The duo Transient Canvas (bass clarinetist Amy Advocat and marimbist Matt Sharrock) has forged ahead in its advocacy for this no-longer-so-exotic instrumental combination. Right now, in a second… demonstrates the expanse that the pairing of these instruments can afford imaginative composers

— The Boston Globe

From start to finish this album is remarkable and incredibly creative, both in compositions and in performance…. a superb display of thought-provoking works.

— International Clarinet Association

The ephemeral nature of sound is exquisitely captured in the poetry of this new music performed by bass clarinettist Amy Advocat and Matt Sharrock, a percussion colourist heard here on marimba.

— The Whole Note

Track Premiere: Emily Koh’s \very/ specifically vague

— I Care If You Listen

 1. Barbara White | Fool Me Once (2016)

In addition to being a prolific composer of chamber music, composer Barbara White has a long-standing interest in collaborative and interdisciplinary work, specifically in working with dance. In addition, she is an idiosyncratic clarinetist and is increasingly active as a video artist. The evening-length theatrical performance, Desire Lines, places music for solo gong, clarinet, and  bamboo flute alongside video, movement and onstage ceremony.  Weakness, created in 2012, is an opera that retells the Celtic story known as “The Curse of Macha” through words, song, sound, and movement.  Recent performances have been presented by the Aspen Music Festival, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, Lontano, Eighth Blackbird, janus, and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble. Honors and awards include a Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship.  Her fourth solo CD, a recording of the opera Weakness, was released on  Albany Records in 2013.  White’s scholarly writings address such matters as the coordination between sound and image; the relationship between creative activity and everyday life; as well as the impact on music of gender, listening, and spirituality. In 1998, she joined the faculty of the Princeton University Music Department, where she is now Professor.

2. Jonathan Bailey Holland | Rebounds (2016)

A native of Flint, MI, composer Jonathan Bailey Holland’s works have been commissioned and performed by orchestras and chamber ensembles across America. Most recently, he served as the Composer-In-Residence of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the 2018-19 season—the first composer to serve that role with that orchestra. Highlights of his 2019-20 season include a commission by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum inspired by John Singer Sargent’s dance-inspired painting, “El Jaleo.” He will be featured on the American Composers Orchestra season at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall where he will orchestrate two Charles Ives songs to be sung by mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. The Aeolus Quartet and the Arx Duo premiere his latest work, Third Quartet, for string quartet and percussion duo. Boston Opera Collaborative will delve into an evening of Holland’s works; the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival performs His House is Not of This Land as part of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music; and his music will appear on the Juventas New Music Ensemble season.

 Other notable highlights from recent seasons include the premiere of his work Ode by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, his fifth work for the orchestra, following the initial commission in 2003 of Halcyon Sun, written to celebrate the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; the release of Synchrony, a powerful classical music statement on Black Lives Matter on Radius Ensemble’s Fresh Paint CD; the commission of Equality for narrator and orchestra by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra featuring the poetry of Maya Angelou with narration by actor Regina Taylor and rapper/actor Common; and the premiere of Forged Sanctuaries by Curtis on Tour, commissioned to commemorate the centennial of National Park Service. His piece Clarity of Cold Air has been performed on tour this past season by Eighth Blackbird.

A winner of a Mass Cultural Council 2019 artist fellowship, Holland is also a recipient of a 2015 Fromm Foundation Commission at Harvard University. He has received honors from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, American Music Center, ASCAP, the Presser Foundation, and more. He has served as Composer-in-Residence for the Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota (currently Vocal Essence); Ritz Chamber Players; Detroit and South Bend Symphony Orchestras; and the Radius Ensemble. His music has been recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony; the University of Texas Trombone Choir; trumpeter Jack Sutte; and flutist Christopher Chaffee, among others.

His works have been performed by symphony orchestras across America, and he has been commissioned by the Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, among others. Future collaborations and performances are scheduled by the Arx Duo, Buffalo Philharmonic, Concord Chorus, Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, and Eighth Blackbird, and more. Holland earned a Ph.D. in Music from Harvard University and studied composition with Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music. He is Chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Faculty Co-Chair of the Music Composition program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

3. Emily Koh | \very/ specifically vague (2017)

Emily Koh (b.1986) is a Singaporean composer and double bassist based in Atlanta, GA. Her music reimagines everyday experiences by sonically expounding tiny oft-forgotten details. In addition to writing acoustic and electronic concert music, she enjoys collaborating with other creatives in projects where sound plays an important role.

