Support for the Alaska Live series of live music and conversation on KUAC is made possible by a grant from Design Alaska.

Design Alaska-- strengthening community through support of the arts.

I'd like to give a warm welcome to the Wild Shore New Music Festival guest artists.

Andie Tanning, Director, can you introduce our group here and the first piece we'll be hearing on Alaska Live.

Thanks for coming.

Oh, thank you so much for having us, Lori.

Yes, this would be my pleasure.

We have with us today an ensemble of all Alaskans.

And five out of the six of us are all from Fairbanks, originally, as well.

So this is really exciting for us.

We have Miriam Ward on the viola, Charlie Akert on the cello, Katie Cox on the flute, Heidi Senungetuk on the violin.

Conrad Winslow will be playing piano with us tonight.

Sadly, not in the studio today.

And I'm Andie Tanning, and I play the violin as well.

The first piece that we're going to play is the first movement of a three-movement work by composer Leilehua Lanzilotti, who is Native Hawaiian.

The piece is called, "We Began This Quilt There," and it's written about Princess Lili'uokalani and her imprisonment at Iolani Palace.

The first movement that we're going to play is inspired by secret messages that were written into fabrics that she then incorporated into a quilt, and into the crafts and handicrafts she was making during her imprisonment.

Wow.

That's amazing.

Take it away Wild shore New Music Festival guest artists.

["WE BEGAN THIS QUILT THERE" PLAYING] Katie Cox, that was an amazing performance of the string quartet and flute.

Did you ever think when you were playing with the Fairbanks Youth Symphony Orchestra that you'd be playing flute like you just did?

No, no, not at all.

I mean, I don't play really a single kind of traditional sound in that movement-- actually, in the whole concert really.

There's a couple notes that I'm playing that are just normal and that-- but it's on my alto flute.

But I love making those kind of sounds out of my instrument.

I mean, I get to be a percussionist, I get to play with colors and timbres.

And it's a real treat as a wind player to get to play with a string quartet because of their beautiful blend.

And then I just get to be a little icing on top.

I almost heard the wind in there, I think.

But the name of that piece is "We Began This Quilt There," and it's almost like your thread's in the quilt.

Yeah, yeah.

It's so gorgeous.

And that's what we're talking about with new music.

There's new techniques that are being used.

And I just think it's fascinating to bring that here to Fairbanks.

Yeah, yeah.

And you said at the beginning of the show, you're all from Fairbanks, almost all of you from Fairbanks, and you've been away for quite a while.

But this is the first time in 11 years-- this is your 11th year with Wild Shore that you've brought it here.

Yeah, it's very special.

We've been wanting to do this for a long time.

And, we've had a wonderful and continue to have a wonderful relationship with the Bunnell Street Art Center and Asia Freeman and all the women that run that gallery.

And they have really helped us, really launch us to be able to bring this here and bring it home, really, for I think a lot of us feel that way.

And it's a real treat.

It is such a treat.

You're on the shores of the Chena River here.

Yeah, right.

So that's the Wild Shore we've got going on here in Fairbanks.

And like I said, I asked you, did you ever think that you were going to be playing your flute like that when you were growing up?

How were you introduced to new music if you grew up in Fairbanks?

Well, John Luther Adams is one.

Indeed our very own composer.

I played with the Fairbanks flutist when I was in high school-- who are going to be kicking off our concert tonight.

And so, again, it's just like a real coming home real full circle.

But really, it was a piece that we played with the Fairbanks Flutist that he wrote.

And then I just found my way.

I think that many of us have this same kind of story where we learned our Bachs and our Beethovens and our Brahms, and then we just found our way into contemporary music.

And there's a really amazing and wonderful scene.

I mean, Andy and I are a part of Corvus and Composing in the Wilderness here as well.

So this is the stuff we really love to do.

Katie Cox, this is not your first time on Alaska Live, because you have performed with Corvus like you said, with the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.

And just last summer and the summer before that, you were with the Composing in the Wilderness composers.

And so that is fresh new music that you get to perform.

And it's really amazing.

The pieces that you've chosen for this program are very fresh also, some of them were written-- that piece was just written in 2022.

Is that correct?

Yeah, it actually just premiered in New York.

And then Ethel String Quartet gave us the blessing to that.

And Leilehua Lanzilotti, who's actually a friend of ours.

And you might hear from Heidi a little bit-- definitely at the concert-- is that Heidi actually was her teacher in Honolulu.

