DUC Chamber Music Series: New Morse Code

New Morse Code is devoted to bold and engaging performances of music worth sharing. Omnivorous, rigorous and inventive, Hannah Collins and Michael Compitello activate the unexpected range and unique sonic world of cello and percussion to catalyze and champion the compelling works of young composers.

To Hannah and Michael, collaboration involves drawing upon mutual influences while generating and refining material together over an extended period of time. Through close work with colleagues such as pianist-composer Paul Kerekes, steel pan virtuoso and composer Andy Akiho, Hawaiian composer and visual artist Tonia Ko, and Pulitzer Prize-winning violinist/vocalist/composer Caroline Shaw, New Morse Code generates a singular and personal repertoire which reflects both their friends’ creative voices and their own perspectives.

Through its outreach initiative New Morse Kids, the duo has inspired young listeners with eye-opening performances and engaging presentations at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Yale’s Morse Summer Music Academy, the ARTSExperience Festival at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven. 

About the program: 

New Morse Code presents The Language of Landscapes, a concert of music about places both physical and temporal.  The centerpiece of the concert is the world premiere of Christopher Stark's The Language of Landscapes.  After a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, Christopher and New Morse Code spent 2015 gathering sounds and collaborating on a large-scale work for cello, percussion, and live electronics about how physical location determines our sonic identity.  New Morse Code will also perform other new works for cello and percussion that reflect on our attitudes towards places both physical and mental: Tonia Ko's Hush, rumination on Virginia Wolfe's short story "The String Quartet," Caroline Shaw's Limestone and Felt, a playful sonic romp through Medieval cathedrals, and Nick Didvkosky's Caught by the Sky with Wire, a series of Markov Chain-generated  vignettes at once fleeting and timeless.