Described as ‘the future of composing’ (The Straits Times, Singapore), she is the recipient of awards such as the Copland House Residency Award, Young Artist Award, Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Prix D’Ete, and PARMA competitions; commissions from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, Composers Conference at Wellesley College, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble; and grants from New Music USA, Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy and Paul Abisheganaden Grant for Artistic Excellence. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Avaloch Farm Music Institute.

Emily’s works have been described as “beautifully eerie” (New York Times), and “subtley spicy” (Baltimore Sun). This season, her work “After Igor” was chosen to be performed by the Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra as part of the American Composers Orchestra’s first international Earshot Program. A new saxophone, live electronics and video work, “b(locked.orders)”, in collaboration with video artist Michiko Saiki and Noa Even, was performed across the US in Noa Even’s solo tour in Fall 2019. In March 2020, she performed as the double bass soloist in her wind ensemble work “divercity”, with the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on the Isaac Stern Stage at Carnegie Hall as part of the New York Wind Band Festival. Her works can be heard on the XAS, New Focus and Ravello labels, performed by PRISM quartet, Transient Canvas, and the McCormick Percussion Group, and have been performed at various venues around the world in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Switzerland, Finland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and the United States by acclaimed ensembles and performers such as Talea Ensemble (USA), Ensemble Dal Niente (USA), New York New Music Ensemble (USA), Signal Ensemble (USA), Boston New Music Initiative (USA), New Thread Quartet (USA), Acoustic Uproar (USA), LUNAR Ensemble (USA), East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (USA/Europe), Avanti! (Finland), Israel Contemporary Players (Israel), Sentieri Selvaggi (Italy), the Next Mushroom Promotion (Japan), Chroma Ensemble (UK), The Philharmonic Orchestra (Singapore), Dingyi Music Company (Singapore) and Chamber Sounds (Singapore) among others.

Emily is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, University of Georgia in Athens, GA. She has been on faculty at the Alba Music Festival Composition Program (Italy), Dot-The-Line Festival (South Korea), International Composition Institute of Thailand and Asia-Pacific Saxophone Academy (Thailand). Prior to teaching at UGA, she taught at Brandeis and Harvard Universities, MIT, Longy School of Music (Bard College) and Walnut Hill School for the Arts. She graduated from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore (BM Music Composition), the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University (MM Music Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy), and Brandeis University (Ph.D. graduate in Music Composition and Theory). She is a member of ASCAP, SCI, and the Composers Society of Singapore. Her music is published by Babel Scores and Poco Piu Publishing.

Emily lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband, Jason. Besides composing and performing, Emily is a foodie and enjoys eating, cooking and working in her edible garden.

4. Clifton Ingram | Cold, column calving (2016)

Clifton Ingram is a Boston-based composer and performer (Rested Field, guitar/electronics), whose music aims to approach and retreat from itself along the fault lines of the musical and extra-musical. Clifton’s music revolves around the delicate obstinance of hidden objects, aberrant mutations and self-devouring ornamentation, obsessive canon-like structures and hastily decanted surfaces — the masked expression of an unreliable narrator.

Clifton has written for pianist-composer Andy Costello, pianist-composer Marti Epstein, clarinetist Chuck Furlong, cellist Byron Hogan, violinist Michelle Lie, cellist Stephen Marotto, vocalist Joshua Scheid, percussionist Matt Sharrock, Castle of our Skins, Del Sol String Quartet, Equilibrium Ensemble, Joint Venture Percussion Duo, Ludovico Ensemble, Music of Reality, Rested Field, Tesla Quartet, and Transient Canvas. Clifton has been a fellow at the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice and was recently the Julius Eastman Fellow at Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music.

Clifton’s music has been released by Experimental Sound Studio (OSCILLATIONS 2016 Mixtape | Chicago IL) and Dismissive Records (Four Instrumentals, 2015 | Denver CO). Clifton’s contributions can also be heard on Type Records (Khonnor, Handwriting | 2004) and Sundmagi (Who Cares How Long You Sink, Folk Forms Evaporate Big Sky | 2007). Clifton has also contributed sound for film, including Paracusia (dir. Christopher Dreisbach, 2011). Clifton was a presenter for Chicago experimental venue Brown Rice (2009-2012) and was a founding member of the Chicago Scratch Orchestra. Clifton is also a freelance music writer.