Yeah, so again, another full-circle moment here.

This is really beautiful.

So yeah, really new.

And the Chacon is also not very-- the Raven Chacon-- what we're going to be doing tonight, which we really centered this whole program around that piece.

And that was written also pretty recent in 2020?

2022, yeah.

Both finished in 2022.

Yeah.

And is your life of music filled with new music these days-- the contemporary music?

Or do you still go back to your roots of playing the Bach and the Beethoven?

I do.

I love going back and playing Bach.

Actually, I feel like I approach it so differently now, now that I play contemporary music.

I mean, there's just another kind of artistry that I think that I can come to it after kind of learning it when I was in school and then going into contemporary stuff, and it just it feels freer, actually.

I love that.

So great to have you here.

Well, Katie, you might be called up again, but I think I'd love to talk to Miriam English Ward.

Sure.

Miriam, you play viola in the new music this Wild Shore New Music Festival?

I do.

And you are also from Fairbanks.

I knew that most of you were from Alaska, but I didn't realize that most of you are all Fairbanks fans.

Do you remember Katie and Andy and-- No, because I'm too old.

I'm about 10 years older than they are.

But I had heard about them.

And actually the reason that we connected is another friend who was the same age was mentioned that I should get connected with them because I was like, where's the New Music happening in Alaska now that I've moved back?

And I live in Anchorage now and get to play some things there, which is also really fun.

But yeah, it's been wonderful.

They really craft these cool programs of-- it's not just contemporary music.

They always have this really interesting theme or idea that they put it all around so that it comes together in a really great way.

And you are no stranger to teaching.

I know that you teach at the University of Alaska Anchorage now, but you've taught at Juilliard-- At the prep, yes.

At the prep school.

And you have taught at the Peabody Conservatory and prep-- totally get it.

But you have taken your teaching talents around, and now you've brought them back to Alaska.

Yeah, I really love that.

Always good to have that talent come back.

Oh, Thanks.

Yeah, especially one of my passions because of growing up here, I think, is chamber music of any kind, contemporary or otherwise.

And when I came back, I realized some of those programs, probably partly because of COVID and other situational things, had not restarted.

And so it's been really fun to work with some of the students in Fairbanks and in Anchorage.

And yeah, I'm really excited about that.

And another thing that we're doing is that we've brought back an orchestra that is at a prison up in Anchorage that had gone by the wayside because of COVID.

So that's been another thing that I've really felt fed by, I guess, being back.

That is so important to do an outreach to people who are incarcerated, because it can be very healing for both the performers and for them.

Have you been doing classes there or performances or both?

Classes-- we're working toward a performance, but it's yeah, it's kind of amazing.

I think that when people are in those life situations, it's even better to have something that they work on that is all theirs and is based on expression.

And yeah, that's been a real treat to work with those women.

Have you been working with them on composing or arranging or performing or all of the above?

Mostly performing.

Right now it's mostly-- I mean, it was five years away from the instruments.

They were locked in a different room in the facility.

So they're mostly just getting their skills back.

Yeah.

Are some of them just beginners too?

Yes.

Got that too.

Miriam English Ward, it's so amazing that you are taking your talents of teaching into all places.

And you've taken this new music festival to schools too, I know.

Yeah.

I love that, actually, because I think kids really enjoy being given some small thread to think about in the performance or about the composer, and then we perform for them something that they know isn't heard very often.

And it's this really direct and intimate connection with them.

They're very open to those kinds of pieces.

So it's been fun.

So kids are not at all shying away from new music, is what you're saying?

I think it depends on which kids I have a kid in our family who's really interested in classical music, and he's still maybe a little on the skeptical end of some of the super modern or the Super Baroque or the edges.

So most students start with the meat and potatoes, like she was saying, the Bach and Beethoven and Brahms, which are wonderful.

But then and then they kind of branch out from there.

And I think it does.

It gives you a new perspective on the composers that we play all of the time.

When you play a new composer, and you're responsible for the interpretation of it from the start, you realize that that's actually true of all music.

And it's very freeing.

And really it makes it so lively.

And in this case, these composers, some of them are friends of yours.

Yeah.

Some of them have been able to hear you perform.

They've probably even consulted.

That's just amazing.

It's really great what they've built.

Miriam, thank you so much for bringing your talents back to Alaska for us.

Heidi Senungetuk, it would be great if you would-- you're going to perform some of your solo work too, in just a bit.

Heidi Senungetuk, welcome back to KUAC.

Thank you.

