Bowerbird is pleased to present violinist/violist Leah Asher with percussionist Dennis Sullivan and pianist Christopher Goddard to perform a program of works by Lewis Nielson, Anahita Abbasi, Leah Asher, and Michael Hersch.

Featured on this program is Lewis Nielson’s new work clang clash roar, whose title taken from a line in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Bells,” emanates from the array of sound that are produced by large metal instruments, some familiar, others less so, capable of considerable rhythmic discretion as well as the typical, more sonorous and haunting sounds, rich in timbre. There is an inevitability in the direction of the structure in which the dialogue between viola and percussion unfolds, the outcome of which is visually prefigured but the persistence of the viola’s insistent percussion resists the tolling and rattling of the percussionist, leading to a point of resolution that acts more as a point of departure.

Anahita Abbasi’s violin solo, Situation IV/lo E iO, is a work from her series of situation pieces, which explores the idea of the ‘dialogical self.’ In this case, exploring the dialogical self of the musician herself, a multiplicity of ‘self -positions,’ an and infusion of external and internal dialogues.

Leah Asher’s duo for violin and percussion, A, open. Open, features texts of Gertrude Stein to whimsically and obsessively reflect on the perpetual cycles of everyday life.

Michael Hersch’s epic work, the wreckage of flowers is a set of 21 short pieces accompanying writings of the Polish-born 1980 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004). Rife with imagery of barren landscapes, frigid winters, and vast skies, this piece emanates a feeling of resilience amidst dark circumstances.

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

Violinist/violist, composer, and visual artist Leah Asher is an avid performer of contemporary music and creator of new artistic works. Leah has been a member of The Rhythm Method string quartet, an innovative ensemble of composer-performers, since 2016. A sought after performer and collaborator, Leah can be found performing as a regular guest with New York-based ensembles such as International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and S.E.M. Ensemble. She is also the co-creator of Meaningless Work, an interdisciplinary performance collaboration with Nicolee Kuester and half of the violin-piano duo Aether Eos with Christopher Goddard.

Leah maintains an international career with performances presented by the Lucerne Festival, Lake George Music Festival, Omaha One Festival, MATA Festival, TriBeCA New Music, Festspillene i Nord Norge, Music Mondays, and Codes d’accès. Leah has equally enjoyed performing at such celebrated venues as The Wiener Musikverein, Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, and the KKL Lucerne, as well as smaller, more intimate venues such as The Owl Music Parlor, Kimaira, Echoraum, the cell theatre, Konsthall C, and JACK. Leah has been featured as a concerto soloist with the Arctic Philharmonic Sinfonietta and Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. Leah formerly served as solo violist of the Arctic Philharmonic Sinfonietta and co-principal viola of the Arctic Philharmonic.

As a guest artist and educator, Leah has given performances and worked with students at universities including Rice University, New York University, Bowling Green State University, Zurich University for Art and Music, Arkansas State University, Tulane University, Peabody Conservatory, Hunter College, Brown University, and Youngstown State University.

As a composer, Leah has been commissioned by several ensembles, including andPlay, Chartreuse, Periapsis, NorthArc Percussion Group, The Great Learning Orchestra, Du.0, and solo artists such as Meaghan Burke, Tristan McKay, and Jennifer Torrence. Recent releases include Leah’s solo album ‘Retreat into Afters’ (SCRIPTS Records), and The Rhythm Method’s self-titled debut album (Gold Bolus Recordings). Leah joined the faculty of Manhattan School of Music as of 2022.

Leah completed her undergraduate degrees at Oberlin College and Conservatory, studying violin with Gregory Fulkerson and studio art primarily with John Pearson. As a recipient of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, she completed her Master’s in Contemporary Performance at Manhattan School of Music with Curtis Macomber, then continued studies at UCSD under the tutelage of János Négyesy.

