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Globe, Travel, Homeland

PIANO ENSEMBLE WORKS WRITTEN BY LIVING COMPOSERS

Eun Hye Park composer
Daniel Perlongo composer
Michael Sidney Timpson composer
Chan Hae Lee composer
Robert Paterson composer

Sang-Hie Lee piano
Martha Thomas piano
Kevin von Kampen percussion
Zack Hale percussion

Release Date: November 4, 2022
Catalog #: RR8076
Format: Digital & Physical
21st Century
Chamber
Solo Instrumental
Percussion
Piano

The piano is the powerhouse of musical instruments: with its vast tonal range and its ability to simultaneously supply chords and melodies, it generally takes the dominating place in virtually any setup. So what happens if you compose and play music for two of these behemoths? Pianists Sang-Hie Lee and Martha Thomas answer this question on their aptly-titled new album GLOBE, TRAVEL, HOMELAND.

Their touchstone? A selection of new two-piano duos by living composers, tonally residing somewhere between Prokofiev and Messiaen. Few instrumental setups are as complex as this one, but Lee and Thomas navigate its challenges with great aplomb, to the point where the music feels less like a duo and more like a transcendental conversation between kindred spirits. As it should.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Persona for Two Pianos and Two Percussion Players Eun Hye Park Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano; Kevin von Kampen, percussion; Zack Hale, percussion 6:15
02 Tango Suite in Three Scenes: Movement I Daniel Perlongo Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 10:17
03 Tango Suite in Three Scenes: Movement II Daniel Perlongo Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 9:23
04 Tango Suite in Three Scenes: Movement III Daniel Perlongo Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 11:19
05 Eight Quodlibets: IV Michael Sidney Timpson Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 1:15
06 Eight Quodlibets: V Michael Sidney Timpson Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 2:28
07 Frozen Land: Movement I Chan Hae Lee Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 6:36
08 Frozen Land: Movement II Chan Hae Lee Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 6:46
09 Frozen Land: Movement III Chan Hae Lee Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 8:33
10 Deep Blue Ocean: Movement I Robert Paterson Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 4:19
11 Deep Blue Ocean: Movement II Robert Paterson Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 5:03
12 Deep Blue Ocean: Movement III Robert Paterson Sang-Hie Lee, piano; Martha Thomas, piano 5:24

Recorded January 30, 2022 at the University of South Florida Concert Hall in Tampa FL
Recording Engineer John Zumwalt Stephan, Spring Theatre Arts & Recording of Tampa

Mastering Melanie Montgomery

The album project is supported by generous Creative Scholarship and ResearchOne grants from the USF Office of Research and Innovation.

Concert Managers
College of the Arts Events Coordinator Beau Edwardson
School of Music Production Manager Michael Dwyer

Executive Producer Bob Lord

A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Quinton Blue

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 Patrick Niland, Aidan Curran

Artist Information

Sang-Hie Lee

Pianist

Dr. Sang-Hie Lee, Professor of Music at the University of South Florida, is an active teacher, pianist, researcher, author, and cross-disciplinary administrator. As the founder of Ars Nostra, she performs piano ensemble music by significant living composers: her music is featured on six albums by Ravello, Centaur, Capstone, and Albany labels. Lee is the principal author of Scholarly Research in Music: Shared and Disciplinary-Specific Practices (McGraw Hill, 2012-2013, Routledge 2017, 2022). She is the primary editor of Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Springer 2020) and was the founding Editor of the Cultural Expressions in Music Monographs Series (College Music Society 2008-2014). She is the author of 74 scholarly publications, has presented 85 conference papers, keynotes, and lectures, hosted seven international conferences, and performed numerous solo and chamber-music concerts in the United States, South Korea, China, Serbia, Brazil, Italy, and Canada.

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Martha Thomas

Pianist

Pianist Dr. Martha Thomas has given concerts and presentations across the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, South America, and Africa. Thomas is featured on 11 albums on the ACA Digital, Centaur, Ravello, and Albany labels. Her latest, ECHOES: Past and Future, features music from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Noggin by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner. She has been praised for the “lyrical beauty of her playing” and “her mastery of rhythmic and textural complexities.”

