Tom Steven Hagen, June 20, 2023 in Take Effect

A skilled oboist and improviser, Catherine Lee returns with a sophomore solo album, where themes of pandemic culture are put through cathartic, adventurous and atypical songs with a rare, sonic appeal.

Josh Nobles’ “Nocturne” starts the listen with solo oboe, where a very eloquent and meticulous delivery is quite expressive, and Dana Reason’s “Chanson de Fleurs: Eleanor of Aquitaine” pairs the stirring oboe with soundscapes that give the track a very nature-esque appeal.

Residing in the middle, “Alluvium”, by Taylor Brook, brings dreamy electronics to the synthetic versus organic ambience, while “Red Eyes, Green Lion’s Teeth, Golden Heads” recruits tape to the oboe d’amore for a more percussive focused display amid the flowing oboe of the Julian Snow piece.

The final two tracks are among the best, where Matt Carlson’s “Chiasmus” blends french horn and synthesizer into a unique buzzing, droning landscape, and Lee and Juniana Lanning’s “Silkys” exits with the oboe, field recordings and sound manipulation making an indelible impression.

A body of work that’s often reflective and addresses the dynamics of transformation, there’s a very artistic presence that comes with a profound familiarity with her instrument, and the technical demeanor is nothing short of stunning.

Catherine Lee’s CD Remote Together showcases her solo performances for oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn. It is published by Redshift Records, an award-winning Canadian label specializing in contemporary music. Lee is currently on the faculty at Willamette University and has performed widely in classical, contemporary, interdisciplinary collaborations, and free improvisation settings. She is a founding member of the Hannafin Duo alongside percussionist Matt Hannafin.

The CD features Lee in haunting, elegiac works that highlight her beautiful phrasing, ability to project a long melodic line, and considerable skill with microtonal shading and multiphonic production. Throughout, her virtuosity is apparent.

Alluvium, for oboe d’amore and fixed media by Taylor Brook, was composed for Lee and truly showcases her skills and artistry. The piece is based around the concept of microtonal drift, which occurs when modulating to different keys in an extended just intonation context. The tonic gradually diverges from equal temperament. The fixed media contains a series of precisely tuned microtonal modulations and seems derived from reed instrumental samples. Lee navigates the work’s tremolos, glissandi, timbral trills, and multiphonics with ease. The mood is one of serenity albeit with tension created by the close microtonal intervals. I found this piece to occupy the richest sound palette of the recording with its elegant drift between more and less consonant intervals.

Julian Snow’s Red Eyes, Green Lion’s Teeth, Holden Heads, for oboe d’amore and fixed media, is inspired by backyard flies and dandelions. The fixed media is dominated by whimsical, prepared piano- like sequences and again features multi- phonics and microtonal variations in held tones with an occasional florid melodic line and distorted flare up in the accompaniment. After a raw-sounding climax, the work closes delicately, as it began.

Matt Carlson, synthesizer player and composer of Chaismus for English horn, writes that he “wanted to see what could be done with two melodic voices…coming one after another without much continuity or development” (liner notes). The oboe is the more active partner with the synth performer often playing one long or re- peated tone in a reed timbre per the English horn’s melodic group. Chaismus is a literary device in which words or concepts are repeated in reverse order. In this work, a series of short duo melodies, bracketed by silence, are presented with variations in reverse chronological order.

Chanson de Fleurs: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Silkys have specific programmatic intent, but without the program notes, the listener would not know that one is about Eleanor of Aquitaine and the other is about the life cycle of the domestic silk moth. There has been a longstanding tension in the classical tradition between so-called abstract work (traditionally, more highly valued) and programmatic music. With the addition of “real world” sound, as Catharine Norman labels it, in electronic music, the listener is invited to hear specific associations and narratives. Lee seems to be inhabiting a kind of liminal territory between the abstract and programmatic, where the electronic element provides elusive references. I will be interested to see if her future work with electronics and field recordings move her more in one direction or the other.

Chanson de Fleurs: Eleanor of Aquitaine for oboe and soundscape was composed for the performer by Dana Reason and was created through a collaborative process. The oboe is in the foreground against an intermittent soundscape, which includes “manipulated field recordings, vocal samples and bird calls” (liner notes). Roman- tic piano fragments appear occasionally as do noisy scrapes. About two-thirds into the piece, the noise element becomes more turgid, and a pulsing heartbeat occurs several times. Distorted vocal harmonies also distinguish the climax area, while the oboe floats above, serenely. The program notes indicate that the piece presents an “oscillation of all the elements,” that it “traces the struggle between public and private life,” and that it is “the embodiment of being, sounding, thinking and becoming.”

