eclipse album (release Fall, 2024)


A total solar eclipse will visit North America on April 8, 2024…

To celebrate this breathtaking celestial event, Rochester’s award-winning chamber group fivebyfive created a one-of-a-kind concert experience for audiences with exciting and inspired music to celebrate the eclipse, with immersive video presented on a full dome of a planetarium. This album captures music from the concert.

The first pre-release single from the album is available now!

“In the Path of Totality”, composed by Jessica Meyer.

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Eclipse
fivebyfive:

Laura Lentz, Artistic Director & flute, alto flute, bass flute
Marcy Bacon, clarinet, bass clarinet
Ken Luk, electric guitar
Eric J. Polenik, bass
Haeyeun Jeun, piano
Marc Webster, Executive Director, audio and visual artist

Tracks:

  • In the Path of Totality: Jessica Meyer

  • Eclipse: Marc Mellits

  • Under the Shadow: Kamala Sankaram

  • Totality: Glenn McClure

Produced and recorded by Marc Webster at Blue on Blue Recording Studio.

PROGRAM NOTES

In the Path of Totality
Jessica Meyer, Composer

With playing that is “fierce and lyrical” and works that are “other-worldly” (The Strad) and “evocative” (New York Times), Jessica Meyer is an award-winning composer and violist whose passionate musicianship radiates accessibility and emotional clarity. Her first composer/performer portrait album in 2019 debuted at #1 on the Billboard traditional classical chart, where “knife-edge anticipation opens on to unexpected, often ecstatic musical realms, always with a personal touch and imaginatively written for the instruments” (Gramophone Magazine).

Meyer’s compositions viscerally explore the wide palette of emotionally expressive colors available to each instrument while using traditional and extended techniques inspired by her varied experiences as a contemporary and period instrumentalist. Since embarking on her composition career eight years ago, premieres have included performances by acclaimed vocal ensembles Roomful of Teeth and Vox Clamantis, the St. Lawrence String Quartet as the composer in residence at Spoleto Festival USA, the American Brass Quintet, PUBLIQuartet, cellist Amanda Gookin for her Forward Music Project, Sybarite 5, NOVUS NY of Trinity Wall Street, a work for A Far Cry commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Juilliard School for a project with the Historical Performance Program, and by the Lorelei Ensemble for a song cycle that received the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America

“As a child, one of my favorite places to go was the Vanderbilt Planetarium in Long Island, NY. I loved being enveloped by the hugeness of the screen and the depth of the sounds while learning about how our world exists within the universe. That feeling of awe still rushed through me whenever I brought my son to Hayden Planetarium here in NYC. After becoming a composer, I noticed that nature and emotional states are recurring themes in my work. So when this project came about to write a piece commemorating the upcoming 2024 eclipse that would be premiered in an actual planetarium, I have to say my inner child was quite happy. "In the Path of Totality" outlines the actual process of an eclipse: the anticipation, first contact, second contact, "Bailey's beads", totality (in which the length of this section of the piece is the same length of totality folks in Maine will experience), and the Diamond Ring effect (when the sun blindingly reappears from behind the moon). "Afterglow" is a purely emotional response to what I can image to feel after witnessing such an event while also feeling the sense of community in connecting to those also present around me..”

Eclipse
Marc Mellits, composer
Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, enjoying hundreds of performances throughout the world every year, making him one of the most performed living composers in the United States.  From Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, to prestigious music festivals in Europe and the US, Mellits’ music is a constant mainstay on programs throughout the world.  His unique musical style is an eclectic combination of driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations that all combine to communicate directly with the listener.  Mellits' music is often described as being visceral, making a deep connection with the audience.  “This was music as sensual as it was intelligent; I saw audience members swaying, nodding, making little motions with their hands” (New York Press).  He started composing very early, and was writing piano music long before he started formal piano lessons at age 6.  He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Cornell University, and Tanglewood.  Mellits often is a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements or sections.  His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, colorful, and always has a sense of forward motion.

"Eclipse" was commissioned by fivebyfive to commemorate the total solar eclipse occurring on April 8, 2024. "Eclipse" was premiered by fivebyfive at the RMSC Strasenburgh Planetarium in Rochester, NY, on January 20 &21, 2024.

Under the Shadow
Kamala Sankaram, composer
Praised as “one of the most exciting opera composers in the country” (–The Washington Post), composer Kamala Sankaram moves freely between the worlds of experimental music and contemporary opera. Known for her work pushing the boundaries of the operatic form, she has created operas as varied as The Last Stand, a 10-hour opera created for the trees of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Looking at You, a techno-noir featuring live datamining of the audience and a chorus of 25 singing tablet computers, all decisions will be made by consensus, one of the first live performances over Zoom, and The Parksville Murders, the world’s first virtual reality opera. Recent commissions include works for the Glimmerglass Festival (where she was the 2022 Composer-in-Residence), Washington National Opera, the PROTOTYPE Festival, and Creative Time, among others. As a biracial Indian-American and trained sitarist, Kamala has also drawn on Indian classical music in many of her works, including Thumbprint, A Rose, Monkey and Francine in the City of Tigers, and the Jungle Book. Select awards, grants and residencies include: Composer-in-Residence at the Kaufman Music Center, Jonathan Larson Award, NEA ArtWorks, MAP Fund, Opera America, HEREArtist Residency Program, the MacDowell Colony, and the Watermill Center.

“As the sun disappears under the moon's shadow, the light creates a series of illusory effects: Shadow Bands, Bailey's Beads, and the Diamond Ring. Similarly, this piece moves through musical gestures inspired by each of these phases, alternating between light and dark with brief bursts of high intensity, before giving in to the darkness.”

Totality
Glenn McClure, composer
Glenn McClure is a composer, speaker, and scholar. For over 20 years, Mr. McClure has dedicated himself to building artistic and academic collaborations between students, scientists, classical and indigenous musicians. Mr. McClure has taught at the Eastman School of Music and currently serves on the faculties of Paul Smiths College and SUNY Geneseo.. 

“Mr. McClure’s compositional work has driven partnerships between scientists and artists. He recently composed a work for choir and string quartet for the European Space Agency. He worked closely with scientists and mathematicians from the Rosetta Mission to transform orbital data into melodies and harmonies. His music has been featured on several national broadcasts including a 2006 edition of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” This story explored his partnership with bestselling author Dava Sobel (Galileo’s Daughter, 1999) that resulted in The Starry Messenger: An Oratorio based on the Letters of Galileo’s Daughter for choir, lute, recorder and string quartet.

Recording notes

Blue on Blue Recording Studio, Rochester, NY

Tracks for the Eclipse album were recorded at Blue on Blue Recording Studio. Blue on Blue Recording Studio was designed by award-winning architect Fran Manzella and is owned and operated by fivebyfive recording engineer Marc Webster.  

The live room is constructed as a room within a room with floating floors and features a variable response, with one end more "live" and the other more "dead", allowing for a different sound based on placement.  The control room has a mix of absorption and diffusion to produce a very accurate listening environment.  

 

A note from fivebyfive…

We are so grateful to the composers on this album who shared music that inspires us!

This is music that we love that speaks deeply to us. We hope that this album resonates as much with you as it does with us.

-fivebyfive

 

Album artwork by Marc Webster and is an image from the video presented on the planetarium’s dome as part of the “Light & Dark: Eclipse Music” concert.

Thank you to Rochester Museum and Science Center Strasenburgh Planetarium support extended to fivebyfive during the course of this project.

The “In the Path of Totality” commission was been made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.