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Kevin von Kampen

Percussionist

Kevin von Kampen is a Tampa FL based percussionist active in solo, concerto, chamber, and large ensemble works. He is currently the percussion instructor at the University of South Florida. He holds a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, a Master of Music in Percussion from the University of South Florida, and is completing his Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Von Kampen appears on several albums, Places and Times (Beljidner Sekhon: Innova Recordings), PLOT: MUSIC FOR UNSPECIFIED INSTRUMENTATION AND PLUGGED AND UNPLUGGED (The McCormick Percussion Group, Ravello Records), PATTERNS: CHAMBER WORKS (The Music of Ciro Scotto, Navona Records), and USF Wind Ensemble at Carnegie Hall (Mark Custom Recordings). He is also active in commercial music, performing with touring artists Weird Al Yankovic, Michael Bolton, Irish Tenors, Michael Amante, and touring shows In Dreams – Roy Orbison Hologram Tour, Video Games Live, 4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince, Cirque Musica, and Rocktopia.

Zachary Hale

Percussionist

Zachary Hale is a percussionist, composer, and software developer who bridges the gaps between music technology and music performance. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Percussion, Composition, and Electronic Music from the University of South Florida and a Master of Music in Percussion from McGill University. He currently resides in Clearwater FL, working as a software developer at Transcendent Solutions.

Eun Hye Park

Composer

Born in Seoul in 1964, Dr. Eun Hye Park holds degrees from Ewha Womans University, Southwest Baptist University, New York University (M.A.), and the American Conservatory of Music (D.M.A.). Excelling as a composer of percussion music, Park has received commissions from the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, History of the Avant-Garde (2004), the Edinburgh Festival (2004), and the Conservatorium Maastricht Festival in the Netherlands (2004). Park has produced two albums, one performed by the KAROS Percussion Ensemble (1997), and the other performed by the McCormick Percussion Ensemble (The Music of Eun Hye Park, Capstone Records, 2007). The 13th Eun Hye Park’s Composition Recital was held by invitation of USF Percussion Ensemble (2013).

Park’s orchestral music includes The Heart of Ice for String Orchestra commissioned by Romania Banatul Timisoara Orchestra (2013), Cantico del Sole for Orchestra commissioned by Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival (2013), as well as Metanoia for Percussion and Orchestra, and Kaina poio panta for String Orchestra, both commissioned by Romania Oltenia Craiova Philharmonic Orchestra (2014).

She is the founder and director of the Hadar Contemporary Music Theater, which has presented more than 20 new multimedia forms of music, dance, theater, and literature in a concert/theater setting. Park’s intriguing views on composition have four components that stem from her devout Christian faith: Composition is intended to express the world that God has created, a composition is created with inspiration from God, it should involve the use of creative musical techniques, and it must be used to praise God. Since Park strives to communicate God’s sincerity, goodness, beauty, and love for all people through her music, her aim is to create music appealing to all people. She is currently a professor of composition at Ewha Womans University.

Daniel Perlongo

Composer

Daniel Perlongo attended the University of Michigan, where he received B.M. and M.M. degrees studying composition with George Balch Wilson, Leslie Bassett, and Ross Lee Finney. With a two-year Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship, he continued his studies in Rome at the Academy of St. Cecilia with Goffreddo Petrassi. Perlongo and his music compositions have received numerous awards, including the American Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy-National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2003 he received Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Distinguished Faculty Award for the Creative Arts, where he taught for over 40 years and is now an emeritus professor. His Concerto for piano and orchestra is recorded with Donna Coleman and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Sunburst for clarinet and orchestra is recorded by clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. Perlongo’s music is available through American Composers Alliance, Inc. (BMI)

www.composers.com

Michael Timpson

Composer

A baritone saxophone and electric bass clarinet player, Dr. Michael Timpson has cultivated strong interests in American improvisational forms, especially free jazz and fusion, which would later evolve American popular genres, funk, hip-hop, and alternative techno. A child of the multicultural era in Northern California, Timpson was intrigued with East and Southeast Asian traditional music, which bore a lasting impact on his musical style. Originally labeling himself “an Eclectic Maximalist,” his recent works have drawn from a more spectro-minimal and fusionist vein. Timpson has also composed works for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean instruments.

Timpson’s compositions have won awards from ASCAP, BMI, DownBeat Magazine, NACUSA, NFMC, SNM, the Lee Ettelson Prize, Music from China, ARKO (Korea), and the Harvard Fromm commission. His orchestral works have received performances and recordings by the Korean Symphony Orchestra, National Orchestra of Korea, Daegu Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Florida Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, China National Film Orchestras, the Qingdao Symphony, and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Recorded by several major labels, Timpson’s works continually appear on radio programs throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe, and have strong visibility on the web.

