The 2011
BEAMS
Electronic
Music
Marathon
A 12-HOUR MARATHON CONCERT OF
ELECTRONIC AND MIXED-MEDIA WORKS
SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 2011
NOON TO MIDNIGHT
Slosberg Music Center,
Brandeis University
The 2011 BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon is part of the
Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts
and the Boston Cyberarts Festival.
Funded through the generosity of the
Brandeis Arts Council,
The Poses Awards,
the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund,
and the
Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University,
with additional support from Parsons Audio.
Hotel Indigo
is the preferred hotel of the 2011 BEAMS Marathon.
Special thanks to the
Computer Music Studio at Boston University.
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Welcome to the 2011 BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon
A 12-Hour marathon concert of Electronic and Mixed-Media Works
Saturday, April 20, 2011
Noon-Midnight
Slosberg Music Center, Brandeis University
PROGRAM
(Concert 1 - Noon-2)
Violin Phase (1979)
Benjamin Sung, violin
with stereo fixed media
Steve Reich
Random Love Generator (2007)
Philipp Stäudlin, alto saxophone
Christian Gentry, live electronics
Jeremy Podgursky
Blue Traces (2009)
Jihye Chang, piano
with live electronics
John Gibson
13’00”
Mathematics 3 (2000-08)
video and 6 channel audio
James Dashow (music)^
Lorenzo Ceccotti
(computer animation/video)
Cary Plotikin and
Ted Weiss (libretto)
14’00”
Lattice (2011)*
John Mallia, live electronics
John Mallia^
Sole Injection (1996)
Benjamin Sung, violin
with fixed media
Zack Browning
Gustav’s Pneuma (2007)
stereo fixed media
William Coble
Correspondences (2007)
an audiovision for mixed media
Butch Rovan
Whenever possible, please enter or exit during music breaks only
3
15’00”
6’00”
5’00”
10’00”
5’00”
12’00”
(Concert 2 - 2:00-4:00)
five, seven, seven, one (2011)
15° Harmonico (1996)**
Jihye Chang, piano
with stereo fixed media
Composed and Performed by Punkte
(Roth Michaels^,
marimba and vibes,
live processing and
John Aylward^, piano)
10’00”
Rodrigo Cicchelli Velloso
10’30”
Rotazione (2009) Audiovisual Homage to Futurism
in Three Movements
Inter Nos (2007)
Philipp Stäudlin, soprano sax with
live electronics
Alessandro Cipriani (music)
Giulio Latini (video)
Arrigo Lora Totino,
Giovanni Fontana,
Giulia Niccolai (texts)
9’00”
Davide Ianni
7’30”
Nothing (2010)*
James Borchers, live processing of sound and video
James Borchers^
7’00”
(sound)
Laura Macias Barrera (video) Limites (1973)
Benjamin Sung, violin with microphone
Vinko Globokar
7’30”
Sugar Touch (2008)
Philipp Stäudlin, alto sax with stereo fixed media
Craig Walsh ^
8’00”
White Noise (2007)
video and multi-channel audio
Dennis Miller
9’45”
Ricercare una melodia: Version for Cello and Electronics (1984)
Joshua Gordon, cello with delay line
Jonathan Harvey
6’00”
(Concert 3 - 4:00-6:00)
Mosaic (2011)**
Geoffrey Burleson, piano/toy piano
with 5.1 fixed media
João Pedro Oliveira Whenever possible, please enter or exit during music breaks only
4
12’00”
Are You Radioactive, Pal? (2010)
Philipp Stäudlin, saxophone with
4 channel fixed media
Eric Chasalow^
Rekindle (2009)
Shanna Gutierrez, flute with fixed media
Michel van der Aa
Shamayim (2006-8)
1. Chashmal
Laconisme de l’aile (1982)
Shanna Gutierrez, flute with live electronics
David Felder (music)
Elliot Caplan (images)
Kaija Saariaho 8’00”
Shore (2007)
Elizabeth England, oboe with live electronics
Lakefire Resolution (2011)*
Peter Van Zandt Lane, bassoon with live electronics
Hans Tutschku
11’30”
Study for Bowed Cardboard (2011)*
Lou Bunk, scratch-o-lin with live electronics
Twilight Collider (2004)**
Shanna Gutierrez, flute and bass flute
with live electronics
13’00”
7’00”
10’00”
Ferdinando De Sena
8’00”
Lou Bunk^
5’00”
Malin Bång 12’00”
(Concert 4 - 6:00-8:00)
Corps Sonore (2011)
Bill Solomon, percussion with stereo fixed media
...sofferte onde serene...(1976)
Roberto Durante (from L’arsenale),
piano with fixed media
Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980)
fixed media
Christian Gentry^
Luigi Nono Jonathan Harvey
Slight uncertainty is very attractive (2006)
Shanna Gutierrez, flute with fixed media
the forgotten dialect of autumn (2009)
Krista Buckland Reisner, violin with live electronics
16’00”
9’00”
Kyong Mee Choi 7’15”
Heather Stebbins
10’30”
Whenever possible, please enter or exit during music breaks only
5
8’00”
Ensembles for Synthesizer (1964)
Milton Babbitt
Trembling Air (2009)
Shanna Gutierrez, flute with fixed media
Benjamin Broening
Polytopia (2004)
Mari Kimura
Mari Kimura, violin and computer
10’30”
8’00”
20’00”
(whole set)
Clone Barcarolle (2010)
Mari Kimura
Mari Kimura, augmented violin
Viomax (2010)
Mari Kimura, augmented violin and OMAX
Mari Kimura
(Concert 5 - 8:00-10:00)
Winter Fragments (2000)
Tristan Murail (music)
Sound Icon, conducted by Jeff Means Herve Bailly-Basin (video)
with live processing and video
The Texture of Time (2006)
Joshua Fineberg
Sarah Brady, flute with electronics
Abstraction 1 (1995/2005)
Christopher Bailey
Gabriela Diaz, violin with live electronics
13’00”
6’00”
6’00”
Trip (2010)
Michael Lowenstern, bass clarinet
with live electronics
Michael Lowenstern
4’30”
My Mouth (2010)
Michael Lowenstern, bass clarinet
with live electronics
Michael Lowenstern
6’00”
Bam Pip (2010)
Michael Lowenstern, bass clarinet
with live electronics
Rope and Chasm (2011) I. Zarathustras Vorrede
Re’ut Ben Ze’ev, mezzo-soprano with video
Michael Lowenstern
4’30”
Matthew Greenbaum
Whenever possible, please enter or exit during music breaks only
6
13’00”
Libretto (2011)**
Michael Norsworthy, bass clarinet
with quadrophonic electronics
Derek Hurst^
Flute Control (1984-1988)
Thomas Kessler
Christoph Bösch, flute with live electronics
11’00”
13’30”
(Concert 6 - 10:00-Midnight)
Strange Autumn (2004) Talea Ensemble: Alex Lipowski, percussion;
Jeffrey Gavett, reciter;
with guest Victor Adán, live electronics
Steven Kazuo Takasugi
17’00”
Scuffle & Snap (2011)
Krista Reisner, violin with fixed media
Eric Chasalow^
5’30”
Piano Control (1974)
Jürg Henneberger, piano with synthesizer
Thomas Kessler
14’30
Synchronism No. 12 (2006)
Jean Kopperud, clarinet with electronic sound
Verfremdung/Entfremdung (2002)
Christoph Bösch, flute and
Jürg Henneberger, piano with
6 channel fixed media
Mario Davidovsky
8’00”
Olga Neuwirth 11’30”
Throat (2010) Jean Kopperud, clarinet and
Tom Kolor, percussion with fixed media
Mathew Rosenblum
10’00”
Are You Everybody (2010) for video and multi-channel audio
John Young (music)
18’00”
Lala Meredith-Vula (images)
*World Premiere
** US Premiere
^Brandeis Alum/Students/Faculty
Whenever possible, please enter or exit during music breaks only
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PROGRAM NOTES
Violin Phase (1979) In electroacoustic terms, Steve Reich’s ‘Violin Phase’ is a pretty old piece, dating all
the way back to 1967. Nonetheless, or perhaps even because of that, it brings some of the basic issues
of electroacoustic music and electronic memory into plain view. Reich’s work is the product of the era of
artificial memory: of recording, RPM’s and rounding error. It ends up strangely non-fictional or chemical,
documenting imperfection and wandering with a sort of psychotropic effect. It is as much about things
fitting together as it is about things not fitting together, using the strange transformations and positionings
available to the consciousness in the age of recording and an urban sort of quasi-order. The quality
of remembering belongs to the recordings and performer; the experience, very peculiar magic-carpet
ride, belongs to the audience. Moreover, as a computational metaphor, Violin Phase also has a certain
resonance. Computers are good at nothing if not doing the same thing over and over, and yet the results of
these repetitions, in their exponentially expanding permutations, can be mined, re-twisted, and embellished
upon in surprising and pleasing ways, even amidst the mnemonic and temporal slippage. (Tim Summers)
Random Love Generator (2007, rev.2008) is my very first piece for an acoustic instrument
and electronics. The first version of this piece was premiered in 2007, and I decided that I needed to make
the actual content of the piece a little less random (hmmm…maybe Concrete Love Generator? No thanks!).
Although the notation of the revision is more precise, it retains basically the same form as
the original version (which is something like this):
A – a primal, feral, mating call-like introduction
B – a spacious, ethereal quiet section
C – the transformation of the quiet section into utter chaos
D – a repeat of the intro (hmmm….maybe out-tro?)