Silkys, for oboe and field recordings, was created by Lee in collaboration with Juliana Lanning. The oboe hovers above a noise-based texture in the mid-to-low register. Lee explores various microtonal shadings and multiphonics that suggest percussion. The work begins softly and gradually, the fixed media element becomes louder and then subsides. Suddenly, a loud, slowly recurring percussive blow is interjected. The oboe then plays a lengthy, delicate multiphonics passage accompanied by a slowly morphing noise that continuously underlays the high oboe tones. This element morphs into a higher, whirring sound. Its wide spectrum contrasts well with the focused high tones of the oboe. The liner notes state that the material is recorded from the bombyx silk moth “through its developmental stages and eventual metamorphosis into an adult silkworm.”

Guillermo Escudero, July 2021 in loop.cl

Experienced oboist and renowned improviser Catherine Lee releases her second solo album, “Remote Together,” featuring field recordings, manipulated sounds, and electronics by Canadian and American composers residing in the Pacific Northwest. Lee has extensive experience in classical, contemporary, interdisciplinary collaborations, in free improvisation scenarios and is considered to be one of the “new generation of instrumental specialists”.

According to a Wikipedia description the oboe “is above all a melodic instrument; it has a wild character, full of tenderness… ”. On “Nocturne – Nobles” although the melodies configure soft forms which are interrupted by disruptive electronic textures. On “Chanson de Fleurs: Eleanor of Aquitaine – Reason” the winged voices, throbbing rhythms and noises alternate with the sinuous oboe.

“Silkys (2020) for oboe and field recordings” that closes this album continues with the dual character of this artist’s proposal, where on the one hand the oboe and the other wind instruments meander like sound waves and are like velvet tapestries, on the other, the manipulated field recordings form rough, raw layers and abrasive textures. Our protagonist creates abstract soundscapes with uncanny and unexpected forms that they adopt.

James Bash, June 20, 2021 in Northwest Reverb

In new recording, Remote Together, oboist Lee explores more new territory. Meditative, contemplative, and set at unhurried pace, the music of oboist Catherine Lee on her latest recording, “Remote Together,” takes listeners on a journey that meshes sounds that you might hear in a recital hall or a studio with sounds from that might come from the forest or the riverside. This album follows an adventurous path, that Lee established with her debut release of “Social Sounds” on the Teal Cree Music label, back in 2013. For readers who are not familiar with Lee, she is a veteran freelancer and teaches at Willamette University, Western Oregon University, and George Fox University.

All of the pieces in “Remote Together” feature composers from Canada and the U.S. who live in the Pacific Northwest. Several numbers were commissioned by Lee, and some were recorded before the pandemic.

Beginning with “Nocturne,” written by Jordan Nobles in 2013, Lee puts us in familiar territory, generating a warm tone on her oboe and a beautiful melody that seems to begin to search for something different. This is followed by Dana Reason’s “Chanson de Fleurs – Eleanor of Aquitaine” (2017), which was inspired by the mediaeval queen who was imprisoned by her husband, King Henry II of England for about 16 years because she supported his overthrow by one of their sons. Reason’s piece has an element of sadness and a firm heartbeat that goes away and then returns after a sonic avalanche occurs, which evokes the image of Eleanor of Aquitaine achieving freedom from prison.

In Taylor Brook’s “Alluvium” (2017), the deeper-sounding oboe d’amore shifts about in microtones, accompanied by a drone of electronics. “Red Eyes, Green Lion’s Teeth, Golden Heads,” created by Julian snow for oboe d’amore and tape in 2017, has sounds vaguely oriental and mysterious. Rounding out the CD is Matt Carlson’s “Chiasmus” (2018), which uses the English horn and synthesizer to evoke an interior monologue and a haunting atmosphere. Lee teamed up with Juniana Lanning to create “Silkys” (2020), which offers intriguing field recordings of real silk moths. The oboe sides between tones and wiggles, perhaps in imitation of a silk worm. Lee also uses extended techniques to produce some unusual sounds that make this listener wonder how she does it.