Based in New York City, Dennis K. Sullivan II is a percussionist, composer, and electronicist, focusing on new and contemporary music. His music has been performed across the globe by the International Contemporary Ensemble, yarn/wire, New Thread Quartet, DECODER, Ensemble Adapter, Hypercube, and Dal Niente in venues such as the Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), The Stone (NYC), Nymusikk Bergen (Norway), Omaha Under the Radar, Splendor (Amsterdam), and the Edmonton Fringe Festival (Canada). He is a founding member and core performer in Radical 2, a classification-defying duo that explores the use of theatric, vocal, percussive, and prototype electronic mediums, and Popebama, an experimental duo that applies text, electronics, and high-energy performances to non-traditional sounds.

An active chamber and orchestral percussionist, Sullivan has shared the stage with leading contemporary music ensembles such as The Argento New Music Project, Either/Or, The International Contemporary Ensemble, ECCE Ensemble, Ensemble Court Circuit (Paris), Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wavefield Ensemble, Newband, Mivos Quartet, The Darmstadt Preistrager Forum, and Ensemble Modern Academy, among others. He has performed in notable NYC venues such as BAM, Roulette, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater, Symphony Space, Le Poisson Rouge, The Shed, and The Stone. Equally at home in the world of improvisation, he has shared the stage with luminaries such as Brandon Lopez, Erin Rogers, Peter Evans, Tom Rainey and Dana Jessen. An advocate for the new music community, Sullivan successfully curated an annual series of theatrically driven new music, bringing together classical music, theater, rock, heavy metal, and film at Jack (Brooklyn) from 2015-17.

Performance awards include grand prize at the Van Rooy Competition for Musical Excellence, the Stipiendienpreise at the Darmstadt International Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik (Darmstadt, Germany) and a STEIM Center composer residency for electroacoustic music (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Sullivan has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Mode, GoldBolus, New Focus, Original Abstraction and INNOVA labels.

Sullivan holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) from the Hartt School of Music and Master of Music (MM) / Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) from SUNY Stony Brook University (New York). Sullivan currently serves as instructor of percussion and music tech as well as director of the wind ensemble at Adelphi University.

Christopher Goddard is a Canadian composer and pianist. As a composer, he has collaborated with NYO Canada, Esprit Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Quatuor Molinari, Continuum, Ensemble Paramirabo, l’Orchestre de la Francophonie, andPlay duo, No Exit New Music Ensemble, NOISE-BRIDGE, and others. Recent commissions have come from the Lucerne Festival, the Royal Conservatory/

Koerner Hall for the 21C Festival and the City of Reutlingen. He was selected for the 11th International Forum for Young Composers with the NEM, and has participated in the Wellesley Composers Conference, the National Arts Centre Young Composers Program, and the Rencontres de Musique Nouvelle at Domaine Forget. His work has been recognized by the MacDowell Foundation, the Graham Sommer Competition for Young Composers, the Prix Collégien de Musique Contemporaine, the SOCAN Young Composer Awards, and the Robert Avalon Competition for Young Composers.

He was recently named as the 2022 protégé of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, a mentorship program in collaboration with 2021 GGPAA laureate Alexina Louie. The Canadian League of Composers presented him with the 2015 Friends of Canadian Music Award to share with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, who would later select him as their 2016 RBC Foundation Emerging Composer-in-Residence. The resulting work received its premiere in Lisbon and was broadcast on CBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3.

As a performer and advocate of contemporary music, Christopher Goddard has presented dozens of premieres by his colleagues, appearing with new music groups such as Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Columbia Composers, Penn Composers Guild, the Wet Ink Ensemble and others. He has participated in the Samos Young Artist Festival, the Avant Music Festival in New York and was a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy. He performed with TACTUS, the contemporary music ensemble at the Manhattan School of Music, while studying with pianists Christopher Oldfather and Anthony de Mare. Previous piano studies took place with Nicole Presentey in Ottawa and Kyoko Hashimoto in Montreal.

Christopher Goddard holds a D.Mus. in composition from McGill University, an M.M. in contemporary performance from the Manhattan School of Music, an M.M.
in composition from Rice University, and a B.Mus. in composition and theory from McGill University. Principal past composition mentors include John Rea, Pierre Jalbert, Karim Al-Zand, Chris Paul Harman and Brian Cherney. He is an associate member of the Canadian Music Centre and has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts. He served as Artistic Director of Ottawa New Music Creators from 2017-2019 and currently teaches theory and aural skills at the University of Florida.