The Max/MSP patch filters the incoming sound into eight different frequency banks, each of which has
its own delay unit. The delay times for each delay unit are generated randomly from a parallel universe
(well, actually it’s just the software). The final stage of presentation is the routing of these different signals
to the four speakers surrounding the audience, while the unaffected signal of the performer is amplified in
the front of the audience. The score for this piece is a mix of spatial and graphic notation. There are very
specific pitches connected by not-so-specific musical gestures (notated with graphics such as squiggly,
curvy or jagged lines) to be interpreted by the performer. The durations and rhythms are improvised, but
they are proportionally relative to each other. Because of the method of notation and the randomly
generated delay times, no two performances of this piece will be the same (hmmm…Typical Snowflake
Generator? You can write that one).
Blue Traces (2009) Kati Gleiser, the pianist for whom I wrote Blue Traces, told me about swimming in
the ocean at night and marveling at the colorful glow cast from bioluminescent plankton. Moving your arm
through the water disturbs the plankton, and in response they set off a bluish trail of soft light. This image
gave me the idea for the piece: the piano plays, and the computer creates gently glowing traces of sound.
Near the end, everyone becomes more agitated, as if the swimmer were now splashing around and the
plankton reacting with more excitement. All the computer sound comes from live sampling of the piano
performance, transformed by various kinds of granulation. The piece exists in two forms, as a duo for piano
and computer, and the same duo supplemented by a string orchestra.
Mathematics III (2000-08) is the third and final sequence of mathematical images in ARCHIMEDES,
coming in the opera’s Finale. Here I let Archimedes speculate on the mathematics and mathematical
physics of the 20th and 21st centuries. The images associated with these extraordinary developments,
both abstract and physically real, are again given 3-dimensional choreographic life as they dance and
gambol around the planetarium dome, always in synchronization with the music whose primary goal is
two-fold: generating textures that fully complement the visual realization of the images, and generating
different kinds of spaces in which the images move. The spatialization of the sounds is as important
compositionally as the invention and transformations of the electronic timbres. The sounds not only move
in space, but they are often designed to give the feeling of the movement of space, or of several kinds of
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spaces with different characteristics that move and evolve contrapuntally. The graphics sequence begins
with Feynman diagrams, the very simple but highly effective imagery designed by Richard Feynman to
suggest the interactions of sub-atomic particles. These are followed by cloud chamber images (that were
used prior to computer graphics for discovering sub-atomic particles), that transform into representations
of chaos, then twistor space and superstring theory emerge, followed by some of the cosmological
contemplations of brane theory and its inevitable relationships to relativity. Archimedes is rudely interrupted
in his fantastications, and this action takes the opera to its tragic conclusion. In this concert version
the interruption is only hinted at (the tranformed inharmonic guitar sounds), and the piece ends with
Archimedes last, idealistic, vision. Libretto by Cary Plotkin with Ted Weiss, based on a conception of the
composer.
In Lattice (2011), a brief composition for laptop, rhythmically active bands of noise, a broken chorale-like
harmonic progression, and static, symmetrically constructed microtonal chords alternately interrupt and
overlap one another. The arrangement of materials shifts in response to live triggers via the laptop keypad
combined with real-time amplitude analysis of the active sound streams.
Sole Injection (1996) for violin and computer-generated sounds was written during the summer of
1996 and commissioned by Carbondale Community Arts for performance at Arts in Celebration ‘96. The
composition belongs to a series of works written over the last several years that explore the application
of magic squares to musical form. Eleven routes through the 6x6 Magic Square of the Sun provide the
structure in which each number within the square is paralleled in the musical score by a particular style,
rhythm, density, timbre and orchestration. Inspiration for the work came from MC Hammer’s 1991 tune
“Addams Groove” which was featured in the the film “The Addams Family”. The computer part was
produced using GACSS (Genetic Algorithms in Composition and Sound Synthesis) which is an original
computer music software package developed by Benjamin Grosser.
Gustav’s Pneuma (2007) This piece’s material is drawn from Mahler. Near the end of the first movement
of Symphony #5, the orchestra stops except for a solo-trumpet, playing 4 or 5 descending notes. All sounds
heard in this piece come from manipulated versions of these tones. The programs I used centered primarily
around Audiosculpt and Pro-Tools. A pneuma is like ‘the breath of life’, the spirit of something. The term
may be additionally described through some similarly resonating definitions. So naturally, I am grateful for
Mahler’s inspiration, his spirit.
Correspondences (2007) is a translation into sound and image of the timbre of Charles Baudelaire’s
Correspondances. The work is not a reading, per se, but it follows the structure of Baudelaire’s sonnet
closely, pivoting around the white space of the dash in the first tercet. In this experimental video + computer
music work the gesture of Baudelaire’s poetry serves as a scaffolding for an exploration of mutable time
and memory. Correspondences is an invocation to the memory of something read, half-remembered
perhaps, connected through a dream logic.
Correspondances — Charles Baudelaire
La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.
II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
— Et d’autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,
Ayant l’expansion des choses infinies,
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Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l’esprit et des sens.
Correspondences — translation: Keith Waldrop
Nature is a temple whose columns are alive
And sometimes issue disjointed messages.
We thread our way through a forest of symbols
That peer out, as if recognizing us.
Like long echoes from far away,
Merging into a deep dark unity,
Vast as night, vast as the light,
Smells and colors and sounds concur.
There are perfumes cool as children’s flesh,
Sweet as oboes, green like the prairie,
- And others corrupt, rich, overbearing,
With the expansiveness of infinite things,
Like ambergris, musk, spikenard, frankincense,
Singing ecstasy to the mind and to the senses.
CONCERT 2
five, seven, seven, one (2011) “The sound of the improvisation seems to tell us what kind of person is
improvising. We feel that we can hear character or personality in the way the musician improvises.” Yusef
A. Lateef. The Pleasures of Voice in Improvised Music
15° Harmonico (1996) This work for piano and electronic sounds is dedicated to the English pianist
Philip Mead, who gave its first performance on 10th February 1995 at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts
(Birmingham, UK). The revised version was first performed by the French pianist Jean-Marie Cottet on
19th January 1997, at the Espace de projection at IRCAM (Paris, France). In this piece, I develop a series
of variations based around the initial solo sequence performed on the piano. The title suggests a play on
words, due to the inharmonic nature of a note struck on the piano. The majority of sounds in the electronic
part come from samples of the piano itself, but a flute and various instruments of Brazilian percussion, such
as tamborim and agogô, were also sampled. All of these were transformed through a variety of filtering
techniques – band pass filtering or source-filter cross-synthesis – in order to impose a common harmonic
language for the instrumental writing and the electronic part. In addition, ‘hybrid’ sounds were created to
function as extensions of the solo instrument.
Rotazione (2009) is an audiovisual homage to futurism in three movements:
1. Laughs and breaths by Arrigo Lora Totino (one of the most important post futurist italian sound poets)
“in a time reconfigured in different ‘floors’, rhythm-space-timbre interrupted, intensified and finally crushed”
2. The voice-body in its extreme slowness, in its extreme speed. Vortex in which the fake speeches of
powerful people dissolve.I nspired by two futurist paintings “La città che sale” (1911) by Umberto Boccioni,
and “I funerali dell’anarchico Galli” (1910-11) by Carlo Carrà.
3. The voice-body in its extreme seriousnessIn the play of the destruction of sense, opposed to the loss of
sense. Inspired by the futurist painting “Velocità astratta+rumore” (1913-14) by Giacomo Balla.
Inter Nos (2007) is based on some specific multiphonic sounds of the soprano saxophone. The virtuosic
phrasings of the piece and the interactive electronic materials are all drawn from the instrument’s sound
world. Such sounds are manipulated through spectral processes, and diffused over four channel outputs.
Inter Nos was written for and dedicated to the incredible performer and friend Philipp Stäudlin.
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Nothing (2010) was created during the Composing Interactive Multimedia summer course at CMMAS
in Morelia, Mexico in summer 2010. The piece began as a collaboration between myself and multimedia
artist, Laura Macias Barrea. All of the video was shot by hand near the outskirts of Morelia, Michoacán.
The audio consists of samples from various sounds from the environment in Michoacán as well as
synthesized sounds. The sounds then transforms the video in real-time through Max/MSP jitter. The
piece is a meditation on the effect that sound has on our perception, interpretation and memory of a given
environment.
White Noise (2007) is a fast-paced work in which the flow of events is constantly disrupted. The title stems
both from the use of noise as a means to generate the visual and musical elements, as well as to highlight
the color palette in the central section of the piece. With its constantly shifting perspectives and abrupt
juxtaposition of elements, White Noise is intended to evoke reflections on the chaos and interruptions that
permeate everyday life.
Ricercare una melodia was written in 1985. The title means ‘to seek a melody’. The melody takes
shape in the latter part of the piece, gathering together fragments heard earlier. It is for instrument with
electronics. The electronics represent the other aspect of the title, ricercare - which is a type of fugal,
imitative movement. The quadraphonic tape-delay system repeats what the cellist plays at 3 second
intervals four times, forming an elaborate fugue or canon. After some brief flourishes in the middle, the
electronic repetitions occur at half-speed. Each successive repetition is an octave lower than the last,
stretching pitch and slowness to their limits. Originally the work was composed for trumpet, but I have
adapted it for several other instruments, of which this special adaptation for Frances-Marie Uitti is the
latest.
CONCERT 3
Mosaic (2011) A mosaic is an image formed by small fragments of stone, wood, or other material. Each
one of those fragments does not have a specific meaning by itself, its role is only revealed when we
observe the formed global image. And each fragment of a mosaic usually has only one color. Mosaic, for
piano and electronic sounds, uses a similar technique. The piece is composed by a succession of phrases
and musical gestures of small dimensions. They gain meaning as the work progresses in time. Each one of
these small gestures is almost an independent unit, and its musical material does not need to relate directly
to what precedes and follows. It will be their succession in time that will reveal the “musical color” of the
piece.
