![\"\"](\"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Sky-Macklay-500x500.jpg\")
semester ends)!<\/p>\nWelcome back to her kind; I hope you all had a lovely holiday break (and can manage to hang on for just a couple more weeks before the semester ends)!<\/p>\n
This week, I want to dive into another composer I love\u2014one who is still making waves throughout the contemporary scene today: Sky Macklay. Macklay is currently teaching at Peabody, and as a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, she\u2019s working to release a chamber music album that synthesizes her work as a composer as well as her \u201craucous, multiphonic-rich oboe practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Macklay\u2019s music is filled with unexpected and conventional textures\u2014one can hear this in her piece \u2018White\/Waves\u2019 and \u2018Chopped,\u2019 as well as her iconic string quartet, \u2018Many Many Cadences.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Many Many Cadences\u2019 is one of my favorite string quartets, and one of the first string quartets I discovered by a living composer. The piece re-contextualizes traditional harmonies\u2014repeating a series of cadences in quick succession to form phrases and motives. \u00a0The colors and textures Macklay extracts from the strings through developing the material provides an effective contrast to the bright, piercing nature of the initial motive. It’s wonderfully playful, which is something I strive for in my own writing, as well.\u00a0At the end of the piece, when the initial motive returns, it\u2019s transformed through the most delightful onslaught of slides\u2014the motive is almost indistinguishable, but ultimately it\u2019s just present enough for the ear to catch on.<\/p>\n Another stunning piece by Macklay is her violin and piano duo, FastLowHighSlow. Immediately, one can hear her playing with textures and registers\u2014which is implied by the title. The piece particularly direct in concept, but it kept my interest the whole way through listening because of Macklay’s\u00a0unique use of textural combinations.<\/p>\n Aside from her music, Macklay’s outlook on music also resonates with me:<\/p>\n \u201cI love weird contemporary music and sharing it with the next generation,\u201d she explained. \u201cI think a lot of it is sharing my own personal perspective on it\u2014just show how much a particular sound excites me and how beautiful I think it is.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s sort of contagious, or at least let\u2019s people perceive it as a beautiful thing, or something that some person thinks is a beautiful thing. I also think that exposure, experience, experiential education, and experiential pieces are really a great way to do outreach. \u2026 That\u2019s something I think more composers should do: write music that has a participatory role for amateur musicians, or for just audience members.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Finding ways to connect over the beauty of something\u2014sounds, colors, experiences\u2014is the primary reason I pursue art. If you want to connect over the beauty of Macklay’s music, you can listen here on the her kind<\/em> playlist<\/a>, or check out her scores<\/a> on YouTube!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome back to her kind; I hope you all had a lovely holiday break (and can manage to hang on for just a couple more weeks before the semester ends)! This week, I want to dive into another composer I love\u2014one who is still making waves throughout the contemporary scene today: Sky Macklay. Macklay is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2262,"featured_media":20955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1334,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21496"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21506,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21496\/revisions\/21506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/InnerLifeOfSong-804x1024.jpg\")