You came as part of the Circumpolar North Festival just a few months back, last spring.

Yeah, that was exciting.

So nice to have you here with your violin now.

Well, I'll tell you what happened was a year and a half ago, I broke my arm, I fell over, and I broke my arm.

So last March, I was not quite ready to be playing.

And so I said, can I come back in the fall?

So here we are.

Here we are.

It is very good to have you back.

And you're all healed up and playing again.

Thank you.

Heidi Senungetuk, the last name Senungetuk is very familiar to a lot of people who have grown up in Fairbanks because of your father.

Yes, my father was Ronald Senungetuk, and my mother was Turid Senungetuk.

The two of them were artists in Fairbanks.

My dad started the Native Art Center at UAF in 1965.

So a long time ago.

In 1965.

You probably grew up on campus running these halls.

That was before I was born.

But yeah, I definitely grew up on the campus.

I went to Old U Park-- University Park-- down below the hill here, and West Valley High School, so this neighborhood is really familiar to me.

Right.

Welcome home.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And Ron Senungetuk, whose work was featured on a KUAC poster, Whaling Celebration.

I think it was the 2021 poster.

Thank you for helping make that happen too.

And so art is really just part of your family because your mother was an artist, too?

Yeah, she was a silversmith in her own right.

My parents met because my father was a Fulbright scholar.

And he went to art school in Oslo, Norway and met my mother at the same art school.

So she's from Norway.

And so she was crazy enough to follow him back to Alaska and spend her life here in Fairbanks.

She was in a northern clime.

Absolutely.

It's similar, actually.

And so was violin something that you wanted to play for a very long time?

Well, that's an interesting story.

Peggy Swartz is still here in Fairbanks, as I understand.

Her daughter, Judy Swartz was about my age, and Peggy was asking around, anybody want to join us for violin lessons?

And so I joined.

And there was about 30 kids, I think, in the beginning.

In the early days, we started with about 30 or so, and the parents came and we were practicing as first graders, little kids.

And after a while, a bunch of the kids went by the wayside.

They were like, no, it's too hard.

And there were three of us who stuck with it throughout high school-- Judy Swartz, and then me, and Katie Donner.

And so the three of us stuck with it all the way through.

Well, I'm still doing it now.

Yes.

Yep.

You have a piece that you're going to play-- at least part of-- to start out with.

Tell me about this.

So when I was doing graduate studies in violin, my teacher said, you have to play the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, as every violinist does, but you also have to play some more contemporary music to show that you have some skills in extended techniques and all of that.

And so to be ready to do any kind of audition, maybe the easiest thing would be to do some music that is for unaccompanied violin.

So then you don't have to work, practicing together.

And so you can just work on it and have it ready at any moment.

So my teacher gave me a work by George Rochberg, who was an American composer.

He was at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-20th century, and he wrote a piece called "Caprice Variations for Unaccompanied Violin," and it consists of 50 variations on a theme by Niccolo Paganini, who is probably one of the most famous violinists in the world.

But these pieces are in really different styles because they come out of the 20th century-- the mid-20th century.

And so some of the pieces are a little bit wild, and then some of them are more romantic in nature, and some of them are more like Baroque music.

And so he experimented in all these different compositional styles.

And as a student, when I was first learning this set of-- I don't play all 50 of the variations, I selected eight, as the composer suggests-- you can just select a few and play them.

When I was picking out some variations, I was like, how am I going to make sense of this score?

It's pretty hard.

And so when I do is like, think of imagery that can inspire me to make music.

And I actually learned that skill here at the Davis Concert Hall, basically, when I was in high school.

The Fairbanks Youth Symphony-- there were conductors who were like, make it sound like dripping chocolate or something like that.

And so we used imagery to make music even back then.

And so I used that skill for this work.

And I was like, what can I think of to make me make music out of these really odd set of notes?

This first movement that I'm going to play, George Rochberg titled it, "Moderately Fast, Fantastico," which actually doesn't say much for anyone.

And so I renamed it, and I call it "Niqsaneac," which in Inupiaq language-- which is the language of my father and my grandfather.

Niqsaneac means seal hunting.

And so I envision my grandfather out on the ice, doing the work that's necessary for survival in Alaska-- seal hunting.

So I'll play that one for you here.

So this is George Rochberg's "Caprice Variation number 48," which he titled, "Moderately Fast, Fantastico, and I'm recalling it, "Niqsaneac."

["niqsaneac" playing] There you go.