Rekindle (2009) is a dialogue between the flute and the soundtrack, the two elements ‘rekindling’ one
another’s material. The soundtrack takes notes over from the flute, deforming or prolonging them into new
gestures and producing resonating flute chords. The flute in turn reacts to these electronic sounds. As the
material is passed back and forth, pulsating rhythms in the soundtrack create a rhythmic blueprint for an
increasingly virtuosic dialogue. At the work’s climax, the soundtrack takes control, forcing the flute into a
flurry of sequential outbursts. The flutist determines the interplay with the soundtrack partly by ear, at times
synchronized to set musical markers.
Shamayim (2006-09) began as a music work commissioned as 3 separate parts by numerous European
festivals and Project Isherwood, an initiative to create new works for bass singer Nicholas Isherwood.
Funds were also provided by the Grame Center in France, the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, the
New York State Music Fund, as well as the Birge-Cary Chair in Music, the UB2020 Scholar’s Fund, and the
Morris Creative Arts Fund (image realization) all at the University at Buffalo.
Shamayim is a work for solo bass voice, 8 channels of electronic sound made or modeled upon bass
singer’s Nicholas Isherwood’s vocal instrument, with video created by Elliot Caplan. The work is an
extended meditation inspired in part by the Book of Formation (Sefer Yetzirah), the writings of thirteenth
century mystic Abraham Abulafia, and descriptions of states of consciousness that accompany prophetic
experiences, as in Ezekiel. The work is in three sections titled respectively:
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1. Chashmal (speaking silence) 2006-7
2. Sa’arah (stormy wind) 2007-8
3. Black Fire / White Fire 2008-9
The unique talents and abilities of bass singer Isherwood (a 5 octave range, experience in harmonic
singing, and much more) were the primary sources for all of the sounds in the piece, with accompanying
natural sounds and selected ringing metals. Special thanks to JT Rinker, Olivier Pasquet, Ben Thigpen,
MaxMSP programming assistants.
Laconisme de l’aile (1982) Ignorant of their shadow, knowing of death only that immortal part which is
consumed in the distant clamour of great waters, they pass and leave us and we are no longer the same.
They are the space traversed by a single thought.” (Saint-John Perse, Oiseaux, XIII) 1982 marks a true
point of departure for Saariaho’s style, after having begun work at the IRCAM studios, where she explored
the processes of transformation of timbre. The meaning of the poetry recited by the flutist at the beginning
is left open, instead focusing on the colors of the vowels and consonants which quickly dissolve into the
sound of the flute. The color palette for the piece is comprised of timbres that stretch from the pure, clear
flute sound to the rich, grainy human voice. There are two distinct characters. The first is unmeasured and
representative of birds’ freedom in flight, and the second is strictly measured and overtly expressive. The
electronic reverberation and harmonizer are mixed live with the flute sound to further transform the timbral
effects.
Shore (2007) is a dialogue between the solo oboe and subtle electroacoustic treatments. Each of the three
sections of the piece explores different relationships between the instrument and the electronics.
Lakefire Resolution (2011) was commissioned by Peter Van Zandt Lane specifically for the BEAMS
Marathon 2011. It consists of a live bassoon part and audio cues tied to specific points in the score. The
audio material for these cues is mostly, but not exclusively, derived from recorded excerpts of the score,
auxiliary bassoon passages, and other characteristic gestures. There are also some newly synthesized
elements.. These audio materials are heavily processed with an emphasis on providing some quasiabstracted harmonic and emotional content for the live bassoon.
Study for Bowed Cardboard (2011) This study explores the sonic and expressive potential of bowed
cardboard.
Twilight Collider (2004) “If you have some boiling water and put cold water or ice into it, the boiling water
calms down, but you haven’t totally extinguished the waters potential to boil.” (Lama Yeshe). The central
idea of this piece were different aspects of dualism, both as a conception but also in a musical sense; the
relation between the flute and the electronics; the combination of direct flute and bass flute sounds and
the sounds emerging from the microphone inside the flute, and the composed material in dialogue with
improvised ending of the piece. The piece is the result of a close collaboration with flutist Sabine Vogel, and
the starting point was a very detailed recording of a “sound catalogue” made up by all the special playing
techniques Sabine Vogel has used to create her unique and expressive flute sound world. The use of a
microphone inside the flute brings out intimate expressions with a rich texture and density, which is used
for gurgling and growling sounds, as well as for fragile singing and tongue clicks. The electronics consist of
multiple layers of flute sounds, generating active structures of increasing and diminishing energy levels.
CONCERT 4
Corps Sonore (2011) was commissioned by Bill Solomon and premiered at the Hartford New Music
Festival at Billings Forge on April 15, 2011. I was inspired by the term “corps sonore” as I encountered it in
the theoretical writings of Jean-Philippe Rameau, for which there was nothing Rameau “held more sacred.”
(Christensen, Journal of Music Theory. 1987). A literal translation in English yields the term “sonorous
body.” In Rameau’s writings the “corps sonore” was regarded with a near mystical reverence clothed
in quasi-scientific veracity. The idea of a “sonorous body” resonated (pun intended) with me in several
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levels. First and foremost, I thought of this project with Bill, and using his playing as the “sonorous body”
from which I would gather my ideas. We spent a whole afternoon and evening recording Bill’s playing. He
used a few of my pieces as a point of departure. With the iPod playing my music in his ears he improvised
providing a huge swath of material to use in the piece. Secondly, the way the fixed media and percussion
work in the piece were done in a way to give the impression that the sound comes out of the percussion as
the main, resonating body. Ultimately, one gets the impression, regardless of the different sound worlds the
electronics and percussion inhabit, that the percussionist is the “corps sonore” that triggers and responds
to events.
...sofferte onde serene..(1976) As the friendship with Maurizio Pollini, along with my astonished
consciousness for his pianism, grows deeper and deeper a heavy wind of death swept away the “neverending smile of the waves” in my family and in the Pollini’s one. This community made us more united in
the never-ending smile’s sadness of …..sofferte onde serene…The dedication To Maurizio and Marilisa
Pollini means also this: To my house at the Giudecca in Venice, there it comes continuously the sound of
various bells, variously beaten again and again, variously signifying, by day and by night, throughout the
fog and in the sunshine.
They are signals of life in the lagoon, in the sea. (…) Recordings made with Maurizio Pollini in Studio,
mainly attack of sounds, his extremely articulate percussion on the keys, various intervals, where
composed on magnetic tape, in the Phonology RAI Studio in Milan, with the assistance of Marino Zuccheri. The result are two acoustic levels, which often “confuse” themselves, often annulling the mechanical
extraneousness of the magnetic tape. - Luigi Nono.
Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) Listening to [my son’s] choir rehearse, as I often did, with the bells
simultaneously ringing above, was one of the mingled impressions which started me on this work: it is
entirely based on the boy’s voice and that of the largest bell. On this huge black bell is inscribed in beautiful
lettering the following text: HORAS AVOLANTES NUMERO, MORTUOS PLANGO, VIVOS AD PRECES
VOCO (I count the feeling hours, I lament the dead, I call the living to prayer). The bell counts time (each
section has a differently pitched bell stroke at its beginning): it is itself a ‘dead’ sound for all its richness
of sonority: the boy represents the living element. The bell surrounds the audience; they are, as it were,
inside it: the boy ‘flies’ around like a free spirit. [Realized at and commissioned by IRCAM, Mortuos Plango,
Vivos Voco explores transformations of these two sounds] ...one could for instance move seamlessly from
a vowel sung by the boy to the complex bell spectrum consisting of 33 partials. The entire pitch structure is
based on these partials with their curious, haunting intervals: the harmonies are selected from them, and
one transposed selection glissandoes to another. In entering the rather intimidating world of the machine
I was determined not to produce a dehumanised work if I could help it, and so kept fairly close to the world
of the original sounds. The territory that the new computer technology opens up is unprecedently vast: one
is humbly aware that it will only be conquered by penetration of the human spirit, however beguiling the
exhibits of technical wizardry; and that penetration will neither be rapid or easy.
Slight uncertainty is very attractive (2006). This piece is about creating a unity between flute and
electronic sound sources. As the title suggests, “Slight Uncertainty” (flute and electronics acting as one
sound source, but not quite the same) can create a quite intriguing result. I recorded a lot of flute samples
as well as other instrument sounds. You can also add my program note: This piece brings a perspective
such that a slight uncertainty in our life can be very charming and attractive. The characteristics of both
flute and electronic parts are not fully determined, but rather work as one voice, which explores pitch bend,
airy sound, whistle tones, and other extended techniques.
the forgotten dialect of autumn (2009). Autumn has always been my favorite season, both tangibly and
metaphorically. I find that the colors, sounds, smells, and sensations of autumn invariably put my mind in
a pensive state; it is in this state I am most inspired. the forgotten dialect of autumn reflects the season’s
ability to speak to me in this language of the senses. The electronic element represents the mysterious
language, while the violin represents my personal reaction. The piece begins with the last few traces
of summer and the turbulence of the changing seasons. The electronics and violin then settle into the
contemplative condition of deep autumn. Finally, as the last few leaves fall, the electronics and violin enter
a stark and quiet soundworld, reflecting autumn’s last few breaths.
