This commission was supported by Avaloch Farm Music Institute
Technical Information
ca. 6’
open instrumentation
Premiered April 14, 2016
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Performance History
March 14, 2020
Blue Sage Center For The Arts, Paonia, Colorado
September 29, 2018
Vanguard New Music Guest Artist Series, Ludwig Recital Hall, Center for the Performing Arts, Kent State University, Kent, OH
September 23, 2017
Simplicity Itself Album Release Show, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, NY
April 14, 2016
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. With MSU Percussion ensemble
About the Work
Unwind is a delicate exposition of off-kilter rhythms and slowly ascending lines. Layers of asynchronous pulses evoke an unwinding music box as cyclical rhythmic patterns move in and out of phase with each other. Initially confined to a narrow range, the musical voices themselves unwind as they slowly ascend the instrument, ultimately resting on the marimba’s two highest pitches. Bell tones, from a set of vibraphone bars placed on top of the Marimba’s ‘black’ keys, provide a bed of resonance to the pulsating marimba tones.
The piece can be performed as a duet, trio or quartet, all musicians playing one instrument.
About the Video
This music video is entirely inspired by the cyclical patterns of the music. The ascending and descending musical lines allow the unfurling visuals to ebb and flow, and traverse the intricate arcs of the polyrhythmic landscape.
About the Composer
Celebrated for his “waves of colorful sounds” (New York Times) and “smart, appealing works” (The New Yorker), Robert Honstein (b. 1980) is a New York based composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music. Robert is a founding member of the New York-based composer collective Sleeping Giant, co-founder of Fast Forward Austin and Times Two in Boston. As an educator, he is Program Manager and Composition Faculty at NYU, Steinhardt.
His music has been performed by the Albany Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Argus Quartet, New Morse Code, Colin Currie, Theo Bleckmann, Doug Perkins, Michael Burritt, Karl Larson, and Ashley Bathgate, among others. Interdisciplinary collaborators include photographer Chris McCaw, projection designer Hannash Wasileski, graphic designer Laura Grey, director Daniel Fish, and the Cincinnati Ballet. His music has been released by New Focus Records, Soundspells Productions, Cedille Records, and New Amsterdam Records.
– Robert Honstein
About the Videographer
Hannah is an artist and projection designer based in Berlin and Brooklyn. She found her way into the visual and performing arts through her background as a classical violinist. Beginning as a video and installation artist after graduating from the University of Brighton, UK, she moved to New York City where she was immediately drawn to the performing arts and the interaction of live performance and projection design for the stage. She graduated with an MFA from the Yale School of Drama where she was in the inaugural class of Projection Design.
Her design work includes: projections for the U.S. premiere of Alice Birch’s Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic Theater Company, NYC) a new production of Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror (Signature Theatre, NYC, Henry Hewes Award); Yuval Sharon's new Magic Flute (Staatsoper Berlin) and Lohengrin (Wagner's Bayreuth Festival), hand-painted ink brush visuals for Hanne Tierney’s piece 18 Stanzas Sung to a Tatar Reed Whistle (FiveMyles, NYC); Water by the Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum, LA); interactive projections for the adaptation of Murakami's short story Sleep with Ripe Time (BAM, NYC); music video Unwind for new music duo New Morse Code; Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau (Lincoln Center Theater, NYC; Lucille Lortel Award); a new adaptation of Poulenc's La Voix Humaine (National Sawdust, NYC); The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World by Suzan-Lori Parks (Signature Theatre, NYC); U.S. premiere of Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by Alice Birch (Soho Rep., NYC); visual score for Sarah Rothenberg's music-theater piece A Proust Sonata (Wortham Center, Houston & Alliance Française, NYC); projections for the world premiere of Du Yun's opera Angel's Bone (Prototype Festival, NYC, Pulitzer Prize 2017); and Ethel Smyth’s opera The Wreckers (Bard SummerScape, Annandale-on-Hudson); the visual score to art songs by composer collective Sleeping Giant for Albany Symphony's American Music Festival with Theo Bleckmann and Dogs of Desire (EMPAC, Troy); interactive hand-drawn projections for The World is Round, a folk-opera adaptation of the Gertrude Stein children's book (BAM, NYC; Obie Award; Exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial 2015); projections for Livin' La Vida Imelda (Ma-Yi Theater Company, NYC); architectural projection design with shadow puppetry company Manual Cinema for site specific opera La Celestina (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC); the visual score to La Prose du Transsibérien, an original quintet by composer Matthew Suttor commissioned by Yale Beinecke Library; projections for the new choral work ReAnimator Requiem by Matthew Welch (Abrons Art Center, NYC); and the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Dear Elizabeth (Yale Rep & Berkeley Rep).
Hannah is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Henry Hewes and an Obie Award.
– Hannah Wasileski
Performance History
March 14, 2020
Blue Sage Center For The Arts, Paonia, Colorado
September 29, 2018
Vanguard New Music Guest Artist Series, Ludwig Recital Hall, Center for the Performing Arts, Kent State University, Kent, OH
September 23, 2017
Simplicity Itself Album Release Show, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, NY
April 14, 2016
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. With MSU Percussion ensemble