In 2009, he was a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar in Taiwan for research on compositional philosophy for Chinese instruments, resulting in two scholarly publications. He is currently an Associate Professor of Music Composition at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. Previously, he has been on the music composition faculty at the University of South Florida, Rhodes College, and the University of Kansas. Timpson has earned an undergraduate composition degree at the University of Southern California, a master’s at the Eastman School of Music, and doctorate from the University of Michigan. His mentors include Samuel Adler, William Albright, William Bolcom, Donald Crockett, Morten Lauridsen, Frederick Lesemann, Milcho Leviev, Andrew Mead, and Joseph Schwantner.

www.michaelsidneytimpson.com

Chan Hae Lee

Composer

For more than three decades, Lee Chan-Hae has been a dominant force in Korean musical life. Her approach to integrating Korean traditional music with contemporary Western trends led to her winning the prestigious Korean National Composer’s prize three times. She has composed influential works for solo instruments: Galpiri for clarinet, From the Line for violin, From the Island Under the Moon for trombone, Sorickil for daegeum and produced two significant large-scale compositions: The Planet Earth for two drummers and orchestra and Womb of the Earth for daegeum, gayageum, and Korean traditional orchestra.

Chan-Hae created a new genre combining the traditional art of pansori singing with contemporary Western compositional style – the rhythmically flexible pansori with rhythmically fixed contemporary music utilizing Korean and Western instruments.

Chan-Hae received a B.A. from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea and M.M. from The Catholic University of America. After her retirement as composition faculty at Yonsei University, she moved to Cambodia and founded and was the President of Phnom Penh International Institute of the Arts (2013-2017).

Robert Paterson

Composer

Dr. Robert Paterson’s music has been played by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Austin Symphony, Albany Symphony, and the American Composers Orchestra. The chamber ensembles and choirs that have commissioned or performed his music include the New York New Music Ensemble, Bargemusic, California EAR Unit, Da Capo Chamber Players, Ensemble Aleph, Locrian Chamber Players, Aureole, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.

In 2011, Paterson was named Composer of the Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie’s Weill Hall. Other honors include the Copland Award, Brian Israel Prize, grants from American Composers Forum, ASCAP, and the American Music Center, as well as fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Music Center, Yaddo, and the Aspen Music Festival. In addition, from 2009 to 2012, Paterson held a Music Alive! Residency, sponsored by New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras.

Paterson has given masterclasses and lectures at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, Ithaca College, Middlebury College, the University of Vermont, and the Eastman School of Music. Paterson is the founder and Artistic Director of the American Modern Ensemble and resides in New York City with his wife Victoria, a violinist, and their son Dylan.

Notes

Persona for Two Pianos and Two Percussion Players by Eun Hye Park was written for Sang-Hie Lee in 2012 for her first piano ensemble performance. The one-movement piece begins with distant bells, raintree, and gong and soon moves to pitched instruments interspersed with vigorous rhythmic gusto passages. The piece ends with a full-force triplet accelerando and a G#FBCG chord dispersed in six octaves.

Tango Suite in Three Scenes by Daniel Perlongo (2012) references the ecocultural sentiments of the three Argentinian cities, La Boca, Ushuaia, and Cape Horn. “On Calle Caminito,” recalls the little walkway and Juan de Dios Filiberto’s Caminito (1929). “By Glacier Italia,” expresses the southernmost city in the Western Hemisphere, Ushuaia, where a tidewater glacier spills into the Beagle Channel separating Argentina and Chile. “Around Cape Horn” uses three quick tempo sections unified by a single rhythmic ostinato reminiscent of Astor Piazzolla tangos.

Eight Quodlibets, commissioned by Sang-Hie Lee and Martha Thomas, was world premiered at this concert. It contains two sets of four movements, subtitled “A North American in Asia” (2017) and “An Asian in North America” (2019). The genre of Quodlibets dates back to the Renaissance and contains numerous themes, motives, and rhythmic references from well-known pieces portraying a 21st-century inter-cultural mosaic.

Frozen Land by Chan Hae Lee (2012) relays the conflict between South and North Korea with a wistful imagining of a unified Korea. The piece has three movements: conflicts; a memory of childhood; and unified peace. The performers frequently encounter unexpected turns, with subtle and drastic changes creating a new rhythm. In contrast, the melodies are sublime and expressive, using Korean traditional drum-dance-like passages.

The Gulf of Mexico oceanic scene inspired the composer, Robert Patterson, to write Deep Blue Ocean (2010) during his trip with his family. The three movements depict vivid sounds of the ocean: rolling waves, soft seaweed beds, colorful fish schooling around the coral cities, and sunlight cascading diamond sparkles on the surface. Pianistic effects are created with extended pedaling, imagining the rich colors of the water.