13
Ensembles for Synthesizer (1964) exhibits a startling degree of intricacy and precision. Babbitt, who
was a mathematician as well as a composer, was asked by RCA to work with their new Mark II Sound
Synthesizer (the first programmable synthesizer) at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. This
collaboration led him to write several important works, including Ensembles. Because of the nature of the
synthesizer, every detail of the pitch and temporal structures in Ensembles for Synthesizer is faithfully
rendered in a way that would be impossible for live performers. Milton Babbitt passed away at the age of
94 on January 29, 2011 after a long and illustrious career.
Trembling Air (2009) Without meaning to, I seem to have stumbled into composing a series of pieces
about being in Estonia. I spent six months in Estonia in 2007 and have been back four or five times since
for anywhere from a week to a month. Every time I go I am struck by the light, by the feeling of the air
and of the natural world – the sea, the forest, the farmland. My recent pieces imperfectly reflect those
experiences: Dark Wood for cello evokes the feeling of being the Estonian forests, Changing Light for
sextet is a response to my experience of the magical quality of the light in Estonia and Trembling Air
evokes the quality of energy of the air there filled as it is with the sound of birds, of the trees, of the water.
Polytopia (2004)
Polytopia is written for violin and interactive computer, controlled by MaxMSP. The work was originally
conceived utilizing the Surround Sound 5.1 system, but it is also possible to perform as a two-channel
piece. I wanted to create a virtual violin sextet that includes the live violin. The work starts out with a
single pizzicato by the solo violin, which gets processed as a strumming drone while the violinist goes on
to start the opening melody. Throughout the piece, each of the “virtual players” is pitch-shifted, delayed
and panned, creating an illusion of them all freely playing around in the virtual sound space. However, at
all times the solo violin sound is the only real-time sound source; there is no pre-recorded material in this
work. Polytopia was commissioned by Harvestworks with funds provided by the New York State Council on
the Arts.
Clone Barcarolle for Augmented Violin (2010)
Clone Barcarolle is my first attempt in using the Augmented Violin system with a program developed at
IRCAM in Paris, which ‘clones’ the movement of my bow with the sound of my playing together. The
system uses IRCAM’s FTM objects and SuperVP functions in MaxMSP, and analyzes and records the
player in realtime. When I repeat the movement, the computer recreates the performance, thus enables me
to play with my own performance ‘clone’. In Clone Barcarolle, I’m ‘cloning’ the ostinato, so this virtual duo
is played by me and my clone. This is the newest musical feeling I have experienced since I started to play
with simple ‘delay’, and I enjoy learning to understand it musically. Again I would like to thank the Realtime
Musical Interactions Team at IRCAM, Bruno Zamborlin, Frédéric Bevilacqua and Norbert Schnell for their
patient trans-Atlantic consultations. Interactive video by Liubo Borissov.
“VIOMAX” for Augmented Violin and OMax (2010)
While I was at IRCAM this summer working with the Real Time Musical Interactions Team using Augmented
Violin and Gesture Follower, I discussed different musical situations including interactive improvisation
performance and gesture following. They suggested that I should also discuss with another team at
IRCAM called Musical Representations Team, who are developing a highly sophisticated improvisation
system called “OMax”, which can trace improvisation in real time and create its own improvisation
decisions. I was very impressed how musically the computer could choose “likelihood” or characteristics
of certain phrases, and segment musical materials seamlessly. I foresee a lot of musical scenarios in the
future using Omax, and looking forward to working with it in the coming years. In “VIOMAX”, I am using
the Augmented Violin to control parameters of OMax, creating a virtual duo, trio with my own improvisation
in real time. “VIOMAX” is the first work using both OMax and Augmented Violin and Gesture Follower
in combination. I am using a special prototype of OMax especially created for me, thanks to Benjamin
Lévy. OMax is developed by the Musical Representations Team at IRCAM – CNRS: Gérard Assayag,
Georges Bloch, Marc Chemillier, Shlomo Dubnov, and Benjamin Lévy.
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CONCERT 5
Winter Fragments (2000) is at one and the same time an acknowledgement of the festival where the
piece is to be created (“Sounds of winter and today”), and the experience of a genuine winter last year,
particularly where we now live, to the north of New York, a region of lakes and small mountains. The lake
in front of our house was frozen over, and there were sixty centimetres of snow all round. For the most part
the sun shone brightly and its intense light bathed the house, which is open to nature all round. Sometimes
a violent storm would arise, followed by silence, and the blinding light would come back. Perhaps the
“fragments of winter” are there.
Texture of Time (2006) The piece takes its name from a fictional philosophical treatise written by the
character Van Veen in Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada. The piece takes the image of a sort of viscous time in
which the live flute leaves trails behind as it moves from note to note in its long line. The thickness of the
trail varies as does the longevity of the traces, but the ultimate effect is a dialogue across time between
present, past and (through anticipation) future. This piece was written for Patrice Bocquillon who is a
stunning musician and a wonderful friend.
Abstraction 1 (1995/2005) This is an old piece, originally for violin solo, that I have re-worked thoroughly.
It is a kind of meditation consisting of gentle, wide-ranging, isolated melodic fragments, over various
drones.
Rope and Chasm (2011) is an evening-length work for mezzo-soprano and video, based on Nietzsche’s
Also Sprach Zarathustra He is both the composer and video artist. Rope and Chasm consists of a series
of episodes in which the performer sings with a recorded musical score and reacts to the video characters
who themselves speak. The score is composed and constructed from a variety of materials: modified
sampled instruments, pure electronic sound and reworked fragments of other music. The video is made
from 3d and morphing animation and found footage.
Seemingly contradictory to the title’s implications, Libretto, for bass clarinet and quadraphonic
electronics (2011), features no literal or literary program as a basis for structure, content or pacing (etc).
Rather, the invocation of a “little book” as well as its operatic associations, are drawn from and likened to
dramatic suggestions of non-verbal objects that are hung on a framework of total abstraction: a pseudoparlance of wide-ranging expressive and color-oriented objects were derived from the bass clarinet and
informed by referential and developmental possibilities posed by processing and spatial placement. The
musical materials and treatments (be they pitch-oriented, processed or projected) vary and change over
time in order to influence the perception of imaginary discourse, the passage of time and the traversing
of distance. The electronic part for Libretto was composed using a variety of applications and techniques.
In addition to including bass clarinet samples, many sound-items were generated in Csound, including a
mock clarinet (modifying Andrew Horner’s Csound wind instrument algorithms) which allowed a technical
redesign and manipulation of the bass clarinet’s timbral properties by dynamically altering the intonation of
(in some cases even distorting, e.g.) the attendant overtone series of the acoustic instrument. Additionally,
the electronic component was built, assembled and processed in Max/MSP and Pro Tools. Libretto was written for clarinetist Michael Norsworthy and was made possible in part by a 2011 Berklee
Faculty Fellowship.
Flute Control (1986) Flute Control is a piece I worked on for two years. The first version was created
in 1984 on the occasion of the International Computer Music Conference, but the programming software
did not satisfy me. In Flute Control, I try to closely link the instrument and the computer as a musical
interaction. The flute plays himself on both “instruments.” The sound of the flute, transformed by a
voicetracker, Fairlight synthesizer control in the four channels on the parameters of pitch, dynamics and
timbre. Four other notes were played on an internal computer, but synchronized by the flutist.
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CONCERT 6
Strange Autumn (2004) Wieland Hoban’s bilingual poems are infested with paradox. They evade the
space of one language or the other or both. Where are they then? Imagine a bilingual edition of a volume
of poems. Imagine the original poem (conventionally on the verso page-side) and its translation (on the
recto side) both sliding into the seam between the pages—or a poem resulting when both verso and recto
meet, original and translation pressed against each other. Such reflects the structure of the poetic space,
but in either case, the possibility of reading is no longer available. Likewise with Hoban’s poetry, any
attempt to disentangle one language from the other in order to circumvent the semantic cancellation of
the two languages, presents only another implacable uncertainty in its place. Despite these perplexities,
the poetry manages to penetrate into the interior of the conundrum we call existence, and like a house of
mirrors, acquires its illusory dimensions and volume from the accumulation rendered by a multitude of false
reflections. One might then begin to understand my interpretation of the poetic space at hand. To translate
this into a piece for reciter, percussionist, and electronics was the task of Strange Autumn. It was begun
in 2003 and written during the first year of the ongoing occupation of Iraq by US-led coalition forces. It is
dedicated to the poet.
Scuffle & Snap (2010) for violin and fixed media, was commissioned by Biliana Voutchkova. The
piece is one in my long series that build heightened dramatic structures around traditional instruments.
They are all virtuosic and challenging, but fun to perform. I like to use a wide variety of sound sources,
recontextualized, but very resonant with memories.
Piano Control (1974) was composed during spring 1974, commissioned by the pianist Werner Baertschi.
I had learned from previous experience as interpreter in live-electronic concerts that although increasing
complexity of electronic means can result in richer and more interesting structures, a clear definition and
control over the material becomes more difficult, and is often therefore left to more or less lucky accident.
