COMPOSER’S BIOS AND PROGRAM NOTES
TRACKS 1-5 | JEFFREY MUMFORD
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1955, composer Jeffrey Mumford has received numerous fellowships, awards, and commissions. His honors include an Academy Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship, and first prize in the inaugural National Black Arts Festival/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition.
Mumford has received major commissions from organizations such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, the Library of Congress, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Parker Quartet, Chamber Music America, and the Fromm Music Foundation. His music has been featured at festivals including June in Buffalo, Kneisel Hall, Tanglewood, the Cheltenham Festival (Manchester, UK), the Aava Festival in Finland, and the HIMA Festival (USA), and performed widely throughout Europe and North America.
His recent recording echoing depths (Albany Records) features concerti written for leading soloists and ensembles. Mumford is currently Distinguished Professor at Lorain County Community College and is published by Theodore Presser Company and Quicklight Music.
An expanding distance of multiple voices is a set of variations for solo violin celebrating the instrument’s immense virtuosity and intelligence. Commissioned by a Washington, D.C. based consortium—Pamela Johnson, Kathryn Judd, Philip Berlin, and Otho Eskin—the work is a tribute to those who champion the music of our time with passion and insight.
The work’s five movements explore a vast spectrum of mood and timbre, with the first four movements paired to be played without pause. Its harmonic foundation is derived from a musical encryption of the letters of the alphabet, creating a deeply personal resonance. To me, the title suggests a layered, suspended space where light radiates from shifting interior pockets. I am profoundly grateful to Sarah Plum for this extraordinary recording.
TRACK 6 | OSNAT NETZER
Osnat Netzer is an Israeli-American composer, performer and educator. Her kinetic, visceral compositions take inspiration from Embodied Cognition and Composed Theatre. Her music has been commissioned and performed by Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, ~Nois, soprano Lucy Dhegrae, Patchwork, Spektral Quartet and Winsor Music, published by Edition Peters and earthsongs, and recorded on Bridge Records and New Focus Recordings. Her opera, The Wondrous Woman Within, was described as “riotously funny” in The New York Times. Her recent album Dot: Line: Sigh was described by George Lewis as “Ebullient, pensive, whimsical, and mysterious by turns.” She is currently Associate Professor of Composition and Musicianship at DePaul University, and long-time faculty at The Walden School.
Olive Cotton for solo cello was written during a year I spent living in Berlin (2009–2010). Feelings of longing for the United States led me to weave subtle echoes of bluegrass into the music. The idea of echoing also shapes the piece motivically, as it zigzags between contrasting materials, continually obscuring and reframing memories of what has come before. The work unfolds like a short story, marked by emotional peaks—at times plunging suddenly, at others lingering in ghostly afterimages of earlier sounds. In 2020, Sarah Plum created a viola version of the piece, which is recorded here for the first time.
TRACKS 7-11 | SIDNEY CORBETT
“Music is for me a central source of spiritual nourishment,” says Sidney Corbett, an artist whose independent voice occupies a distinct space in contemporary music. His work— spanning six operas, orchestral, and chamber music—is defined by lyrical sensuality and complex rhythmic pulsations. Drawing from literature, visual arts, and theology, Corbett views composition as a way of deciphering the world.
Born in Chicago in 1960, Corbett studied at UCSD and Yale before refining his craft under György Ligeti in Hamburg. Since 2006, he has served as Professor of Composition at
distance of multiple voices | Sarah Plum, solo violin and viola
the University of the Performing Arts Mannheim, and in 2022, he was inducted into the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. A restless explorer of his own aesthetics, Corbett’s music is published worldwide by Edition Peters.
Canticle was written for my dear friend and long term collaborator Sarah Plum, with funding from Drake University. When Sarah suggested a work inspired by Bach’s solo violin sonatas, I felt both thrilled and intimidated by the weight of that tradition. I ultimately chose the Sonata in A Minor as my model.
While composing, I was immersed in David Foster Wallace’s Everything and More, a history of infinity. Wallace’s exploration of irregular symmetries and infinite recursions resonated deeply with my thoughts on Bach’s musical architecture. In Canticle, I mirrored Bach’s formal structure while allowing my own imagination to dictate the musical language. The result is a meditation on these infinite concepts, dedicated with deep affection to Sarah Plum.
TRACK 12 | TONIA KO
Tonia Ko’s work spans instrumental solos, large ensemble pieces, and sound installations, revealing a core that is at once whimsical and lyrical. A 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, Ko has received grants and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, and the Fromm and Barlow Foundations. She has recently collaborated with the Riot Ensemble, Tangram Collective, and Spektral Quartet, with performances at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Kennedy Center.
Born in Hong Kong and raised in Hawaii, Ko earned her B.M. from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. from Indiana University before completing a D.M.A. at Cornell under Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. Following a postdoctoral residency at the University of Chicago, she relocated to the United Kingdom. She currently serves as Senior Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Moves and Remains (2018) ”White and distant, absorbed in itself, the sky covers and uncovers, moves and remains”. This quote from Virginia Woolf’s short story Monday and Tuesday inspired this piece and its meditation on the “will to linger” within an expansive, shifting space. The work explores the experience of travel and displacement, reflecting on the search for “home” amid constant movement.
The piece opens with strumming—a blurry memory of Hawaiian music from the composer’s childhood—before transforming into rolling arpeggios. A widened sonic palette of harmonics, sub-bridge textures, and a scordatura tuning (lowering the lowest string) evokes a fleeting, unstable state of being. Throughout the work, a simple melody remains carefully embedded, finally emerging at the journey’s end as a quiet, lingering core. This piece was made possible through a generous commission from Rebecca Hudson, Catherine Hayden, and Richard Hudson.
