Claire Chase and JACK Quartet

The Holy Liftoff is a large-scale new work from Riley, who began composing it in 2022 as an open score sketchbook brimming with colorful drawings that were intended to be realized by Chase (on multiple flutes) in collaboration with any number of additional musicians. Over the following two years, the sketches evolved into a multidimensional work. It now combines extensive through-composed material—heard in this rendition as an eight-voice chorus of low and high flutes, seven of which are pre-recorded and one of which Chase plays live—as well as graphic notation, evocative artwork, and Riley’s signature open-form scoring that can be freely interpreted by the performers in variable durations and realizations. For the premiere at Public Records, Chase partners with the dynamic JACK Quartet in a 60-minute rendition realized in collaboration with Samuel Clay Birmaher.

Riley said, “When I improvised the first 16 bars of The Holy Liftoff the melody and the chords whispered its name while simultaneously urging me to make drawings of the experience. The drawings had angels and flying creatures and all the energies were rising up into a surrealistic skyscape…This piece could only have been written for Claire Chase.”