This danger exists above all where the interpretation problems are divided among several performers (only
appearing to simplify them), for example, instrumentalist, synthesizer player, sound engineer. Contrasted
with the classical instrumental music situation, live electronics creates in such circumstances an artificial
hierarchy of dependence in which the instrumentalist loses more and more control over the sounds he is
producing and is therefore limited and manipulated in his ability to react naturally. In Piano Control I wanted
to see to what extent an interpreter could bring all these functions under his own control again without
sacrificing his natural playing technique and ability to react. For this purpose a relatively small, portable
synthesizer model from EMS in London was chosen (Synthi A or AKS) which can be placed on the music
rack of a piano without any special setup. The pianist should play both instruments simultaneously and be
able to apply his virtuosity to the synthesizer as well as the piano. In this way he controls every parameter
of the possible modulations right from the beginning with a precision which would be impossible with two
or more players. The traditional sound material of the piano is picked up by a contact microphone and
transformed by the synthesizer. The various modulations of the sound apply to all musical parameters, and
can be differentiated as follows: 1. Pitch changes using the ring modulator. Sometimes completely new
scales emerge, for instance, from an originally chromatic movement of the piano, an arpeggiated seventh
chord is heard. Beating and glissandi of many types are likewise possible. 2. Changes in timbre using the
filter, however always combined with the ring modulator, sometimes resulting in noise effects in connection
with the noise generator. 3. Rhythmic changes using the envelope generator, mostly audible as rhythmic
repetitions in the form of “echos”. Near the end the characteristic attack of the piano is also altered by this
means. 4. Dynamic changes: in general amplification is controlled by the left footpedal, plus, at times,
modulated by the envelope generator. At the beginning of the piece these changes of the piano sound are
effected manually, that is by directly operating the synthesizer by hand or using two foot-pedals with which
the player can voltage-control the modulations listed above. These functions are all precisely notated in the
score (see illustration). Gradually however, more and more automatic control processes are infected, by
which a certain modulation is controlled exclusively by the synthesizer during its entire duration. The pianist
reacts in various ways during the second part, but loses progressively the possibility of determining the
tempo, pitch, dynamics etc. of his own playing.
16
Synchronisms No. 12 for Clarinet and Electronic Sound (2006). This composition was written in
2006 and produced in the labs of Shepherd School of Music (Rice University) with the assistance of
Kurt Stallmann, Synchronisms No. 12 like the other pieces in the series, explores the myriad of inventive
possibilities created by the confrontation of the acoustic and electronic spaces. This piece, along with
Synchronisms No. 11 are the only two pieces in the series which employ digital sound processing
technologies. Synchronisms No. 12 was commissioned by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the
United States (SEAMUS) and premiered in 2007 at the SEAMUS National Conference in Ames, IA.
Verfremdung/Entfremdung (2002) was commissioned by the Lucerne Festival.
Throat (2010) was commissioned by Jean Kopperud for the Rated X II Project and is dedicated to her
and Tom Kolor. It is a tongue-in-cheek homage that uses driving rhythms, guttural tones, the extended low
register of the bass clarinet, altered tunings, and audio samples to create a piece that is designed to evoke
a wide range of reactions. Richard Nixon would not have approved. (Pee Wee Herman would.)
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Composer and Artist Biographies
CONCERT 1
Steve Reich was recently called “our greatest living composer” (The New York
Times), “America’s greatest living composer.” (The Village VOICE), “...the most
original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “...among the great
composers of the century” (The New York Times).. From his early taped speech
pieces It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to his and video artist Beryl
Korot’s digital video opera Three Tales (2002), Mr. Reich’s path has embraced not
only aspects of Western Classical music, but the structures, harmonies, and rhythms
of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz. In April 2009 Steve Reich was awarded
the Pulitzer prize in Music for his composition ‘Double Sextet’.
A proud native of Louisville, KY, Jeremy Podgursky is a composer of
chamber, orchestral and electronic music. His music has been featured in
venues and festivals in the United States, Europe and Japan. His music has
been performed, premiered and read by professional groups such as Alarm Will
Sound, Colorado Symphony Orchestra (Delta David Gier – Conductor), Lost Dog
New Music Ensemble, Arsenal Trio, Dana Winograd (Principal Cello – Santa Fe
Symphony), Juventas! New Music Ensemble, CSUN Symphony and the North/
South Consonance Chamber Orchestra. Recent awards and honors include firstplace winner of the 2007 NATIONAL SCI/ASCAP COMMISSIONING AWARD,
honorable mention in the 2008 MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA COMPOSERS INSTITUTE, winner of the 2009
NORTHRIDGE PRIZE (Cal State University Northridge) for orchestra, participant in the 2009 AMERICAN
COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA/EARSHOT readings, and participant in the inaugural MIZZOU NEW MUSIC
FESTIVAL 2010, and honorable mention in the national Finale/American Composers Forum/eighth
blackbird composition contest. Jeremy received his B.M. and M.M. in music composition and piano from
the University of Louisville where he studied composition privately with Steve Rouse, Marc Satterwhite, and
John Gibson and piano with Brenda Kee. Jeremy taught music theory/aural skills and private composition
lessons at the University of Louisville, and created and taught multiple after-school composition programs
in Louisville area public high schools. Currently located in Bloomington, IN, Jeremy has a Jacobs School of
Music Doctoral Fellowship (D.M.) at Indiana University where he studies with Claude Baker, Don Freund,
John Gibson, Alicyn Warren, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert and Jeffrey Hass. As an Associate Instructor, his
teaching duties include Counterpoint, Notation/Calligraphy, and private composition lessons.
17
John Gibson is Assistant Professor of Composition at the Indiana University Jacobs
School of Music. His instrumental and electroacoustic music has been performed
worldwide and is available on the Centaur, Everglade, and SEAMUS labels.
Significant awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship
from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Paul Jacobs
Memorial Fund Commission from the Tanglewood Music Center. He writes sound
processing and synthesis software and has taught composition and computer music
at the University of Virginia, Duke University, and the University of Louisville. He
holds a Ph.D. in music from Princeton University. For more information, please visit
http://john-gibson.com.
James Dashow has had commissions, awards and grants from the Bourges
International Festival of Experimental Music, the Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation, Linz Ars Electronica Festival, the Fromm Foundation, the
Biennale di Venezia, the USA National Endowment for the Arts, RAI (Italian
National Radio), the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the
Rockefeller Foundation, Il Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte (Montepulciano, Italy),
the Koussevitzky Foundation, Prague Musica Nova, and the Harvard Musical
Association of Boston. In 2000, he was awarded the prestigious Prix Magistere
at the 30th Festival International de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques
in Bourges. A pioneer in the field of computer music, Dashow was one of the founders of the Centro di
Sonologia Computazionale at the University of Padova, where he composed the first works of computer
music In Italy, and has taught at MIT, Princeton University, the Centro para la Difusion di Musica
Contemporanea in Madrid and the Musica Viva Festival in Lisbon; he lectures and conducts masterclasses extensively in the U.S. and Europe, most recently for the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto
Marcello in Venezia (december, 2004) where he taught an intensive series of workshop/master classes
in digital sound synthesis techniques applied in particular to compositional practices, and to various
aspects of the spatialization of sound. He served as the first vice-president of the International Computer
Music Association, and was for many years the producer of the radio program “Il Forum Internazionale di
Musica Contemporanea” for Italian National Radio. He has written theoretical and analytical articles for
Perspectives of New Music, the Computer Music Journal, La Musica, and Interface. Most recently he was
the subject of an extended interview published in the Computer Music Journal (Summer, 2003). He is the
author of the MUSIC30 language for digital sound synthesis. His music has been recorded on WERGO
(Mainz), Capstone Records (New York), Neuma (Boston), RCA-BMG (Roma), ProViva (Munich), Scarlatti
Classica (Roma), CRI (New York), and Pan (Roma). Dashow makes his home in the Sabine Hills north of
Rome.
John Mallia lives and works in Boston where he has been Director of the
Electronic Music Studio and a member of the Composition faculty at New
England Conservatory since 2005. His primary interests include chamber
music with an electronic component, acousmatic, and live electronic music, and
multimedia installation. Much of Mallia’s work is informed, in various ways, by
constructs and concepts involving real and implied physical spaces. This trait
is evident in his installation and acousmatic work incorporating multichannel
loudspeaker arrays, and also in the blending of electroacoustic sound objects with
acoustic instruments via real-time processing in performance settings.
The music of Zack Browning is described as “way-cool in attitude” and “speed-demon music” (The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution) and “propulsive, giddy, rocking…, a rush of cyclic riffs and fractured meters”
(The New York Times). The Irish Times has proclaimed he is “bringing together the procedures of high
musical art with the taste of popular culture”. The CD “Banjaxed” on Capstone Records contains eight
of his original compositions for voice, instruments and computer-generated sounds and has been called
“dramatic, exciting, rhythmic, high-energy music”. Browning’s composition awards have included an Illinois
Arts Council Composer Fellowship and a Chamber Music America Commission. Performances include the
18
Bonk Festival of New Music (Tampa), the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival (Miami),
International Computer Music Conference (New Orleans), Spark Festival (Minneapolis), Gaudeamus Music
Week (Amsterdam), Composers Choice Festival (Dublin), Sonorities Festival (Belfast) , Skinneskatteberg
Festival (Sweden), Asian Contemporary Music Festival (Seoul), and National Chiang Kai Shek Cultural
Center (Taipei). Recent lecture performances include Jilin University, Northeast Normal University, and
Nanjing Normal University in China; Seoul National University in South Korea; and National Taiwan Normal
University, Taipei National University of the Arts, Fu-Jen Catholic University, and Tunghai University in
Taiwan. Browning is an associate professor emeritus of music composition at the University of Illinois.
William Coble is a PhD candidate in music composition. He is defending his dissertation
this May. William is from Syracuse and trained at Boston University, Curtis, and
Roosevelt before coming to the University of Chicago. His teacher for electro-acoustic
music is Howard Sandroff, Director of the Computer-Music Studios & curriculum.
Joseph Butch Rovan is a composer/media artist and performer on the faculty of the
Department of Music at Brown University, where he co-directs MEME (Multimedia
& Electronic Music Experiments @ Brown) and the Ph.D. program in Computer
Music and Multimedia. Prior to joining Brown he directed CEMI, the Center for
Experimental Music and Intermedia, at the University of North Texas, and was
a compositeur en recherche with the Real-Time Systems Team at the Institut de
Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris. Rovan worked
at Opcode Systems before leaving for Paris, serving as Product Manager for MAX,
OMS and MIDI hardware.
