miskiewicz, cello; Anna Vander Boon, piano; Taylor Burks, percussion 13:04

Petroushskates
Recorded August 22, 2023 at Crickets Theater at The Buddy Holly Hall in Lubbock TX
Recording Session Executive Producer & Engineer Hideki Isoda
Recording Session Associate Producers Saikat Karmakar, Pershauna Johnson

Blue Glacier Decoy; Zaka
Recorded March 2 & May 3, 2023 at Hemmle Recital Hall at Texas Tech University in Lubbock TX
Recording Session Executive Producer & Engineer Hideki Isoda
Recording Session Associate Producers Saikat Karmakar, Brad Cawyer, Ben Hinkie

Editing, Mixing & Mastering Hideki Isoda

Cover design Karina Dozal

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Aidan Curran
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Eric Allen

Conductor

A versatile conductor, Eric Allen is sought as a conductor of all types of ensembles. At Texas Tech University, Allen serves as director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble. Under his direction, the CME has performed exciting and innovative programs in a variety of venues, providing opportunities for musicians to experience exploratory repertoire in a nurturing and collaborative environment.

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Jennifer Jolley

Composer

Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) is a composer, conductor, and professor. Her work is founded on the belief that the pleasures and excesses of music have the unique potential to engage political and provocative subjects. Addressing a range of topics such as climate change, #MeToo, feminist history, and the abuses of the Putin regime, Jolley strives to write pieces that are equally enjoyable and meaningful.

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Se-Hee Jin

piano

Dr. Se-Hee Jin is acclaimed for her keen musical intelligence and exquisite sensitivity. Jin currently serves as Assistant Professor of Piano at Texas Tech University, teaching applied piano lessons, keyboard literature, and chamber music and co-directing Contemporary Music Ensemble. Jin holds her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Piano Performance and Literature (Minor in Music Theory) from the Eastman School of Music. She graduated from Ewha Womans University (South Korea) with a Bachelor of Music degree.

As a solo pianist, she has been lauded by the Fanfare as a pianist who “…plays with clarity, precision, and exuberance,” and by the International Piano, which described her as one who “…makes an excellent and poetically minded guide…” Jin has featured in various recitals, including concerts at the Weill-Carnegie Hall, Kaufman Music Center, Bentley Recital Hall, and Seiji Ozawa Hall. She participated in the Tanglewood Music Festival as a recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship and the Banff Summer Arts Festival in Canada. She has performed a broad range of repertoire from Baroque to the music of our times, continuing her solo projects on The Art of Fugue by J. S. Bach, music by Russian Romantic composers, and American living composers. Jin has also presented her collaborative performances with distinguished musicians in the United States and abroad. She has appeared in Backstage Pass on WXXI-FM Classical 91.5, Women in Music Festival, Festival of Contemporary Music, and various chamber music concerts.

As a founder and artistic director, Jin has presented two new music concert series — American Living Composer Series for composer portrait recitals and N (AND) Series for solo piano music representing two different nationalities. The concert series have featured the music of Pulitzer Prize winners and leading composers of our times, including John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen, and Louis Karchin. She has presented the concert series in several venues in New York and Oklahoma areas. The concert series are supported by universities and the regional art council. Jin also recently released a recording of piano solo pieces by John Harbison via Naxos American Classics, including several world-premiere recordings.

Jin has performed and given master classes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Italy, China, and Korea. She has been invited to adjudicate at a multitude of local, regional, and international festivals and competitions. In addition, she has provided guidance and mentorship to her students in their academic research, resulting in their selection to present at Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Conferences, MTNA Collegiate Symposiums, and the Texas Music Educators Association Clinic and Convention.

Spencer Hartman

flute

Dr. Spencer Hartman is an active pedagogue and performer in the West Texas and Eastern New Mexico communities. Hartman is currently serving as Visiting Assistant Professor of Practice of Flute at Texas Tech University. Additionally, he performs as Principal Flute with the Roswell Symphony Orchestra and the Southwest Symphony and Flute III/Piccolo with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

Hartman earned a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Flute Performance at Texas Tech University where he served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the flute studio of Dr. Lisa Garner Santa. While attending TTU, Hartman performed regularly with the Lubbock Symphony Educational Outreach Woodwind Quintet and the Texas Tech Graduate Woodwind Quintet. Hartman has earned the Master of Music degree in Flute Performance and Pedagogy from Memorial University of Newfoundland under the tutelage of Dr. Michelle Cheramy and the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Music Performance from Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he studied with Dr. Therese Wacker. In addition, he has received influential mentorship from Carol Wincenc and Gretchen Pusch. Hartman has performed in masterclasses for William Bennett, Leone Buyse, Jasmine Choi, Paul Edmund Davies, Marianne Gedigian, Susan Hoeppner, Christina Jennings, Katherine Kemler, Marya Martin, Alexa Still, and Ransom Wilson.

