Composer Scott Ordway's four movement work for the Lorelei Ensemble, North Woods, understands the forest as a border between the known and the unknown, an inspiration for us to imagine beyond our current limits of understanding. Ordway focuses on resonance and emotional intensity, qualities which artistic director Beth Willer's Lorelei singers bring with unique skill to the genre of treble choirs.
| # | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Time | 12:24 | ||
North Woods |
|||
| 01 | Representation I. | Representation I. | 3:33 |
| 02 | Representation II. | Representation II. | 3:21 |
| 03 | Representation III. | Representation III. | 2:17 |
| 04 | Representation IV. | Representation IV. | 3:13 |
Scott Ordway's North Woods, written for the treble voice choir Lorelei Ensemble in 2014, is an exploration of the edges of understanding, the boundaries between the world of the cerebral known and the mystery of the irrational. Ordway took inspiration frrom 1st century Roman writer Tacitus' loose chronicles, Agricola and Germania, creating guides for the mysterious lands of the north that make up for their historical inaccuracies with a reverence for the unexplored realm. Ordway revels in this ambiguity, drawing a fertile analogy to the creative process with the image of the "woods," an elemental domain that is at once foreign to those of us living in manmade environs but viscerally native to any creature whose roots trace back to our prehistoric forebears.
North Woods is in four movements, the first three of which are all "Representations," followed by a final "Appendix." All three "Representations" open on a unison pitch that quickly blossoms outward into different lush polychords, like a peacock spreading its wings. In "Representation I." the chordal texture is then animated by percolating syllabic activity in the background on monotones. Closely spaced inner voices support haunting, soaring, sustained outer lines. Ordway deftly conjures a multi-dimensional soundworld immediately, creating the illusion of a natural surround sound environment with a richly layered, multi-timbral texture.
"Representation II." luxuriates in fixed harmonies, with internal suspensions and color tones exploring intervallic tension and release. If the opening movement was a musical metaphor for finding oneself in unfamiliar territory, the second movement evokes a moment of wonder as one adjusts to and accepts its majesty. "Representation III." features luminous, intertwined lines between the divisi high sopranos. Initially there is rhythmic diversity in the ensemble, with extended cantus firmus style lines spreading out underneath dancelike figures in the high voices. As the movement comes to a close, the voices begin to sing as one organism, in a wondrous exhale of sound.
North Woods ends with an "Appendix" which hints at the character of a Greek chorus or medieval vocal works. Homophonic passages split apart before coming together into perfect intervals. Ordway spins out lines in which one voice establishes a pedal point while the others expand downwards like a human accordion. The work ends at the peak of an ascending figure, rising up to the fifth degree of the scale without resolving, a fitting close for a piece that relishes the mystery, ambiguity, and openness of the untouched natural world.
– Dan Lippel
Recorded August 8, 2021, Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA
Produced by Jesse Lewis
Recorded by Jesse Lewis and Kyle Pyke
Mixed by Kyle Pyke
Mastered by Christopher Moretti
Photography Credits:
Lorelei Ensemble by Ebru Yildiz
Beth Willer by Ebru Yildiz
Scott Ordway by Amanda Greene
Cover and Booklet Design by Scott Ordway
North Woods was commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble with support from NewMusicUSA and first performed on 31 October 2014 at Marsh Chapel (Boston, MA) by Lorelei Ensemble and Beth Willer
Heralded for its “full-bodied and radiant sound” (The New York Times), Lorelei Ensemble is internationally recognized for its bold, inventive programs championing the extraordinary flexibility and virtuosity of the human voice. Led by founder and artistic director Beth Willer, Lorelei has established an inspiring mission, curating culturally-relevant and artistically audacious programs that challenge artists’ and audiences’ expectations.
Lorelei Ensemble collaborates with leading composers to commission new works that expand and deepen the repertoire of sounds, timbres, words, and stories that women use to reflect and challenge our world. This new repertoire for women’s and treble voices allows unparalleled music making that is born from the unique position of power and cultural influence that women hold. Collaborating composers include David Lang, Julia Wolfe, George Benjamin, Kati Agócs, Lisa Bielawa, Kareem Roustom, Jessica Meyer, and more.