Baze Djunkiii, May 15, 2021 in Nitestylez.de

Coming in via mail from Portland, Oregon these days is

“Remote Together”, the new and forthcoming album effort created by American improviser, oboist – and Doctor Of Music – Catherine Lee. Scheduled for release via Redshift Records on May 21st, 2k21 Catherine Lee‘s sophomore longplay outing is based on a foundation of oboe, english horn and the rare oboe d’amore in combination with Field Recordings, electronics and manipulated sound. Based on this combination we see the artist explore several compositions written with her in mind by the likes of Jordan Nobles, Dana Reason, Taylor Brook, Julian Snow and Matt Carlson as well presenting a piece she perceived alongside Juniana Lanning, talking the concluding “Silkys” here which is, and what a great inspiration this is, by the life cycle of the domestic silk moth. This being said, Lee touches base with a classically inspired, touching solo performance in “Nocturne”, pairs her instrument of choice with minimalist background electronics as well as a collage of mostly nature-leaning Field Recordings – think: rainfall, crickets, jungle sounds etc. – in “Chanson De Fleurs: Eleanor Of Aquitaine” to create a beautiful sonic score with a slightly eerie, uncanny undertone caused by various disturbances and harsher one-off events of unclear origin before “Alluvium” indulges deeply in somewhat droning, score’esque as well as slightly Dark Ambient-infused melancholia with an innate sense for intricate, interwoven harmonic drama. Furthermore “Red Eyes, Green Lion’s Teeth, Golden Heads” is a well fascinating tale for oboe d’amore and tape which relies on somewhat of a call-and-response resembling interplay between the live instrument and the pre-recorded medium featuring a ruminant, slightly ritualistic music evoking memories of Asian temples and ceremonies, “Chiasmus” approaches a concept of ever evolving, emotionally touching melodic patterns in combination with extended breaks and short periods of silence whereas the aforementioned “Silkys” caters a crackly, partially dubbed out and probably Max/MSP generated electronic backdrop for Catherine Lee‘s hovering, floating, and somewhat outerworldly oboe performance to create a piece that truly exceeds the dimensions of space and time. Highly recommended, this.

Brian Cutean, April 28, 2021 in SE Examiner 

Oboist and renowned improviser Catherine Lee releases her second album, Remote Together, this month. On this recording, Lee’s pure, clear oboe sound is recorded so well, the breath is a main instrument, transporting the listener to the outside world of musical counterpoint, birds, wind and wingsound. 

It’s a compelling evolutionary journey of spacious deep beauty – explorative, moving and cathartic. The sonics of the oboe, oboe d’amore and English horn are integrated with field recordings, manipulated sounds and electronics – all featuring Lee, whose tone, timbre and melodic inventions are impeccable in this graceful listening journey. 

“Through the album, we move through moments of stillness and moments of activity, periods of disconnection juxtaposed with times of deep connection, from a dreamlike orientation to a fresh space,” she said. “The sound worlds contained are somehow very micro and macro at the same time, similar to the way in which the pandemic has shaped our culture and realities. Forever changed, we experience new orientations to the world around us.” 

Reviews of “Social Sounds”:

Grego Edwards, January 19, 2016 in Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review 

If the tides change constantly, fashions nearly as much, and political-historical events ebb and flow continually, there are some things with which we perforce ground our lives within us. One of those for many is music and the happy fact is that there is no shortage of it. New music and old music revisited abound, in a continual flow. It keeps me going through all seasons, a bitter cold dawn and its wonderfully colorful sunrise this morning being no exception.

A superior instrumentalist greets the sunrise for me, one Catherine Lee, an oboist of stature in an evocative program of new music for oboe solo, Social Sounds (Teal Creek Music 2035). There are five works by contemporary modern composers, one for oboe d’amore and tape, one for English horn, the rest for oboe proper.

Dr. Lee has a ravishing, declamatory tone and absolute control over her instrument, whether the work calls for extended techniques or less so. The modern extensions of tone production integrate themselves into conventional soundings on these works and Catherine negotiates them with ease, incorporating them into the fanfare-like extroversions and the more introspective passages with absolute musicality. Harmonics, alternate fingerings that lead to subtle shifts in timbre and microtonal differences, pitch bends, all are made an integral part of each compositional whole.

