SERENDIPITY
1) SERENDIPITY2 (JACOBTV) - 17:03
for alto flute, string quartet, tabla (2024)
2) MAGIC WITH EVERYDAY OBJECTS (MISSY MAZZOLI) - 9:05
for flute, cello, piano (2015)
3) DISCRETE STRUCTURES (MARC MELLITS) - 13:27
for flute and string quartet (2024)
Laura Lentz, flute
with
Beo String Quartet
Tom Nanni, tabla
Svetlana Garitselova, cello
Jacob Ertl, piano
Recorded Summer 2025
Marc Webster/Blue on Blue Recording Studio, audio engineer. String quartet recorded by Sean Neukom
Cover art: fern, chosen for its slow unfurling — a symbol of discovery and chance blossoming into possibility.
NOTES FROM LAURA
Serendipity is my most adventurous recording project to date, bringing together three major works written for me or commissioned with my involvement. At its heart, this album celebrates how serendipity — those “good chance encounters”— can open the door to new possibilities. It is also a celebration of the incredible musicians I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with.
JacobTV’s Serendipity2, reimagined for alto flute, tabla, and string quartet, grew out of years of evolving collaboration and friendship. After recording Lipstick, I worked with Jacob on Pale Moon in a Very Blue Sky and Loudly and Clearly. While sifting through his catalogue, I discovered his Serendipity for violin, string quartet, and tabla, and immediately wondered whether it might work with flute instead of violin. Jacob loved the idea, and after a few months, Serendipity2 was born. We first met in NYC to workshop the new flute part, and later I connected with Beo String Quartet and tabla player Tom Nanni. Together, we premiered the piece in May 2025, and this recording is the result of that joyful collaboration.
Missy Mazzoli’s Magic with Everyday Objects transforms the smallest musical gestures into a storm of restless beauty, showing how the ordinary can become extraordinary. In 2015, I heard Missy’s ensemble Victoire while in Detroit — an experience that left a lasting impression. That same year, I co-founded the ensemble fivebyfive in Rochester, and the original quintet version of Magic became one of our signature pieces. I later commissioned this version for flute, cello, and piano, and this is the first recording of this version. Deep gratitude to Svetlana, Jacob, and Marc for making such a beautiful recording.
And Marc Mellits’ Discrete Structures builds a mosaic of miniature movements, each one a fragment that locks into the next in surprising and poignant ways. My friendship with Marc began during the pandemic, when I worked with Marc Webster on a video of The Seduction of Brie. That led to collaborations with fivebyfive, including a new version of Dreadlocked and the commission of Eclipse, which became the title track of fivebyfive’s Billboard-charting album. In 2023 while in Syracuse I asked Marc about a new piece for flute, and with the support of nearly 25 wind players, Discrete Structures was born in 2024. I first recorded the flute and piano version with pianist Tze-Wen (Julia) Lin; here, I’m thrilled to present the flute and string quartet version with the wonderful Beo String Quartet.
My hope is that in these recordings you hear not only the music, but also the friendships, curiosity, and wonder that helped make them possible.
-Laura Lentz
LINER NOTES
SERENDIPITY (JACOBTV)
for alto flute, string quartet, tabla (2024)
Many years ago, I composed a kind of raga, which was then arranged by Marien van Staalen for string orchestra and performed several times in different combinations, featuring his daughter Lenneke with Heiko Dijker on tabla. Then followed by Raga No.2 ‘Serendipity’ for Indian violin, tabla and string quartet was composed in 2015 for Lenneke van Staalen, Heiko Dijker and the Matangi Quartet. It was performed many times and broadcasted by Dutch Radio 4. The premiere took place 26-12- 2015 at Maartenskerk, Doorn NL. The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines serendipity as the occurrence and development of events by chance in a satisfactory or beneficial way, understanding the chance as any event that takes place in the absence of any obvious project (randomly or accidentally), which is not relevant to any present need, or in which the cause is unknown. Innovations presented as examples of serendipity have an important characteristic: they were made by individuals able to “see bridges where others saw holes” and connect events creatively, based on the perception of a significant link. The chance is an event, serendipity a capacity.
Serendipity means a “fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise”. It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to a friend Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), from Tamil Ceralamdivu, Sanskrit Simhaladvipa and Arabic Sarandīp. Parts of Sri Lanka were under the rule of Tamil kings for extended periods of time in history. Kings of Kerala, India (Cheranadu), were called Ceran Kings and divu, tivu or dheep, which means island. The island belonging to the Chera King was called Cherandeep, hence Sarandib by Arab traders. Serendipity is not just a matter of a random event, nor can it be taken simply as a synonym for “a happy accident” (Ferguson, 1999; Khan, 1999), “finding out things without being searching for them” (Austin, 2003), or “a pleasant surprise” (Tolson, 2004).
