through the light
Ketty Nez, composer
Gabriela Díaz, violin
Lilit Hartunian, violin
Samuel Kelder, viola
David Russell, cello
Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone
Daniel Doña, viola
Ketty Nez, piano
Crossing folk music and modern serious music has a long tradition. American musical scholar Ketty Nez ventures a fresh take on this concept: Inspired by her own family’s heritage, she artfully blends folk music of Central Europe and Turkey with her own modern compositional language. The result is THROUGH THE LIGHT.
The album’s titular work is a multi-faceted, emotionally fast-paced string quartet, drawing on fragments of folk music recorded by Béla Bartók in the early 20th century. The subsequent piece, 5 fragments in 3 is similarly inspired, but the setup changes to an unorthodox trio of soprano saxophone, viola and piano. THROUGH THE LIGHT is an impressive demonstration that a recentering into tradition can be rather daring.
Track Listing
| # | Title | Composer | Performer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | through the light: turn me this way, turn me that way | Ketty Nez | Gabriela Díaz, violin; Lilit Hartunian, violin; Samuel Kelder, viola; David Russell, cello | 15:24 |
| 02 | through the light: looking out the window, a duet | Ketty Nez | Gabriela Díaz, violin; Lilit Hartunian, violin; Samuel Kelder, viola; David Russell, cello | 9:14 |
| 03 | through the light: calling out | Ketty Nez | Gabriela Díaz, violin; Lilit Hartunian, violin; Samuel Kelder, viola; David Russell, cello | 9:59 |
| 04 | 5 fragments in 3: in the rain, an introduction | Ketty Nez | Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone; Daniel Doña, viola; Ketty Nez, piano | 2:22 |
| 05 | 5 fragments in 3: organum, and a dance | Ketty Nez | Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone; Daniel Doña, viola; Ketty Nez, piano | 5:11 |
| 06 | 5 fragments in 3: calling lost sheep | Ketty Nez | Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone; Daniel Doña, viola; Ketty Nez, piano | 3:36 |
| 07 | 5 fragments in 3: dance steps | Ketty Nez | Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone; Daniel Doña, viola; Ketty Nez, piano | 4:44 |
| 08 | 5 fragments in 3: postlude, a horn call | Ketty Nez | Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone; Daniel Doña, viola; Ketty Nez, piano | 4:36 |
Recorded October 21, 2023 and January 20, 2024 at Futura Productions in Roslindale MA
Recording Session Engineer John Weston
Editing, Mixing & Mastering John Weston
Cover photo, Banff (2010) by Ketty Nez
DEDICATON: To the memory of our last summer with George.
Executive Producer Bob Lord
Artistic Directors, Albany Records
Peter Kermani, Susan Bush
VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Chris Robinson
VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming, Morgan Hauber
Publicity Kacie Brown
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci
Artist Information
Ketty Nez
Ketty Nez joined the composition and theory department at the Boston University School of Music in 2005, after teaching for two years at the University of Iowa. Listen to a Wonder Never Heard Before!, her portrait album as composer/pianist, was released in 2010 by Albany Records. Her folk opera, The Fiddler and the Old Woman of Rumelia, was premiered in a staged version in May 2012 by Juventas New Music Ensemble. Her piano concerto THRESHOLDS, performed by Nez and the Boston University Wind Ensemble, was released in July 2013 by Ravello Records. BUWE also recorded four scenes for Juliet, released February 2019 by Summit Records. Her albums of chamber music with Albany Records also include double images (2020), and far sight sun light (2023). During the fall term of 2021, Nez was a guest teacher at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary, as a Fulbright scholar. In 2024, Nez co-founded the BiND Ensemble with saxophonist Jennifer Bill and violist Daniel Doña.
Gabriela Díaz
Georgia native Gabriela Diaz began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her father.
As a childhood cancer survivor, Diaz is committed to supporting cancer research and treatment in her capacity as a musician. In 2004, Diaz was a recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, an award that enabled her to create and direct the Boston Hope Ensemble. This program is now part of Winsor Music. A firm believer in the healing properties of music, Diaz and her colleagues have performed in cancer units in Boston hospitals and presented benefit concerts for cancer research organizations in numerous venues throughout the United States.