The works are given dramatic, rhapsodically lyrical realizations without fail. We are treated to “Still” (2006) by Dorothy Chang, “Rafales” (2007) by Jerome Blais, “Plainsong” (2004) for English Horn by Tawnie Olson, “Social sounds from whales at night” (2007) by Emily Doolittle (whose music we have encountered here before–type her name in the search box above) for oboe d’amore and tape (providing us with some extraordinary whale soundings–sequenced and somewhat transformed if I am not mistaken–to accompany fittingly the instrumental part), and “A Tiny Dance” (2008) by Catherine Lee.

The scores allow varying degrees of improvisation on the part of the performer. Catherine’s experience in classical-modern and free-improvisatory settings serves her well. She is a founding member of the Blue Box Ensemble and forms half of the Catherine Lee + Matt Hannafin Duo. Her doctoral dissertation centered around 18th century virtuoso performers and their interactions with audiences and heightened her interest in the role of improvisation. McGill University (Montreal) awarded her a Doctorate for her work there.

The compositions have thematic underpinnings. Dorothy Chang’s work was inspired by “Red-Black,” a painting by Lawrence Calcagno that hangs in the Empire State Plaza, Albany. Jerome Blais was inspired by the many variations of wind he experienced when he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Tawnie Olson’s piece treats structural aspects of plainchant types performed in the Night Office. Emily Doolittle crafts an evocative soundscape around night sounds whales communicate with. It was originally for soprano and tape but Ms. Doolittle adapted the vocal part for oboe d’amore at Catherine’s request. It bears the transition quite well! Dr. Lee wrote “A Tiny Dance” for two dancers who designed their dance patterns around performing in a restricted space with a number of natural and man-made obstacles. It was performed as part of the dance piece “Wet?” at Ten Tiny Dances Waterfront Project in Portland, Oregon.

The beautiful artistry of Catherine Lee ultimately breathes vital life into the music. It is music to beguile and uplift the spirits. It is modern yet lyrical. It is a stunning feather in Ms. Lee’s very musical hat. Recommended strongly for double-reed enthusiasts and modernists of all stripes.

Allan J. Cronin, April 1, 2016 in New Music Buff
Getting the Oboe (et al) to Stand on Its Own, Catherine Lee

Connections can be fascinating and not long after publishing my review of Emily Doolittle’s release here I received, in addition to a stunning number of readers for that article, a CD by one of her fellow musicians featuring another of Doolittle’s interesting works alongside four other works for solo oboe (or English Horn or Oboe d’amore).  Though certainly kind and timely I did not relish the idea of being subjected to even this short CD single of a soloist with no accompanying musicians playing a series of unknown soliloquies.  My concern was that of having to endure the sincere efforts of a musician who is convinced of her instruments’ solo potentials and who labors to prove this to all but hardly gets past technical achievement like a recording I once heard of the Bach Cello Suites played on a Double Bass, interesting as a technical achievement but…

My fears were clearly unfounded as I listened to each track.  Patience turned to excitement and I think I’ve now heard a sort of new breed of instrumental specialist.  Lee plays oboe as well as the closely related English Horn and the very little known Oboe d’amore with expertise.  But she is not a specialist in the “period ensemble” genre per se. Rather her focus is on the potentialities of her instruments as vehicles for new music, improvisation and solo performances.  There seems to be little threat of a forthcoming rendition of the Telemann Flute Fantasies played on one or all of those.  Instead we have a gifted musician who seems poised to shepherd these instruments into new adventures in the 21st century.

The album consists of 5 tracks, all less than nine minutes in duration but each is a fully realized composition lovingly interpreted by this performer.  I am only familiar with one of the composers here, Emily Doolittle whose Social Sounds from Whales at Night (2007) is the only track which features any accompaniment.  It is a good example of Doolittle’s potentially groundbreaking work with animal sounds.  The other tracks manage to rise above the level of mere effects-ridden etudes to the level of compositions that define their own sound world and subjugate that world to artistic expression.  Very interesting listening.

From the first track it is clear that this is a musician with a deep understanding of the expressive possibilities of her instruments in both traditional and extended techniques as well as a clear sense of how to find music of substance.  Her playing sounds effortless suggesting that she puts a great deal of time into honing her virtuosity but she clearly moves beyond the technical to master the expressive range.