TRACK 13 | MARI TAKANO
After graduating from the Toho Gakuen College of Music in Tokyo, Mari Takano studied composition with Brian Ferneyhough at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, earning her Master’s degree, and with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Encouraged by Ligeti to move beyond avant-garde influences, she developed a highly individual compositional voice and has received numerous awards since the 1980s.
In 2002, BIS Records released a CD devoted to her works (Women’s Paradise, BIS 1238) to international acclaim, with broadcasts in Europe, the USA, and Australia. That same year, she was a guest composer at Northwestern University on a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education. Takano has received commissions from the City of Hamburg, Music from Japan, and the American Embassy in Tokyo, among others. Her Double Violin Concerto, written for Sarah Plum and Michi Sugiura, was premiered in 2024 with the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Her recordings include LigAlien (BIS, 2011) and In a Different Way (Fontec, 2022). She is now a lecturer at the Toho Gakuen College of Music and Bunkyo University.
an expanding distance of multiple voices | Sarah Plum, solo violin and viola
Mari Takano’s Elegy for two violins is inspired by Gerda’s aria from Act III, Scene IV, in which she finally reaches the Snow Castle and finds her friend Kay. His heart, however, is frozen and he no longer remembers her, prompting Gerda’s lament.
The piece opens with a sustained F♯ shared by both violins, gradually unfolding into interwoven melodic lines. Ascending and descending chromatic motion and figures built on fourths slowly transform the musical texture, driving it toward an intense climax. This tension resolves into a contrasting melodic pattern with an ethnic inflection. In the closing moments, the violins ascend to F♯ and G♯ in their highest register, ending the work with a cry-like gesture.
TRACK 14 | BEN FUHRMAN
Ben Fuhrman is a composer, musician, and programmer whose work centers on the creative use of technology, including acousmatic, interactive, and improvisatory music. He holds a D.M.A. and M.M. in composition from Michigan State University and a B.Mus. in violin performance from Hope College, and has studied with Ricardo Lorenz, Mark Sullivan, Steve Talaga, Rob Lunn, and Mihai Craioveanu.
Fuhrman has received commissions from a wide range of performers and institutions, including Keith Kirchoff, the H2 Quartet, REACH Studio Art, and the MSU National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. He was awarded a billboard dedicated to his music by the Arts Council of Greater Lansing— possibly the first composer in the U.S. to receive one. His solo albums Concrete Oasis and Synthesizer and Computer Works are available online, with additional releases on Albany, Argali, Blue Griffin, Elmstreet, and SEAMUS. He is Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Montana State University.
Ben Fuhrman’s Sirens is based on the idea of cellular interplay over time. Essentially a work of biological composition, materials evolve over time, playing against themselves and against other musical cells, creating larger and more complex structures that are unified through the recycling of materials from the initial cells used to generate the work.
TRACK 13: YVONNE LAM, VIOLIN
Grammy Award–winning violinist Yvonne Lam has appeared as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, American Youth Symphony, and other leading ensembles. She served for eight years as violinist/violist and Co–Artistic Director of the contemporary superensemble Eighth Blackbird, commissioning and premiering more than one hundred works by composers including Steve Reich, David Lang, Nico Muhly, Nathalie Joachim, and Bryce Dessner. Her debut solo album, Watch Over Us, features works for solo violin with electronics, and she has appeared as a guest artist on numerous new-music recordings. A prizewinner at major international competitions, she also served as Assistant Concertmaster of the Washington National Opera Orchestra. Lam is Associate Professor of Violin and Coordinator of Chamber Music at Michigan State University, and holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School.
of multiple voices | Sarah Plum, solo violin and viola
SPECIAL THANKS TO Sergei Kvitko, recording engineer, producer, and dear friend for his artistry and patience
an expanding distance of multiple voices
Sarah Plum, solo violin and viola
an expanding distance of multiple voices for solo violin
I. Estatico e molto appassionato
II. Sparso ed espansivo
III. Molto delicatissimo ed etereo
IV. Molto appassionato
V. Maestoso Jeffrey Mumford b. 1955 03:24 04:31 01:04 02:30 02:17
Olive Cotton, for solo cello transcribed for viola by Sarah Plum (2020)* Osnat Netzer b. 1979 10:48
Canticle (in memoriam David Foster Wallace) for solo violin (2017)***
Lento tranquillo
Animato
Andante semplice Fluido Andantino
1960
Moves and Remains for scordatura violin (2017)* Tonia Ko b. 1988 11:21
Elegy for two violins (2013-2014, revised 2021)** With Yvonne Lam, violin Mari Takano b. 1960 09:05
Sirens, for solo violin and reverb pedal (2018)* Benjamin Fuhrman
1982 05:19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ab B C D E
*world premiere recording **world premiere recording, written for Sarah Plum ***written for Sarah Plum, world premiere recording, commissioned with funds from Drake University
Total Time: 71:09
Produced and engineered by Sergei Kvitko. Recorded at Blue Griffin’s Studio The Ballroom in September, 2025. Graphic design: Eleonora Machado. ©℗2026 Blue Griffin Recording, Inc. PO Box 15008 Lansing, Michigan 48901-5008 Ph: 517-256-2874 www.bluegriffin.com. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance, and broadcasting prohibited. BGR729
