Featured in Shia LaBoeuf and Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy
Technical Information
ca. 12’
cello, percussion
Premiered 2012
Purchase or Stream
Performance History
February 13, 2019
Wunsch New Music Festival, Swarthout Recital Hall, Lawrence, KS
February 1, 2018
Foundation Hall, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
October 29, 2017
CCM Guest Artist Recital, Werner Recital Hall, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, OH
May 6, 2016
Chamber Music Live, LeFrak Concert Hall, Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Queens, NY
November 2, 2015
Goldberg Formal Lounge, Danforth University Center, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO
April 3, 2015
12@Hotchkiss Free Series, Gibson Center for the Arts, Washington College, Chestertown, MD
March 9, 2015
Kettle Corn New Music Gala Concert, The DiMenna Center, New York, NY
June 10, 2013
Geneva Music Festival, Billsboro Winery, Geneva, NY
February 9, 2013
Barnes Recital Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
World premiere performance
About the Work
I. The Tongue is but a Clapper
The tongue is but a clapper. Simplicity itself.
II. How— Hush!
III. Simplicity Itself
One rose leaf, falling from an enormous height, like a little parachute dropped from an invisible balloon. Turns, flutters... It won't reach us.
From "The String Quartet" (1921) by Virginia Woolf
Hush, written for the adventurous duo New Morse Code, maps the concept of speech and song onto the instrumental combination of percussion and cello. Taking excerpts from Virginia Woolf's short story "The String Quartet," the performers convey the busy-ness of speech and conversation contrasted with the simplicity of song. The metaphor lends itself to extended roles for both performers-- unpitched (un-singing) percussion renders spoken words, while the cantabile cello sound dovetails into vocal singing. The middle movement reminds listeners of the worth in silences, which emerge when we care to hush.
About the Composer
Tonia Ko’s creative evolution is largely guided by three conceptual pillars: texture, physical movement, and the relationship between melody and memory. These ideas permeate her recent works across a variety of media—from instrumental solos and large ensemble pieces, to paintings and sound installations. No matter how traditional or experimental the medium, Ko's work reveals a core that is at once whimsical, questioning, and lyrical.
Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, Ko’s music has been lauded by The New York Times for its “captivating” details and “vivid orchestral palette.” She has been commissioned by leading soloists and ensembles, and performed at venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Internationally, her work has been featured at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles, Shanghai Conservatory New Music Week, Young Composers Meeting at Apeldoorn, and Thailand International Composition Festival. Ko has received grants and awards from the Barlow Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) as well as residencies at MacDowell Colony, The Copland House, and Djerassi Resident Artist Program. She served as the 2015-2017 Composer-in-Residence for Young Concert Artists.
Presenters of her work encompass a broad range of the music scene. Notable recent projects include Plain, Air for the Spektral Quartet in conjunction with Openlands Lakeshore Preserve, Soothe A Tooth for violist Stephen Upshaw of the Riot Ensemble, and The Sea as Fallacy for Berlin Counterpoint.
In the attempt to follow aural, visual, and tactile instincts in a holistic way, Ko increasingly mediates between the identities of composer, sound artist, and visual artist. This has sparked interdisciplinary connections— most prominently Breath, Contained, an ongoing series of works using bubble wrap as a canvas for both art and sound. Her visual and installation work has been further supported by a residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA in the summer of 2017.
Ko was born in Hong Kong in 1988 and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She earned a B.M. with Highest Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. At IU, she served as Associate Instructor of Music Theory and was awarded the Georgina Joshi Commission Prize. She holds a D.M.A. from Cornell University, where she studied with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. She was the 2018-19 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition and was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2020.
- Tonia Ko
Performance History
February 13, 2019
Wunsch New Music Festival, Swarthout Recital Hall, Lawrence, KS
February 1, 2018
Foundation Hall, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
October 29, 2017
CCM Guest Artist Recital, Werner Recital Hall, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, OH
May 6, 2016
Chamber Music Live, LeFrak Concert Hall, Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Queens, NY
November 2, 2015
Goldberg Formal Lounge, Danforth University Center, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO
April 3, 2015
12@Hotchkiss Free Series, Gibson Center for the Arts, Washington College, Chestertown, MD
March 9, 2015
Kettle Corn New Music Gala Concert, The DiMenna Center, New York, NY
June 10, 2013
Geneva Music Festival, Billsboro Winery, Geneva, NY
February 9, 2013
Barnes Recital Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
World premiere performance