Rovan has received prizes from the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, first prize
in the Berlin Transmediale International Media Arts Festival, and his work has been performed throughout
Europe and the U.S. He frequently performs his own work, either with various new instrument designs or
with augmented acoustic instruments.
Rovan’s research includes new sensor hardware design and wireless microcontroller systems. His
research into gestural control and interactivity has been featured in IRCAM’s journal “Resonance”,
“Electronic Musician”, the Computer Music Journal, the Japanese magazine “SoundArts,” the CDROM
“Trends in Gestural Control of Music” (IRCAM 2000), and in the book “Mapping Landscapes for
Performance as Research: Scholarly Acts and Creative Cartographies,” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
CONCERT 2
Improviser and composer Roth Michaels spends much of his time exploring
ways that digital technology and new media can inform the compositional
process while not forgetting his background in jazz and his love for acoustic
music and the sounds of the natural world. Roth has been a member and leader
of many jazz, new music, and cross-genre improvisation ensembles—including
Punkte, The Dartmouth Contemporary Music Lab, and the Mary Anne Driscoll
Septet—with performances in cities across New England and the tri-state area.
A performance of electroacoustic improvisation duo Punkte, and software written
by Michaels was was featured at the 2011 SEAMUS conference. After receiving
his B.A. in music composition from Brandeis University in 2007, Roth has been
lecturing and giving private instruction on topics in electronic music, acoustics,
and improvisation. While continuing his studies at the Bregman Electronic Music
Studio at Dartmouth College, Roth began research developing new real-time
digital signal processing algorithms to machine learning systems designed to
augment acoustic performers/improvisers and new approaches to rehearsing
and performing music with live electronics.
19
John Aylward’s music has been praised for its youthful energy and precision. Aylward’s
debut album, featuring conductor Matthias Pintscher and soprano Jo Ellen Miller, will
be released by Albany Records this spring. As a pianist, Aylward regularly performs
contemporary music worldwide. Aylward is currently Assistant Professor of Music
Composition and Theory at Clark University in Massachusetts. Before his post at Clark,
Aylward taught at Tufts University and at Brandeis University. John lives in Boston,
Massachusetts and is originally from Tucson, Arizona.
Rodrigo Cicchelli Velloso was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1966. He graduated
in Music Composition from the Instituto Villa-Lobos of UNIRIO in 1990, and
also studied with César Guerra-Peixe and Hans-Joachim Koellreutter. Aided
by a Brazilian government grant, he moved to Europe in 1991 in order to study
for a PhD in Music Composition at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK)
under the supervision of Denis Smalley. Subsequently, he attended IRCAM’s
Cursus de composition et d’informatique musicale in Paris funded by a French
government grant and followed courses with Tristan Murail, Jean-Claude
Risset and Brian Ferneyhough, among others. After completing post-graduate
studies in Europe in 1997, he returned to Brazil and became a full-time lecturer
at the Escola de Música at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1998. His compositions
have been performed and broadcast worldwide and he has been awarded numerous prizes including:
Concurso Villa-Lobos de Composição Musical (UFRJ, 1987), Concorso Internazionale Luigi Russolo di
Musica Elettroacustica (Fondazione Russolo-Pratella, 1993-94-95), Tribune internationale de musique
électroacoustique (IMC/UNESCO, 1994), Prêmios ALV’1999 and ALV’2001 (FUJB).
Alessandro Cipriani is an author and a composer of electronic and multimedia
works. His recent work explores traditional religious music from various cultures
with electronic sound techniques and processes.
Cipriani’s works have received honors at Bourges, ICMC, International
Symposium on Electronic Arts, Musica Nova, and Newcomp. He has received
the Government of Canada Award. Performances include Nuova Consonanza
(Rome), EMS Stockholm, Ravenna Festival, and Inventionen (Berlin). His music
has been broadcast on radio by RAI and CBC. Cipriani is co-author (with R.
Bianchini) of the textbook Virtual Sound, on sound synthesis and signal processing with Csound.
Cipriani lives in Rome, teaches at the Bellini Conservatory in Catania, Sicily, lectures at universities in Italy,
Canada, and the US, and co-directs the Edison Studio in Rome.
Davide Ianni was born in Rieti, Italy and began his musical career as guitar
player -classical, rock, jazz, free-improvisation. In 1998 Ianni enrolled in
Berklee College of Music, where he obtained his Bachelor Degrees with
Magna Cum Laude distinction, dual major in Music Composition and Film
Scoring in 2001 Back in Italy he studied conducting with Gianluigi Gelmetti
at the Accademia Chigiana (Siena, Italy) and arranging at the Conservatorio
Doninzetti (Bergamo, Italy). In the summer of 2003 Ianni worked as
assistant conductor for the Opera Fiesole summer season.
Ianni returned to the U.S. in the summer of 2004 to attend his Master in Music Theory and Composition
at Boston University. During this period he studied with Joshua Fineberg, Theodore Antoniou, Gunther
Schuller as well as attending additional lessons and master classes with Lucas Foss, Louis Andrissen and
Helmut Lachenmann. Ianni`s music has been performed and commissioned by numerous performers and
institutions residing in the US, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Germany. Alongside his compositional activities;
Ianni was assistant conductor of the contemporary music ensemble ALEA III. Ianni has been collaborating
with the BYSO since 2005, teaching theory and composition as well as assisting with conducting activities
upon request. Ianni is currently a Doctoral candidate at Boston University where he works as assistant to
Professor Joshua Fineberg for electronic music and contemporary technique courses.
20
James Borchers is active as a composer and percussionist. He has written orchestral and chamber music,
electronic music, opera and music theater. His many performances include Storm King Music Festival,
Bang on a Can Marathon, Ballet Hispanico. His works have been performed by the New York Youth
Symphony, the ICE ensemble, Sospiro Winds, the Ebony Strings Quartet and American Opera Projects.
He has been a composition fellow of numerous summer programs including the Wellesley Composers
Conference and Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Borchers holds a BM from the University of Nebraska and
two Masters Degrees in both music performance and composition from the Aaron Copland School of music
at Queens College in New York. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in composition at Brandeis University in
Waltham, MA. He is also on the faculty at Middlesex Community College teaching percussion and music
technology.
Laura Macias Barrera, is a Multimedia Artist, born and raised in Mexico.
She attended the University of Guadalajara in 2004 where she studied the programs
of Italian Cinema, Video Photography, Documentary Fiction Narrative and Film Script. In 2009 she received
her Bachelors degree in Multimedia from CAAV. In 2009, Laura received diplomas in Max/MSP I and II
from CMMAS, and was a fellow of the Composing Interactive Multi-Media summer course. Laura, lives
in Milwaukee WI, with her best friend Gary Hartung where she has an inspiring brick studio (built in 1908)
known as the WAREHOUSE Gallery.
Vinko Globokar studied trombone at the Conservatory of Paris and later
composition and conducting with René Leibowitz and Luciano Berio. As a
conductor he worked with several European orchestras and gave several
classes including in Cologne. In Paris he was the head of the research
department for sound and voice at the IRCAM. Until present he gives courses
in 20th century music in Firenze.
His oeuvre consists out of approximately 70 composition and can be stylistically
not be placed under one denominator. Globokar develops the sound(colours)
and musical resources over and over again, depending on the specific context
of the work in question. From that, a number of characteristics of Globokar’s
musical language can be inferred.
A particular aspect of his oeuvre is that he considers music as ‘language’ in
which the instrumental, vocal and the said word are united. The text frequently serves as a beginning
point or guiding principle for a composition and its sounds, or he plays at several levels with contrasts (or
unification) between musical instruments and voice, between playing and speaking. He also frequently
looks up in his compositions the theatrical by not ignoring the visual aspect of a performance like generally
the case is, but on purpose to emphasize it.
Craig Walsh’s music has been described by Richard Buell of the Boston Globe as
“teemingly imaginative, from a composer whom we want to hear more.” Robert Carl
of Fanfare Magazine remarked, “The energy in this music…gives one a buzz.” And
Records International noted, “a particular sensitivity to the nuances of timbre and the
possibilities afforded by the use of unusual instrumental combinations.”
Walsh is the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Meet
The Composer Grant, The Lee Ettelson Composers Award, The Salvatore Martirano
Award, The Luigi-Russolo Electro-Acoustic Music Prize, and honors from MTNA, ICMA,
and ASCAP. His acoustic and electro-acoustic music has been presented in the United
States, Europe, South America, New Zealand, and Asia. Notable performances include
those at Weill Recital Hall, the Mondavi Center, Merkin Concert Hall, Hong-Kong City
Hall Theatre, Bourges International Electronic Music Festival (France), the Krannert
Center for the Performing Arts, Trinity and Royal Northern Colleges of Music (UK), and
Hogeschool Gent Conservatorium (Belgium), among others. His music has been performed by such groups
as the New York New Music Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, Indiana University New Music Ensemble,
Lontano New Music (UK), Mallarme Chamber Players, NYU New Music Ensemble, the Lydian String
Quartet, Middle Voices; and soloists Rhonda Rider, Daniel Stepner, Stephen Gosling, Madeleine Shapiro,
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Todd Rewolt and F. Gerard Errante. Walsh’s music is recorded on Albany Records, Centaur Records and
the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States CD series. His music is published by European
American Music and CraigWalshMusic (ASCAP). Craig Walsh studied at the Mannes College of Music
(B.Mus.) and Brandeis University (M.F.A., Ph.D.). His composition teachers included Martin Boykan, Eric
Chasalow, and Yehudi Wyner. He is currently associate professor of composition at The University of
Arizona. Prior to his appointment at the University of Arizona, he taught at the University of North Carolina
at Greensboro and Brandeis University. He is a board member of NWEAMO, the New West Electronic Arts
and Music Organization.
