My First Love Story introduces the solo work of one of
New England Conservatory's newest faculty members and one of the most dynamic
young artists performing today: composer, performer, and improviser Eden
MacAdam-Somer. Recorded live in NEC's Jordan Hall, this album is an incredible
blend of contemporary and traditional art, moving fluidly between Appalachian
folk song and cutting edge classical performance. The CD will be released June 23, 2015 on
A-Side Records.
The seeds for this project were planted years ago,
when I played my very first notes on the piano. I don't remember that day (I
was four years old); in fact, I don't remember a time in my life before music.
Music is the language in which I am the most comfortable, and a language that I
have been fortunate to share with artists all around the world, in many
dialects and in all kinds of settings. For most of my life, I have struggled in
defining myself as an artist: violinist, fiddler, singer, dancer, improviser,
composer, educator, performer, musicologistŠ but I have come to realize that it
is the sum of all of these parts that makes me who I am. This project is a
portrait of the artist that I am today and the story of my first love, kindled
all of those years ago in my four-year old heart.
The album centers around MacAdam-Somer's Rumi Songs,
an open-ended cycle for voice and violin that is partially composed and
partially improvised. The three movements carry the listener from sweet
Bach-like tones through serial systems, folk references, and free
improvisation, while vocals soar in translations of ecstatic love poems by the
famed Sufi poet Mevleva Rumi. This work was inspired by Ralph Vaughan Williams'
Along the Field, also featured on the recording arranged for solo performer
with improvised fiddle interludes and English Country Dance tunes.
"Vaughan Williams is so skillful in blending folk songs with classical
composition, and I always wondered what it would be like to perform this piece
with a folk singerŠit is not at all uncommon for folk musicians to sing and
play at the same time and eventually I thought, 'maybe I can do both parts.' I
love being able to tell the whole story myself, because I can follow my
imagination wherever it takes me at any timeŠ it isn't about "blending"
genres or about the technical challenges in playing and singing at the same
time, but simply telling the story the way I hear it, which might be a little
different in each performance."
MacAdam-Somer carries the listener to many imagined
worlds in this recording. "Jump for Joy" is a jubilant blending of
Duke Ellington's composition with African-American spirituals and folk dance
tradition. The violinist takes on the role of the big band, drumming her
tapping feet which burst into celebratory percussive dance. From here, she
moves into the realm of film noir with "Lullaby," a dark,
early-music-inspired tribute to jazz pianist Ran Blake: "This scene is
from Claude Chabrol's Le Boucher, in which an Algerian war veteran (and the
local butcher) is suspected of being a brutal serial killer in a small French
village. In this scene, school children are practicing a courtly Baroque dance
in period costume, creating a sense of eerie serenity just before the traumatic
climax of the film."
Also featured on the album are more traditionally
rooted pieces. The CD opens with an original song, "Fourteen Miles,"
with straight up Appalachian fiddling darting suddenly through angular
pizzicato passages under sweet vocals. "Barbara Allen" blends the
familiar folk ballad with West African gonje tunes, traditionally used to relay
village histories as a means of preserving aural history. The recording ends
with "Say Darlin' Say," a sweet lullaby in which the voice and viola
intertwine and become one, speaking to the way MacAdam-Somer weaves all of her
musical selves into one exceptional and individual voice, each and every time.
NEC's Contemporary Improvisation Department is all
about developing one's unique voice, invoking a methodology that liberates the
idea of improvisation from any specific genre. CI faculty provide students with
grounding in aural skills, vocal and instrumental technique, a wide range of
improvisational traditions - in short, everything a student might need to
become a leading artist of today. Department Chair Hankus Netsky notes that
"Eden is what Gunther Schuller would call a 'compleat musician.' She's a
violin virtuoso who knows many fiddling styles, a wonderful composer and a
great singer."
Indeed, MacAdam-Somer's music transcends genre. She
has been a featured soloist with symphony and chamber orchestras, jazz and
swing bands, and Eastern European and American folk ensembles. As an educator
and composer/improviser, MacAdam-Somer has been a guest artist at such
institutions as the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (where she is a
regular visiting faculty member) and the Dundalk Institute of Technology, as
well as a featured performer at the Eastbourne and Beijing International Music
Festivals.
While growing up in Houston, Texas, MacAdam-Somer
studied classical music formally, spending her free time at the local folk
music sessions and working as an arranger and studio musician. She attended
Houston's High School for Performing and Visual Arts, winning the Music
Teacher's National Association State Division and the Lennox Young Artists
Competitions. Later, she earned her BM and MM in classical performance from the
Moores School of Music at the University of Houston as a student of Fredell Lack,
and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University as a student of Kenneth
Goldsmith.
In 2004, MacAdam-Somer moved to Boston and began
touring with guitarist and banjo player Larry Unger as the core members of the
ensemble NotoriousFolk. Together, they have performed across the continental
United States, as well as Alaska, Hawaii, India, Iceland, the UK, and
Afghanistan, teaching and playing for festivals and dances of all kinds. Their
music has been featured in many of Ken Burns' documentaries, including Our
National Parks, The Dustbowl, Prohibition, and The Roosevelts.
With her diverse interests and capabilities as a
performer and educator, MacAdam-Somer finds NEC's Department of Contemporary
Improvisation the perfect home base. "When I arrived at NEC and attended
my first CI concert, I realized that I had found the artists I'd been looking
for my whole life. The CI Department is much more than a degree program - it is
a vibrant community of creative musicians, each coming in with a distinct voice
of their own, eager to push themselves to new artistic levels and completely
open to and enthusiastic about the music of their peers. It is one of the most
mutually supportive and exciting musical communities that I have ever been a
part of."
Outside of the classroom, MacAdam-Somer maintains an
active international performance and recording career as a soloist and with
such bands as Notorious Folk, the Sail Away Ladies, and the Klezmer
Conservatory Band.
