Name Pronunciation for Annika Socolofsky

Performed live by the Zöllner-Roche Duo at Unerhörte Musik in Berlin, Germany on November 9, 2021.

www.unerhoerte-musik.de
www.zoellner-roche.com

Commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek for their 2021 festival.

Program Note:
The concept for this piece comes from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of words invented by John Koenig that “aims to fill a hole in the [English] language—to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for.” The title for this piece comes from the definition for “silience.”

This word is something I felt deeply following the King Soopers shooting in my town of Boulder, Colorado on March 22nd 2021. I remember that day vividly, as I was receiving my first COVID vaccination while the shooter was active at the grocery store down the road. As our community grieved the loss of ten lives, I witnessed an incredible spirit and strength in those around me. I was amazed by my students–by their ability to face the weight of this tragedy, and their ability to hold space for others. I truly believe that community, our collective strength and care, is the highest form of excellence human-kind has to offer. And while we're here: ban guns. 

silience, n. the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as master- pieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: silience (2021) // Zöllner-Roche Duo Live

Copyright (C) Annika K. Socolofsky 2018. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Recorded by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra 2019, featuring excerpts conducted by Yue Bao and Michelle Di Russo.

Gaze (2018) - EXCERPTS // Cabrillo Festival Orchestra

Composed by Annika K. Socolofsky with interpolations by Iarla Ó Lionáird

This work was composed through a HARVEST Commission, an initiative of Copland House’s CULTIVATE emerging composers institute. It was written for and premiered by the Music from Copland House ensemble, and is made possible by generous support from Leslie Cecil and Creighton Michael.

This piece features electronics samples of my own hardanger fiddle and accordion playing, and more prominently recordings by Irish sean‐nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. For this collaboration with Iarla, I wrote several original melodies and recorded myself playing them on the piano. I then sent these piano recordings to Iarla in Ireland for him to learn by ear. Iarla then added Irish lyrics to the melodies and recorded them in his own magnificently Iarla way—complete with gorgeous inflections, delicate ornamentation, and a free‐flowing meditative sense of time. At that point, I got to work composing and orchestrating musical textures for Music from Copland House to perform with these recordings. I hope I did these recordings justice!

The text for this piece comes from an old spiritual poem “Caoin ar dtúis do pheachaidhe féin,” or “Lament your own sins.” I am so thankful to Iarla for his heartfelt performance in this piece, and for years of wonderful friendship that lead to this piece. A more astounding musician I have never met.

to sing of sins (2021) - EXCERPT // Iarla Ó Lionáird & Music from Copland House

Though written for the Great Highland Bagpipe, Krekhts is not a commentary on Scottish traditional music or Scottish piping. The piece is most immediately influenced by the wordless melodies of the Hasidim known as niggunim. These melodies are a very spiritual form of music, vocalized on nonsense syllables such as “buh- buh- bai” or “ai- ai- ai.” Sung with tremendous passion and devotion, niggunim are an essential component of the communal Hasidic celebration known as a tish, or “table.” According to tradition, niggunim are sung a cappella and accompanied solely by rhythmic table banging. When a niggun is sung, it is believed that the soul of the rabbi who created it appears in the room.
 
While all of the musical material in this piece is original, it is deeply influenced by the tradition and practice of niggunim as well as the traditions of the klezmorim. It follows that the bagpipe should be thought of as a voice in this piece, rather than an instrument.
 
Krekhts is Yiddish for “sob” or “weep.” It is also the name for the distinctive klezmer ornament that mimics a sudden choke in a vocal line, imitating a sobbing sound.

Performed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra in Hill Auditorium on February 9, 2014.

