Come Closer Michael Harley

• John Fitz Rogers:
• 1Come Closer (Version for 4 Bassoons)11:24
• Stefan Freund:
• 2Miphadventures13:04
• Carl Schimmel (b. 1975):
• 3Alarums and Excursions (A Puzzle-Burlesque in 4 Polymythian Acts)11:08
• Fang Man (b. 1977):
• 4Lament11:07
• Reginald Bain (b. 1963):
• 5Totality11:04
• Caleb Burhans (b. 1980):
• 6Harbinger of Sorrows08:33
• Jesse Jones (b. 1978):
• 7Yonder07:51
• Total Runtime01:14:11

Info zu Come Closer

Bassoonist Michael Harley releases this eclectic collection of new works for bassoon that documents his work expanding the repertoire for his instrument and demonstrating its versatility in solo settings. Faculty at the music department at the University of South Carolina in Columbia (a fertile environment for new music), Harley established collaborations on new work with composition colleagues there, John Fitz Rogers, Fang Man, Reg Bain, and Jesse Jones. Also a longtime member of the critically acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, two of the works presented here are the result of intra-ensemble projects with his bandmates Stefan Freund and Caleb Burhans, and Harley’s work with Carl Schimmel was facilitated by a connection through Alarm as well.

“Come Closer” opens with the title track by John Fitz Rogers, a Reich-ian layered work for four bassoons, all played here by Harley. The piece opens with a precise hocketing texture at the 16th note, moving through a tonal chord progression with syncopated accents and short fluid runs. Reich’s influence is felt more strongly in the section that follows, with pulsing chords that fade in and out. At moments in the work, one of the bassoons emerges from the tightly constructed ensemble texture with a contoured melody.

Stefan Freund’s Miphadventures, with piano accompaniment, is a blues inspired work divided into sections — after the bassoon leads a scene setting introduction, the work settles into a lightly rocking texture in 9/8 meter. The second half of the piece is characterized by asymmetrical grooves with the piano alternating between imitation of the bassoon material and repetitive bass lines that drive the texture.

As in much of his work, in Alarums and Excursions: A Puzzle-Burlesque in Four Polymythian Acts, Carl Schimmel paints vivid character pieces over the four sections of the composition. He brings a dry wit and acute dramatic sense to his deft sense of motivic development and structural pacing, playing with rhythmic figures as if they were puzzle pieces and connecting contrasting material within a longer narrative. A bassoon cadenza encompasses the diverse energies heard in the piece before an energetic ensemble close.

Inspired by a late Ming Dynasty novel, Jin Ping Mei, Fang Man’s Lament calls on a broad palette of extended techniques in a work that pushes the envelope of the bassoon’s expressive world. Harley proclaims Chinese fragments interspersed with dense multiphonics, flutter and slap tongue techniques, furious passagework, bent pitches, and other carefully chosen effects in this work of poignant anguish.

Reginald Bain’s Totality was inspired by the August 2017 total solar eclipse, and consists of four movements, each representing a different impression of select phases of the phenomenon. A lyrical introduction captures the mystery surrounding the event, and leads into a Phillip Glass-esque section of excited, driving music outlining major and minor triads. Haunting, sequenced chords characterize the next section, laying the ground for halting music in the bassoon. The bassoon plays muscular, virtuosic arpeggios in the subsequent section, before the texture zooms in to focus on delicate chords in the high register of the piano. The work closes with a return to the minimalist music heard earlier, balancing out the sense of patient wonder in the work with music of exuberance.

Caleb Burhans’ Harbinger of Sorrows (a reference to the Metallica song Harvester of Sorrow from their album “…And Justice for All”) is a lament, featuring Harley on beautiful, singing lines above a quasi-ostinato in the piano. The melancholy of the texture and harmonic colors speaks for itself, but programmatically, the composer has indicated that the work was written as a response to the election of the 45th president of the United States.

The opening of Jesse Jones’ Yonder for string trio and bassoon joyfully conjures the rhythmic world of old time music, declaiming in hymn-like fashion the imagined text, Yonder, yonder! Oh! Yonder, yonder! Over Yonder! Jones contrasts this folkloric association with a pitch language and motivic treatment that lives more squarely in a modernist context, citing Stravinsky as an influence. The interplay between these elements guides the piece forward, finding many pints of common ground between the worlds of fiddle music and A Soldier’s Tale-era Stravinsky. Yonder is a fitting close to this Harley recording, focused as it is on contextualizing the bassoon within a wide range of compositional aesthetics of our time. Throughout, Harley is a consummate advocate, bringing his fine instrumental command to interpretations that display great understanding of the different styles at work in the repertoire.

Michael Harley, bassoon

Michael Harley
It's been said that Michael Harley is "... one of the leading bassoonists in America, and perhaps even the world, though he's no Sergio Azzolini" by both of his parents. Less discriminating critics have called his performances “spectacular” (Washington Post) and “exquisite” (Columbus Dispatch).