Lilit Hartunian
Violinist Lilit Hartunian performs at the forefront of contemporary music innovation, both as a soloist and highly in-demand collaborative artist. First prize winner in the 2021 Black House Collective New Music Soloist Competition, Hartunian’s “Paganiniesque virtuosity” and “captivating and luxurious tone” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) are frequently on display at the major concert halls of Boston, including multiple solo performances at Jordan Hall and chamber music at Symphony Hall (Boston Symphony Orchestra Insights Series), as well as at leading academic institutions, where she often appears as both soloist and new music specialist. Highlights from the 2023 season include concerts with A Far Cry at The Kennedy Center, Boston Modern Orchestra Project at Carnegie Hall, a performance of Ligeti’s Horn Trio for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s celebration of Ligeti’s 100th birthday, as well as the release of an album featuring A Far Cry, Roomful of Teeth, and pianist Awadagin Pratt and the launch of a new violin and cimbalom duo, Lamnth. Described as “brilliantly rhapsodic” by the Harvard Crimson, Hartunian can be heard on New Focus Records, Innova Recording, SEAMUS records, New Amsterdam Records, and on self-released albums by Ludovico Ensemble and Kirsten Volness. As collaborative artist and ensemble musician, Hartunian regularly performs with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, A Far Cry, Sound Icon, Emmanuel Music, Callithumpian Consort, Guerilla Opera, and Ludovico Ensemble, and recently performed as guest artist with the Lydian Quartet, Arneis Quartet, and The Rhythm Method. For recordings, photos, and news, visit lilithartunian.com
Dr. Samuel Kelder
Praised by the Boston Globe as a “committed and dynamic” performer, violist Dr. Samuel Kelder’s interpretations of contemporary repertoire and virtuosic technique have led him to become a sought after soloist and chamber musician, performing widely across North America and Europe to work with many prominent artists and ensembles of today. Kelder believes deeply in championing the music of today, and works frequently in collaboration with living composers in a variety of genres, commissioning new works and establishing a breadth of extended techniques and repertoire for future generations. Member of Sound Icon, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Callithumpian Consort, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, and founding member of Shizuka Viola Duo, he can also be heard as guest artist performing with Ludovico Ensemble, Aurea, Juventas, Guerilla Opera, and A Far Cry. An equally accomplished orchestral musician, Kelder is principal violist of the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, section violist of Portland Symphony, New Bedford Symphony, and the Boston Festival Orchestra, and can often be heard performing with Albany Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Boston Landmarks Orchestra. He has also toured Europe with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Penderecki Akademie Orchestra as principal violist, and has appeared as a guest artist with the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway. Kelder studied with Karen Dreyfus at Mannes The New School for Music in New York City, and was teaching assistant to Michelle LaCourse in his doctoral studies at Boston University, specializing in the Karen Tuttle Coordination Technique. Other notable pedagogical influences include Wayne Brooks, Laurie Smukler, Bayla Keyes, and Kyung Sun Lee. He plays a 2015 Hiroshi Iizuka viola, and enjoys teaching a burgeoning studio of varied backgrounds and ages. His summers are spent performing and coaching chamber music at the Appalachian Chamber Music Festival, Etchings Festival in New York City, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, and Monadnock Music.
David Russell
Hailed as “superb,” “incisive,” and “sonorous and panoramic,” in The Boston Globe, David Russell maintains a vigorous schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the United States and Europe. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Senior Lecturer and Director of Chamber Music. A strong advocate of new music, Russell has performed with such ensembles as Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Firebird Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Ludovico Ensemble, Music on the Edge, Dinosaur Annex, Collage, the Fromm Players at Harvard, and entelechron. Recent projects include recordings of works by Eric Moe, Lee Hyla, Tamar Diesendruck, Donald Crockett, Chen Yi, and Roger Zahab, premieres of chamber works by Barbara White, Daron Hagen, José-Luis Hurtado, Robert Carl, and Gilda Lyons, premieres of works for cello and orchestra by Sam Nichols and Laurie San Martin, recordings of cello concertos by Chen Yi and Lukas Foss, and new works for solo cello by Andrew Rindfleisch, Nicholas Vines, Martha Horst, and John Mallia. He is a busy performer in the Boston area, making regular appearances with such ensembles as Cantata Singers and Ensemble, the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Emmanuel Music. He serves as Principal cello of Odyssey Opera and has served as cello faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Russell has recorded for the Tzadik, Albany, BMOPSound, New Focus, CRI, Centaur, and New World Records labels.