I would certainly be willing to hear just about anything Ms. Lee chooses to play including the relatively obscure repertoire for the oboe d’amore but I have my fingers crossed that we may get to hear her tackling concertos by Morton Feldman, Vincent Persichetti, Witold Lutoslawski and Hans Werner Henze, big projects that are nice to hope for but we do see that her ear for the smaller projects is clearly golden.

Jeanne Belfy, Vol 40 No. 2, 2017 in The Double Reed

Catherine Lee has a unique perspective and an original voice in the community of North American oboists, and social sounds is a different kind of recording. I can listen to it and be completely and inexplicably at peace.  Five pieces for the three sizes of oboe, unaccompanied except for one that uses pre-recorded sounds from nature, move comfortably from one to the next with plenty of space to breath.

Here are the composers:  Dorothy Chang, with degrees from University of Michigan and Indiana University, teaches at the University of British Columbia.  Her still (2006) sets the CD’s contemplative mood with quiet explorations of false fingerings and pitch bends, holding on to enough motivic consistency to give a sense of organic growth.  Lee’s fluid, graceful timbre has just the right amount of energy, moving the four-minute piece along to its concluding multiphonic.  Jérôme Blais, a McGill and University of Montreal-trained Canadian composer, now teaches at Dalhousie University in Halifax.  Catherine Lee chose his Rafales (2007) to follow still, and it raises the complexity and range of expression by using spatial relationships through choreography for the oboist, captured by her variable distance from the microphone as well as a depressed piano sustain pedal, which is the piano’s only contribution. The work’s context is the changing wind of Halifax, but the performer must interpret this through her own improvisations, derived from Blais’ “framework of pitches and gestures.”  This Catherine Lee does most beautifully, varying timbre and resonance with great thoughtfulness, and staging the progress from section to section effectively in time.  Her palette widens in dynamics, register, and range of tone quality, but again with a fluid, natural trajectory.

Canadian Tawnie Olson holds degrees from Calgary, Yale, and the University of Toronto, and teaches composition adjunctly at the Hartt School.  Plainsong (2004) for solo English horn showcases Lee’s gorgeous, floating breath support, even more strikingly than do the previous oboe works.  The tonal focus of her English horn is especially beautiful from note to note.  The little piece is over all too soon, and the larger composition that follows calls for oboe d’amore.  Lee’s careful programming order contributes to the meditative  atmosphere of the CD; the ears are not ready to move right back to the oboe after the English horn work , and the d’amore provides a gentle transition.  Social sounds from whales at night (2007) by Emily Doolittle also features a recorded mix of humpback whale song, along with sounds of grey seal, sperm whale, and musician wren (Youtube it—this is an amazing bird!).  The oboist plays bamboo chimes and ocean drum along with the oboe d’amore, whose part is transcribed from a vocal original.  Again, the player uses the composer’s melodic sketch while making improvisational decisions concerning how far to warp the traditional pitches with extended techniques.  There is considerable true interplay, in real time, between the player and the recording, and a cadenza-like section near the end when Lee has made most of the musical choices herself.  The nearly nine-minute work hypnotically increases in agitation, and then suddenly dissipates with a fragment of an old sea shanty.  Composer and zoomusicologist Doolittle is a research fellow at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland in Glasgow.  Originally from Halifax, she studied at Dalhousie University, the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague, Indiana University, and Princeton University.

The final track was composed by the oboist herself as a dance accompaniment for a choreography entitled Wet? by POV dance as performed at the Portland, Oregon, Ten Tiny Dances South Waterfront Dance Project in 2008.  Called a tiny dance, the five-minute work is as meditative and beautiful as everything else on the album. Catherine Lee describes the liberating limitations of the material she chose: “the note b¹, which has the most timbral fingerings on the oboe; the interval of the tritone, to create a feeling of reaching; and finally, the whole-tone scale . . .”  The rhythmic movement is relaxed and adjusted to the choreography.

Catherine Lee earned her DM in Oboe Performance and BM from McGill University,  and her MM and Performer Diploma from Indiana University; she cites among her oboe teachers Theodore Baskin, Normand Forget, and Bruce Haynes.  She is also a licensed Andover Educator (Body Mapping).  social sounds is an album I have listened to more often than any other for the past eight months or so.  Lasting only a little over thirty minutes, it puts me in a uniquely healthy frame of mind.  I’ll leave it to bigger brains to explain exactly why, but between the immaculate, masterful oboe playing and the fresh, un-encumbered musical ideas, the aesthetic of Catherine Lee’s work speaks to what I need.  Her music creates space for healing.

