Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

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'far sight sun light'

Published on November 9, 2023

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https://fulbrighternetwork.com/news/1753590 Page 1 of 7
Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

Teaching the young composers gave me a chance to expose them to

American theoretical and pedagogical practices, and they showed me
trends in contemporary music current among the young generations in
Hungary - our exchanges were definitely a two way street!

Could you tell us a little about your new album far sight sun light?

far sight sun light is a CD made up of folk-inspired chamber works written over
the last several years, mainly during the COVID pandemic. As many artists,

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Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

we struggled to maintain creative focus, and I would set out to write pieces I
knew I may not hear for a long time to come, but always found sustaining
inspiration in Central and East European folk sources (reflecting my
Macedonian/Slovenian heritage). The compositions are inspired by Romanian,
Turkish, and Croatian folk melodies, and my musical treatment of them ranges
from overt (climbing: free fall, and sketches), or covered in thick layers of
texture (keep a secret). A pianist myself, I always enjoy collaborating with other
musicians, as in the piece climbing: free fall. This album also contains the first
string quartet I’ve written, keep a secret. Writing in such an historically
established genre, at a (relatively) developed stage in my own career, turned
out to be a challenging leap of faith! (Given my positive experiences, however,
I’ve since written two more quartets.)

far sign sun light, as well as your earlier compositions such as The
Fiddler and the Old Woman of Rumelia, are heavily influenced by Eastern
European folk tales. Could you tell us a little about the significance of
these folk tales to you and why they became such a powerful influence?

Use of folk sources started by my having discovered by chance Yugoslav Folk

Music by composer and ethnomusicologist Béla Bartók, which stunned me
when I discovered it in 2008 in my school library, as it quite literally
encapsulated both sides of my family heritage, Slovenian and Macedonian
(“Yugoslavia” once included these countries), as well as my interests as a
composer. The stories in these old Bosnian and Hercegovinan songs,
collected in the 30’s, which Bartók transcribed and analyzed, are so graphic
and gritty, that I decided to weave the stories and musical influences together
to create a chamber folk opera a couple years later, The Fiddler and the Old

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Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

Woman of Rumelia. I’ve written other chamber works since then, considering
different ways to use a folk source – the lyrics, the melody, the rhythm, a
musical gesture, perhaps fragmented beyond recognition, or presented as
clear as a bell. This freely creative use of “the past,” and most importantly
“someone else’s past,” recreates the porous and unreliable nature of memory.
These songs and instrumental melodies are musical expressions of people
who lived decades ago, living a way of agrarian life largely gone by now. One
of Bartók’s abiding aims was to preserve, as closely as possible, a record of
these disappearing cultures. In his case, it was the meticulous transcriptions
he created from field recordings.

How did your Fulbright experiences in Budapest in 2021 deepen your

musical practice?

My Fulbright in Budapest was a dream come true, to visit Bartók’s homeland,

his haunts as student and young artist, and reacquaint myself with life in
Central Europe in general. (Though born in Skopje, Macedonia, I grew up in
the States.) I worked with scholars at the Bartók Archives, was invited to give
a talk about my music there, and taught composers at the Franz Liszt
Academy. These were some of the class rooms used by Bartók, as both
student and teacher. I lived in a big city street where Bartók had lived as a
student (though I didn’t manage to find the actual apartment). I collaborated
with a Hungarian violinist equally fluent in the folk styles of performance as well
as classical; he added improvisatory ornaments and inflections of performance
techniques to my duo Postcards from the 1930’s, giving it a whole new
dimension. Teaching the young composers gave me a chance to expose them
to American theoretical and pedagogical practices, and they showed me trends

https://fulbrighternetwork.com/news/1753590 Page 4 of 7
Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

in contemporary music current among the young generations in Hungary - our

exchanges were definitely a two way street!

About

Ketty Nez joined the composition and theory department at the Boston
University School of Music in 2005, after teaching for two years at the
University of Iowa. Listen to a Wonder Never Heard Before!, her portrait CD as
composer/pianist, was released in 2010 by Albany Records. Her folk
opera, The Fiddler and the Old Woman of Rumelia, was premiered in a staged
version in May 2012, by Juventas New Music Ensemble. Her piano
concerto thresholds, performed by Ketty and the Boston University Wind
Ensemble, was released in July 2013 by Ravello Records. BUWE also
recorded four scenes for Juliet, released February 2019 by Summit Records.
Her CD's of chamber music with Albany Records also include double images
(2020), and far sight sun light (2023). During the fall term of 2021, Ketty was
a guest teacher at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary, as a Fulbright
scholar.

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Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

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Snapshots presents Ketty Nez on 'far sight sun light' 11/9/23, 7:26 AM

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