New Thread Quartet – listen here
Emerging Voices Project – listen here
Chamber and Solo Performances
As Biddeth Thy Tongue – Kati Agócs
live performance by Zach Herchen
New England Conservatory, Jordan Hall
Kati Agócs discusses the piece and my performance with Meet The Composer:
Notes:
…The title is a bit tongue in cheek — it feigns a kind of submission, but really the soloist is dialoguing with an unseen “other”, and is communicating forcefully — in turns teasing, pleading, supplicating. I like to think of the piece as a conversation — a kind of mercurial, beguiling negotiation. It might seem like one party is doing all of the talking, but the omnipresent “other” is the driving force.
Sequenza IXb – Luciano Berio
live performance by Zach Herchen
The Peabody Conservatory
Maï – Ryo Noda
recorded by Zach Herchen
Wildacres Retreat in North Carolina
Number Stations – Paul Leary
commissioned and premiered by Zach Herchen in 2010
recorded by Zach Herchen and Paul Leary
Notes:
All audio clips of these radio number stations were taken from the Conet Project: Recordings of Short-wave Radio Stations, recorded and released by Irdial-Disc Records in 1997.
Sahaf – Chaya Czernowin
live performance by Maarten Straiger (electric guitar), Zach Herchen (sopranino and baritone saxophones), Rachel Iwaasa (piano), and Masako Kunimoto (percussion)
Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, New England Conservatory
Fire Balloon – Amy Beth Kirsten
commissioned by Emerging Voices Project
live performance by Emerging Voices Project
Elisabeth Halliday (soprano) and Zach Herchen (sax)
The National Opera Center in New York, NY
Billie – JacobTV
recorded by Zach Herchen
Wildacres Retreat in North Carolina
Notes:
…The music in entirely based on the voice of Billie Holiday, from various interviews during her career.
The Old Castle from Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky
performed by Con Vivo Music
Yukiko Tanaka, piano
Zach Herchen, alto saxophone
2020, pre-recorded concert
Aria from “The Impossible She” by Daniel Thomas Davis
performed by Rhymes With Opera
Bonnie Lander, voice
Zach Herchen, baritone saxophone
Rhymes With Orchestra
2019, live performance
revolutionary etude #1 by David Lang
Bang on a Can Summer Festival
performed by Ken Thompson, Zachary Herchen, Kendra Emery, and Olivia Shortt
2013, live performance
Come Down Heavy! – IV. Drill Ye Tarriers by Evan Chambers
live performance by First Construction
Elzbieta Polak (violin), Zach Herchen (saxophone), Danica Borisavljevic (piano)
2011, Vaudeville Park in Brooklyn, NY
Shipbreaking by Benjamin Taylor
commissioned by an international consortium directed by Zach Herchen in 2012
live performance by Zach Herchen
Red Room in Baltimore, MD
Notes:
The life expectancy of any large sea vessel is about twenty years. After that time, the rising costs of maintenance and insurance make the ship unprofitable. So where do ships go to die? To the beaches of Chittagong, Bangladesh, where laborers working for iron recycling companies such as PHP (Peace, Happiness, Prosperity) dismantle the giant ships almost entirely by hand. There are no cranes, no lifts, no scaffolding, no hardhats, no jack hammers; just blowtorches and many human hands. This is a powerful example of accomplishing a monumental task with very simple means. The “cutters” (those with blow torches) literally cut the ship into large pieces which are then carried on the shoulders of twenty men to nearby trucks. This composition reflects musically on the wonderment of shipbreaking, specifically as portrayed in the photography of Edward Burtynsky. The electronic sounds are derived from recordings of metal: banging, scraping, clanging, grinding, sawing, dropping, hammering, and cutting metal pieces of a variety of shapes and sizes. The intersection of the saxophone and metallic sounds is explored through the use of extended techniques including slap tonguing, altissimo, and multiphonics.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by Kevin Clark
1. Groove
2. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
written for and premiered by Zach Herchen in 2006, revised 2009
live performance
Notes:
This piece was originally written for saxophonist Zachary Robert Herchen, hence the title. He asked me for a piece that would make him want to die, and I gave him this. The piece has a consummate technical challenge, and then what he was not expecting - acting. The T.S. Eliot poem is about the breakdown of language, about anxiety, and about the impossibility of meaningful action, but others have written better about the poem. I just set it to music for saxophone. Whenever a solfege syllable, such as ‘do re mi’, or a chromatic syllable, such as ‘di’, ‘ra’, and ‘ri’, that syllable is set on that note in the saxophone, with some modifications, and some exceptions. The text that appears without notes should in fact be read, this is a performance of poetry. The epigraph, which is in Italian and comes from Dante, should be read. The performer would be well advised to look at some criticism about the poem, some information on T.S. Eliot. The ‘harsh’ and ‘smooth’ notations denote two different attitudes one finds in the poem, though the attitudes in the music and the attitudes in the text do not always line up. The ‘harsh’ attitude is angry at the human condition, frustrated with existence, and is expressed through a more assaulting timbre. The ‘smooth’ attitude is passive, functioning in the world, verging on resigned, and should be played with a cleaner, more relaxed timbre. The low A-naturals and A-flats are played by covering the bell of the instrument with the knee, usually the left, to varying extents.