Krekhts, for Great Highland Bagpipe and Orchestra (2014)

“The murder ballads witness that Appalachia, specifically in the 19th-century period of industrial change, was defined by essential tensions between cultural traditions of the past and emerging notions of American modernism. This tension is met in the songs with responses of violence against women whose life situations—marked by sexual freedom—are the very depiction of a new cultural modernism that threatens the hegemony of the past." - Christina Ruth Hastie

The femicide murder ballad repertoire is still a widely performed part of the folk music canon, a subgenre that spans across many traditions and languages. This piece references three traditional murder ballads (“Knoxville Girl,” “Banks of the Ohio,” and “Omie Wise”) as well as Woody Guthrie’s “Bad Lee Brown” and Tanya Tucker’s “No Man’s Land.” Why do we still sing these songs? Why do we continue to perpetuate the tale of woman as victim—woman who needs protecting?

Premiere performance by Quince Ensemble at the University of Washington on November 7, 2022.

Commissioned by Quince Ensemble.

Copyright (c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2020. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

her lover's hand: IV. Banks of the Ohio (2020) // Quince Ensemble

her lover's hand: III. She Knows (2020) // Quince Ensemble

her lover's hand: II. Knoxville Boy (2020) // Quince Ensemble

her lover's hand: I. These Songs (2020) // Quince Ensemble

This song was written in dedication to two of the most important matriarchs in my life: my late grandmother Emma Jenkins Kale and my late great aunt Edith Jenkins Shear, also known as ‘The Twins.’ I wrote this song after my great aunt’s passing and before my grandmother’s passing. This song was an attempt to come to terms with life in a world in which only one of The Twins were living.

While the music for this song is original, the text for this song includes forgotten text from “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” as well as the line “to light its earthly sister all through the night” from the original Welsh text of the hymn “Ar Hyd y Nos” (All Through the Night), which honors of our family’s Welsh roots and was sung at my Great Aunt Edie’s funeral.

Light the way for those in your life who need a guiding light. Light the way for those who were never given that light. Light the way for your sister, your mother, your loves, yourself.

- Annika Socolofsky, 2019

Text
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
And you twinkle, twinkle, all through the night.
Light your earthly sister, all through the night.

- Text by Jane Taylor and John Ceiriog Hughes

Performed April 14, 2024 by Elizabeth Swanson and CU Boulder Choirs

Like a diamond (2019, arr. 2023) // University of Colorado Boulder Choirs

Though written for the Great Highland Bagpipe, Krekhts is not a commentary on Scottish traditional music or Scottish piping. The piece is most immediately influenced by the wordless melodies of the Hasidim known as niggunim. These melodies are a very spiritual form of music, vocalized on nonsense syllables such as “buh- buh- bai” or “ai- ai- ai.” Sung with tremendous passion and devotion, niggunim are an essential component of the communal Hasidic celebration known as a tish, or “table.” According to tradition, niggunim are sung a cappella and accompanied solely by rhythmic table banging. When a niggun is sung, it is believed that the soul of the rabbi who created it appears in the room.

While all of the musical material in this piece is original, it is deeply influenced by the tradition and practice of niggunim as well as the traditions of the klezmorim. It follows that the bagpipe should be thought of as a voice in this piece, rather than an instrument.

Krekhts is Yiddish for “sob” or “weep.” It is also the name for the distinctive klezmer ornament that mimics a sudden choke in a vocal line, imitating a sobbing sound.

Performed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra in Hill Auditorium on February 9, 2014.

Krekhts, for Great Highland Bagpipe and Orchestra (2014) // EXCERPT

"The Full Hundred" is an audio documentary that chronicles the inspiring stories of Americans who have researched, fought for, and lived through pay and funding inequity in the United States. I was first inspired to write this piece in 2022 when, as an untenured Professor at the University of Colorado, I received notice from my university that I would be receiving a raise thanks to the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. Curious what this meant and why I was receiving it, I dove into research mode. I quickly learned that my university had determined that I was being underpaid compared to my male colleagues of similar experience and expertise, and that, in accordance with the new Colorado Equal Pay Act, my compensation would be increased moving forward to adjust for the pay discrimination I had experienced. Following this news from the Equal Pay Act, University of Colorado colleague and Engineering Professor Shelley Miller sued the University of Colorado for owed backpay and reached a settlement that provided backpay for over 400 underpaid women faculty members at our university. It is an incredible story of justice and morality that impacted me immensely, and I was determined to explore it further—along with the broader issue of funding and pay inequity in our country. 

