Listen, also: a concert exploring mutuality and community
To “listen, also” means not just to speak —but also to receive, and to listen with care and attention. It’s a quiet contribution to the kind of world we want to live in, one that values mutuality, care, and compassion for one another.

PROGRAM NOTES

Pauline Oliveros - The Tuning Meditation for audience (1971)
In The Tuning Meditation, players/audience members are asked to tune exactly to another player or to contribute a pitch which no one else is sounding.

Guide for “The Tuning Meditation” by Pauline Oliveros

• Begin by taking a deep breath and letting it all the way out with air sound.

• Listen with your mind’s ear for a tone.

• On the next breath using any vowel sound, sing the tone that you have silently perceived on one comfortable breath.

• Listen to the whole field of sound the group is making.

• Select a voice distant from you and tune as exactly as possible to the tone you are hearing from that voice.

• Listen again to the whole field of sound the group is making.

• Contribute by singing a new tone that no one else is singing.

• Continue by listening then singing a tone of your own or tuning to the tone of another voice alternately.

Commentary:
Always keep the same tone for any single breath. Change to a new tone on another breath.
Listen for distant partners for tuning.
Sound your new tone so that it may be heard distantly.
Communicate with as many different voices as possible.
End when everyone else does. It happens.
Sing warmly!

Pauline Oliveros was a senior figure in contemporary American music. Her career spans fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. Since the 1960's she influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. She was the founder of "Deep Listening."

Gabriela Ortiz -  Alejandrías Sonoras for solo flute (2011)
w/ guest poet Kitty Jospe’
1. Justine -- 2. Balthazar -- 3. Mountolive -- 4. Cloe.
The music is based on themes from the Cuarteto de Alejandría by Lawrence Durrell.

Born to a musical family in Mexico City, Gabriela Ortiz has always felt she didn’t choose music—music chose her. Her parents were founding members of Los Folkloristas, a renownedensemble dedicated to performing Latin American folk music. While playing charango and guitar with her parents’ group, she was also learning classical piano. Her formal studies began under esteemed Mexican composers Mario Lavista, Federico Ibarra, and Daniel Catán. Later, shecontinued her studies in Europe, earning a master’s degree at Guild Hall School of Music andDrama under the guidance of Robert Saxton, and earning a doctorate in composition andelectronic music from London’s City University under the guidance of Simon Emmerson.

Ortiz’s music incorporates seemingly disparate musical worlds, from traditional and popularidioms to avant-garde techniques and multimedia works. This is, perhaps, the most salientcharacteristic of her oeuvre: an ingenious merging of distinct sonic worlds. While Ortizcontinues to draw inspiration from Mexican subjects, she is interested in composing music thatspeaks to international audiences.

A landmark achievement in her career came in 2025 when her portrait album Revolucióndiamantina, recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, won three GRAMMY Awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the title track. This historic recognition solidified her as a leading voice in contemporary classical music.

Kevin Puts - Moonlight Concerto, movements 1 and 2, flute/piano version (2017/2018)
The piece was written in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, during a time of great upheaval and division in the country and—for me—a profound feeling of disillusionment. I floundered for several months, searching for inspiration until the discovery on a cross-country flight of the 2016 film Moonlight in the in-flight entertainment guide. I found it exquisitely made, and the film’s demonstration of tolerance and compassion in the midst of a tough environment stayed with me for some time, giving me cause for hope.
-Kevin Puts

Pulitzer Prize and Grammy®-winning composer Kevin Puts has established himself as one of America’s leading composers, gaining international acclaim for his “plush, propulsive” music (The New York Times), and described by Opera News as “a master polystylist.” He has been commissioned and performed by leading organizations around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Opera Philadelphia, Minnesota Opera, and many more, and has collaborated with world-class artists such as Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, and Marin Alsop, among others.

Laura Lentz - Op. 75: After Koechlin for two flutes (2025)
This duet draws on the warmth of the Lydian mode to evoke the lush harmonies, atmospheric textures, and expressive lyricism characteristic of French composer Charles Koechlin (1867–1950). The first movement of his Sonata for Two Flutes, Op. 75 — with its fluid interplay and color-rich sound world — was a direct inspiration for this piece.

Laura Lentz - Resonance, 3 pieces for flutes (2026)
These pieces explore listening, vulnerability, and longing/hope.

The first movement, Listen, also draws inspiration from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writings on mutuality, reflecting on listening as an act of generosity and reciprocity:
“Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve in a raindrop.”

The second movement, Let your heart break (so your spirit doesn’t) inspired by the words of poet Andrea Gibson, reminds us to stay emotionally present with what we're feeling:
“Good Grief
Let your
heart break

so your spirit
doesn't.”

The final movement, What if… lingers with longing and hope, inspired by words of Rebecca Solnit:
“Hope does not mean saying this is not bad, and it does not mean saying that we can defeat it. It just means saying we will keep showing up. That we will not give up... we do not know how it will unfold, and neither do those we oppose.”

Marc Mellits - Discrete Structures, flute and piano (2024)
Movements:
1) Circle Structure
2) Red Structure
3) Survival Structure
4) Gold Structure
5) Blue Structure
6) Tight Structure
7) Clock Structure
8) Liquid Structure
9) Shiny Structure
10) Square Structure

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 

Laura Lentz is a flutist, composer, and teaching artist drawn to listening, curiosity,  and discovery. The author of Modal Flute Warmup, her work spans performance, collaboration, and teaching — engaging audiences while empowering musicians and artists to explore their own voice.

Known for her expressive playing and vibrant curiosity, she has commissioned, premiered, and recorded a wide range of new works, many written specifically for her. Her solo recordings include commissioned music by Missy Mazzoli, Marc Mellits, and JacobTV, with premiere performances featured on Performance Today. Her playing has been praised for its “striking, meticulous flute playing” (Take Effect) and “enviable control and supple phrasing” (Sequenza21).

As a founding flutist and Artistic Director of the new music ensemble, fivebyfive, as well as through her solo projects, Lentz creates performances that bring new music into dialogue with visual art, science, movement, and community spaces. All her programming is created with the aim of inviting audiences to listen deeply, feel moved, and connect with the experience of new music. In 2025, she received support from the Netherlands America Foundation and the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts, culminating in her recording Serendipity. Other projects have been supported by New Music USA, Chamber Music America, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

An active teacher and mentor, Lentz teaches at Nazareth University, maintains a thriving private studio, and leads masterclasses and workshops at festivals, conferences, and institutions worldwide. She also supports artists through arts-leadership and career-development programs, helping them build sustainable and expressive artistic lives. Across all her teaching, she encourages artists to trust their instincts and cultivate their creative voices.

Born in Malta, Helga Swatzak is a collaborative pianist, chamber musician, and educator based in Madison, WI. She came to the US pursuing studies at Luther College in Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, obtaining degrees in Piano Performance and Musicology. Helga performs as a collaborative pianist and chamber musician. She has taught music in schools, is a Licensed Kindermusik Educator, and owner of The PianoPath Music Studio, where she teaches students of all ages.