strangeloop – Victoria Cheah
commissioned by Zach Herchen in 2010
live premiere, Expano in Brooklyn, NY
Notes:
each cycle follows essentially the same formal process – from relaxation to tension – but in a manner unique to the character of the musical material. segments of these cycles are juxtaposed against each other and the resulting contrast and
continuity between the segments contributes to the drama of this piece.
these contrasts and continuations should be emphasized as much as possible.
a strange loop is a tangled hierarchical system
in which there is no clear highest of lowest level – after proceeding
through such a system, one appears to have arrived
at the same point at which one began.
while “strangelop” is not a strict strange loop,
this sense of return and disorientation given by repition and difference should be emphasized as much as possible.
Hammerfall – Niels Rønsholdt
live performance by Mathias Reumert, Stephen Drury, and Zach Herchen
2010, Scandinavia House in New York City
Far North – Mattias Sköld (video by Raketa)
written for and premiered by Zach Herchen in 2009
excerpt from a live performance by Zach Herchen
2009, L’Atelier Collaborative in Venice, Italy
Paradigm – Lukas Foss
live performance, Zach Herchen (saxophone), Kayleigh Miller (viola), Christian Smith (percussion), Maarten Stragier (electric guitar), Christopher Watford (bassoon), and Caroline Park (electronics)
Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, New England Conservatory
Xxxx xxx – Ryo Nakayama
live premeire by Liz Lee (cello) and Zach Herchen (saxophone)
New England Conservatory’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice
Hymn – Kati Agócs (video by Eli Stine)
recording by AM/PM Sax Quartet
Jeremiah Baker (soprano sax), Zach Herchen (alto sax), Miguel Bolivar (tenor sax), and Cara Salveson (baritone sax)
Saxophone Quartet #1 – Miguel A. Bolivar
Mvmt I and Mvmt II (attacca)
Mvmt III
Mvmt IV
written for the AM/PM Sax Quartet
live performance by the AM/PM Quartet
Jeremiah Baker (soprano sax), Zach Herchen (alto sax), Miguel Bolivar (tenor sax), Cara Salveson (baritone sax)
Notes:
This quartet was written in 2007 and is a piece that spawns all of its main ideas from the slow, chorale like, initial movement. The use of harmonic sound, rhythmic interaction, and resolution all become the main ingredients for each of movements that follow.
“I Have A Past Life Memory From The War That Blew The Fifth Planet Into The Asteroid Belt” and other stories from AM Radio – Paul Leary
I. When the Machine Becomes so Odius!
II. After Nebuchadnezzar Opened this Gate.
III. The Night I Quite My Job I Was Abducted
IV. AM Radio – A Method Of Radio Transmission Which Sends Information As Variations of the Amplitudes of a Carrier Wave
V. The Red Rain of Kelara, India (attacca)
live performance by the AM/PM Quartet
Jeremiah Baker (soprano sax), Zach Herchen (alto sax), Miguel Bolivar (tenor sax), Cara Salveson (baritone sax)
Notes:
Coast to Coast AM signed on the radio in mid 1980s to only 3 broadcasting stations. It’s founder Art Bell brought the station from a small operation to a huge syndicate with over 500 stations in the US and several in Canada with millions of listeners tuning in to the late night broadcasts. Coast to Coast AM is dedicated to the study of things we do not understand, life after death, experiences with entities, and the paranormal.
In a 2005 survey by Gallop, 73% of Americans stated that they believed in some sort of paranormal phenomenon. This piece is dedicated to all those out there that believe and dream in the unbelievable.
All audio clips are taken from Coast to Coast AM.
I Am Dancing Blue Flame – Ying-Chen Kao
text by H. A. Kares and electronics by Jenny Beck
live performance by Bonnie Lander (soprano), Zach Herchen (tenor saxophone), and David Witmer (piano)
2010, The Stone in New York City
Notes:
I am Dancing Blue flame is a musical work that portrays the female perspective of the soul reaching and extending into a dualistic vision of oneself. We are often over stimulated in society and forget to identify with who we really are from an organic perspective. Therefore I tried to create a world of stasis and meditation to counter the hectic and confused state that we often live in. I did this by using a mixture of dark and bright colors with intertwining melodic lines. The idea behind the prerecorded voice and sound samples is to interlace the metaphoric inner voice of the protagonist.
This piece is written for my dearest friend Bonnie Lander whom I have known for a long period of time. I as well would like to thank Jenny Beck who helped me with the computer aspects. Most of all I would like to thank Heather Kares for writing this dramatic and meaningful poem that inspired me to write this piece.