I call Serendipity a raga, but it not a raga in the Indian sense of the word. I tried to make string quartet patterns on which both the Indian violin & tabla could thrive. By request of flutist Laura Lentz, for whom I had composed Pale Moon in a Very Blue Sky and Loudly & Clearly, I arranged early 2024 Serendipity2 for the combination of alto flute, tabla and string quartet for her and Beo String Quartet. Now, the Indian violin had been replaced by the alto flute, and instead of improvisation, the solo part has now entirely been composed by me. The tabla part however is largely still an improv part. Its notation is just an orientation guide, except for the typical raga unison conclusion, which is in unison. The entire score was revised and shortened to around 17:00. Special thanks to Laura, who inspired me to compose and arrange my music. — JacobTV
Dutch ‘avant pop’ composer JacobTV (Jacob ter Veldhuis, 1951) started as a rock musician and studied composition and electronic music with Luctor Ponse and Willem Frederik Bon at the Groningen Conservatoire. He received the Composition Prize of the Netherlands in 1980 and became a full time composer, who soon made a name for himself with melodious compositions, straight from the heart and with great effect. The press called him the ‘Jeff Koons of new music’ and his ‘coming-out’ as a composer of ultra-tonal music reached a climax with the video Oratorio Paradiso based on Dante’s Divina Commedia. In the US they call him JacobTV. Sounds cool, just like his music, packed with slick sounds and quirky news samples. "I pepper my music with sugar," he says. You can not accuse him of complex music, but some of his pieces are so intense, that people get freaked out by it. Or simply blown away.
An anthology of his work on CD/DVD was released 2007 at a 3 day JacobTV festival at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC. JacobTV is considered an ‘outlaw’ in new music, whose work ‘makes many a hip-hop artist look sedate’ (Wall Street Journal). The self-proclaimed 'avant pop composer' won the first BUMA Classical Award in 2016 for the best selling classical export product from the Netherlands. With his continually updated reality opera THE NEWS he has been touring worldwide, his ballet music sounds from Moscow to Chicago. JacobTV’s so-called Boombox repertoire, for live instruments with a grooving sound track based on speech melody, became internationally popular. With around 1000 world wide performances a year, JacobTV is nowadays one of the most performed European composers.
https://www.jacobtv.net/composer/
MAGIC WITH EVERYDAY OBJECTS (MISSY MAZZOLI)
for flute, cello, piano (2015)
Magic with Everyday Objects is a piece on the verge of a nervous breakdown, in which the “everyday” building blocks of music are turned upside-down. Chords slide relentlessly out of tune, repetitive melodies become hopelessly entangled, and a schmaltzy piano line perseveres through a frenzy of sound. It’s about finding beauty and rapture in the midst of chaos, and acknowledging the chaos that lies just beneath the surface of beauty. Magic With Everyday Objects premiered at the 2007 Bang on a Can Marathon. - Missy Mazzoli
This version for flute, cello, and piano was commissioned by Laura Lentz in 2015.
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times), “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), and praised for her “apocalyptic imagination” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Scottish Opera and many others. In 2018 she became, along with Jeanine Tesori, one of the first woman to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Classical Composition”. She is currently the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Her 2018 opera Proving Up, created with longtime collaborator librettist Royce Vavrek and based on a short story by Karen Russell, is a surreal commentary on the American dream. It was commissioned and premiered by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and Miller Theatre, and was deemed “harrowing… a true opera for its time” by the Washington Post. Her 2016 opera Breaking the Waves, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects, was called “one of the best 21st-century American operas yet” by Opera News. Breaking the Waves received its European premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival; future performances are planned at LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Adelaide Festival. Her next opera, The Listeners, will premiere in 2021 at the Norwegian National Opera and Opera Philadelphia. In 2016, Missy and composer Ellen Reid founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female composers created in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center. Her works are published by G. Schirmer.
https://missymazzoli.com/
DISCRETE STRUCTURES (MARC MELLITS)
for flute and string quartet (2024)
Discrete Structures is a set of connected miniatures, each sharing musical material and each movement completing each other. Sometimes they complete a movement that has already happened, sometimes they complete it before it even begins. However, they are all based on the same musical material, and as I was writing each movement that material became more and more clear, completely on its own. I wanted to create a sound world that connected to itself almost serendipitously, creating connections throughout the work. The music of each movement on their own are very structured, the building blocks of each are all manipulations of each other, keeping the entire piece connected. Some structures depict events that happened to me during the summer of 2024, for example, III: Survival Structure, inspired by an encounter with a homeless girl reading philosophy in the center of Bucharest, Romania; stay strong, tomorrow is another day. Other structures compare similar material however, from different perspectives: a wooden clock turns into gold then melts into a liquid. Serendipity can sometimes be joyous or can sometimes give pause. Events happen seemingly on the own but often have an impact, from moment to moment, measure to measure. - Marc Mellits
Completed in September 2024 as part of a consortium led by Laura Lentz.
Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, enjoying hundreds of performances throughout the world every year, making him one of the most performed living composers in the United States. From Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, to prestigious music festivals in Europe and the US, Mellits’ music is a constant mainstay on programs throughout the world. His unique musical style is an eclectic combination of driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations that all combine to communicate directly with the listener. Mellits' music is often described as being visceral, making a deep connection with the audience. “This was music as sensual as it was intelligent; I saw audience members swaying, nodding, making little motions with their hands” (New York Press). He started composing very early, and was writing piano music long before he started formal piano lessons at age 6. He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Cornell University, and Tanglewood. Mellits often is a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements or sections. His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, colorful, and always has a sense of forward motion.
https://www.marcmellits.com/
