Kicking and Screaming: Music of Eric Moe

TR597

Eric Moe

Kicking and Screaming

I've been fortunate in writing for some extraordinary musicians: pianists Alan Feinberg (Grande Étude Brillante), Aleck Karis (Kicking and Screaming), David Holzman (Where Branched Thoughts Murmur in the Wind, Three Ways to Relieve Tension), and flutist Rachel Rudich (Dead Elf Tugboat, Fled Is That Music). Their artistry has had a deep influence on the music.

Other debts: Dance of the Honey Monkey is dedicated to Nigerian composer and ethnomusicologist Akin Euba, and Three Ways to Relieve Tension is an 80th birthday present for my teacher, composer Andrew Imbrie.

Additional thanks are due to the Fromm Foundation and to the Meet the Composer/USA Commissioning Program, and to the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts where much of this music was written.

And this strange business of art-making, which leads us, in the words of one of Aylett's characters, to build tugboats out of dead elves, “because they said it couldn't be done.”

—E.M.

Eric Moe (1954- ), composer of what the New York Times calls “music of winning exuberance,” has received numerous grants and awards for his work, including the Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Guggenheim Fellowship; commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, and Meet-the-Composer USA; fellowships from the Wellesley Composer's Conference and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Bellagio, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Millay Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, the Montana Artists Refuge, and the American Dance Festival. His Sonnets to Orpheus was featured on the Works & Process series at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2000, and is currently available on a Koch International Classics CD which also includes his Siren Songs. Another all-Moe CD, Up & At 'Em, has just been released by Albany Records. Compact disc recordings of his other works are available from Centaur (On the Tip of My Tongue: Chamber and Electroacoustic Music of Eric Moe) and CRI (Speculum Musicae: Music of Moe, Rosenzweig, Sanford); the Lions Gate Trio has recorded his We Happy Few for Centaur.

As a pianist and keyboard player, Moe has performed works by hundreds of composers, from Anthony Davis to Stefan Wolpe. His playing can be heard on the Koch, CRI, Mode, and AK/Coburg labels in the music of John Cage, Roger Zahab, Marc-Antonio Consoli, Mathew Rosenblum, and Felix Draeseke. A CD of waltzes for solo piano by two generations of American composers will be released soon. A founding member of the San Francisco-based EARPLAY ensemble, he currently co-directs the Music on the Edge new music concert series in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Moe was educated at the University of California at Berkeley (M.A., Ph.D.) and at Princeton University (A.B.) He is currently Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, where he directs the graduate program in composition and the department's electroacoustic music studio.

Some of the sources of inspiration for this music are (as the titles indicate) Hindu mythology; the music of Muddy Waters, particularly as interpreted by Jimi Hendrix; the science fiction of Steve Aylett; the music of Frederic Chopin; the ethos of Trout Unlimited; and the odes of John Keats.

Rachel Rudich has premiered works by Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Robert Dick, David Felder, Karl Kohn, Mel Powell, and Harvey Sollberger. She has appeared with many of the finest American new music ensembles including The Group for Contemporary Music, Speculum Musicae, Parnassus, The Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, and The Fromm Players. Miss Rudich currently performs as a solo recitalist throughout the United States.

Known for her performances of compositions in the contemporary repertoire, especially those for flute and electronics, Miss Rudich has also received recognition for her intermedia performances as flutist and dancer. Her awards include First Prize in the Kreauter Musical Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chamber Music, the Artists International Award which led to her New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, and appointment to the roster of Affiliate Artists.

Miss Rudich received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Goddard College and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in flute performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Thomas Nyfenger and Harvey Sollberger. She is currently a faculty member at Pomona College, and Professor of Flute at California Institute of the Arts.

At home with both contemporary and classical works, Aleck Karis has appeared with New York's Y Chamber Symphony, St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra, the Richmond Symphony, and the San Diego Symphony. He has been featured at leading international festivals including Bath, Geneva, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Miami, New York Philharmonic's Horizons Festival, Caramoor, and the Warsaw Autumn Festival. He is the pianist with Speculum Musicae.

Karis' solo debut album for Bridge Records of music by Chopin, Carter and Schumann was nominated as “Best Recording of the Year” by OPUS Magazine. Also on Bridge are recordings of piano music by Mozart, Stravinsky, and John Cage (`critic's choice', Gramophone Magazine, 1999).

He has also recorded solo music by Davidovsky, Glass, Babbitt, Reynolds, Anderson, Krieger, Primosch, Yuasa and Cory. Chamber music recordings include works by Carter, Wolpe, Crumb, Babbitt, Martino, Lieberson, Steiger, and Hyla.

Artur Balsam and Beveridge Webster were among his major teachers while at the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School. He credits William Daghlian as a key mentor and his most important teacher. Karis is currently a Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego.

Three Ways to Relieve Tension (2001)

Recorded November 10, 2001 at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York City. Judith Sherman, producer and engineer, Jeanne Velonis, assistant engineer, Hsi-Ling Chang, editing assistant. Edited by Judith Sherman.

Dead Elf Tugboat (2000)

Fled Is That Music (1998), Recorded November 9, 2001 at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York City. Judith Sherman, producer and engineer, Jeanne Velonis, assistant engineer, Hsi-Ling Chang, editing assistant. Edited by Judith Sherman.

Grand Étude Brillante (1991)

Where Branched Thoughts Murmur in the Wind (2000).

Dance of the Honey Monkey (1999).

Nocturne (1997). Recorded November 18 & 19, 2000 the American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York City. Judith Sherman, producer and engineer, Jeanne Velonis, assistant engineer. Edited by Jeanne Velonis and Judith Sherman.

Kicking and Screaming (1994)

Recorded March 16, 1995 at the Masonic Temple, NYC. Joanna Nickrenz, producer, Marc Aubort, engineer (Elite Recordings). Edited by Eric Moe. Aleck Karis, piano, Susan Palma Nidel, flute, Stephen Taylor, oboe/English horn, Allen Blustine, clarinet/bass clarinet, Donald MacCourt, bassoon, William Purvis, French horn, Curtis Macomber, violin, Carol Zeavin, ciolin, Maureen Gallagher, viola, Eric Bartlett, cello, Erik Charlston, percussion, Donald Palma, conductor. Re-release from CRI CD-705.

Mastered by Judith Sherman.

Executive producer: Howard Stokar.