James Bash, September 5, 2016 in Northwest Reverb

Catherine Lee’s “social sounds” CD explores new sonic territory for the oboe

Earlier this year, oboist Catherine Lee released her debut solo album, fearlessly probing unusual sonic textures of new works. Entitled “social sounds,” the recording contains pieces for solo oboe by Dorothy Chang, Jerome Blais, Tawnie Olson, Emily Doolittle, and Lee that venture off-road into unusual tonal landscapes. The exploratory nature of the music on the CD plays well in Lee’s hands, because she has a lot of experience with the improvisation, having performed in ensembles led by noted improvisers, such as John Gruntfest, Gino Robair, and Tatsuya Nakatani. Lee has an extensive background as a freelance oboist and teaches at Willamette University, Western Oregon University and George Fox University.

The album’s title, “social sounds,” refers to Emily Doolittle’s “Social sounds from the whales at night” (2007). It features Lee playing the oboe d’amore to tape recordings of humpback, grey seal, and sperm whales. The whale sounds start out in the background as Lee casts a plaintive obbligato into the foreground. It is not long before her phrases and those of the whales seem to play with each other – a sort of communion in the midst of the ocean.

Lee’s performance of “Still” by Dorothy Chang (2006) creates a contemplative yet abstract mood in which tonality shifts back and forth as if from exterior to interior. Notes seem to sag and then leap forward in a spontaneous way that finally ends with a strange, mircrotonal buzz.

Lee gives Jerome Blais’s “Rafales” (2007) a wonderfully unhurried pace that allows notes to linger. Some of the notes have a long hang time and blur harmonically into the oncoming melodic line. A perky series of notes briefly gains enough momentum to contrast well with the predominantly forlorn sounds, including the eerily hollow tone at the end of the piece.

In Tawnie Olson’s “Plainsong” (2004), Lee offers a contemplative atmosphere that reflects the chants of medieval monks – although the piece has no direct quotes. Lee’s use of the English horn evokes a vocal quality that fits the music extremely well.

For the “Ten Tiny Dances South Waterfront Project” in 2008, Lee wrote “a tiny dance,” and, in this recording, she strikes a delicate balance between small movements and larger ones. Overall, the piece has an introspective nature that must have worked well for the dancers, who (according to the liner notes) “were restricted to moving within a space of four square feet that also contained a cement ledge, a banister, and a section of a small waterfall.

So if you are feeling adventurous, try “social sounds,” which is available through CD Baby,Teal Creek Music, and the Canadian Music Centre.

Elliot Wright, February 23, 2016 in The WholeNote

The difficulty and excitement of a solo instrumental performance arises from the fact that the entire sound envelope is, from beginning to end, from top to bottom, exposed. A note’s attack, its approach towards silence, the sound of keys, the performer’s breath – all these come under the listener’s scrutiny, amplified by the surrounding stillness. On social sounds, Portland oboist Catherine Lee, instead of merely navigating these choppy waters, makes them her destination. Almost all of the pieces feature an improvisatory aspect, tools which Lee uses to prod the boundaries of her instrument’s sound.

The first such piece presented here is Jérôme Blais’ Rafales. Scored for solo oboe and piano with depressed sustain pedal, the work is this disc’s standout. Inspired by the composer’s encounters with Nova Scotian wind, Blais supplies the performer only with loosely defined long-tone gestures, leaving their lengths at the performer’s discretion. These, combined with the timbral shifts caused by the choreographed movement of the oboe in relationship to the microphone, result in a gripping tension: Lee’s tone, at first pushed and pulled along its edges, finally disintegrates into the murk of sympathetic vibrations with the piano.

A similar effect is achieved in Emily Doolittle’s Social sounds from whales at night, only here it’s improvised timbral fingerings and pitch bends which cause the tension, and pre-recorded whale sounds rising to the ocean’s surface which give release. The sum of these is a CD as compelling as it is eminently listenable.

