MotherlandQuince Ensemble

The Quince Ensemble is a female vocal group that calls itself a “contemporary treble vocal ensemble.” Originally a quintet, two of the original members left the group as their performance schedules became more demanding, at which point Carrie Henneman Shaw of Ensemble Dal Niente joined to make up the current quartet. This is their third album.

The opener, Gilda Lyons’ Bone Needles, is a chilling, sharp-edged a cappella piece that sounds a bit like Meredith Monk on acid. Lyons writes that the piece was inspired by watching Nicaraguan women repairing fishing nets with long needles made of bone. The music sticks to relatively simple figures, but moves them around within the vocal quartet to create interesting rhythmic and vocal counter-lines.

Interestingly, however, the second work on this disc, Laura Steenberge’s The Four Winds, is scored more conventionally for the four voices in harmony and uses melodic, largely tonal lines. The text refers to “the imagined past, when the north star was first discovered and the cardinal directions invented.” The quartet, interestingly, sings this with straight tone, yet manages to sound like humans singing and not like a MIDI. They have excellent diction in their middle and low ranges, but above the staff the words are difficult to understand without the text (printed in the booklet). In the second piece of this suite, “Howling like a jackal, moaning like an owl,” Steenberge forsakes lyrics to present another take on Meredith Monk’s groundbreaking vocal style, including long-held notes in the mid-range where the voices cross as well as sing very close chords to create an eerie mood (the owls). Monk-like percussive effects are also heard in the third piece, “North, East, South, West,” which mostly stays on the home tone of G, while in “Pneuma” the quartet combines occasional a cappella singing with harmonica-playing in long-held lines. This has an almost Pauline Oliveros-like quality about it, though it is more tonal and attractive. Kind nutty in a good way! The finale, “Red Giant, White Dwarf,” uses excerpts from a science book which Steenberge has recombined in her own fashion. (In the line, “The solar winds blow away much of its mass,” the quartet pronounces “mass” as “mawse,” which I didn’t much care for.) Just think of them as a sort of celestial Andrews Sisters!

Emily Corwin’s Erasures was created—believe it or not—by erasing some words from a Teen Vogue magazine article, then setting the remaining words to music. The effect is pretty surreal, with the quartet singing, “I, grime, in between small hearts alike – pristine a machine a beautiful thing without a little, like shallow, like clear light through an empty water” etc. Again, the music is primarily tonal yet with modern harmonies mixed in, and I really liked the way the quartet got into the words and music here, evidently enjoying themselves while singing it.

Jennifer Jolley’s Prisoner of Conscience is a deeper and more serious work, concerning the efforts of a group with the rather strange name of Pussy Riot to combat the reign of Vladimir Putin as president of modern Russia. After releasing a “punk prayer” titled “Mother of God Drive Putin Away,” they were sentences to two years in a penal colony. The text was written by someone named Kendall A. Again, the music is largely tonal, the first piece set in G minor and using repeated contrapuntal figures which occasionally overlap and use counterpoint. Each of the eight pieces is separated by spoken lines about the fight for freedom. Where I draw the line is in Jolley’s last line in her description of the piece, comparing President Trump’s fight against the Global Socialists and their attempt to frame him as a Putin ally by disseminating fake news to what Putin has done in his country. Happily, however, this sentiment is not stated in the words of this piece, which is not only a marvelous piece of music but a strong condemnation against a true monster and an enemy of his own people (as is the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, who would have made a much better analogy). And the quartet’s performance is as good as the music they sing.

The Quince Ensemble is clearly one of the premier contemporary vocal groups of this or any other era. Their voices are not only pure but attractive, and they know how to use them to maximum effect.

—© 4.18.2018 Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge

With a title like Motherland, you know an album means business. And the latest release from the Quince Ensemble certainly does. Dropped earlier this month on New Focus Recordings, the vocal quartet’s third studio set explores four vibrant contemporary works. It takes critical aim through its anchoring piece, the a capella oratorio Prisoner of Conscience by Jennifer Jolley, with texts by Kendall A. It draws from protest art collective Pussy Riot’s trial and imprisonment for demonstrating against Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral in 2012. Square at the intersection of power, people and sexual violence — as well as three women’s courage in the face of it all — the content suits Quince quite well. (Full disclosure: I serve on the company’s board of directors.)

Founded in 2010 and based in Chicago (though members hail from across the country), I support Quince because I find them nearly peerless as an all-woman professional vocal chamber ensemble committed to contemporary music. The concept of Prisoner of Conscience is “totally up our alley aesthetically,” Kayleigh Butcher, a mezzo-soprano and Quince’s executive director, explains. “More than anything, we identify as a feminist group [and] it’s important to us to make the music we perform reflect the world we live in — to tell the stories of other people living during this time.” Quince commissions most of its repertoire, including almost all of Motherland.

