For her House Music Series video, flutist Emi Ferguson performs composer Tyson Davis’s tableau no. III from her home. She met Davis during a collaboration with New York New Music Ensemble’s Micro-Commissions project, and after that he sent her a work sample of tableau no. III. She immediately knew it’d be a great piece for an intimate solo performance like those of the House Music Series. Emi began working with Metropolis Ensemble several years ago -- however, she thinks that her first contact with Metropolis was back in 2013, when the Ensemble’s artistic director Andrew Cyr purchased her Yamaha piano!

This isn’t the first of Davis’s series of works for solo instruments—in fact, his tableau series is now nine iterations long (with a tenth being commissioned by Metropolis Ensemble for one of their percussionists, Ian Rosenbaum). Each piece in the series explores and extends the possibilities of the solo voice. And while each piece is written for a different solo instrument, this is a project he began about a year ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, it feels like a good fit for the ways performers are making music today.

Ferguson made the recording with her iPhone, and included a brief interview with Davis at the beginning for background information on the piece and insight into his compositional process. The piece itself sees a great range of pitches and extended techniques, jumping between the piercing high notes and the gravelly low ones. It exemplifies how one instrument can explore a wide variety of styles; Ferguson’s crisp performance illuminates the power of each contrasting section. — Vanessa Ague

 
Episode: 37
Date: August 11, 2020
Artist: Emi Ferguson
Instrumentation: Flute
Work: "tableau no. III"
Composer: Tyson Davis
 

More from House Music