“In 2022, with the closing of Mills College imminent and my bicoastal life coming to an end along with it, I requested of my colleagues works I could perform to mark this loss, honor the school’s great legacy, and conclude the thirteen years I spent teaching there. They all graciously agreed. Lament for the Maker is the title of a Jack Spicer poem originally published in San Francisco, in 1963.”
There are three recently commissioned works for solo harp and the final piece, berlin bedroom, an ongoing acoustic harp solo by Parkins which began in 2014. This CD serves as an homage to the Bay Area and is dedicated to students, colleagues and a collective devotion to experimental art making.
1_Laetitia Sonami, She is a Butcher in my Dreams (2024) The title of the composition echoes my fascination with Zeena’s unabashed physicality as she deftly splits, slices, rubs and strikes her instrument. We explored a tactile language where acoustics and electronic sounds are in dialog and invite the listener’s ear to travel “inside” the instrument.
2_John Bischoff, pluck (2022) is a duo piece for harp and electronics composed for Zeena Parkins. The electronic part runs automatically and variably in response to Zeena’s playing in each performance. Zeena can influence the activity and momentum of the electronics from beginning to end. Zeena’s pitch choices as she improvises in dialog with the electronics are one of the more remarkable features of her performance. Her innumerable ways of articulating the harp create a complex unity in parallel with the diverse voicings of the electronics. Such animated symbiosis is characteristic of her brilliant musicality throughout.
3_James Fei, In Such Circumstances of Miscalculations (2023) isn’t so much a piece for harp as it’s a piece for Zeena. I wanted to make something that engaged with her unique voice as a composer and improvisor, and I also hoped that the open aspects of the piece might pose musical problems that she would find interesting—it felt like a continuation of the exchange of ideas we’ve had in the over a decade of teaching together at Mills College.
4_Zeena Parkins berlin bedroom (2014-ongoing) is structured around the harp’s sonic limits: a challenging of its fixed pitches that are impossible to bend by design (without utilizing metal bolts, slides, harp tuners, etc.). These impossibilities are tackled by commandeering and repurposing the instrument’s inner mechanics. The version on this CD was the last piece from my final performance at Mills College, in beautiful Littlefield Concert Hall, on February 10, 2024. A fitting end to it all. The audience applauds, marking the moment, the place, and the community.
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Zeena Parkins – acoustic harp, electronics, bass bows, wooden bows, bolts, metallic paper, corks, alligator clips, metal slide, felt, handheld mic, friction mallets, lighting filter sheet
Recorded Littlefield Concert Hall at Mills College by James Fei,
berlin bedroom Littlefield Concert Hall by Aaron Oppenheim,
Mixed and Mastered James Fei
Artwork Amy Sillman
Graphic Design Cynthia Madansky
Executive Producer Kevin Reilly
