HOCKET

COUNTING Collaborator: HOCKET I'm proud to feature HOCKET (Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff) on COUNTING, out Friday 5/8 on New Focus Recordings. Their recording of “Sonance” captures HOCKET at their best, combining effortless virtuosity and nuance with a sense of play and discovery. I first met Thomas in 2013 at a birthday party shortly after I’d moved Los Angeles and we quickly bonded over a love of bad jokes and good music (and wine). It was there that Thomas — then a doctoral composition student at USC — told me about HOCKET, a piano duo he had recently formed with fellow pianist/composer Sarah Gibson. I heard Sarah and Thomas perform together for the first time shortly thereafter at a concert at St. Thomas the Apostle in Hollywood and was blown away, not only by their incredible musicianship, but by the joy, warmth, and sense of humor they communicated from the stage. When I met Sarah for the first time after that concert she greeted me like an old friend. Thomas and Sarah made me feel immediately at home in LA, both personally and musically, and in the years to come we would go on to collaborate frequently as both composers and performers. “Sonance” is also HOCKET’s final unreleased recording. I feel so grateful for our collaboration and friendship, and it is an honor to celebrate Sarah’s incredible legacy. Album available May 8th: /album/counting

Out today on @covielloclassics : one of @hocketensemble 's final recordings — Donald Crockett’s concerto "And the River". I’m deeply grateful that Sarah and I were able to record this performance together and it means a lot to finally share it. Thank you to all the amazing Los Angeles musicians who joined us in the orchestra and thank you to @aaronhollowaynahum who beautifully recorded, edited, mixed, and mastered the album.

Join @thomaskotcheff at @bostoncourtpasadena for an intimate evening celebrating the musical life of the late Sarah Gibson and her multifaceted career as a composer, performer, and beloved colleague. The concert will be a personal program including Sarah Gibson’s chamber music and newly composed tribute works by @jordannelsonmusic , @a.j.mccaffrey , Donald Crockett and Noah Meites. Link for tickets in bio ❤️

3 BPM was featured on @npr ’s All Songs Considered a few weeks ago. Tom and Robbin had the most touching things to say about the record. “…I listen to this, and think, this could go on for an hour and it wouldn’t stop being as transfixing as it is.” “…that husky warmth…radiant, and serene, and rapturous all at once.” They also gave a beautiful memorial acknowledgment of @sarahgibsoncomp ’s career, impact, and remarkable musicianship here. Thank you Robin Hilton, and Tom Huizinga for covering the work. And for everyone who made the record possible, you’re amazing. @hocketensemble @thomaskotcheff @wildup @nadiasirota @brassland @lewis_pesacov @urbanmona @everyvioletdream @dereksteincello @marloniusmusic @bwalsh333 @tiesenga @taylor12k @seenstudio

For you GRAMMY® consideration: 3 BPM @orionrountree @hocketensemble @wildup @nadiasirota ⭐️ Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance 🎶 Best Contemporary Classical Composition

Out today, the last two recordings I made with @sarahgibsoncomp on my album, “Re/Sounding: An American Songbook” by @jordannelsonmusic . The second of two videos is Track 12 “Moon River III.” Sarah’s greatest passion was bringing new works of art into this world. I’m so proud of all the music we made together and continually wish we could have made hundreds more. 🎥: @louisng.wav

Out today, the last two recordings made with @sarahgibsoncomp on my album, “Re/Sounding: An American Songbook” by @jordannelsonmusic . The first of two videos is Track 7 “Dancing on the Ceiling.” Sarah was 8 months pregnant during this recording session. It was a moment in time when we were joyous and excited to welcome her son Benjamin into the world. 🎥: @louisng.wav

Everyone who loved Sarah is invited to honor her life at her memorial service on August 31, 2024 at 2 pm in the Walt Disney Concert Hall. RSVP at Sarahgibsonmemorial.com

