Technical Information
ca. 10’
cello, percussion
Premiered June 30, 2018
Purchase or Stream
Press
Classical Post (Interview)
Performance History
September 29, 2018
Vanguard New Music Guest Artist Series, Ludwig Recital Hall, Center for the Performing Arts, Kent State University, Kent, OH
June 30, 2018
Times Two Series, The Record Company, Boston, MA
About the Work
then and then and then this was written in close collaboration with Michael Compitello and Hannah Collins of New Morse Code -- it is perhaps the most collaborative piece I have ever written. We began working on this piece together at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in the summer of 2017. While there, I would compose new music sketches in the morning and then Michael and Hannah would work through the newly written material in the afternoon. We continued this pattern for an entire week until we had composed and shaped the first 5 minutes of the piece.
I completed a working draft of the rest of the work in 2018 and in 2019 I returned to Avaloch Farm Music Institute with Michael and Hannah where we workshopped the complete piece and shaped it into how it stands now.
The title, then and then and then this, draws its influence from Eastern religion and philosophy. Like the Heart Sutra, “gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond beyond” or the writings of Ram Dass, “go in in in in, further in, oh much further in, oh you’re just begun, keep going back in,” as you reach towards a possible goal there are only more and more and more possible goals to reach.
– Thomas Kotcheff
About the Composer
Thomas Kotcheff (b. 1988) is a Los Angeles based composer and pianist. His music has been described as “truly beautiful and inspired” (icareifyoulisten.com) and “explosive” (Gramophone magazine). His compositions have been performed internationally by The Riot Ensemble, New York Youth Symphony, wild Up, Sandbox Percussion, Trio Appassionata, Argus Quartet, Lyris Quartet, Alinde Quartett, USC Thornton Edge, The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, HOCKET, Peabody Percussion Group, Latitude 49, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble amongst others.
Thomas has won numerous awards and honors including a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Presser Foundation Award, New York Youth Symphony's First Music Commission, Aspen Music Festival's Hermitage Prize, a BMI Student Composer Award, a SCI/ASCAP Student Commission, multiple awards from the National Association of Composers USA, and the RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Competition amongst others.
Thomas has been a composition fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic's National Composers Intensive, the Festival International d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, the Aspen Summer Music Festival and School, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bennington Chamber Music Conference, and attended The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and the MusicX festival with Eighth Blackbird. He has been artist in residence at The Byrdcliffe Art Colony, The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Avaloch Farm Music Institute, The Studios of Key West, and The Hermitage Artist Retreat.
Performance History
September 29, 2018
Vanguard New Music Guest Artist Series, Ludwig Recital Hall, Center for the Performing Arts, Kent State University, Kent, OH
June 30, 2018
Times Two Series, The Record Company, Boston, MA