Missing Words 

Missing Words explores the relationship between the written word and music through a small collection of pieces by Du Yun, Eric Nathan, Laura Kaminsky, Christopher Cerrone, and Nina C. Young. Blending the experience of a concert with a poetry reading, Hub New Music recites several of the associated texts from the stage. Below is a short description of each work that comprise the collection.

WORKS ON MISSING WORDS

Dreams-bend by Du Yun offers a theatrical flair and employs Hub’s players as actors during the performance of the work. The surreal and fantastical text recited during this piece is written by the composer herself.

In his piece, Missing Words VI,  Eric Nathan continues a multi-year project of composing music inspired by Ben Schott’s book Schottenfreude, which offers a diverse collection of new German words explaining phenomena of the contemporary psyche. (For example, “Leertretung” is a new word for stepping on a stair that isn’t there, and “Mahlneid” means coveting thy neighbor’s restaurant order.) In Schott’s words, the book is full of “new German words for the human condition.”

Laura Kaminsky’s Uncover is inspired by The Book of American Negro Poetry, edited by James Weldon Johnson, from 1922. Kaminsky first encountered this book when she lived in Ghana in 1992-1993, conducting research at the U.S. Embassy Library in Accra for her piece And Trouble Came: An African AIDS Diary. A personally inscribed version by Johnson to George Gershwin currently resides in the collection at the Morgan Library, alluding to an abiding friendship. What did these brilliant men discuss? This new work for Hub New Music is a musical imagining of these "missing words" and is dedicated to the memory of their friendship.

Christopher Cerrone’s New Addresses is inspired by Kenneth Koch’s book of poetry of the same title. Across three movements, Cerrone explores an wide spectrum of textures achievable within Hub’s combination. The movements are “To Breath,” To My Heart at the Close of Day,” and “To ‘Yes.’”

Nina C. Young’s to hear the things we cannot see brings new innovation to the tradition of music inspired by poetry. For this project, Young is collaborating with poet Rosie Stockton in a year-long series of poetic and musical pen-pal exchanges that are the foundation for this new composition. In their exchanges, Stockton sends Young short pieces of poetry and Young responds with music. Stockton then responds with more poetry, and so on.

In creating the score for the work Young will analyze the spectrum and envelope of Stockton’s voice in recordings of the poet reading their work. Their particular reading will filter through the quartet’s playing, uniting spaces past and present, and giving voice to an ensemble made up only of acoustic instruments. Live electronic sounds will be triggered using MaxMSP. Throughout the work Young plays with ideas of space - particularly in exploring the creation of aural architectures using the ensemble, voice, and embedded electronics.