Jennifer Bill
A dedicated and multifaceted musician and educator, Dr. Jennifer Bill has performed in Asia, throughout Europe, and the United States. Her poignant performance style captivates audiences around the globe. Her musical journey includes performing saxophone solo and chamber music with a variety of groups including BRUSH|REED, Pharos Quartet, J.E.Y., and BiND Ensemble. As a conductor, she currently leads the Boston University Concert Band. Bill is a Selmer Artist.
Daniel Doña
Violist Daniel Doña has distinguished himself as an active international performer and pedagogue. His collaborations with musicians from multiple traditions has led him to explore the beauty of a polystylistic musical space, gaining praise for being “especially at home in this harmonic world” (San Francisco Classical Voice). He serves on the viola faculty of the Boston University School of Music alongside his duties as Director of Undergraduate Studies and Coordinator of String Chamber Music. Doña is also Co-Director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute String Quartet Workshop. In addition to his teaching at BU, Doña serves on the faculty of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra Intensive Community Program. Equally at home as a researcher and scholar, he regularly writes program notes for the Caramoor Center for the Arts and other concert presenters. His notes have gained praise for being “lucid and erudite” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). An avid chamber musician, he is a member of TriChrome, BiND Ensemble, Susie Ibarra’s Fragility Ensemble, and the critically acclaimed Arneis Quartet.
Notes
Both the string quartet through the light and the trio 5 fragments in 3 were written in 2022, and share similar compositional approaches. Exploring the several cultures of her family’s heritage, Ketty Nez considers folk traditions of Central Europe and Turkey; these two works use fragments of tunes recorded and transcribed as part of Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist Béla Bartók’s extensive research. In these two compositions, folk melodies, dating from the early part of the twentieth century, and traditional choral styles, are viewed through a modern lens a century later, creating rich associations and a “theater of the ear.”
through the light references three Anatolian folk songs recorded and transcribed by Bartók in 1936, a Romanian violin tune he recorded in 1908, and the “ojkanje” style of singing found in Croatia. In the first movement, “turn me this way, turn me that way,” intensive motivic reworking finally “blossoms” into clearly heard folk motives, set in static and repetitive ostinati textures, to be performed with wild and uninhibited abandon. One of the two Anatolian sources is a dance song, with the refrain “turn me this way, turn me that way.” The other song states dryly, “I stayed a bachelor for seven years.” After the strenuous virtuosity of the first movement, the second movement, “looking out the window, a duet,” allows one to take one’s breath. Added as a duet to the Anatolian “bachelor’s” song of the first movement, are phrases of a third Anatolian song, the opening line of which refers to “leaning out the window” (gazing at one’s beloved). Half stanzas of these two songs are alternated, interwoven, and elaborated to create an intricate duet played by the violins. The third movement, “calling out,” is inspired by gestures from “ojkanje” singing of Croatia, in which two or more singers emphasize sustained dissonant intervals through the use of elaborate trills.
5 fragments in 3 are musical “reflections” of Romanian violin and “fleur” (flute) tunes recorded in the 1910’s by Bartók. “in the rain, an introduction” serves as an improvisatory introduction to “organum, and a dance,” using phrases of a dance melody recorded with 2 violinists, the accompanying performer playing an instrument with only 3 strings tuned to allow close position chords. ”calling lost sheep” is a category of melodies performed by shepherds who have either lost or found their sheep, performing a “fleur,” a notched flute which sounds like a small recorder. In “dance steps,” the saxophone (or clarinet) and viola repeat and modify fragments of the original dance tune in continuous variation, mirroring the restless piano arpeggiation. “postlude, a horn call” recalls parts of former folk melodies of the set, and ends with a fleur melody “in imitation of an alphorn” (an actual genre of music). The original version for soprano saxophone (or clarinet) and piano, entitled 5 fragments, was at the same time expanded by including the viola. The trio version was premiered by Jennifer Bill, soprano saxophone, Daniel Doña, viola, and Ketty Nez, piano, at Boston University, on February 9, 2023.
A deep and heartfelt thank you to all the performers for their indefatigable energy, enthusiasm, and exquisite artistry, to John Weston, and to Boston University for its funding support, which made this project possible.
–Ketty Nez
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