In composing the piece, I conducted interviews with four people involved in this fight. They are: 

Jessie Danielson, Colorado State Senator and Author of the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act 
Terra McKinnish, University of Colorado Economics Professor and Labor Economist 
Kris Livingston, University of Colorado Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director 
Michael Uy, University of Colorado Music Professor and Researcher in Arts Funding 

Using audio clips from these interviews, I wove these stories together into a sonic fabric of storytelling which you will hear as an electronics track played in the hall during the performance. Within this story, the wind ensemble acts as a live film score to the voices of these interviews. In conducting the interviews, I came to realize just how complex and multifaceted the fight for equal pay is in this country. Pay inequity results from a multitude of factors, including discrimination, bias, personal choices, childcare, gender expectations, and access to education, resources, and opportunities. 

The title for the piece comes from the statistic that, compared to white men, white women make 77¢ on the dollar, Black women make 61¢, Latina women 58¢, and Native American women 53¢. Equal pay will not be achieved until every demographic of our society makes the full 100¢ on the dollar—until everyone has equal access to funding, resources, and education. 

Huge thank yous go out to Senator Danielson, Dr. McKinnish, Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director Kris Livingston, and Dr. Uy for generously sharing their time, stories, and work with me. I would also be remiss if I didn’t extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Matt Dockendorf for his invaluable work in organizing this consortium and bringing this piece to life with his students. - Annika Socolofsky, January 2025

Composed by Annika Socolofsky
Performed by the University of Colorado Wind Symphony & Matt Dockendorf
Recorded by Kevin Harbison (wind ensemble) and Annika Socolofsky (interviews)
Mixed by Jonathan Galle
Commissioned by Matt Dockendorf & The University of Colorado Bands and a National Consortium

The Full Hundred (2025) // University of Colorado Wind Symphony

Recorded by the Bang on a Can festival at MassMoCa on July 27, 2015. Instrumentation is for fixed media, clarinet, electric guitar, cello, bass, piano, and drums. The fixed media track features Evan Chambers, folk singer.

(c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2015. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

About the piece:

“I find that people who come from small places have a very
strong sense of who they are.” – Nic Gareiss

I have never come from a small place. I’ve spent my life jumping around from Edinburgh, to Chicago, to Pittsburgh—city after city after city. But in 2012, for the first time in my life, I moved to a smaller place. In Ann Arbor, Michigan my fiddle and I were swallowed, heads-first, into the traditional Irish music scene. Showing up to familiar faces and tunes and conversation at Conor O’Neill’s on Main St. every Sunday night provided a sense of community I’d never before experienced.

Over the last few years, there’s been this microscopic point inside of me that has started to grow. That point is that sense of belonging, that sense of friendship, that sense of love, that sense of community, that sense of grounding, that inkling of a sense of who… It’s been growing. And that is everything.

a sense of who (2015) // Bang on a Can Summer Fest

Song cycle for low voice, cimbalom, violin, bass, & percussion. Premiered on December 8, 2015 at the Princeton Sound Kitchen by Annika Socolofsky, Nick Tolle, Courtney Orlando, Florent Ghys, and Mark Eichenberger.

About the piece:
Every moment is permanent. Every person is permanent. They shape us. They define us. We are us.

This short song cycle is based on poems by two very dear friends, written across two relentless winters. The first poem is a haiku by Samiah Haque. The second and third poems were written by poet Molly Moses. 


