Composer to see U.S. premiere of his work by UCI Symphony Orchestra March 13 and 14

Michael Ferriell Zbyszynski will attend the American premiere of his 1999 composition, "Beneath a Liquid Paper Sky," performed by members of the UC Irvine Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Tucker at the Irvine Barclay March 13 and 14.

"The title refers to the particular color that the Krakow sky has in winter - February especially," Zbyszynski wrote for his program notes to the world premiere, given by the Penderecki Festival Orchestra under the direction of Pawel Przytocki in October of 1999 at the Grand Opera Theatre in Warsaw, where he was staying for a year on a Polish-American Fulbright Foundation grant.

That sort of sky - which he also noted on the East Coast, where he lived (in Boston and New York City) for a while, but did not see while in California - consists of "an even cloud cover, an almost dimensionless white, a luminescent void. At times, the sky felt like a low ceiling that I could touch if I tried."

The phrase "paper liquid sky" came from a friend of his, Anthony Moises Gallegos, who used it in one of his novels.

"I imagined my great-grandfather underneath the same sky. He immigrated to the U.S. from somewhere in Poland around 1906. ... My Polish ancestors lived their lives under the same sky," wrote Zbyszynski, a third-generation American.

"The work was written for the 40th anniversary of that Fulbright program," Zbyszynski said during a recent long-distance interview from Boston, where he currently lives and teaches composition at Berklee College of Music and Northeastern University. "I just happened to be talking with the director of the program there and asked if he was going to include music by Fulbright winners of the past and he said, 'Why don't you write one for us?' I wasn't hinting I should be the one, but of course I said I would be glad to do so."

Having the UCI Symphony program the work was less accidental.

"As a composer, you throw your music in front of conductors as soon as you meet them," he said. "Stephen and I talked about how much of a valuable experience it would be for students to play music by a living composer - and one who can actually be present. So I showed him two or three pieces and he seemed to like this one the best."

At the time, Zbyszynski was in the midst of a two-year stay at UCI as a Faculty Fellow, lecturing and researching in the Gassmann Electronic Music Studio in UCI's Claire Trevor School of the Arts. As a member of the UCI Concert Choir, Zbyszynski worked under Tucker on the latter's UCI debut conducting Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Scored for a string orchestra and two percussionists, the 14-minute "Beneath a Liquid Paper Sky" has folk-like elements that could stamp the work "Polish."

"But I have a hard time with that," Zbyszynski admitted. "Does writing a piece in Poland make it a 'Polish' work? It's folk-like, sounding in that way as a piece by (Witold) Lutoslawski - but does that make it overtly Polish? That's what people tell me. But there's nothing traditional or culturally Polish about it, except in a contemporary way."

Zbyszynski started composing "Beneath a Liquid Paper Sky" shortly after hearing a performance of Lutoslawski's "Funereal Music" in concert.

"That piece was a memorial to Bela Bartok, who was, like Lutoslawski, also a great collector of Eastern European folk-songs - only Hungarian, not Polish," he said. "So one can draw a line from Bartok through Lutoslawski to what I'm doing. I like to put myself in good company."

Zbyszynski is in good company at the Barclay, where he will share the March 13-14 program with Claude Debussy, whose "La Mer" (The Sea) will be performed by the full UCI Symphony.

"'Beneath a Liquid Paper Sky' opens with a chorale-like section, very cantabile, very smooth and peaceful," he described. "This is soon interrupted by much more pesante, or heavy, material, which has more of a push and direction to it. The tension between these two expressive kinds of material proceeds throughout the piece. Toward the end, they start to intermingle."

Zbyszynski uses such techniques and styles as hocket (Renaissance device where one instrument fills in melodic gaps left open by another instrument) and minimalism (using the most basic and simple elements of music, often in a repetitive manner).

"And the whole feeling is meditative and still, like you're experiencing this out of time," he said. "It's eternal vs. corporeal timeframes existing simultaneously."

Although this "all-acoustic" work employs no electronic devices and he currently has no access to electronic studios in his two schools of employment, Zbyszynski is still drawn to electronics. The last original work he had premiered was for electronic playback accompanying a dance, "Cirio, candil, farol e lucieernaga," by UCI graduate dance student Beth Megill in Mexico last June. Before that, he premiered "Daguerreotype" for solo cello and electronics at UCI April 6.

"And now, I'm working on a piece for solo flute and electronics called 'Phobophilia,' or 'Love of Fear,'" he said.

This recent spate of works involving electronics was and is the result of Zbyszynski's research in that area while at UCI, where he also taught most of the electronic-music courses as well as a class on Soviet Socialist music.

"Electronics are another means of getting at sound," he said in explaining his fascination with electronic music. "It's a very plastic way of working with sound."

"Daguerreotype" was written for cellist Hugh Livingston, whose Artship Records is an ongoing series of experimental recordings of improvisations in unusual environments. One of these recordings includes a solo by Zbyszynski.

"I did an improvisation on soprano saxophone deep in the hull of this huge cargo ship in Oakland Harbor," he recalled. "I was in the Bay Area in order to rehearse 'Daguerreotype' with Hugh, who lived in the area, when he invited me to this ship he had access to. The hull was very low and on the floor were these disabled propellers. It was an acoustically interesting space."

As interesting as being on the same program as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - which was the case when Zbyszynski's "Beneath a Liquid Paper Sky" was premiered in Warsaw.

"Like I said, I like to put myself in good company."