Prisoner of Conscience was composed in 2015, three years past the zenith of the publicity moment for Pussy Riot; three members had already been found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and served time in Russian penal colonies. While Jolley, in a program note, admits that she “did not think this piece would be relevant,” global developments make it so: “In an era where there are rumors of Russia meddling with a presidential election and the White House doling Fake News Awards, I know now that protection of free speech is always relevant.”

To honor the chief aim of “Punk Prayer” — how Pussy Riot protested Putin’s growing ties to the church — Jolley’s music appropriates various chants and motets to illustrate resistance and dissent. Other movements, like “Oh bondage, up yours!,” borrow their energy from punk and “rriot girl” anthems. Quince embraces it all with great conviction, heightening the composer’s myriad nuances.

Kendall A’s libretto alternates between the lyrics of Pussy Riot and transcriptions of their trial proceedings, a rhythm that both riles and sobers the listener. In an email, Kendall A told me that she wanted a text of “angry, femme-fronted punk rock.” She notes that 2015 was the “summer/fall of Ferguson and the flashpoint for a larger and still ongoing national protest for Black liberation, and that was definitely informing [my] decisions.”

It turns out that she also drew on something more personal: her own experience with sexual abuse. “The figure of Putin, throughout the piece, became directly representative of my own rapist,” she told me, “but also generally of state-upheld patriarchal oppression.” One section called “Virgin Mary Put Putin Down” was “an expression of this feeling of powerlessness to bring actual change or justice, to lift myself up from my own traumas.”

The trial transcriptions, of course, clearly articulate Pussy Riot’s well-formed agenda. I am particularly stirred by the closing statement of Maria Alyokhina, who inverts the prosecution’s labeling of the group’s work as “so-called art”:

“But for me this trial is a ‘so-called’ trial. And I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of falsehood and fictitiousness, of sloppily disguised deception, in the verdict of the ‘so-called’ court. Because all you can deprive me of is ‘so-called’ freedom.”

Later, we hear a prosecutor’s question, and the answer of the witness — “Was it art? — It was witchcraft” — is repeated numerous times in a dizzying and Kafkaesque crescendo.

Separately, the music and the text might be compelling, but their juxtaposition delivers a considerable punch. For example, “Putin will teach you how to love (the Motherland),” is, musically speaking, a gorgeous, languid devotional anthem; the text depicts the prolonged gang rape of an unconscious woman. Quince renders the final phrase softly and sweetly:

“…and while she never said it,

Never gave us words from her limp, naked body,

We knew that she must like it.”

The sounds resolve harmonically in a warm major chord that also begins the next movement, “Police and Thieves.” The voices begin bluesy repetitions of “ohhhhhh yeah”s, first sustained, then in an unmistakably suggestive rhythm: “oh” (space); “oh” (space); “oh” (space); “oh” (space), and an equal pattern of “yeah” that follows. It’s completely cool, casual; yet it’s chillingly connected to what came just before. “Police and Thieves,” which describe a desolate police state, develops into enjoyable, but disorienting, gospel.

The sounds resolve harmonically in a warm major chord that also begins the next movement, “Police and Thieves.” The voices begin bluesy repetitions of “ohhhhhh yeah”s, first sustained, then in an unmistakably suggestive rhythm: “oh” (space); “oh” (space); “oh” (space); “oh” (space), and an equal pattern of “yeah” that follows. It’s completely cool, casual; yet it’s chillingly connected to what came just before. “Police and Thieves,” which describe a desolate police state, develops into enjoyable, but disorienting, gospel.

The balance of Motherland is less charged, but leaves much to recommend it. Bone Needles by Gilda Lyons opens the album, immediately drawing the ear with rhythmic dialogue between voices. Arching, looping gestures describe her observation of women mending nets with fish-bone needles on a Nicaraguan beach. I relished the singers’ spare use of vibrato.

Leaping from Central American shores to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, composer Laura Steenberge paints vocal lines in The Four Winds, a mystic and elemental portrait of the ancient past, and makes curiously refined use of a harmonica. Biblical and scientific texts set to rich harmonies describe “what will happen to the sun in a few billion years.” That journey contracts back down to the intimate discomforts of being female in Three Erasures. Cara Haxo sets pointillist poetry stitched from Teen Vogue articles that portray societal messages about body image into vivid aural tableaux.

The interpretative layers of Motherland, evoking the infinite range of the female experience, reward a deep dive. Quince has delivered art of conviction and fearless engagement with pressing social issues, and I implore them not to stop. They probably won’t because, as Jolley notes, “The fight is still on.”