[applause] Heidi Senungetuk, that was amazing.

I've never been seal hunting, but I feel like I've got some images in my head now.

I was playing this set of pieces by George Rochberg and interpreting them in Inupiaq language.

So the next one I do is called "Adagio ma non troppo," and I call it [inupiaq], which means long night and so forth.

So I gave them all names in Inupiatun.

I got invited to participate in an art exhibit in Kingston, Ontario, and it is an art exhibit called Soundings, an exhibit in five parts.

And it was a bunch of Indigenous musicians, artists, scholars, thinkers, and they said, we're gathering about 15 to 20 Indigenous folks, and we're going to make an exhibit out of all kinds of music and artworks.

And I was like, well, I'm not really-- I don't consider myself an artist.

They're like, well, bring something.

And so I brought this idea of renaming these works using Inupiaq language, and they were really interested.

And then it turns out that the curator at the museum at the Queen's University-- the museum is called the Agnes Etherington Art Museum, and it's on the campus of Queen's University.

And one of the curators came up to me, and she said, we have a collection of ancestral ivory works that came from Alaska in the early 1900s.

I mean, who would have thought that Alaskan ivory pieces went all the way over to Kingston, Ontario?

It's a long way.

It's far.

And I took a look at these pieces, and I was so interested because I'm like, oh yeah, these are familiar.

And yet they illustrate exactly what I'm thinking about.

And so I found-- you know, sometimes there's like a walrus tusk that has etchings on it in black ink, and they're like storyboards.

And so I started to look at these pieces in their collection, and I said, wow, this one actually illustrates what I'm thinking about.

So I made a video to go with my sets.

And the video actually is an installation that's still touring, I think, with that exhibit called Soundings.

And it includes a recording of me playing the violin-- this same set that I'm playing tonight.

And these images of those ivory pieces sort of floating around-- because I'm trying to show the audience what inspires me to make music off of the notes on the page.

So those ivory pieces are floating around, and those Inupiaq words are floating around, as they do float around in my head.

And I also provide translations in English.

So for those of you who are still learning Inupiatun, you can understand.

Well, are you ready to share another one of those, or is it time?

Do you have enough time?

Yes, we do have enough time.

I would love to hear another one of those solo pieces from its dripping music.

Yeah, I called the whole set "Qutaanuaqtuit," which means dripping music.

And I'll tell you why.

It's because I played one of these pieces for my grandmother, whose name was Aklaseaq.

I was actually named after her, so my middle name is also Aklaseaq.

But when my grandmother was quite old and I was playing my violin for her, and she said, oh, qutaanuaqtuit.

And I'm not that fluent in Inupiatun except for dinner table language, but that's a different story.

So I turned to my uncle and my Uncle Joe, and I said, what did she say?

And he said, qutaanuaqtuit, it means dripping music.

Kind of like just dripping full of-- I don't know, you can think of all kinds of things that drip-- but I think she meant more like the raindrops that fall off a roof and hit in those water barrels and go ding, ding, ding, ding ding like that.

So that word became the title of an art installation that's part of that Sounding art exhibit.

That's what I call the whole set.

I'm going to play right now one of these pieces, which George Rochberg calls-- I forget what he calls it now.

I like your names a lot.

His are so musical descriptive.

I found it here-- Poco agitato ma con molto rubato, which in Italian means kind of agitated-- lots of movement in the time.

But I retitled it, Ikit Kumait, which means lice and bugs.

You'll see why.

["ikit kumait" playing] [applause] Heidi Senungetuk, you make the violin sound so interesting, and, like it doesn't always sound like on stage.

And is that what the composer thought of?

Have you seen this performed anywhere else?

Yeah, well, my professor, my violin teacher who I studied with actually has a recording of all 50 variations.

I don't think that he thinks of it in the same way that I do.

He might think of it in some other way.

Actually, that's a good point.

He doesn't think of lice and bugs?

Probably not, because it's called Poco agitato ma con molto rubato, and so he might conceive of it in a different way-- which is a really interesting point about classical music, because you can take a score and interpret it in many different ways.

I love that.

But I choose to think about bugs to make me get that itchy feeling.

And the Inupiaq word again?

Ikit Kumait.

Lice and bugs.

Have you ever played with the Wild Shore New Music Festival before?

No, and I'm so excited to be here today just because most of us are from Fairbanks.

Actually, I've settled my roots in Homer, and then Conrad's from Homer now.

