Gandelsman, part 2

The next track is Sahra be Wyckoff by Kinan Azmeh. The composer moved to New York from Syria in 2001 and the title refers to the musical community he joined located in and around Wyckoff street in Brooklyn. He says: "The piece is an homage to a place of gathering, and to the spirit of that collective that continues to live on.

On first hearing the piece is a highly focussed development of the motifs we hear at the beginning. It is for solo violin except for a small percussion part, likely contributed by the soloist, plus a vocal recitation towards the end saying "A party at Wyckoff for all." Here is the clip from YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyWrJBUoe7U

And a comment from the composer:

Nest is Sinekemān by Layale Chaker. There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia entry, but here is her bio from her web site. The sinekemān is a type of violin played in Ottoman times with seven sympathetic strings. The piece is about solitude. In her essay the composer quotes from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, where we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt,

And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music...

The piece is a fairly lengthy, around 11 minutes, meditation on solitude with microtones, double-stops and tightly chromatic melodic fragments. There is no clip of the piece on YouTube, but there is a comment by the composer:

Christina Courtin contributes Stroon, her first piece for solo violin, which is actually intended as music to accompany dance, commissioned by the Vail Dance Festival. There is a clip on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuo-zD4muHU

And she comments on the piece as well:

I really know what she means when she says she is not sure about how the piece has turned out--I've felt that way myself about some recent pieces. The Covid epidemic turned the music world upside down. But the piece is a great deal more serene than one might expect!