As a part of the @california.festival , I was invited to create a new graphic score and to write an editorial describing and sharing a bit of my process in creating this piece. My approach to composition in general is rooted in a belief that each piece takes on a unique life of its own, and it should be created in any way that serves the Idea. In the editorial, I try to illuminate the relationship between this & graphic notation (and why mixed metaphors are fun).
I’m happy to share that the editorial piece is now published and available to check out:
cafestival.org/excursions/ma-tiesenga/
Creating this piece has involved lots of researching, collecting, and listening to the textures and poetic ephemera of our environment to alechemize something new. 🌿💫✨🏜️
Every step has been a blessing, and I thank @laphil for the opportunity to share my work and my listening in this way. To see the realization of this score, come to the premiere on November 14 at @waltdisneyconcerthall !
A couple weeks ago, @wildup performed my piece On paths as a part of @laphil Noon to Midnight at BP Hall. It was a beautifully dense day, and i was humbled to be a part of it in this way
I had been chipping away at this piece for a little under 2 years, but until this summer it mostly existed as an idea in my head / on lots of napkins and sketchbook papers / miscellaneous bits of ephemera / in my iPhone notes/field recordings in my voice memo app. Sometimes working in a very fragmented way like this feels like the most direct thing to do, but sometimes it leads to a project feeling “stuck” or like it’ll stay in a gestational phase forever.
While improvising and drawing feel like automatic processes to me, the conveyance of specific conceptual ideas doesn’t feel automatic at all. So while there are elements of improvisation and drawing involved, it’s taken a long time to coalesce. This piece is inspired by superimposed layers of paths, people, plants, things, narratives taking place in a specific environment (or set of environments). It’s a lot to think about, so how can something I make in response to that feel enough to be complete? So with this piece, I have to be content with the limitations of the scope of my perception, and I invite musical collaborators to imbue their own perceptions as well.
To see the vision of this piece come together in this way is so magical and precious to me. And I’m very thankful for this opportunity to experiment like this
Thank you to @orionrountree for trusting me, to @dubfrosty for having me, for @andrewtholl for stepping in to conduct at the last minute (!!!), to all the friends in the ensemble for realizing this piece with me with curiosity and openness, and for all the people who came to listen. I hope we can do it again some time 🌿
When does spectation become complicity? When does an inactive witness become a participant?
I wrote this piece as a commission for this weekend’s Democracy Sessions, a collaboration between @wildup and @moca
This piece was made entirely with Sibelius, and reformatted in photoshop. I was inspired by the limitations and behavior of the engraving rules and settings in the software, and curious to see how they may behave when pushed to extremes. In particular, the conversion of impossible notation to rests made me reflect on the meaning / feeling / intention / handling of silence in time. Conscious, deliberate inaction
There’s a meme somewhere of rest notation that gets increasingly subdivided, with the subtitle “this is what anxiety feels like.” Yeah, that is exactly true…. I wanted to take that expression and push it farther.
While this piece is kind of impossible, at the same time it also very literally feels like what’s happening now, what’s been happening, and what’s coming.
——
#graphicnotation #score #democracy #rights #2a #fascism #silence #palestine #election #music #2024 #complicity #psalm50v18 #usa “#music”
⛪🎶 For one night, REDCAT becomes a chapel of sound.
Join Wild Up and @calartsredcat on June 6 for The Interior Castle, an evening spanning centuries of artistic and spiritual inquiry inspired by visionary women, most of them cloistered.
The program brings together music by medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen, Baroque Italian nun Isabella Leonarda, and Ethiopian composer-pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, alongside world premieres by LA-based composers @lisel.jpeg and @tiesenga .
Built as a kind of musical return-and-refrain, the evening circles back to four luminous piano works by Emahoy, performed by guest artist Vicki Ray, plus Eliza Bagg’s True City, a response to Hildegard’s O presul vere civitas, and Wild Up member M.A. Tiesenga’s The Interior Castle, a foray into St. Teresa of Ávila’s mystical architecture of the soul.
📅 Saturday, June 6 | 8pm 📍 REDCAT
Tickets at the link in bio!