Brett Campbell, December 28, 2016 in Oregon Arts Watch
Oregon new music recordings 2016: Small beauties

You might think a solo album by an oboist would grow a little texturally tedious, but Lee actually plays several related instruments and uses electronics and the stylistic differences among the five 21^st century composers to present a relatively broad sonic spectrum, and she has the chops to make it all sound good.

I’ve written admiringly here of Lee’s earlier performances of Emily Doolitle’s plaintive, haunting Social Sounds from whales at Night for oboe d’amore and tape in recent live performances. Dorothy Chang’s Still uses little melodic and timbral filigrees to ornament a placid core melody, sometimes reminiscent of the traditional Chinese dizhi flute, though not as shrill, and here conjuring more contemplative mood. Another solo oboe piece, Tawnie Olson’s Plainsong, finds a similar mood from very different sources: medieval sacred chant.

Lee created her own whimsical a tiny dance to accompany a 2008 installment of Portland’s ever-popular Ten Tiny Dances, and it charms even without the movements, and waterfall, that inspired it. The longest track, Jérôme Blais’s Rafales, was inspired by coastal winds, allows improvisation (so no two performances are identical), and is inflected by both Lee’s dancing while playing (as the score instructs, though presumably that was more for live performances), and a resonating piano whose sustain pedal is depressed throughout the performance. It affords Lee room to cut loose both tonally and melodically, and she takes full advantage, and though it drags a bit, Lee’s firm tone and nuanced dynamics and phrasing add depth, here and throughout this sonorous solo album.

Reviews of “Five Shapes”:

Brett Campbell, December 28, 2015 in Oregon Arts Watch
Oregon music on record 2015: Contemporary classical
Catherine Lee + Matt Hannafin Duo

This suite of free improvisations for oboe d’amore and percussion, recorded at Hudson Concert Hall in Salem, unites two of Oregon’s most experienced improvising musicians. Lee has performed both improvised and composed music at festivals and concerts around the world and with the Oregon Symphony and Portland Opera orchestras. Hannafin studied with legendary Indian vocalist and teacher Pran Nath, minimalist pioneer La Monte Young, Iranian percussion master Kavous Shirzadian and more, and collaborated with musicians from the worlds of electronic, jazz and other improvised music.

Hannafin’s world music background may explain why much of this quintessentially now music, made up entirely in the moment, is so redolent of traditional music from non Western cultures like Japan and Korea, India and the Middle East. That breadth of influence suits Lee’s ability to make her archaic but alluring instrument — a staple of J.S. Bach and other Baroque composers — sound like so many other double reed and other sound sources from various traditions, from shofar to Balkan and Persian instruments. Add Hannafin’s varied percussion palette and the pair’s inventive musical imagination, and Five Shapes delivers a surprisingly multifarious experience. It’s less about whirlwind virtuosity than atmosphere, concocted from long tones, judicious use of musical space and silence, and intriguing musical choices that rarely sound studied; the music seldom stalls despite the fact that all the takes are unedited documents of what sprang from their imaginations on that late summer afternoon.

Sean Ongley, January 11, 2017 in Thru Media

The Prime Sound of Lee/Hannafin Duo
PORTLAND IMPROVISERS DR. CATHERINE LEE AND MATT HANNAFIN’S SELF-RELEASED LP FIVE SHAPES

Five Shapes lulls the mind with its gentle spaciousness into a personal creative space. It is five improvisations of nameless shapes, making one whole prime number.

In case you forgot, five cannot be divided by any other whole number (hence prime). Recorded live in one take at Hudson Concert Hall in Salem, Oregon, these five shapes cannot be repeated, nor can you easily find repetition (or a divisible portion) within it.

Deep natural reverberations wash over Catherine Lee’s oboe d’amore, giving harmony to Hannafin’s percussive backbone. It’s like he provides a timeline so that she can imagine characters and express them as moods. The arch of each shape can be heard as a story.

The music that happened that day was stripped to the bare essentials — not too conceptual. The songs clock in just between 9-10 minutes, each of them. They are named simply, “Shape 1,” “Shape, 2,” for a total of five.

By removing audience applause, it sounds like a studio album, but the comforting hum of the concert hall reminds you that you’re in a place, versus the sonic vacuum of a proper studio.

I’ve enjoyed my copy of this release for, coincidentally, five months. That’s a good thing. It gives me the benefit of long-term listening. It has become a favorite album at the desk, writing, researching, or really anything that involves analytic thought.