Carnegie Hall to Present YMusic In Premieres By Allison Loggins-Hull And Andrew Norman

On Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 7:30pm in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, yMusic will perform the world premiere of flutist, composer, and producer Allison Loggins-Hull's Supply, inspired by addictive relationships, and the New York premiere of former Carnegie Hall Debs Composer's Chair (2020/2021) Andrew Norman's Difference, both co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall. yMusic opens the concert with eight collaboratively composed pieces, including four New York premieres.

The January 19 concert marks the first time in many years that Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall will be converted into its alternate Center Stage configuration. The in-the-round transformation of the Zankel Hall stage puts audiences on all sides of the artist, offering a bold and insightful musical journey for audience and artist alike - all in a uniquely communal atmosphere.

Allison Loggins-Hull, The Cleveland Orchestra's eleventh Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, describes her nine-minute Supply as "initially inspired by a true story about a supervisor who love bombed someone they managed, in the ultimate pursuit of an extramarital affair. It was their effort to feed the need for narcissistic supply, while the employee found themselves vulnerable and fed off the attention, falling for the supervisor's initiation and advancements. The two found themselves living in a fantasy world, and used their affair as a means to escape and dissociate from their everyday lives and issues. This relationship eventually became more of an addiction, brought harm to both of their lives and loved ones, endangered their careers, and ended with a complete lack of closure.

"While composing this piece, I realized the phases of this specific affair are identical to any type of addictive relationship, whether it is with another person, a substance, or a habit. The supply is something that initially feels great and harmless, then eventually spirals into something that makes you feel dependent, lost, hopeless and out of control. The lyrics are taken from texts sent from the supervisor to their employee:

Tell me your dreams and I'll show you the way.
I exist in your plans to listen and help.
Can I get a pass?
We are getting close.
I want what I can't have."

Andrew Norman's Difference is scored for six instruments and was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Duke Performances at Duke University, University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Cal Performances, University of California, Berkeley.

yMusic started to collaboratively compose together as a group in 2019. While it's not unexpected for a rock band to write new material in this manner, classical ensembles usually stick to interpreting pre-written scores. yMusic shares, "The impetus to write came after spending a significant amount of time on tour with artists Ben Folds and Paul Simon performing 'off the page' - memorizing, re-writing, and sometimes creating arrangements on-the-fly. During these concert tours, we started working out little ideas together backstage, right before concerts, or in an idle moment of rehearsal.

"Eventually, it was Paul Simon who took us aside and encouraged us to dedicate time to writing music together. We immediately realized this group was meant to work this way! As six finely-tuned and opinionated musicians, we had literally been training for this our whole lives. During the pandemic, separated by the bulk of a continent, we doubled-down on writing, sending files back and forth via email, listening over screen-shared video conferences, and honing our editing skills. Now, (finally!) we are putting on our performer hats once again, sinking our teeth into these pieces that are so dear to us."

Program Information

Carnegie Hall Presents yMusic
Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 7:30pm
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall | New York, NY
Link: www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2023/01/19/ymusic-0730pm

Program:
yMusic - Baragon (NY Premiere)
yMusic - Zebras
yMusic - Three Elephants (NY Premiere)
yMusic - Flood
yMusic - Sober Miles
yMusic - Cloud (NY Premiere)
yMusic - Whosay (NY Premiere)
yMusic - The Wolf
Allison Loggins-Hull - Supply (World Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
Andrew Norman - Difference (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

yMusic
Alex Sopp, flute
Mark Dover, clarinet
CJ Camerieri, trumpet
Rob Moose, violin
Nadia Sirota, viola
Gabriel Cabezas, cello

About Allison Loggins-Hull

Allison Loggins-Hull is a flutist, composer, and producer whose work defies classification and has been described as "evocative" by The Wall Street Journal. She has been associated with acts across the spectrum of popular and classical music including Flutronix, Hans Zimmer, Lizzo, Imani Winds, Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, Alicia Hall Moran, and Jason Moran. Her music is resonant with social and political themes of the current moment, encompassing motherhood, Blackness, and cultural identity. Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim co-founded the critically acclaimed duo Flutronix.

Beginning with the 2022-2023 season, and continuing for three seasons, Loggins-Hull is the Cleveland Orchestra's eleventh Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow. In addition to several Cleveland Orchestra commissions, including an expanded arrangement of her composition Can You See? in the 2022-23 season, Loggins-Hull's work will be centered around the narratives and history of Cleveland, through chamber music performances and composition workshops with students. During the 2022-23 season, Loggins-Hull performs with Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran at the Mississippi Museum of Art, with ETHEL at the Brooklyn Public Library, and on an East Coast tour with Flutronix and Third Coast Percussion. As a composer, she has eight world premieres, a U.S. premiere, and a New York premiere this season, including 7th Ave. S for the Cygnus Ensemble at New York City's The Village Trip; the world premiere of her Persist at the Brooklyn Public Library; Love Always with Toshi Reagon and Alarm Will Sound at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; a world premiere performed by yMusic at Carnegie Hall; and a world premiere for Castle of Our Skins at Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

Last season, Loggins-Hull joined the Bang on a Can All-Stars for their People's Commissioning Fund concert and performed Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran's Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration at Cal Performances in Berkeley. Her compositions were performed by the LA Phil and San Francisco Symphony, and she premiered two projects with Flutronix: Black Being at the Arts Club of Chicago and Cincinnati Symphony and Discourse with Carolina Performing Arts. The New Jersey Symphony premiered Can You See? and her commissioning project Diametrically Composed - composed with fellow composers/mothers Alicia Hall Moran, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Jessica Meyer - received its long-awaited premiere at Bryant Park in New York City.

