sarah cahill

Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from their weekly playlist. Tune in on Friday, July 14 to hear these pieces and plenty of other new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre!

Trimpin: Above, Below, and In Between (Seattle Symphony Media)
Seattle Symphony; Ludovic Morlot, conductor

To say sound-sculptor Trimpin likes to think big would be an understatement—installations like a six-story-high xylophone, a tower of approximately 500 guitars (housed at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture), and an 80-foot installation that responds musically to the motions of passersby are just a few of his musical inventions.

In 2015 he was the composer in residence at the Seattle Symphony, during which time he created a site-specific installation and original composition for the Benaroya Hall lobby that was given its world premiere by the Symphony with Ludovic Morlot. Above, Below, and In Between was the name of his creation—and its centerpiece was a piano that can be conducted and played without being touched.

The resulting piece is a surround-sound fantasia of motion-controlled robotic piano, electronically activated chimes and horns, live orchestra musicians, and wandering soprano—a colorful kaleidoscope of sound and invention. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 2pm hour today to hear an excerpt from this piece.

Mamoru Fujieda: Patterns of Plants: The Fifteenth Collection (Pinna Records)
Sarah Cahill, piano

Mamoru Fujieda’s Patterns of Plants series is born of a fascinating, elegant creation process: an exquisite combination of nature and technology. The composer worked with the “Plantron,” a device created by botanist and artist Yuuji Dogane that measures electrical fluctuations on the surfaces of leaves of plants, and converted the resulting data into sound using computer programming. Through a process he has likened to searching “in a deep forest” for “beautiful flowers and rare butterflies,” Fujieda listened for musical patterns, and used them as the basis for composing short pieces, which he then grouped into collections reminiscent of Baroque dance suites.

The result is music that has a beautiful symmetry to it, is uniquely expressive in its own way, and is ultimately peaceful to the utmost. Other collections feature a variety of different instrumental combinations, but this Fifteenth Collection is performed on solo piano. It’s given highly sensitive consideration by pianist Sarah Cahill.
– Geoffrey Larson

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 3pm hour today to hear this piece.

Quentin Sirjacq: “Far Islands” (Schole Records)

“Far Islands” is the perfect song for stress relief. Quentin Sirjacq’s enchanting minimalism gives one room to breathe and contemplate the spaces in between the sparse piano plucks and fuzzy synthesizer. Sirjacq once stated that his music “is neither nostalgic nor romantic, but ‘reminiscent’”—this is a perfect description. His delicate composition here is reminiscent, to use his word, of peacefully floating in a warm lake; it loosens the tension in your muscles and readies your mind for leisure. Listening with a glass of wine in hand would be perfection. – Rachele Hales

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 8pm hour today to hear this piece.

Philip Glass: “Floe” from Glassworks (Sony Classical)
Michael Riesman and the Philip Glass Ensemble

As the second movement in Glass’ famed six-part chamber work, Glassworks, “Floe” holds a place of esteem in its own right, featured in the 1989 Italian horror film, The Church. Throughout the movement, Glass layers contrasting timbres in the signature fashion that boosted the entire Glassworks album into popularity with a large audience, giving him widespread name recognition.

This recording by Michael Riesman and the Philip Glass Ensemble creates a beautiful, mystical trance from the outset and maintains a sense of timelessness throughout. Scored for two flutes, two soprano saxophones, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, two horns, viola, cello, and synthesizer, Glass taps into this particular group of instruments’ blending abilities in such a way that the combined parts create an entirely new and greater texture for the whole. – Brendan Howe

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 9pm hour today to hear this piece.

by Maggie Molloy

We experience plant life through a variety of senses: sight, taste, touch, smell. In fact, flowers and other plants have long been featured in visual arts, culinary arts, medicines, fragrances, and more. Despite all of the many ways in which we encounter vegetation, though, we have never actually been able to experience plants through sound—until now.

Japanese post-minimalist composer Mamoru Fujieda has spent 15 years of his career creating music based on the electrical activity in living plants. The result is his magnum opus, an ongoing series of compositions appropriately titled “Patterns of Plants.” The pieces have been arranged for a variety of instruments and ensembles.

This past September, Fujieda released a two-disc album featuring a large selection of these works performed by renowned pianist Sarah Cahill. The album, titled “Mamoru Fujieda: Patterns of Plants,” is the first solo piano recording of this music to be sold outside of Japan.

Hop over to Pinna Records to purchase the album!

The compositions, created between 1996 and 2011, were made possible with the help of the “Plantron,” a device created by botanist and artist Yūji Dōgane. The “Plantron” measures electrical fluctuations on the surface of plant leaves and converts that data into sound using Max, a visual programming language for music.

“I understood these data to constitute the ‘voices’ of plants, and tried to make those voices audible as melodic patterns,” Fujieda said.

Fujieda sifted through the sounds in search of pleasing musical patterns, which he then used as the basis for composing a number of short pieces. He then grouped these pieces into collections, sort of like little bouquets full of Baroque dance suites.

The pieces reflect the subtle beauty and uniqueness of each plant, often drawing from a number of vibrant musical influences while still maintaining a consistently calming, gentle theme throughout.

“[The pieces] resonate with Baroque music, but also with the folk music of Ainu and Celtic cultures; with the lyricism of Lou Harrison; with medieval chant; and with a modal language that hints at alternative tunings, even when played in equal temperament, as they are on this recording (with Mamoru’s blessing),” said Cahill, who has been playing many of these works since 1997.

The rich but subtle diversity of each piece makes them quietly captivating both as individual compositions but also as a whole. Part of the album’s charm is the way it flows gently from Pattern to Pattern, immersing the listener in a lush forest full of ornamented melodies and delicate details.

“They embrace the repetitive structures of post-minimalism; but just as the leaves of a tree appear uniform from a distance, and only on closer inspection reveal surprising diversity, so the attentive listener discovers a multitude of variations and transformations within each Pattern,” Cahill said.

The pieces are poignant, sweet, and sincere. It is as though each Pattern is its own gentle flower, one small but infinitely nuanced part of the larger landscape. Just as flowers may be arranged in any combination, the Patterns may be listened to in any order. Cahill chose the order of the pieces in the album, with Fujieda’s approval.

“Sarah’s performance, with its refined phrasings and delicately controlled sonorities, imparts an individual character to each of the pieces,” Fujieda said. “The patterns together create an impression of being interwoven endlessly like a tapestry. It is as if the lives of plants are revived in her piano through this continuous chain of interrelated variations.”

Fujieda may have planted the seed with his first Pattern in 1996, but this album proves that his music has since grown into a beautiful garden full of delicate, charming melodies.