Hartman has presented lectures at the Oklahoma Flute Fair, The San Diego Flute Guild Spring Festival, The National Association for College Wind and Percussion Instructors National Conference, the Flute New Music Consortium, the Mid-Atlantic Flute Festival, the Mid-South Flute Festival, and the Texas Flute Society Festival. Hartman has given masterclasses at Texas Woman’s University, the University of New Mexico, and for the Southeast New Mexico Music Educators Association. He has also been a semi-finalist in the National Flute Association’s Young Artist Competition.

Hartman is a Licensed Body Mapping Educator and studied Body Mapping with Jennifer Johnson, ABME Sponsoring Teacher and author of “What Every Violinist Needs to Know About the Body.” Hartman was featured talking about Body Mapping on the Flute 360 Podcast. Additionally, he is a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher. Drawing from Body Mapping and Yoga regularly throughout his teaching and daily life, Hartman is deeply committed to building kinesthetic awareness in himself and his students while combating performance related repetitive strain injury.

Hartman proudly serves the profession in a multitude of ways. He serves on the Diversity and Belonging Committee and the Association for Body Mapping Education Board. He has also served on the 2022 and the 2023 Conference Committee for the ABME. For the National Flute Association, Hartman serves on the Performance Health Committee. In the past, he has served on the Executive Board for the Texas Flute Society and a 2023 Texas Flute Society Conference Co-Chair. Hartman has adjudicated for the Texas Music Educators Association and the New Mexico Music Educators Association All-State Festival.

Hartman is also an accomplished collaborative pianist who has performed extensively with vocalists, choirs, and in large-scale opera and music theater productions. He performs in professional and student recitals both vocal and instrumental. Hartman has performed in masterclasses of Christina Jennings, Alexa Still, and Brett Deubner, as well as performing in the world premiere performance of Erik Franklin’s Zephyr Rhapsody for Clarinet, Trumpet, and Piano. Hartman has served as a Vocal Area Staff Accompanist at Texas Tech University where he primarily works with the Texas Tech University Choirs.

Notes

The title Petroushskates combines two ideas that are related to this piece. One refers to Stravinsky’s Petrushka and the opening Shrovetide Fair scene which is very similar to the opening of my piece. The celebratory character and the busy colorful atmosphere of this fair provides one of the images for this piece. The other is associated with ice skating and the basic kind of flowing motion that is inherent to that sport. While watching the figure skating event at the recent winter Olympics, I became fascinated with the way the curving, twirling, and jumping figures are woven around a singular continuous flowing action. Combining these two ideas creates a kind of carnival on ice — a possible subtitle for this piece.

— Joan Tower, @Associated Music Publishers, Inc. Used with Permission

The 2017 obituary in The New York Times for the modern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown only casually mentioned her debt to the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. It was an unusual characterization for an artist who once told her fellow Washingtonian, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, that “The rain forest was my first art class.”

Indeed the Pacific Northwest’s instruction is found in many of Brown’s works. Her 1970 piece Floor of the Forest employs a steel scaffolding to hold a cloth canopy of ropes threaded with colorful used clothing to create a synthetic forest where dancers writhe and wiggle.

Her 1979 piece Glacial Decoy is similarly derived from these experiences. In this work Brown and Robert Rauschenberg created fleeting images via gossamer-clad dancers and an ongoing found image slide projection. The mechanical and physical movements become an elegant analog to the glaciers. The images and dancers move and shift forward and back, side or other side, or anywhere in between, like a lateral melt. The fleeting projections become a visual metaphor melting and congealing anew.

I have never been to Olympic National Park, so I followed Brown’s example and combined my own experiences with what I learned from an artist who followed the Hoh River Trail, studied the Hoh Rainforest, and revered the Blue Glacier. We should follow her lead and do the same. We must “give [ourselves] a moment to feel this very mobile sense of how the balance is.”

— Jennifer Jolley

za ka (zo ko) v. To do the following almost simultaneously and with great speed: zap, sock, race, turn, drop, sprint.

Commissioned as part of the national series of works from Meet the Composer Commissioning Music/USA, which is made possible by generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, the Target Foundation, and through fiscal sponsorship of Concert Artists Guild.

— Jennifer Higdon