Highlights of Loggins-Hull's performances include concerts at The Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Chicago's Orchestra Hall, World Cafe Live, and many other major venues and festivals around the world. She has composed for Flutronix, Julia Bullock, and many others, and has been commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carolina Performing Arts, and The Library of Congress. In support of her work, Loggins-Hull has been awarded grants from New Music USA, and a fellowship at The Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood, Florida.

With Flutronix, she has released two full studio albums (Flutronix and 2.0), a live album (Live From the Attucks Theatre), an EP (City of Breath) and is signed to Village Again Records in Japan. As a member of The Re-Collective Orchestra, Loggins-Hull was co-principal flutist on the soundtrack to Disney's 2019 remake of The Lion King, working closely with Hans Zimmer. She was a co-producer of Nathalie Joachim's celebrated album Fanm d'Ayiti, which was nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY for Best World Music Album. On the small screen, she has been featured in an internationally broadcast ESPN Super Bowl commercial, the 62nd annual GRAMMYs Award Show and the Black Girls Rock! Awards Show. Continuing her work in film, Loggins-Hull composed the score for Bring Them Back, a 2019 award-winning documentary about the legendary dancer Maurice Hines directed by Jon Carluccio and executive produced by Debbie Allen.

Allison Loggins-Hull is a former faculty member of The Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program and teaching artist at The Juilliard School's Global Ventures. From 2018-2022, Allison Loggins-Hull served on the flute faculty of The John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. Born in Chicago, she lives with her family in Montclair, New Jersey. Learn more at www.allisonloggins.com.

About Andrew Norman

Andrew Norman (b. 1979) is a composer, educator, and advocate for the music of others. A composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, Norman's work draws on an eclectic mix of sounds and notational practices from both the avant-garde and classical traditions. He is increasingly interested in story-telling in music, and specifically in the ways non-linear, narrative-scrambling techniques from other time-based media like movies and video games might intersect with traditional symphonic forms.

Norman's symphonic works have been performed by leading ensembles worldwide, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the BBC, Saint Louis, Seattle, and Melbourne Symphonies, the Orpheus, Saint Paul, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras, the Tonhalle Orchester, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, and many others.

Norman is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his orchestral work Play, the Jacob Druckman Prize, the ASCAP Nissim and Leo Kaplan Prizes, the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was named Musical America's 2017 Composer of the Year. He joined the roster of Young Concert Artists as Composer-in-Residence in 2008 and held the title "Komponist für Heidelberg" for the 2010-2011 season. Norman has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Philadelphia and Creative Advisor and Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Norman's 30-minute string trio The Companion Guide to Rome was named a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and his orchestral work Play was nominated for a 2016 Grammy in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category.

Andrew Norman is a committed educator who enjoys helping people of all ages explore and create music. He has written pieces to be performed by and for the young and has held educational residencies with various institutions across the country. His music is published exclusively worldwide by Schott Music. Learn more at http://andrewnormanmusic.com.

About yMusic

Founded in New York City in 2008, yMusic (Rob Moose, violin; Nadia Sirota, viola; Gabriel Cabezas, cello; Alex Sopp, flute; Hideaki Aomori, clarinet; CJ Camerieri, trumpet) believes in presenting excellent, emotionally communicative music, regardless of style or idiom. Their virtuosic execution and unique configuration have attracted the attention of high profile collaborators-from Paul Simon to Bill T. Jones to Ben Folds-and inspired original works by some of today's foremost composers, including Andrew Norman, Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, Marcos Balter, Judd Greenstein and Gabriella Smith. They have performed around the world in venues of all sizes, including the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Madison Square Garden.

yMusic enters its 15th season with a slate of new projects, including a recital at Carnegie Hall, featuring the New York premiere of composer Andrew Norman's Difference and the world premiere of Allison Loggins-Hull's Supply, a forthcoming album of original music composed collaboratively by the members of the ensemble, and an album of original songs written with Bruce Hornsby. Their latest release, Together, by Judd Greenstein, was praised by NPR as "effervescent," offering "episodes of transparent beauty built from chattering winds, pulsating strings and a soaring trumpet."

TTo date, yMusic has released four full-length albums of commissioned music, 2020's Ecstatic Science, 2017's First, 2014's Balance Problems, and 2011's Beautiful Mechanical, Time Out New York's "#1 Classical Record of the Year." Outside of the classical genre, yMusic has collaborated in the studio and on stage with dozens of popular artists, including Ben Folds, Emily King, Jose Gonzales, ANOHNI, Dirty Projectors, John Legend, Son Lux, the Staves, Bruce Hornsby, and Paul Simon. Learn more at www.ymusicensemble.com.

Photo Credits (L-R): Allison Loggins-Hull by Rafael Rios; yMusic by Graham Tolbert; Andrew Norman by Craig T. Matthew.