Katelyn Simon, The Clyde Fitch Report, 4.27.2018

With their third album, Quince Ensemble reinforce their standing as one of the strongest, most forward-looking vocal groups in the U.S., if not the world. Motherlandfeatures new work by four female composers. The centerpiece of the album is Jennifer Jolley’s oratorio Prisoner of Conscience, which draws its text from the songs of the Russian agit-punk group Pussy Riot as well as transcripts of its infamous show trial—the fourth movement is titled “Putin will teach you how to love (the Motherland).” Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, Kayleigh Butcher, Liz Pearse, and Carrie Henneman Shaw bring a haunting beauty to the piece, delivering a fitting cognitive dissonance to the radical tone of the words. There’s even a touch of denatured doo-wop in the movement “Police and Thieves,” which draws upon some language from the Junior Murvin tune of the same name, made famous by the Clash. Some of the spoken word sections feel heavy-handed (and a little dull), but the current global politics have reinvigorated the timeliness of the content. The other works swing from the abstract (Gilda Lyons’s “Bone Needles,” where wordless sounds are woven together with stunning rigor) to fantastical (Laura Steenberge’s inventive “The Four Winds,” which uses extended techniques like acoustic beating and gorgeous baroque-like melodies in a work exploring different kinds of winds, Biblical phrases, and hijacked language from a science book). The album also includes the gorgeous “Three Erasures” by Cara Haxo.

I looked at the rather drab cover. I had never heard of the Quince Ensemble nor any of the composers featured on this disc. I looked again at the cover. Clearly it was labeled with one of those parental advisory warnings which one rarely sees on a classical recording.

My usual practice is to do some research before spinning a given disc but I decided to just put this one in the CD player cold. I had about an hour’s drive ahead and I decided to just let the disc speak for itself. But my spidey sense suggested I might be in for a rather dull listen.

So much for my superhero powers. From the moment the first track played I felt drawn in. What I heard seemed to be a mixture of Peter Kotik (of Many, Many Women in particular), Meredith Monk, a touch of La Mystere de Voix Bulgare, the west coast group Kitka, and a few others. That is to say that this disc grabbed my attention and had echoes of a few other contemporary vocal music styles. What I heard was very compelling, creative, practiced, passionate.

This is mostly an a capella group though they made very effective use of harmonicas as drone material at one point. Even after reaching my destination (achieved before the disc ended) I couldn’t bring myself to shut it off so I stayed parked and listening til I had heard the entire disc. Yes, it was THAT compelling.

Complicating the reviewer’s task further is that the disc contains four compositions by four composers whose first appearance on this writer’s radar was from this very disc. All four are world premiere recordings and all are by women composers.

The Quince Ensemble consists of Liz Pearse (soprano), Kayleigh Butcher (mezzo soprano), Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano), and Carrie Henneman Shaw (soprano). And this is the fourth album dedicated entirely to this ensemble’s work. Two previous albums were appearances and collaborations.

The featured composers are (in order of their appearance on this release): Gilda Lyons (1975- ); Laura Steenberge; Cara Haxo (1991- ); and Jennifer Jolley(1981- ). All appear to be California based and at the beginnings of what will doubtless be some interesting careers. I will leave it to the interested reader to look into the details available at these various web sites but, after listening to the music, most listeners will want to know more.

The pieces range from Lyon’s "Bone Needles” coming in at just over 4 minutes to the next two multiple movement pieces and finally Jolley’s “Prisoner of Conscience” which is an homage to the politically active musical group, “Pussy Riot”. This is the longest and most political piece on the album.

From the initial (and incorrect) assumption that this would be a dull disc to the end of this listening journey I came to see this disc in quite a different light. The cover now seems friendly and appropriately representative of the album.

Rather than go into a bland or potentially inaccurate analysis of these pieces suffice it to say that this is effective and affecting music by a delightfully talented and energetic ensemble. If you like vocal music, political music, music by women, or are just looking for something to lift you from your daily malaise give this one a try. You will be both challenged and entertained. No doubt this group would be fantastic in a live performance but for now we shall have to make do with this wonderful recording.

I know that Quince’s second album made our list last year, but to me their latest (Motherland) is, to recontextualize Mao Tse Tung, a “great leap forward.” The centerpiece of this third Quince disc (featuring four recent compositions by four different women for unaccompanied female vocal quartet) is Jennifer Jolley’s Prisoner of Conscience, a substantive musical response to the 2012 trial and imprisonment of three members of the Putin-defying Russian punk band Pussy Riot. Though it was composed back in 2015, Jolley’s not-fit-for-radio-airplay, eight-movement cantata with spoken-word interludes is the ideal soundtrack and perhaps balm for our current “toxic” (to replay the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year) times.

-Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox, 12.19.18