So we all have all these connections, and we've discovered over the week that we have so many of the same teachers and we think alike.

And it's really easy to get along with these folks.

Because we just grew up with the same ideas here in Fairbanks.

So it's really fun to be here.

It's so nice to have you as an artist with the Wild Shore New Music Festival.

And I can't believe this is your first time with the Wild Shore Festival.

But it is wonderful to have you here on Alaska Live and have you on this whole tour.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And was it one more piece or is that it for the Heidi Senungetuk part?

We do have time for one more of your pieces from dripping music.

OK, one more I'll do one that I call, [inupiaq], which means springtime.

Some people get a little bit-- I don't know, they might have a different image of springtime, like flowers and things like that.

But I'm actually thinking about Fairbanks in springtime-- specifically Fairbanks, when the snow starts to melt and show all dirty mud, and there's water running everywhere.

And then you realize, oh, I've left stuff out on the lawn, and it's kind of crusty sometimes.

Yes, we all know that.

There's a lot of crusty stuff left over from last summer.

But also, plants start to burst open, and things start to grow really fast, especially here in Fairbanks in the springtime.

So that's what I'm thinking about here, but this is George Rochberg's-- I can't read the title of his work because I've got it covered up here.

But what I call [inupiaq] or springtime.

["springtime" playing] There you go.

[applause] Springtime.

I really thought of breakup in that too.

Maybe that would have been a better word-- Because the springtime brings about the ideas of green up too, and the things popping up underneath the snow-- not just our stuff.

Not just our stuff.

Right?

Heidi Senungetuk, it is a pleasure to have you back home here in Fairbanks.

Thanks so much for being on Alaska Live and part of the Wild Shore New Music Festival.

Thanks for hosting us.

It's really lovely to be here.

Indeed.

And oh, Andie Tanning, it'd be great to hear from you.

Welcome home.

Thank you.

And you're no stranger to Alaska Live and Fairbanks.

I know you grew up here, but you've been on Alaska Live quite a few times with Corvus.

That's right.

Yeah, and the Summer Arts Festival.

This is your 11th year doing the Wild Shore New Music Festival.

Yes.

Tell me about the inception of it and how it came about.

Sure.

Well, so yes, we're all from Alaska, but we've not lived there for a very long time now-- many of us.

I actually met Conrad Winslow in New York City, where some of us still live.

We went to NYU for grad school, and we met.

And one day, Conrad approached me and said, hey, what do you think about starting some sort of music festival in Alaska?

And I was all in from the very beginning.

I had gotten to a point in my life where I actually hadn't come home for about three years, and that was not feeling good.

That didn't feel good to me.

I didn't like the feeling of my life and music bringing me further away from Alaska.

And this was a perfect opportunity to bring these two worlds together, being from Alaska, which is so important to me and who I am and my life in music.

So this was a great idea.

And I said, let's give Katie a call.

She'd be perfect for this.

So the three of us got together and started scheming.

Conrad, being from Homer, Katie-- she can talk more about this.

She has very strong connection to Homer as well, from family trips that she had growing up.

I had never been to Homer.

So our first season in 2013-- Good call-- way to get to Homer.

I know, I mean, I'd been hearing about it forever and how beautiful it was.

I never forget that first time we drove down there, and the way the Bay opens up is incredible.

And we were thinking about what kind of music and the why behind why are we doing this festival.

And there's such an incredible audience in Alaska for music of all kinds.

And what we weren't seeing quite as much of was new music.

And even just saying new music, it's a huge umbrella with lots of music underneath it.

And it's not just one type of music, which you're hearing today, even, right?

But we thought, let's see what we can do.

It was important to us to try and present contemporary classical music, new music, modern music but also to showcase, highlight, and collaborate with the incredible artists who are in Alaska now, who are there currently.

So we've had some really wonderful collaborations with scientists, poets, visual artists, all kinds of people and of course, composers.

UAF music department has been doing New Music Festival Concert series for years now, and it's come from the percussion department.

And I'm so glad that you have collaborated with UAF Music Department and Sean Dowgray as the percussionist there.

And that's why you're here today-- here on Alaska Live.

And that's really wonderful.

Yeah, big thanks to Sean.

It's just so exciting that we're collaborating with you and the music department.

I mean, it was through festival-- it was through being on campus that we met-- that Sean and I met a number of years ago.

And we had so many mutual friends-- just from the New Music world and-- yeah, this has been a long time coming.

I'm glad it's finally happening.

