Instrumentation: Solo viola and ensemble (10 players: flute/alto fl., oboe, clarinet/b.cl, tenor sax, elec. guitar, percussion, piano, violin, cello, bass); 16 min
First Performance: Mostly Mozart Festival, Merkin Hall, New York, August 23, 2016. Maiya Papach, soloist and Karina Canellakis, conductor.
Commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble, and dedicated to Maiya Papach and the musicians of the ensemble.
Duration: 16 minutes
A recurring preoccupation in several of my recent works has been the idea of multiplicities of voices, of dual realities, and symmetrical, simultaneous roles. In Twin Spaces, Intertwined, antiphonal quintets (one brass, one woodwind) reflect common yet ultimately dissimilar materials across musical timbre and space, glued together by a pair of horns and 2 percussionists. In vis-à-vis, electronically sampled and altered instruments complement and compete with their live doppelgängers. More Marginalia divides an ensemble of ten instruments (five traditional Chinese and five Western) into mirrored instrumental resources. Within the solo, linear violin writing of Character Studies, the dramatis personae introduces a revolving door of alternating personalities, impatiently waiting their turns to interject. Assumed Roles furthers these obsessions, with the solo viola as both instigator and adversary to the ensemble, as well as collaborator and chameleon, sharing instances of the same material and blending and disappearing into an overall texture. The ensemble and soloist assume each other’s roles, and a listener’s assumptions about these roles are questioned, confirmed, and thwarted.
Anthony Cheung
Excerpt, epilogue:
Full premiere performance:
“Violist Maiya Papach summoned up her jazz persona for Anthony Cheung’s Assumed Roles, which simmered with piquant timbres from saxophone and electric guitar. In one simple, dreamlike moment, a single note from the viola emerged from a fearsome gong cloud. Showing assiduous control, Papach sailed over the ensemble with abandon, with added depth from faintly sinister undertones.”
“Anthony Cheung’s “Assumed Roles,” with the excellent violist Maiya Papach as soloist, burst with character, as the erotically aloof viola part contended with bossy interventions from an oddball ensemble including saxophone and electric guitar.”
“With “Assumed Roles” (2014), the composer returns to his avowed obsession with multiple voices and realities. It is a role play that we attend, and the status of the viola vis-à-vis the ensemble is never final. By the harmonic climate that prevails, and with the help of an electric guitar, the piece takes a spectral coloration, hybridized by looped patterns. Bright and virtuosic, fluid and lyrical - all qualities that the International Contemporary Ensemble renders with naturalness - “Assumed Roles” is typical of the sense of formal dynamics developed by the composer. ”