5. Crystal Pascucci | resonance imaging (2015)

Crystal Pascucci is a trained and practicing experimental and classical cellist, composer and free improviser. Pulling from influences that range from Bach, Kabalevsky, Miles Davis, John Cage and Morton Feldman, she composes for instrumental ensembles, collaborators and solo projects. Her music is often described as atmospheric, experimental and dramatic in nature, with a strong focus on harmonic and textural development. 

A New York native, she attended collegiate classical music programs at University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music and SUNY Fredonia. In 2011, she relocated to the West Coast for graduate studies at Mills College with Fred Frith and Roscoe Mitchell. It was here where her dedication to composition took root. She’s been commissioned by several ensembles including the Guerrilla Composers Guild for Boston based Transient Canvas, New York based Bent Duo, and the Composers Arranger and Performer Orchestra. She writes predominantly for her own ensembles, Inner Movements and Aunt Rose, as well as for her solo project.

As a performer, she is active in the contemporary and experimental music scenes, performing often with Roscoe Mitchell, Pamela Z, Paul Dresher Ensemble, Ned Rothenberg, the Mills Performing Group, Lisa Mezzacappa, Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, Ellen Fullman, Mark Clifford, Jordan Glenn, Nathan Clevenger, CAPO and the San Francisco Contemporary Players. Through her relationship with SF’s Tiny Telephone Recording Studio, Crystal can be heard on more than 15 full length records of a wide range of artists. She’s also active as a curator of arts events and residencies (Lijiang Studio, Yunnan, China), an arts administrator and a dedicated teacher of chamber music at Oakland School for the Arts.  

As a diagnosed SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus) patient, she has worked to overcome the many hurdles presented by the disease. As with many lupus patients, the disease is often “invisible”, and challenges are known only to those incredibly close to her. In an effort to spread lupus awareness, she has chosen to speak out about the disease and offer a simple message to other patients: “Persevere!” 

6. Stefanie Lubkowski | Right now, in a second (2015)

Stefanie Lubkowski’s initial compositional efforts involved developing unusual timbres on her mother’s Wurlitzer organ and experimenting with sound collages in her high school electronic music studio. These early explorations nurtured Stefanie’s interest in creating sound worlds guided by harmony and punctuated by melody. Her main sources of inspiration are literature and the natural world.

Stefanie has written for orchestra, wind band, voice, various chamber ensembles, and electronic media. She has been commissioned by Auros Group for New Music, New Gallery Concert Series, The Fourth Wall Ensemble, Transient Canvas, Charles River Wind Ensemble, NakedEye Ensemble, Departure Duo, Peridot Duo, marimbist Matt Sharrock, and soprano Elisabeth Halliday-Quan. She has supplied works for three of Rivers Conservatory of Music’s Seminar on Contemporary Music in Weston, MA. She was also the Concord Academy Composer-in-Residence in 2018-2019. Stefanie is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Music Composition Finalist Grant for 2015.

Stefanie is a regular participant in the Bait/Switch initiative, a multi-disciplinary art project based on the mechanics of the “exquisite corpse” party game. She has written three miniatures for the initiative: Friction Clouds, Serrated Spoon, and Saints and Snakes. These pieces were inspired by a cocktail, an essay about grapefruit, and a pen and ink drawing, respectively. You can experience these creations at www.baitswit.ch.

Alongside her concert music activities, Stefanie is a guitarist and songwriter in the punk/metal/doom band Niffin, with fellow composers Aaron Jay Myers, Greg Nahabedian, Brian Church, and Steven Moreno. They released their first album, False Tongues, via Bandcamp, in 2020.

She has been a fellow at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire in 2015 and 2013, Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP) at New England Conservatory in 2014, the High Score Festival in Pavia, Italy in 2011, and the Composers Symposium at the Oregon Bach Festival in 2007.

She is committed to supporting her fellow new music performers, composers, and organizations. To that end, Stefanie has served on the boards of New Gallery Concert Series (2010-2020) and Equilibrium (2015-2020).

Stefanie studied Music and Technology and Guitar Performance at Connecticut College in New London, CT, and received her masters in composition from New England Conservatory where her primary teachers were Lee Hyla and Pozzi Escot. She received her doctorate in composition from Boston University in 2014, where her teachers included Ketty Nez and Sam Headrick. She then taught composition and theory as visiting faculty at Brown University during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Stefanie currently serves as Development and Publications Manager at The Boston Modern Orchestra Project and teaches composition and theory at Concord Academy in Concord, MA.