We should talk to Conrad Winslow because he's here-- our pianist and Founding Director of the Wild Shore New Music Festival.

Thanks for having me, Lori.

Thank you so much for coming in.

And Conrad, you're from Homer, I understand.

I'm the lone Homer kid.

Yeah, with all these Fairbanks interior kids, I'm getting to know the interior.

And we've got a storm headed our way, so hopefully you're out of town by the time that hits.

We might be stuck at Chena Hot Springs.

Oh, darn.

Where did you go to school?

And in New York-- that's where you met all these folks?

I did, I had a long, meandering path to Florida and then to New York.

I studied at NYU and at Juilliard.

And for a number of years, I was really focused on putting music into other people's fingers, even though I was raised and trained as a pianist.

And actually, it's been partially through the founding of Wild Shore and doing concerts in Alaska, that I have realized how important performing is to my creative life as a composer.

So over the past 10 years, I've been practicing much more in developing my technique and finding outlets to perform, because it changes how-- as I just mentioned before, I think about performance practice-- how it is that I don't just put notes on a page but collaborate with other people in the room and with audience members.

I also think of the audience as a collaborator.

It's so great that you're bringing that back to Alaska and to your Fairbanks debut, too.

Do you remember when you ran into these fellow Alaskans in New York?

I do.

Yes.

So I mean, everyone tells you, you're from Alaska-- oh, you must know Sarah.

And it's like, OK.

Well, I think I know which Sarah you're talking about, but she lived 800 miles from me, so probably not.

But in this case, it was 15 people who said, Andie, Andie, Andie, she's from-- and so we met.

And I was just thrilled to make her acquaintance.

And we became very close, pretty quickly.

We collaborated musically, and then we started collaborating on this festival.

And Andie, of course, brought Katie into the picture, and Katie moved to New York.

Oh, perfect.

Because of Alaska.

Oh, I love it.

We should talk to the cellist real quick.

Charlie Akert's just been cuddling with his cello for this whole time.

Oh my foot.

Oh, goodness.

Oh, now we've got to have you hobble up to the mic.

I'll make this more interesting.

Thank you so much for being a part of the Wild Shore New Music Festival and coming home to your old stomping grounds.

Yeah, good to be back, right?

Good to be home.

Did you all grow up in the same Fairbanks Youth Orchestra and at West Valley and the whole nine yards?

Absolutely.

Actually, Andie and I have known each other probably since we were five or four, five, six years old.

We both started in the Suzuki Program here in Fairbanks-- me with Peggy Swartz.

And then eventually, we played in orchestras together.

We got to play with these unbelievable conductors-- Madeline Schatz and Eduard Zilberkant, obviously, and Ted DeCorso-- oh, my God, my favorite guy.

Edward's 25th year.

Yeah, it's great.

Actually, now I moved back to Fairbanks and so I get to perform with the ACO and with the Fairbanks Symphony every once in a while, here.

And so I get to be back with it.

Oh that's wonderful that you have brought your talents back again home to Alaska, to Fairbanks.

Good to be back.

Oh, so good.

20 years away-- so it's good.

Yeah, after 20 years of abroad, I was very happy to be home.

Wow.

And I know that I saw in your bio that you've played NPR'S Tiny Desk Concert.

That's awesome.

Who'd you play with?

I used to perform with a group called the Family Crest and we played-- I don't even remember-- 2015 maybe, 2016, 2015, somewhere in there.

Well, welcome back to Fairbanks, and I'm so glad you're living here now, Charlie.

Who would like to introduce the last part of the Quilt piece?

I cannot remember the name of it, but I it has the word quilt in it.

Yes.

It's "We Began This Quilt There" by Leilehua Lanzilotti.

As I mentioned, the first movement that you heard was based on some of the fabrics and ribbons and things that were brought to the queen during her imprisonment, with messages that were woven into a quilt.

But in addition to working with fabrics and making other crafts, the queen was also a composer and wrote music while she was imprisoned.

And this last movement we're going to play is based on a song that she wrote.

Amazing.

["WE BEGAN THIS QUILT THERE" PLAYING] Absolutely amazing.

Thank you so much to the Wild Shore New Music Festival guest artists here at the Alaska Live studio.

You are wonderful guests.

You can find links to more episodes of Alaska Live TV and download audio podcasts of the Alaska Live radio show online@kuac.org.

Support for the Alaska Live series of live music and conversation on KUAC is made possible by a grant from Design Alaska.

Design Alaska-- strengthening community through support of the arts.