Sarah Davachi / Tony Conrad / Andrew McIntosh
Two world premieres by minimalist composer Sarah Davachi and Wild Up’s violinist / violist / composer Andrew McIntosh. McIntosh will premiere What Awakes From You for a double string quartet and a new arrangement of proto-minimalist Tony Conrad’s seminal piece Four Violins.
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What Awakes From You
For four violins, two violas, and two cellos
A large-scale work for string octet in scordatura“All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets… …It is nearer and farther than they.” — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
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Tony Conrad: Four Violins
A transcription of Tony Conrad’s iconic 1964 recording, Four Violins, the only released recording documenting his work from the time he was playing with the Theater of Eternal Music, recreated by Andrew McIntosh.
Sarah Davachi (b. 1987, Canada) is a composer and performer whose work is concerned with the close intricacies of timbral and temporal space, utilizing extended durations and considered harmonic structures that emphasize gradual variations in texture, overtone complexity, psychoacoustic phenomena, and tuning and intonation. Her compositions span both solo and chamber ensemble formats, incorporating a wide range of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Commissioned projects include large-scale works for Quatuor Bozzini, the London Contemporary Orchestra, Yarn/Wire, Apartment House, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Bonner Kunstverein, the Canadian International Organ Competition, and Western Front New Music. Davachi holds a master’s degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College and is currently a doctoral candidate in musicology at UCLA, focusing on organology, timbre, and phenomenology.
Andrew McIntosh is a composer, violinist, violist, and baroque violinist who teaches at the California Institute of the Arts, with musical interests covering a broad spectrum including historical performance practice, improvisation, microtonal tuning systems, long-form works, and the 20th-century avant-garde. As a composer he often works with forms and ideas found in nature or in other artistic disciplines, working in instrumental, vocal, and fixed media forms, and was described by Alex Ross in the New Yorker as “a composer preternaturally attuned to the landscapes and soundscapes of the West”. His compositions have been featured at venues including Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Gaudeamus Festival, Ojai Music Festival, Hamburger Klangwerktage, Moments Musicaux Aarau, Bludenzer Tage Zeitgemasse Muzik, Miller Theatre, National Sawdust, Issue Project Room, Monday Evening Concerts, and Tectonics Festival Glasgow. Recent commissions include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry opera company, Yarn/Wire, the Calder Quartet, and violinists Ilya Gringolts, Movses Pogossian, and Marco Fusi. Originally from rural Northern Nevada, McIntosh is currently based in the Los Angeles area.