Mike enjoys a diverse career as a teacher, performer, and music advocate. A dedicated teacher, he is Associate Professor of Bassoon at the University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC). In addition to bassoon, he teaches courses in American music, coaches chamber music, and is artistic director of the award-winning Southern Exposure New Music Series. Southern Exposure, which produces four free yearly concerts, has presented the regional debut of some of the world's most acclaimed artists and ensembles, including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Brooklyn Rider, Roomful of Teeth, Eighth Blackbird, the JACK and Calder string quartets, Imani Winds, and sitar virtuoso Kartik Seshadri.

Mike also taught full-time at Ohio University, Wright State University, and his alma mater, Goshen College, a Mennonite liberal arts school in northern Indiana. In these positions and at UofSC he is grateful to have gotten experience doing a little bit of everything: he started and directed a wind ensemble, conducted musical theater, directed a collegium musicum (early music group), and taught courses in music theory, ear training, keyboard musicianship, contemporary music, music history and literature, bassoon pedagogy and repertoire, and woodwind methods.

Mike is a founding member of the chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound, called “new music luminaries” and “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American musical scene” (New York Times). AWS performs regularly at some of the world's great venues, and has done educational residencies at universities and other institutions throughout the U.S., including Harvard, Duke, Stanford, MIT, Colorado-Boulder, Lawrence University, Dickinson College, and Bowling Green State University. Its members were artists-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013-14. Mike has worked with and premiered pieces by many of today’s most distinguished composers, including Pulitzer-winners John Adams, John Luther Adams, Aaron Jay Kernis, David Lang, Roger Reynolds, Steve Reich, and Charles Wuorinen; and Reginald Bain, Marcos Balter, Derek Bermel, Oscar Bettison, David Biedenbender, Harrison Birtwistle, King Britt, Caleb Burhans, Viet Cuong, Donnacha Dennehy, Christopher Dietz, Paul Dooley, Dave Douglas, Stefan Freund, David K. Garner, Michael Gordon, Michael Harrison, Takuma Itoh, Scott Johnson, Jesse Jones, Amy Beth Kirsten, Hannah Lash, David T. Little, Fang Man, Matt Marks, Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly, John Orfe, Michael Pisaro, Wolfgang Rihm, John Fitz Rogers, Carl Schimmel, Steven Snowden, Kate Soper, Augusta Read Thomas, Ken Ueno, and Dan Visconti. Most recently, he gave the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s Reliable Sources, a concerto for bassoon and orchestral winds / wind ensemble. A versatile musician, Mike has been featured with AWS as a bassoonist, singer, and pianist. He can be heard on the Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, New Amsterdam, Innova, New Focus, Bedroom Community, Tzadik, Centaur, and Sweetspot record labels.

As a recitalist, chamber, and orchestral musician, Mike has played in diverse venues on five continents, ranging from nightclubs and bars (Le Poisson Rouge and the Roxy in NYC) to Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Library of Congress, the Barbican (London), Musiekgebouw aan ‘t IJ (Amsterdam), Town Hall in Johannesburg, South Africa, Glinka Hall (Moscow), and the Hermitage Theatre (St. Petersburg); and with artists including the indie rock group Dirty Projectors, the jazz trio Medeski, Martin and Wood, percussionist / conductor Tyshawn Sorey, Dance Heginbotham, the orchestras of Charleston, Columbus, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Augusta (GA), Rock Hill (NC), and the Long Bay Symphony (Myrtle Beach). He was acting principal bassoon of the South Carolina Philharmonic in 2015-16, and plays regularly with that orchestra. Chamber music adventures include the pioneering bassoon groups Dark in the Song and the Rushes Ensemble, formed to perform and record Michael Gordon’s concert-length work for seven bassoons, Rushes. Festivals and conference performances include Lucca Opera Theater (Italy), Piccolo Spoleto, Music on the Hill Rhode Island, Mizzou New Music, Kent Blossom, the 2018 and 2013 International College Music Society conferences in Vancouver, BC and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and numerous International Double Reed Society conferences. Mike has served on the faculties of the Interlochen Arts Camp in Interlochen, MI and the Saarburger Serenaden International Music Festival and School in Saarburg, Germany.

Mike has degrees from the Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.), where he was awarded the Performer’s Certificate, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (M.M.), and Goshen College (B.A., English and music). His teachers include John Hunt, William Winstead, Gwendolyn Rose, and Sharon Trent. He grew up in northern Indiana and Michigan, and now lives in Columbia, SC, where he is hopelessly outnumbered and consistently outmaneuvered by five lovely ladies: his wife, flutist Jennifer Parker-Harley, daughters Ella and Lucia, dog Skyler, and cat Yuki.

Booklet für Come Closer