Lorelei Ensemble maintains a robust national touring schedule, including recent collaborations with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and performances at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Boston's Symphony Hall.
On the New Focus, Sono Luminus, Cantaloupe, and BMOP Sound labels, Lorelei has recorded the music of Kati Agócs, Peter Gilbert, James Kallembach, William Billings, Guillaume Du Fay, Alfred Schnittke, and many others. Recent releases include David Lang’s love fail (Cantaloupe 2020) and Impermanence (Sono Luminus 2018).
Scott Ordway (b. 1984, California) is an American composer and multimedia artist whose widely acclaimed work spans music, text, photography, and film. His compositions have been described as “exquisite” (New York Times), “hypnotic” (BBC Music), and “a marvel” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and have been presented at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Stanford Live, and major festivals in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Ordway’s work explores the relationship between slowness, stillness, and emotional intensity. Rooted in the classical tradition but radically open in form and tone, his compositions fuse text, sound, image, and memory to evoke a sense of longing, loss, and connection—especially to the natural world and to one another. Influenced by artists of stillness and scale—from Gustav Mahler to Hiroshi Sugimoto, and shaped by the emotional directness of underground indie and post-hardcore music—his work privileges duration and resonance over virtuosity or display.
Raised in Northern California, Ordway draws on the landscapes of the American West—their light, silence, and spiritual vastness—as a continuous source of artistic inspiration. Recent projects include The End of Rain, a multimedia oratorio for Roomful of Teeth and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music confronting wildfire and drought in the Western U.S.; The Outer Edge of Youth, a choral opera commissioned and recorded by The Thirteen, and The Clearing and the Forest, an immersive music-theater work for SOLI Chamber Ensemble rooted in ritual and exploring the relationship between landscape and migration. In 2024, he premiered Expanse of My Soul, a song cycle created in close collaboration with Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, setting fragments of her personal letters in a poetic exploration of love, memory, and the interior landscapes that shape us.
Hailed as “an American response to Sibelius” by the Boston Globe, his music has been performed by the Hong Kong, Buffalo, and Colorado Springs Philharmonics; Tucson Symphony; vocal ensembles Roomful of Teeth, Lorelei Ensemble, and The Thirteen; and soloists including Sasha Cooke, Arlen Hlusko, Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, Sonja Tengblad, and Emily Marvosh, among many others. His chamber music collaborations include SOLI Chamber Ensemble, Tanglewood New Fromm Players, Norbotten NEO (Sweden), and the Jasper, Momenta, Daedalus, and Arneis String Quartets.
Ordway has released four critically-acclaimed solo recordings on the Acis label in addition to appearances on Naxos, Bright Shiny Things, and TRPTK (Netherlands).
In addition to his work as a composer, Ordway is active as a writer, director, video artist, and photographer. His visual art has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Kunstverein Familie Montez in Frankfurt am Main and Boston’s Laconia Gallery and published in the San Francisco Chronicle.
His work is supported by numerous awards, fellowships, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, NewMusicUSA, the American Composers Orchestra, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, American Music Center, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, American Composers Forum, and American Opera Projects, where he was a Fellow. A recipient of the Tuttle Creative Residency Award from Haverford College’s Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities, he has also been invited for residencies at Copland House, Visby International Center for Composers (Sweden), Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (WY), Willapa Bay AiR (WA), and Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences, where he was a Distinguished Fellow. He has served as Composer-in-Residence at the Cabrillo, Newburyport, and Carolina Chamber Music Festivals.
Ordway studied at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Puget Sound, the Freie Universität Berlin, and Accademia Chigiana where his teachers included Samuel Adler, Azio Corghi, Robert Hutchinson, Robert Kyr, James Primosch, Jay Reise, and Veljo Tormis.
A voting member of the Recording Academy, Scott currently serves as Associate Professor of Music and Head of Composition at Rutgers University. He lives in Philadelphia where he taught previously at the Curtis Institute of Music.
New Focus Recordings is an artist-led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed …Read More …
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