II – Loves don’t / go

Loves don’t
go away they
just disappear
under new loves
like snowfall,
even grayed,
under snowfall

- Molly Moses 


beneath the snow, II. Loves don't / go (2015) // Annika Socolofsky

Song cycle for low voice, cimbalom, violin, bass, & percussion. Premiered on December 8, 2015 at the Princeton Sound Kitchen by Annika Socolofsky, Nick Tolle, Courtney Orlando, Florent Ghys, and Mark Eichenberger.

About the piece:
Every moment is permanent. Every person is permanent. They shape us. They define us. We are us.

This short song cycle is based on poems by two very dear friends, written across two relentless winters. The first poem is a haiku by Samiah Haque. The second and third poems were written by poet Molly Moses.

I - Beneath

is this, too, a dream?
beneath the snow a desert
quietly slumbers

-	Samiah Haque


beneath the snow, I. Beneath (2015) // Annika Socolofsky

Riley Lee, shakuhachi
"Give It Time," for shakuhachi and fixed media
Composed by Annika K. Socolofsky, 2016

Recorded by Andres Villalta at Princeton University - Taplin Auditorium on May 12, 2016

Inspired by "Give It Time," a poem by Wendell Berry:
Give It Time
The river is of the earth
and it is free. It is rigorously
embanked and bound,
and yet is free. “To hell
with restraint,” it says.
“I have got to be going.”
It will grind out its dams.
It will go over or around them.
They will become little pieces.
- Wendell Berry

Music Copyright © Annika K. Socolofsky 2016. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Give It Time (2015) // Riley Lee, shakuhachi

As a vocalist, I have long been obsessed with the nuanced resonance of the human voice, and in particular the timbral variation and inflection inherent to many folk vocal traditions. These highly expressive micro-variations deliver intense pangs of emotion that can be sung in the subtlest of ways. They are distilled, fleeting moments of suffering and joy that fall between the cracks of melody and harmony. This piece is about the music that exists between the notes.

One wish, your honey lips (2016) // Emissary Quartet

Hush (2017) // Shattered Glass

bellow (2017) // Third Coast Percussion & Annika Socolofsky

When I look around myself for an idea, when I feel as though I have nothing to work with, when I feel as though I am nothing, when I've been made to feel that I am nothing, I look to the strong women that surround me for inspiration. Women's stories are tales of strength, perseverance, fire, and drive. And as the tides of history churn, gaining momentum, it's no longer dangerous to declare that now it's our turn--the women's turn.

The text for this piece is: "Hush now, baby. Don't say a word. Now it's time for the women's turn."

Don't say a word (2017) // Eighth Blackbird & Annika Socolofsky

Music Copyright (c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2018. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Recorded by So Percussion at Princeton University in February 2019.

The concept for this piece comes from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of words invented by John Koenig that “aims to fill a hole in the [English] language—to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for.” The title for this piece comes from the definition for “ambedo.”

This piece was premiered by Liz Karney, McKayla Philips, Nick Martinez, and Lauren Molloy at the 2018 So Percussion Summer Institute Princeton PhD Concert, and is dedicated to them.

ambedo
n. a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life, a mood whose only known cure is the vuvuzela.

http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: ambedo (2018) // So Percussion

Commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for the Blackbird Creative Laboratory
Written for Parhelion Trio
Copyright (c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2018. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

The idea for this piece came from two very different places. The first source for this piece was that feeling, that sense of warmth that washes over us when the sun emerges from behind the clouds; this is also in honor of Parhelion Trio, for whom this piece was written. The second source for this piece is a tribute to my grandmother who, in the midst of progressive dementia, frequently stares out her Kansas window and declares “well—it’s another gray day in the midlands!”

This work features extensive use of fixed media electronics which consists entirely of recordings I made on my Norwegian hardanger fiddle. Much like the sympathetic strings on the hardanger create a spectral sound bed for the fiddle itself, the ensemble serves as a resonator for the fiddle and actively triggers continuous texture beds to timbrally support and conflict with the fiddle’s melodic lines.