7. Keith Kirchoff | Monochrome (2014)

Keith Kirchoff is a pianist, composer, conductor, concert curator, and teacher. Described as a “virtuosic tour de force” whose playing is “energetic, precise, (and) sensitive,” he works towards promoting under- recognized composers and educating audiences of the importance of new and experimental music. An active lecturer who has presented in countries throughout the world, his recital programs focus on the integration of computers and modern electronics into a traditional classical performance space.

Kirchoff has played in many of the United States’ largest cities including New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Austin, as well as major cities throughout Italy, New Zealand, Australia, England, Canada, Belgium, Mexico, China, and The Netherlands. He has appeared with orchestras throughout the U.S. performing a wide range of concerti, including the Boston premier of Charles Ives’ Emerson Concerto and the world premier of Matthew McConnell’s Concerto for Toy Piano, as well as more traditional concerti by Tschaikowsky and Chopin. He has also been a featured soloist in many music festivals including the Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Festival Internacional de Müsica Contemporánea, the Society for Electro- Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), the Oregon Festival of American Music, and the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC).

Throughout his career, Kirchoff has premiered well over 100 new works and commissioned several dozen. As a strong supporter of modern music, he has worked closely with many prominent composers including Christian Wolff, Frederic Rzewski, and Louie Andriessen. As a lecturer, Kirchoff has presented seminars, lectures, and master classes on the music of the 21st century at many of the country's largest Universities. One of the nation's prominent performers of electronic music, his "Electroacoustic Piano" tour has been presented throughout two continents, and he has twice hosted an international composers competition seeking music for piano and live electronics: first with the University of Toronto in 2011, and then again with the American Composers Forum in 2015. Since 2011, he has released three albums in his Electroacoustic Piano series on Thinking outLOUD Records.

As a composer, Kirchoff is equally comfortable in acoustic and electronic mediums. He has been awarded residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, New York Mills, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Wildacres, and has been a guest composer/pianist at several universities including Brown University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Cal State, University of New Mexico, University of North Florida, and Brigham Young University. He has received commissions from numerous ensembles and soloists including Transient Canvas, Ensemble mise-en, pianists Shiau-uen Ding and Kai Schumacher, tuba player Jeffrey Meyer, organist Matthew McConnell, baritone Nathan Kreuger, and Telling Stories Music. Often performing his own works in recital, his music, which has been described as "hyperactive," has also been performed throughout the United States, Canada, England, Turkey, Holland, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and Germany by many respected musicians and ensembles including the California E.A.R. Unit, the Firewire Ensemble, violinists Carmel Raz and Stephanie Skor, cellist Alex Kelly, and pianists Albert Muhlbock and Mabel Kwan.

Kirchoff has served as Vice President of SEAMUS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States) and is the founder and Artistic Director of Original Gravity: a Boston-based concert series that features the music of local composers and pairs that music with locally brewed beer. Together with Christopher Biggs, he founded SPLICE Institute which is hosted at Western Michigan University and regularly tours and performs with the SPLICE Ensemble, who recently has been awarded grants from Chamber Music America, the Fromm Foundation, and the Barlow Foundation. Additionally, he is the pianist in the Boston-based quartet Hinge.

The winner of the 2006 Steinway Society Piano Competition and the 2005 John Cage Award, Kirchoff was named the 2011 "Distinguished Scholar" by the Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association. He has also received composing grants from MetLife Meet the Composer and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Kirchoff’s primary teachers include Dean Kramer, Stephen Drury, and Paul Wirth. He received his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Oregon in 2003 graduating summa cum laude and then received his Master of Music degree at New England Conservatory in 2005. He has also studied composition with Michael Gandolfi and Jeffrey Stolet, and conducting with Richard Hoenich. In addition to his recordings on his independent label Thinking outLOUD Records, Kirchoff has released recordings on the New World, Kairos, Ravello, Parma, SEAMUS, New Focus, Tantara, and Zerx labels.

Kirchoff is also an avid homebrewer who has published several articles on the topic and is the co-host of the "Original Gravity Podcast" – a homebrewing show that designs beer recipes inspired by the music of New England composers.

You can follow Kirchoff on Twitter @keithkirchoff and learn more at his website: keithkirchoff.com