🟣🌀 Out now! “3 BPM” is the debut album from Christopher Rountree featuring HOCKET, Nadia Sirota, and Wild Up. It is a single unbroken 28-minute recording. ⁠ In his notes on the piece, Chris writes: “3 BPM (Three Beats Per Minute) is a musical framework for being together. It comes out of my interest in the social dynamics of music making. It’s a piece drawn out of that energy, meant to bring a room full of people together around abstract gestures, harmonies, phrases, arcs, events, melodies, textures, games, and musical language.” “In an architectural framework above that, all of this interlocking social work exists within a larger game of cyclical periodicity: each bar of music spanning the unusual distance of one entire line of the score, and each line marked with a duration of exactly 20 seconds. At the end of each twenty second increment of the piece we hear an expansive pulse: one gentle envelope of hiss and breath from a modular synth. This sound, a pulse at three beats per minute, serves as a conductor, a judge, a reminder, and a foundation to teach the musicians how their perception of time differs from reality.”⁠ ⁠ Credits: ⁠ Christopher Rountree @orionrountree , composer ⁠ HOCKET @hocketensemble Sarah Gibson, piano⁠ Thomas Kotcheff, piano⁠ ⁠ Nadia Sirota @nadiasirota , viola⁠ ⁠ Wild Up⁠ @wildup Mona Tian @urbanmona , violin⁠ Violet Tang @everyvioletdream , violin⁠ Derek Stein @dereksteincello , cello⁠ Marlon Martinez @marloniusmusic , bass⁠ Brian Walsh @bwalsh333 ,, saxophone / clarinet⁠ M.A. Tiesenga @tiesenga , saxophone⁠ Lewis Pesacov @lewis_pesacov , electronics⁠ ⁠Christopher Rountree, artistic director / conductor / electronics⁠ ⁠Produced by Lewis Pesacov⁠ @lewis_pesacov Mastered by Taylor Deupree @taylor12k Cover art & package design: Rob Carmichael at SEEN Studio @seenstudio Released via Brassland @brassland

Announced today! My first record as a composer “3 BPM” will come out on July 12th on @brassland — and I couldn’t be more excited. The first single “Almanac” is out now! Featuring @hocketensemble , @wildup , and @nadiasirota , produced by my longtime collaborator @lewis_pesacov and mastered by @taylor12k . At its core, “3 BPM” is a conversational game, for any number of musicians, led by two leaders. These leaders — on our record a piano duo called HOCKET, comprised of two remarkable composer / performers Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff — are in dialogue with each other musically: trading bars, ending each others’ sentences, trying to play the same melodies exactly together but with slightly divergent rhythms, all of which they are co-writing rhythmically and moreover emotionally within the framework the score is giving them.  The melodies and harmonies from this leading conversation function to “unlock” or “trigger” numerous events for a larger group of musicians — on the record strings and winds from Wild Up are joined by the viola soloist Nadia Sirota — who use the architecture in the score to create shadows and environments around the leaders’ melodies, blurring, supporting, and challenging their choices.  All of this interlocking social work exists within a larger game of cyclical periodicity: each bar of music spanning the unusual distance of one entire line of the score, and each line marked with a duration of exactly 20 seconds. At the end of each twenty second increment of the piece we hear an expansive pulse: one gentle envelope of hiss and breath from a modular synth. This sound, a pulse at three beats per minute, serves as a conductor, a judge, a reminder, and a foundation to teach the musicians how their perception of time differs from reality.  As a performer when I’ve encountered notations like this one — where individual agency and dialogue are the compositional through lines, and where the notes on the page are as much graphical, and spatial, as they are logistical — I always feel at first afraid of the freedom and then liberated to make the music mine.

Alexander Elliott Miller || Aftermath || Performed by HOCKET & Alexander Elliott Miller Commissioned for HOCKET’s 2021 Composer/Performer Initiative Louis Ng: director & sound engineer

This #GivingTuesday, consider giving to HOCKET! We’ve got an exciting lineup of concerts, recordings, and premieres coming up and we’d love your help making it all happen! 🔗in bio!