Spine, by Michael Laurello

Spine, by Michael Laurello
Performed by Yale Percussion Group
Yifei Fu, soloist
Matt Keown, Jeff Stern and Georgi Videnov
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Audio mixing/mastering - Michael Laurello
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ABOUT THE PIECE:
Spine was composed in 2014-15 for the Yale Percussion Group, featuring Yifei Fu. A single line-Yifei’s part-runs through most of the piece, and virtually all of the musical material is derived from it. This meta-line serves as the spine of the music, both in structural terms (backbone), but also with respect to the line’s perceived control over the direction and progression of the music (central nervous system). The music played by the other three members of the quartet serves to color and punctuate the main line. However, over the course of the work, players drift in and out of agreement with one another, and occasionally the primary line loses its unique identity within the texture of the ensemble. I tried to impart an almost biological sense to the way motives grow, attempting to balance intuitive-almost improvisatory-types of development with more structured patterns and processes. I am incredibly grateful to the talented musicians of the Yale Percussion Group for their dedication and unwavering support.
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ABOUT THE COMPOSER:
Michael Laurello is an American composer and pianist. He has collaborated with ensembles and soloists such as Sō Percussion, the Nashville Symphony, the Yale Philharmonia, Sandbox Percussion, the Yale Percussion Group, Sound Icon, the 15.19 ensemble, NotaRiotous/The Boston Microtonal Society, guitarist Flavio Virzì, soprano Sarah Pelletier, pianist/composer John McDonald, and clarinetist and linguist/music theorist Ray Jackendoff. His music has been performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the 2015 National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc. Upcoming work includes a commission for the piano duo HOCKET (2016-17 season), a new piece for two pianists and two percussionists, and a multi-movement composition for the Triplepoint Trio. In 2016, he will be releasing an album of original music in collaboration with PARMA Recordings. Additionally, this upcoming season, his music will be performed by the New York-based ensemble, ShoutHouse, and featured at the 2016 MATA Festival.
Laurello studied composition at Yale, where he received the Woods Chandler Memorial Prize. His primary composition teachers were David Lang, Martin Bresnick, and Christopher Theofanidis. He also holds an M.A. in composition from Tufts University, where he studied under John McDonald, and a B.M. in music synthesis (electronic production and design) from Berklee College of Music. Recent honors include first place in the ShoutHouse Call for Scores, selection for the 2015 SCI 50th Anniversary National Conference, participation in the 2015 Nashville Symphony Composer Lab and Workshop, participation in the 2015 EarShot Berkeley Symphony Readings, a Baumgardner Fellowship and commission from the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival's Chamber Choir and Choral Conducting Workshop, a commission from the American Composers Forum (ACF), and an Emerging Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation (Boston, MA). He has attended the highSCORE (Pavia, Italy) and Etchings (Auvillar, France) composition festivals, and was a composition fellow at the 2015 Bang on a Can Summer Festival.
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