Dennis Miller is on the Music faculty of Northeastern University in Boston where he teaches courses
in mixed media composition. He is the founder and artistic director of the Visual Music Marathon
(www.2009vmm.neu.edu), a series of programs devoted to exposing fine art animation to a wide public
audience. Miller’s mixed media works, which explore the application of principles drawn from music
composition into the visual realm, have been presented at numerous venues throughout the world,
most recently the DeCordova Museum, the New York Digital Salon Traveling Exhibit, the Art in Motion
screenings, Images du Nouveau Monde, CynetArts, Sonic Circuits, the Cuban International Festival of
Music, and the New England Film and Video Festival. Recent exhibits of his 3D still images include the
Boston Computer Museum and the Biannual Conference on Art and Technology, as well as publication in
Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound (Rizzoli Books) and Art of the Digital Age (Thames and Hudson). Miller’s
music and artworks are available at www.dennismiller.neu.edu.
Jonathan Harvey (1939-) is a British composer. He has held teaching positions
at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently
invited to teach in summer schools around the world. He studied with Erwin Stein
and Hans Keller at St John’s College, Cambridge, eventually obtaining a PhD.
Early musical influences included Schoenberg, Berg, Messiaen and Britten. While
undertaking postgraduate study at Glasgow University, Harvey was a cellist in
the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Around this time, he became interested in the music of Karlheinz
Stockhausen. In 1969 he took up a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University, where he encountered
Milton Babbitt, another strong influence on his music. In the 1980s Harvey produced much music at IRCAM
after receiving an invitation from Pierre Boulez to work there. With IRCAM, Harvey has produced works
such as Speakings, a composition for large orchestra and electronics. The concept of the piece was to
“make an orchestra speak.” IRCAM is known for speech analysis and in this piece, special technology was
developed to allow the analysis of speech to be realized in an orchestral context, using complex algorithms
which can process multiple combinations possible in an orchestra setting. The program Orchidée computed
such analyses and provided possible orchestrations for the composer. Harvey is a Visiting Professor of
Music at University of Oxford, Imperial College London, and an Honorary Professor at Sussex University.
From 2005 to 2008, Jonathan Harvey held the post of Composer in Association with the BBC Scottish
Symphony Orchestra. In 2009 he was Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music
Festival.
CONCERT 3
João Pedro Oliveira is one of the most prominent Portuguese composers of
his generation. He began his music studies at the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon
where he studied organ performance. From 1985 to 1990 he moved to the US
as a Fulbright student, with a fellowship from Gulbenkian Foundations, where
he completed a PhD in Music at the University of New York at Stony Brook. His
music includes one chamber opera, several orchestral composition, a Requiem,
3 string quartets, chamber music, solo instrumental music and electroacoustic
music. Recently he has been exploring the possibilities of interaction between
instrumental and electroacoustic sounds, and most of his recent works use both
media. He has received numerous prizes and awards, including three Prizes at Bourges Electroacoustic
Music Competition, the prestigious Magisterium Prize in the same competition, the Giga-Hertz Special
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Award, 1st Prize in Metamorphoses competition, 1st Prize in Yamaha-Visiones Sonoras Competition, 1st
Prize in Musica Nova competition, etc.. His music is played all over the world, and most of his works have
been commissioned by Portuguese and foreign groups and foundations. He is Senior Professor at Aveiro
University (Portugal) and teaches composition, electroacoustic music and analysis. He published several
articles in journals, and has written a book about analysis and 20th century music theory.
Eric Chasalow is widely recognized as a composer equally at home with electroacoustic music as with music for traditional instrumental ensembles. He produces
the biennial BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon codirects the The Video Archive of
Electroacoustic Music an oral history project chronicling the pioneer electronic music
composers and engineers from 1950 to the present. Eric is Irving G. Fine Professor of
Music at Brandeis University, and Director of BEAMS, the Brandeis Electro-Acoustic
Music Studio. His music is available from Suspicious Motives Music and on CDs from
New World Records (1993 and 2003), ICMC, Intersound Net Records, SEAMUS, and
RRRecords. Additional information may be found at www.ericchasalow.com.
For Michel van der Aa music is more than organized sound or a structuring of
notes. His music has expressive power, combining sounds and scenic images in a
play of changing perspectives. Van der Aa’s recent stage works show a successful
involvement as a film and stage director as well as composer. Having completed
his training as a recording engineer at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague,
Michel van der Aa studied composition with Diderik Wagenaar, Gilius van Bergeijk
and Louis Andriessen. In 2002 Van der Aa completed a program in film directing at
the New York Film Academy. In 2007 he participated in the Lincoln Center Theater
Director’s Lab, an intensive course in stage direction. He was responsible for the
stage direction as well as the conception and creation of the film segments in the
operas ‘One’ and ‘After Life’ and the music theatre piece ‘The Book of Disquiet’. Van der Aa’s music has
been performed by ensembles and orchestras worldwide. Michel Van der Aa was the recipient of the 1999
Gaudeamus Prize, Matthijs Vermeulen prize (2004), Siemens Composers Grant (2005), Charlotte Köhler
Prize (2005), and the Paul Hindemith Prize (2006). Michel van der Aa is published by Boosey & Hawkes.
David Felder has long been recognized as a leader in his generation of American
composers. His works have been featured at many of the leading international
festivals for new music, and earn continuing recognition through performance and
commissioning programs. Felder’s work has been broadly characterized by its
highly energetic profile, through its frequent employment of technological extension
and elaboration of musical materials (including his “Crossfire” video series), and its
lyrical qualities.
Felder has received numerous grants and commissions including many awards
from the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York State Council commissions, a New York
Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim, two Koussevitzky commissions, two Fromm Foundation
Fellowships, two awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer “New Residencies” (19931996) with the Buffalo Philharmonic, two commissions from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, and many
more. In May 2010, he received the Music Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a
career recognition award. Current projects include Le Quatre Temps Cardinaux for soprano Laura Aikin,
bass Ethan Hirschenfeld, large chamber ensemble/orchestra (BMOP, Signal, and Slee Sinfonietta) and
electronics on texts of Neruda, Creeley, Gioia, and Daumal, (Fall, 2012) commissioned by the Koussevitky
Foundation, and ensemble works commissioned by Neo Norbotten of Sweden, Norway’s Cikada
Ensemble, and the New York New Music Ensemble for the period 2010-12. Felder serves as Birge-Cary
Chair in Composition at SUNY, Buffalo, and has been Artistic Director of the “June in Buffalo” Festival from
1985 to the present. Since 2006, he has been Director of the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st
Century Music at the University. From 1992 to 1996 he was Meet the Composer “”New Residencies””,
Composer-in-Residence to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and WBFO-FM. In 1996, he formed the
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professional chamber orchestra, the Slee Sinfonietta, and has been Artistic Director since that time. In
2008, he was named SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest rank in the SUNY system. An active
teacher and mentor, he has served as Ph.D. dissertation advisor for nearly fifty composers at Buffalo, many
of whom are actively teaching, composing and performing internationally at leading institutions. Felder
served as Master Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in February-March, 2010. His work
is published by Theodore Presser, and recordings are available on Bridge, Mode, EMF, and Albany .
Filmmaker, producer/director Elliot Caplan is currently Professor
of Film, Department of Media Study, and Artistic Director, Center for
the Moving Image, University at Buffalo, The State University of New
York. His work in documentary, art filmmaking, and performance
with choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage video
artist Nam June Paik and filmmaker Bruce Baillie is internationally
recognized. Caplan’s films and videos are in museum and film
collections throughout the world. Caplan also designs theatrical
presentations incorporating media as décor. Caplan received an
Emmy Award for “Outstanding Cultural and Historical Programming”
for his work on the PBS Network. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards. In 1996, Caplan
founded Picture Start Films to facilitate his artistic work.
Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has
lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence
on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often
created by combining live music and electronics. At IRCAM, Saariaho developed
techniques of computer-assisted composition and acquired fluency in working on
tape and with live electronics. This experience influenced her approach to writing
for orchestra, with its emphasis on the shaping of dense masses of sound in
slow transformations. Through IRCAM, Saariaho became allied with the French
‘spectralist’ composers, whose techniques are based on computer analysis of
the sound-spectrum of individual notes on different instruments. This analytical
approach led her to the regular use of harmonies resting on long-held bass notes,
microtonal intervals, and a precisely detailed continuum of sound extending from
pure tone to unpitched noise. Although much of her catalogue comprises chamber works, from the midnineties she has turned increasingly to larger forces and broader structures, such as the operas L’Amour
de loin and Adriana Mater and the oratorio La Passion de Simone.
Hans Tutschku (1966) is member of the “Ensemble for intuitive music
Weimar” since 1982, studied composition in Dresde, The Hague, Paris and
Birmingham and sound direction with Karlheinz Stockhausen. He taught at
IRCAM in Paris and at different Universities in Europe, gave Masterclasses
in more than 30 countries and has been working as composition professor
and director of the electroacoustic studios at Harvard University since 2004.
He is the winner of many international competitions, among others: Bourges,
CIMESP Sao Paulo, Prix Ars Electronica, Prix Noroit and Prix Musica Nova.
In 2005 he received the culture prize of the city of Weimar.