Turadh (2018) // Parhelion Trio

Commissioned & performed by Shepherdess (Kayleigh Butcher & Hajnal Pivnick). Recorded at the Princeton Sound Kitchen, Taplin Auditorium, Princeton University on November 6, 2018. Music copyright (c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2018. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

The text for this song is derived from the English nursery rhyme “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor,” which invites young girls to fantasize about what occupation their future husbands might have. As a child, I was told by nursery rhymes, by songs, by books, by stories, by the radio, by friends, and by society that my worth in life would be measured by the worth of my future husband. This message pours a foundation of endlessly conditioned heternormativity so deep within us that even the most liberal and queer among us hold shame in a death grip close to our heart. It is that shame that brought some gay people to oppose same-sex marriage. It is that shame that kept me from finding my true self for 24 years of life. It is that shame that keeps me from imagining my own wedding day. It is that shame that perpetually haunts me with doubt, and makes me wonder, who am I to say who I should marry? Millions have been robbed of their agency, truth, and self-worth, and it is a long road to reclaim it.

Who am I to say? (2018) // Shepherdess

This song was written with the deepest love for my grandmother Emma Kale and her identical twin, my great aunt Edith Shear. I beg of the listener to light the way for one another on this Earth. It is part of a larger song cycle, "Don't say a word." The text is:

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
And you twinkle, twinkle all through the night.

Light your earthly sister,
All through the night.

Music copyright (c) Annika K. Socolofsky 2019. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Recorded by Andrés Villalta at the Princeton Sound Kitchen, Taplin Auditorium, Princeton University on October 15, 2019.

Like a diamond (2019) // Annika Socolofsky & Latitude 49

Shy one, sweet one
Love your temper.
Shy one, sweet one,
Love your tongue.

Love what scares them,
Then you've won.

Music and text copyright (C) Annika Socolofsky 2019. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Recorded by Andrés Villalta at the Princeton Sound Kitchen, Taplin Auditorium, Princeton University on October 15, 2019.

Shy one, sweet one (2019) // Annika Socolofsky & Latitude 49

Composed by Annika K. Socolofsky
Copyright © Annika K. Socolofsky 2012. ASCAP. All rights reserved.

Boža
I. Da smo se ranije sreli
II. Den ke razdeni
III. Imam jednu želju
IV. La alegría
V. Da smo se ranije sreli

Annika Socolofsky, voice
Eric Schweizer, clarinet
Asaf Peres, guitar
Luke Mathers, accordion
Julia Knowles, cello
Peter Felsman, percussion

Performed in Britton Recital Hall, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on April 8, 2013.

Boža, IV. La alegría // Annika Socolofsky

The Donald Sinta Quartet in Recital - Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society's series at Del Mar College's Wolfe Recital Hall in Corpus Christi, TX

Inspired by the rhythmic ferocity of Bulgarian dance music and the Bulgarian saxophone legend Yuri Yunakov, Bulgarity is energetic explosion of virtuosity. Pulsating meters, dense ornamentation, and wandering modes make this piece distinctly Balkan in character. Although passages are reminiscent of the folk idiom, all material is original.

Bulgarity // The Donald Sinta Quartet (2013)

The concept for this piece comes from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of words invented by John Koenig that “aims to fill a hole in the [English] language—to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for.” The title for this
piece comes from the definition for “the meantime.”

the meantime
n. the moment of realization that your quintessential future self isn’t ever going to show up, which forces the role to fall upon the understudy, the gawky kid for whom nothing is easy, who spent years mouthing
their lines in the wings before being shoved into the glare of your life, which is already well into its second act.

This piece was commissioned by the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival for the Callisto Quartet, who premiered the piece at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in June 2019.

This recording features the Aizuri Quartet, recorded by Andrés Villalta at Princeton University in November 2020.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: the meantime (2019) // Aizuri Quartet

Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant folk vocalist. Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado Boulder and holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University.

Annika Socolofsky

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