Knox Piano Chamber Ensemble Spring Concert

Join the Knox Piano Chamber Ensemble under the direction of Ashlee Mack for their Spring Concert featuring works by student composers
COMPOSER BIOGRAPHIES & PROGRAM NOTES
Casey Foubert is a a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer-engineer with a twenty-year career helping artists like Sufjan Stevens, The Shins, Lucius, Gabriel Kahane, Richard Swift, Damien Jurado, Shara Nova, Pedro the Lion, S. Carey and others make records and tour. He began releasing and performing his own music in 2022.
Four Temperaments
“Sea water stood in my veins,
The elements I kept warm
Crumbled and flowed away,
And I knew I had been there before…”
—Theodore Roethke, from “River Incident”
In the summer of 2021, a colleague and I promised each other that every day, for 30 days in a row, we would write and record one piece of music and exchange our daily work over email. This proved very fruitful, and I wrote and recorded a two-minute version of “Four Temperaments” on the 14th day of our exchange. This original recording is the material that you will hear at the end of the piece, played back from a tape cassette and amplified by the upright piano’s soundboard via contact mics. The piece is a meditation on memory, arcane knowledge, and personal agency.
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Jasper Morgan is a composer and singer based in Illinois. He is interested in composing for both film and choir, among other media. He currently sings in multiple ensembles including TriTones, First Lutheran’s Choir, the Knox College Choir, the Knox College Chamber Singers, and the critically acclaimed Nova Singers. As a choral singer he has toured throughout the country and internationally. He will graduate from Knox College this spring with a bachelor’s degree in music.
Tempest, for two pianos, was inspired by Giuseppe Verdi’s Dies Irae, most notably the build-up and explosion that opens the piece. The piece moves from its explosive chordal opening into more lyrical and melodic music, which develops into intense rhythmic activity before ending with another eruption of chords. The main themes are the dramatic build-ups, booming chords and the melody outlined by said chords, which gets reused throughout the piece.
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Carlos Claudio is a composer, producer, vocalist, and recorder player from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since he was 12, he has been creating music from the comfort of his bedroom using music software and a melting pot of musical inspirations. From dubstep to Christian hymns, Latin jazz to contemporary choral, and hyper pop to medievals, Carlos plays within the gradients between genres to create his daring, unapologetic sound. Alongside his music studies at Knox College, he studies creative writing. For him, music and stories are inseparable; often, his music pushes performers and listeners to consider the joy of the narrative behind the music. Even if there are no lyrics, Carlos strives to infuse drama and comedy within the metaphorical text of every piece he composes. His focus on play and pleasure invites listeners to take from the music what they will; ultimately, his listeners are an integral part of his iterative composition process.
Toy Robots’ Extravaganza narrates the musical performance of two toy robots programmed by a passionate toymaker. These robots are made to perform their music just like any human would. However, they are toys as much as they are robots, so they are programmed to give a larger-than-life performance for the audience. This piece blends flowy phrases and energetic rhythms to evoke the highs and lows of narrative bliss. This piece was written after Carlos wrote his choral piece “Tag You’re It!” during his Advanced Composition lessons. Professor Maria Kaoutzani, his instructor, encouraged Carlos to let his inner child guide this piano piece as he did so with his choral piece. Though Carlos has never written a piano duet before “Toy Robots’ Extravaganza,” he wrote with this mindset: play first, ask questions later. With the feedback of Maria Kaoutzani and Ashlee Mack, the director of the Knox College Piano Chamber Ensemble, he achieved his vision: a program for two robots, their piano, and the audience.
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Omar Qureshi was born in Reno, Nevada and is currently based in Galesburg, Illinois. He is an undergraduate student at Knox College and is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in music. He is a student musician and composer with a focus in film scoring; he enjoys sound design and
composing music for different types of media. He is influenced by music from the media he consumes and by non-Western modes, and he is interested in experimenting with these other
modal systems as well as their application in various contexts, whether in media or standalone
compositions.
Zenith represents a journey of sorts; akin to climbing a mountain. It starts off running,
immediately, as if it is desperately trying to get ahead in case of a calamity, and the increase in
complexity and speed represent the unseen hurdles that the journeyman faces. The sudden
deceleration represents the faltering of ideals, until the resolve is strengthened and the burst
propels the journeyman to the top.
Undercurrent
The place where motion and stasis are at odds, beneath the waves where time is
simultaneously at a standstill yet ever flowing. The cello, guitar and pianos are constantly in
harmony and in conflict, with the melody purposefully flowing between them. Each instrument
is used to the fullest in order to retain some semblance of control, until the harmonious end.
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PCE MEMBERS
Oscar Gardella (’25) — Computer Science/Psychology double major
Hala Halabi (’23) — Psychology major, Anthropology/Sociology minor
Deline Liang (’23) — Music/Neuroscience double major
K Pham (’24) — Physics/Chemistry double major
Lyn Scherer (‘24) — Music/Sex Education double major
Amira Siddique (‘24) — Music/Neuroscience double major
Nanaho Suzuki (’24) — Biochemistry/Chemistry double major
Hannah Tannas (‘25) — Creative Writing major, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies minor