On Monday, Sept. 24, the UTM Music Department hosted Hypercube, who performed six songs composed by six different composers.
Hypercube is a New York City-based quartet that embraces the boundaries of chamber music.
The name Hypercube describes their music and the musicians’ personalities. The members of Hypercube are saxophonist Erin Rodgers, guitarist Jay Sorce, pianist/accordionist Andrea Lodge and percussionist Chris Graham.
Hypercube has appeared as a featured guest artist at Music on Summer in Knoxville, the Charlotte New Music Festival, the UK International Guitar Series in Lexington, Kentucky, the Connoisseur/New Voices Festival in Wichita, Kansas and many other places throughout the U.S.
They have also toured extensively with performances, masterclasses and residencies at colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.
Hypercube has performed works by 34 contemporary composers. The first song they played at UTM was called “American Tokyo Day Dream IV” by Sam Pluta. This piece reflected purity and simplicity in a very formal structure.
The next song played was “Quartetto da Do” by Juan Trigos. There were several things that stuck out in this piece which made it unique. For instance, there were several rotating periods of immobility and mobility throughout the whole performance.
The third song that was performed is called “Casino (Remix)” by Erin Rodgers. This piece had a combination of all of the sounds typically heard at a Casino. It gave the listeners a vivid picture of what a casino looks and sounds like, which helped mentally submerge the audience in an environment out of reach.
The fourth piece was a song called “Sahaf” by Chaya Czernowin. This piece is very concise and is concentrated on a singular physical gesture. A closer examination of the gesture reveals the strange physical lows of the world in which the gesture exists, and the body performing it.
The fifth piece of the evening was “Bajo el Hechizo” by Federico Garcia – de Castro.
In this piece, the performers played the same note in different ways, which resulted in different tunings and timbres.
The grand finale piece that was performed is called “Hout” by Louis Andrissen. This piece is so complex that the sounds create a unison melody with ramifications.
Overall, Hypercube performed a combination of unique pieces that one would not expect to hear. Hypercube managed to enhance the individual uniqueness in a multitude of ways.
