Dance – Nico Muhly

Two Hearts

fmyers — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 16:21:44 +0000

Marking the fourth collaboration between Benjamin Millepied and composer Nico Muhly, the score for Two Hearts, commissioned by New York City Ballet, draws inspiration from the Northern European folk song “Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor”. Comprised of a principal duo and 12 corps de ballet members the ballet also features costumes designed by Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte.

I Drink the Air Before Me

fmyers — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:15:29 +0000

I Drink the Air Before Me is an evening-length score for Stephen Petronio’s dance piece bearing the same name. Inasmuch as it was celebrating Stephen’s company’s 25th anniversary, the piece wanted to be big, ecstatic, and celebratory. Our initial meeting, in which we discussed the structure of the work, yielded a sketch: a giant line, starting at the lower left hand side of a napkin, and ending in the upper right. Start small, get big! The rules: a children’s choir should begin and end the piece. The work should relate to the weather: storms, anxiety, and coastal living. A giant build-up should land us inside the center of a storm, with whirling, irregular, spiral-shaped music and irregular, spiral-shaped dancing. Using these rules, I divided up the piece into a series of episodes all hinging around spiral-shaped constellations of notes. These are most audible in Music Under Pressure 3, and least audible when they are absent, in the diatonic, almost plainchant music that the choir sings at the end, the text of which comes from Psalm 19:

One day tells its tale to another,
and one night imparts knowledge to another.
Although they have no words or language,
and their voices are not heard,
Their sound has gone out into all lands,
and their message to the ends of the world.

I wanted the ensemble to be a little quirky community of people living by the edge of the sea: a busybody flute, a wise viola, and the masculine, workmanlike bassoon, trombone, and upright bass. The piano acts as an agitator, an unwelcome visitor, bearing with it aggressive electronic noises and rhythmic interruptions.

From Here on Out

fmyers — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:17:59 +0000

When Benjamin and I first met in Paris in 2006, he was always playing Bach. For our project with ABT, I thought I would incorporate his love of repeated chords into a set of variations on a bass line, making a simple outline for the structure of the piece (an energetic ramp with a plateau representing the central pas de deux). The music begins with a brief introduction outlining the harmonic language and pulse-based rhythms. The passacaglia theme emerges in the double-basses and celli. Instruments are drawn towards the line – a bassoon, a piano, a marimba, an insect-like rustling of strings, and the piece becomes a gradual process of addition, as the sonority changes from earthly obscurity to piercing brightness. The pas de deux interrupts this process, with a new bass line, a louche, French texture, and some ominous growling from the low brass. The energies of the final section clear the air, and a loud statement of the bass line closes the piece.