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8:00 PM

Celebrating Morton Feldman at 100

New Music Concert|Pianist/composer Amy Williams performs “Triadic Memories” (1981)

  • Goethe-Institut Boston, Boston, MA

  • Free Admission, please RSVP

Morton Feldman (c) Williams

Morton Feldman (c) Williams

An introduction by Dr Anne Shreffler, Professor of Music at Harvard, on Feldman’s connections to and reception in Germany.

Morton Feldman’s extraordinary late solo piano work, “Triadic Memories” (1981) is a study in slowly evolving repetitions over the 75-minute duration. The composer described the piece as “the biggest butterfly in captivity.” Exact repetitions, subtle variations, shifting patterns and fresh new materials are interwoven. Materials are constantly recontextualized, using different voicing and registers, changing one note of a chord, juxtaposing new harmonies—always changing and always soft. The piece is not outwardly triadic (the harmonies are built entirely of seconds, sevenths and augmented fourths), but triads emerge through the hazy resonance. Some materials happen only once, while others are repeated, varied and recontextualized. The listener is taken on a journey of deep concentration and reflection.

ianist/composer Amy Williams has been connected to Feldman’s music since her childhood—her father and Feldman were close colleagues at the University of Buffalo. She has recorded and performed his music for nearly three decades.
 

Amy Williams

The “fresh, daring and incisive” (Fanfare) compositions of Amy Williams have been presented by leading international performers, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Bent Frequency, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Wet Ink, International Contemporary Ensemble, Junction Trio, Orpheus, pianist Ursula Oppens, soprano Tony Arnold and bassist Robert Black. Her pieces appear on the Albany, Parma, Blue Griffin, Centaur and New Focus labels. As a member of the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, she has performed throughout Europe and the Americas and recorded six critically-acclaimed CDs for Wergo (works of Nancarrow, Stravinsky, Varèse/Feldman and Kurtág), as well as appearing on the Neos and Albany labels. Ms. Williams has been awarded a Howard Foundation Fellowship, Fromm Music Foundation Commission, Guggenheim Fellowship, Koussevitsky Music Foundation Commission, two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fulbright Scholars Fellowship to Ireland, a MacDowell fellowship and the 2024 Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize. Ms. Williams holds a Ph.D. in composition from the University at Buffalo, where she also received her Master's degree in piano performance. She has taught at Bennington College and Northwestern University and is currently Professor of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh. She is Artistic Director of the New Music On The Point Festival in Vermont.

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