Saturday, June 6, join Wild Up and REDCAT for an evening of ecstatic and contemplative music inspired by visionary women❤️🔥.
THE INTERIOR CASTLE features four works by Ethiopian pianist and nun Emahoy Tsegue Maryam Guebrou, two reimaginings of the chants of medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen and new music by LA-based vocalist and composer Eliza Bagg, and a world premiere by Wild Up member M.A. Tiesenga inspired by St. Teresa of Ávila.
Purchase tickets at the link in our bio.
Image courtesy of Wild Up
Hi 👋
Im playing in a trio on Wednesday with comrades Corey and Marta, and I’m excited to see how it will unfold- I have no idea so witness it with me. They both are amazing and I’m sure it will be wild, I’ve never improvised with Marta in particular so I’ll go ahead and make this a mega boost💥 come witness the alchemy at one of the most supportive venues in LA.
Next few slides are the vibes I’ve copped recently, the sopranos have reentered my life (a sacred ritual), so I’m feeling particularly enlightened and that god is on my side🙏
Have a good week y’all, let’s try and uplift each other as much as possible to overcome the terror of these gas prices 🙂
@coreyvogeln@tiesenga@solarcbrewing
Released earlier this month, here are photos from the ‘21. Tiesenga/Dashnaw/Cohen/Haug’ recording session.
@tiesenga on soprano and tenor saxophones
@artofgrac on cello
@louiscaved on guitar
@informations_ on drumkit
Recorded after Trevor Coleman’s straight to his Tascam 388. @trevorcoleman93
As always, the next album will be out on the first of next month.
┆┆composer-performers ᴍᴇʟɪꜱꜱᴀ ᴀᴄʜᴛᴇɴ & ᴍ. ᴀ. ᴛɪᴇꜱᴇɴɢᴀ perform two solo sets on amplified harp and hurdy gurdy ________,,,,,,, the evening culminating in an improvised duo ⁽ˡⁱᵏᵉˡʸ ᶠᵉʳᵃˡ⁾
• from the ethereal to the chthonic, their many hands pulling at many strings ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪་༘࿐
:::::::unstable::::::::darkly suspended, and dripping rich in the poetics of resonance . _ . _ . _ .
𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝟭𝟮 𝗮𝘁 𝟴𝗽𝗺
𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 + 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿
𝟯𝟬𝟮𝟳 𝗦. 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝟵𝟬𝟬𝟬𝟳
🔗 TICKET LINK IN BIO 🔗
@harpistemology@tiesenga@waterandpower_life
The Los Angeles Office of Improvisation presents volume 21, a quartet record featuring M.A. Tiesenga on soprano and tenor saxophones, Grace Dashnaw on cello, Louis Cohen on guitar, and Kern Haug on drum kit. Available free on Bandcamp, and all streaming services.
Art by @faxfactsfast
Recorded by @trevorcoleman93
Mastered by @kernhaug.audio
Tuesdays at Monk Space, January 20th
Tomorrow night, M.A. Tiesenga’s graphic scores come to life at Monk Space as part of our T@MS series.
Their visual notation invites performers into open interpretation, shaping the music in real time through listening, response, and collaboration. No two performances are the same, and that’s what makes this experience so special.
The evening concludes with a new chamber ensemble work for strings 🎻
📍 Monk Space: 4414 W. 2nd Street, Los Angeles
🗓 Tuesday, January 20, 2026
🕗 8PM
Join us for a one-night-only T@MS experience ✨
Tickets via link in bio 🎟️
T@MS : Meet the artist - M.A. TIESENGA
Tiesenga’s work lives at the intersection of sound, image, and human relationship. Their scores are not just musical documents - they are visual worlds shaped by trust, dialogue, and shared artistic history.
Each piece in this program is created specifically for its performers, allowing each musician to bring their own voice into the structure of the work. What emerges is conversation; music that is built with people, not imposed upon them.
On January 20, that process comes to life at Monk Space ✨
📍 Monk Space, Koreatown
🗓 Tuesday, January 20, 2026
🕗 8PM
Tickets in bio 🎟️
