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Kurt Rohde’s education includes Peabody Institute at John Hopkins University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook. Along with his varied scholarship, he has received many different awards and commissions including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize, and the Lydian String Quartet Commission. His music is wild, yet filled with lyricism, rhythmic, yet unpredictable. Along with his compositional accomplishments, he also is director of the Composer’s Conference, violist with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and Professor of Music Composition and Theory at University of California, Davis.
Inside Voice was composed for string quartet as a part of the L.A. based Lyris Quartet's 2015 "Intimate Letters" commission/recording project. He explains in his program notes that “all the twists and turns that instigate change are begun by the second violin and viola...the first violin and cello have no option but to oblige and follow suit.” This piece has speed agility, lyricism, rhythmic intrigue, and beauty.
Altromondo is a piece written in 2013-2014 for piano four hands and assorted objects. This piece was commissioned by ZOFO, a piano group who is committed to programming out-of-the-box music. This video selection only includes movements 7-10 for which I have included the names of the movements, along with their program notes below. This piece focuses on the meaning of altromondo in Italian: “other world”. He suggests that time is constantly in flux and that even when the “musical place” and time itself seem to finally be “fixed” together to create some kind of meaning, it falls apart and we are left finding the balance between time and location again.
VII – aside the side II - The earlier "himmelmusik" expands further out than before.
VIII – lagan - Some of the sunken debris is salvageable, with the hope of being collected, brought back to the surface and retooled for future use.
IX – piano...piano [antonym] - The heralding players are changed, altered, moving on to a place different from where they came, making music that was unforeseen.
X – tzimtzum - All things are an assembly of parts; even the parts have parts, moving or still, adding up to a whole, breaking down further to the breakably small.
Altromondo
Kurt Rohde currently works for University of California, Davis. News about his work with the university and as a graduate advisor can be found here : https://arts.ucdavis.edu/rohde
New Music USA blog also has a biography which includes more music and info regarding Rohde’s career which can be found here : https://www.newmusicusa.org/profile/kurtrohde/
In 2019, Rohde became the artistic director of the Composer’s Conference, a program that advocates for the performance of new music, as well as lectures, and discussion of new music culture : https://www.composersconference.org/
To anyone who may need it :
I do not own any of the music or videos in this blog post or in any other posts that you may find in this blog.
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