DIGITAL World
PREMIERE PROJECT

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, Maryland Chamber Winds were faced with the cancellation of their scheduled spring performances and the 2020 Maryland Wind Festival. In the face of a time when little art was being newly created, MCW reached out to a community of composers to create six new chamber music works for winds. The resulting Maryland Chamber Winds Digital Premieres Project has allowed us to be together and participate in the creative process of bringing pieces to life through virtual collaboration. We hope this effort has given hope and purpose to the lives of the participating composers and to our incredible performers!

Nicole Chamberlain - Everything is Fine

When Tyler asked me to keep it light, I said “Oh you know me, it’s not going to get too heavy!”
 
With the lockdown, that part was fine… but my sister is a physical therapist [and] it’s been hard to see her deal with it and to see her face when she’s acting like everything is okay for my parents and us – and it’s not. And right as I got this commission, that’s when Georgy Floyd happened…
 
Everything is Fine is still not a heavy piece but it does address some anxiety, I guess. I ended up naming the piece as a sarcastic statement – because it’s not, nothing about this is fine – but it’s kind of the thing you say to get through the day and pushing towards something and not just lie down in your bed and never coming out of it again.
 
More info about Nicole and her music can be found at: www.nikkinotes.com

Premiered on July 6, 2020

 Mary Matthews, Flute; Matthew Hudgens, Oboe; Danny Mui, Clarinet; Dakota Corbliss, Horn; and Billy Beecher, Bassoon

Keaton Garrett - Newfound Intimacies

The concept behind Newfound Intimacies the mindset that we had to be put in – being isolated with social distancing and quarantining – and being newly intimate with ourselves through a period of personal reflection. The piece is in an ABA form and at the end of the A parts, each line becomes more aleatory and more personable where each of the musicians get to decide when to play each gesture and musically represents getting more in touch with oneself during the quarantine.
 
It’s a 3-minute bop!
 
More info about Keaton and his music can be found at: https://www.keatongarrett.com

Premiered on July 22, 2020

Brian Do, Clarinet; Danny Mui, Bass Clarinet; Tyler Austin, Bassoon; and Jeffrey Leung, Baritone Saxophone

Tyler Grant - Piedmont Sky

One thing I would do whenever I was writing this piece (or even on days I wasn’t writing) and when I was looking to find some good or some beauty in the world when it seemed there was so much darkness and tragedy, I would go for walks. That became a sort of ritual for me every day and I started going down to Piedmont Park in Atlanta, GA which helped me get out of the claustrophobia being in my little apartment.
 
The piece is called Piedmont Sky and is based on a picture I took of the sunset from that park. It was one of the first times since the lockdown started that I was away from my computer screen and was sitting outside, not being distracted by anything and I could just clear my head and really think about things in the bigger picture. I was trying to find something to relate to at a time where there didn’t seem much going on that I could write the music about.
 
More info about Tyler and his music can be found at : http://www.tylersgrant.com

Premiered on August 7, 2020

Matthew Angelo, Flute; Andrew Parker, Oboe; Brian Do, Clarinet; Danny Mui, Bass Clarinet; Rachel Hockenberry, Horn

Danielle Fisher - Conjured Music

In the week that the lockdown started, I was supposed to have a piece premiered at Oklahoma State University. I was up there with Tyler and we happened to have our instruments with us. We started to play together in his living and I secretly recorded us because I like to get “found sounds” in my compositions and get anything that I can that’s organic. We listened back to it later and there’s a big section that we locked in with each other, which we loved, so we decided to transcribe and orchestrate it into a chorale.
Conjured music is aleatoric in nature. We took snippets of the chorale and used those ideas in a way that culminated into the chorale that we had built together which was based off of Tyler and my improvisation together – so it is us in music form right now!
 
More info about Danielle and her music can be found at : https://daniellefisher.net/ 

Premiered on August 21, 2020

Mary Matthews, Flute; Matthew Angelo, Flute; Brian Do, Clarinet; Danny Mui, Bass Clarinet; Jeffrey Leung, Saxophone; Dakota Corbliss, Horn

Viet Cuong - Back and Forth

In this exciting oboe duo, Viet Cuong utilizes a particular extended technique – multiphonics – to enhance the counterpoint between the two instruments. In describing his recent work with multiphonics in his wind writing, Viet says: “I think a lot of people find the sound [of multiphonics] to be strange or foul but I think they’re just misunderstood which is why I really like to use them in a way that’s playful or whimsical” Multiphonics describe the phenomenon when wind instrumentalists use a particular combination of “incorrect” fingerings to get multiple notes to sound at the same time. While these multiphonics do not replicate the sound of two instruments playing different notes, Viet describes the sound: “as if you used a guitar distortion pedal on a wind instrument”
 
More info about Viet and his music can be found at : https://vietcuongmusic.com/

Premiered on September 22, 2020

Austin Smith and Andrew Parker, Oboe

David Biedenbender - Kairos

There is the temporal, measured time and then there is Kairos – it is something more difficult to define. I thought that this idea was apt now that our sense of time is being distorted and being drawn out as our sense of time has changed. This piece about trying to connect to something bigger, something more infinite… to the spaces that I miss and the people that I miss collaborating with, and thinking about a sense of time and space that’s bigger and different to what we’re feeling and connecting to right now.
 
More information about David Biedenbender and his music can be found at: https://www.davidbiedenbender.com/

Premiered on December 4, 2020

Austin Smith, Oboe; Brian Do, Clarinet; Jeffrey Leung, Saxophone; Tyler Austin, Bassoon; Danny Mui, Bass Clarinet

Scroll to Top