Ferdinando De Sena is a Miami composer, born in Brooklyn, NY.. He teaches
composition and electronic music at the New World School of the Arts, was on the
faculty of the University of Miami School of Music from 1994 – 2009, where he
was Director of the Electronic Music Program. Fred De Sena’s music has been
performed throughout the continental U.S., in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Argentina, Italy,
Ireland, and Scotland. His work has also been performed at international, national,
and regional conferences of the College Music Society, the Society of Composers,
Inc., the International Computer Music Conference, the Society for Electroacoustic
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Music in the United States, the International Double Reed Society, and many other festival, theatrical,
and concert venues. Fred De Sena earned a B.A in Computer Music at Ithaca College and a D.M.A. in
Composition at the University of Miami. His principle teachers were Dennis Kam, Peter Rothbart, and Don
Wilson. Fred’s music is available from St Francis Music Publications or from desenamusic.org.
Sound and silence are allies in the minimal yet intricate music of Lou Bunk. In
both his acoustic and electro-acoustic music, timbre unfolds alongside harmony,
while extended instrumental techniques, microtones, and a reinterpretation of the
virtuosic paints an alien and sometimes barren soundscape.
Educated at Washington University (MA Composition) and Brandeis University
(PhD in Composition and Theory), he has studied music composition with Eric
Chasalow, Michael Tenzer, David Rakowski, Ladislav Kubik, Marty Boykan, and
Yehudi Wyner. In his home town Somerville, MA, Lou co-produces the concert
series Opensound and has chaired the board of the Somerville Arts Council.
Lou is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Franklin Pierce University in
New Hampshire where he teaches various course related to computer music. Lou’s music has been
performed in dozens of venues, in the US and Europe; SEAMUS, ICMC, Spark, CCRMA, June in Buffalo,
The Computer Arts Festival in Padova, Italy, the American Composers series in Trossingen, Germany,
Conservatory van Amsterdam, and the Centre for Music Composition and Performance in Athens Greece
among others. Some current projects include a new composition for singing violist, a tower of electroacoustic flim-flamery, and teaching his computer how to play spontaneous lovely noise.
Malin Bång’s music is an exploration of movement and energy, She
defines her musical material according to their amount of friction to create
a spectrum of unpredictable and contrasting actions, ranging from the
intimate and barely audible to the harsh and obstinate. In her work she
often incorporates sound objects to explore a rich sound world and to
suggest that a musical content can be shaped by anything valuable to the
artistic purpose. Malin Bång is residing in Stockholm, Sweden and is the
composer in residence and a founding member of the Curious Chamber
Players. Her work includes music for instrumental ensembles, orchestra,
staged music, electronic music and instrumental performance pieces.
Lately she has specifically explored the mixed instrumental ensemble extended with sound objects in
collaboration with the members of Curious Chamber Players. Her works are performed in Europe, United
States and Japan and some recent and upcoming collaborations and commissions include Ensemble
Recherche and the Wittener Tage für Neue Musik, Ensemble Nikel at the Donaueschinger Musiktage and
Nadar Ensemble for the Darmstadt Ferienkurse and the Strasbourg Musica Festival. During 2010 she
was awarded the Kranichsteiner Stipendienpreis for her ensemble work Turbid Motion at the Darmstadt
Festival. Malin Bång’s works are published by the Paris-based internet publisher Babelscores.
CONCERT 4
Christian A. Gentry, an Arizona native, received his BM at the University
of Utah and MM at the University of Louisville, where he was a Bomhard
Fellow. He is now a Mildred and Herbert Lee Graduate Fellow at Brandeis
University where he is pursuing a PhD in Music Theory and Composition.
He has written music for a variety of instrumentation and genres including,
orchestra, choir, art song, chamber music, film, theater and electroacoustic
music. Some of his works have been played and/or recorded by
Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, Arsenal Trio, Emily Hindrichs
(soprano), East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Juventas!, White
Rabbit, the Lydian String Quartet, New York Virtuoso Singers, VERGE Ensemble and the International
Contemporary Ensemble. He has been a composer fellow at June in Buffalo, Wellesley Composers
25
Conference and the Norfolk New Music Workshop. He received a Barlow Endowment Composition
Commission to write Flux Flummoxed for Jihye Chang (piano) and Benjamin Sung (violin) which premiered
in the spring of 2010 and will appear in a recording summer 2011. His current projects include Corps
Sonore for percussionist Bill Solomon and riff(s) and/or transfiguration(s) for trombonist Ben Herrington,
with pianist Geoffrey Burleson and percussionist John Ferrari. His teachers include Morris Rosenzweig,
Miguel Chuaqui, Steve Rouse, John Gibson, Martin Boykan, Eric Chasalow and David Rakowski. He
resides in the Boston area with his wife Laci, son Berkeley and dog McDuff.
Luigi Nono was born January 29, 1924 Venice Italy - died May 8, 1990
Venice. Italian composer. A law student, he also studied music with Gian
Francesco Malipiero (1882 - 1973), Bruno Maderna (1920 - 1973), and
Hermann Scherchen (1891 - 1966). He came to public attention in 1950
with his work Variazioni Canoniche, orchestral variations on a 12-tone
theme of Arnold Schoenberg, whose daughter Nuria he married in 1955.
An avowed communist, Nono often produced works of political substance,
many of which sparked controversy and reaction. He employed aleatory
(chance) techniques and serialism, sometimes fragmenting language and
using electronically manipulated sounds. His best-known work is the opera Intolleranza (1961).
Kyong Mee Choi, composer, organist, painter, and visual artist, received several
prestigious awards including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, Illinois Arts Council
Fellowship, ASCAPLUS Awards, The First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award,
First Place for the Birmingham Arts Music Alliance Concert Exchange program,
The Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São
Paulo, Mention for Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges,
among others. Her music can be found at CIMESP, SCI, EMS, ICMC, ERM media,
SEAMUS, Détonants Voyages. Her multimedia opera, THE ETERNAL TAO, which
was supported by John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, was
premiered in Ganz Hall at Roosevelt University in October 2010. She received
a D.M.A. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a M.M. at Georgia
State University and a B.S. in chemistry and science education at Ewha Womans
University, and studied Korean literature in a master’s program at Seoul National
University in South Korea. She is an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Roosevelt University
in Chicago where she teaches composition and electro-acoustic music. She writes for chamber, electroacoustic, interactive, and multi-media work. www.kyongmeechoi.com.
Heather Stebbins (b. 1987) is a composer of both acoustic and electroacoustic
works. Her music has been performed at festivals and conferences across the
country, including SEAMUS, Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival, the
Florida Electronic Music Festival, the 12 Nights Electronic Music and Art festival,
the University of Louisville New Music Festival, and the New York Women’s
Experimental Music Festival. Stebbins was the recipient of the IAWM Search for
New Music 2007 Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize, the winner of the inaugural University
of Louisville Search for New Electroacoustic Music, and winner of first prize in the
Austin Peay State University Composition Competition. Stebbins received her BA
in Music Composition at the University of Richmond in 2009, where she studied with Benjamin Broening
and served as the Music Technology Specialist from 2009-2010 . She is currently pursuing a Masters of
Music in composition at Boston University, where she is studying with Joshua Fineberg. She is a teaching
assistant in both electronic music and aural skills classes. Stebbins is also a cellist and has studied with Pei
Lu of the Baltimore Symphony, Jason McComb of the Richmond Symphony, and Nick Photinos of ‘eighth
blackbird’.
26
Milton Babbitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Barkin & Brody 2001),
to Albert E. Babbitt and Sarah Potamkin. He was raised in Jackson, Mississippi,
and began studying the violin when he was 4 but soon switched to clarinet and
saxophone. Early in his life he was attracted tojazz and theater music. He was
making his own arrangements of popular songs at 7, and when he was 13, he won a
local songwriting contest.
Babbitt’s father was a mathematician, and it was mathematics that Babbitt intended
to study when he entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1931. However, he
soon left and went to New York University instead, where he studied music with
Philip James and Marion Bauer. There he became interested in the music of the
composers of the Second Viennese School, and went on to write a number of articles on twelve tone
music including the first description of combinatoriality and a serial “time-point” technique. After receiving
his bachelor of arts degree from New York University College of Arts and Science in 1935 with Phi Beta
Kappa honors, he studied under Roger Sessions, first privately and then later at Princeton University. At
the University he joined the music faculty in 1938 and received one of Princeton’s first Master of Fine Arts
degrees in 1942 (Barkin & Brody 2001). During the Second World War Babbitt divided his time between
mathematical research in Washington, DC, and Princeton, where he became a member of the mathematics
faculty from 1943 to 1945 (Barkin & Brody 2001). In 1948, Babbitt joined Princeton University’s music
faculty and in 1973, became a member of the faculty at the Juilliard School in New York. Among his more
notable former students are music theorists David Lewin and John Rahn, composers Donald Martino,
Laura Karpman,Tobias Picker, Paul Lansky, and John Melby, the theatre composer Stephen Sondheim,
and the jazz guitarist and composer Stanley Jordan. In 1958, Babbitt achieved unsought notoriety through
an article in the popular magazine High Fidelity (Babbitt 1958). His title for the article, “The Composer as
Specialist”, was changed, without his knowledge or consent, to “Who Cares if You Listen?” More than 30
years later, he commented that, because of that “offensively vulgar title”, he was “still ... far more likely to
be known as the author of ‘Who Cares if You Listen?’ than as the composer of music to which you may or
may not care to listen” (Babbitt 1991, 17). Babbitt later became interested in electronic music. He was hired
by RCA as consultant composer to work with their RCA Mark II Synthesizer at the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center (known since 1996 as the Columbia University Computer Music Center), and in
1961 produced his Composition for Synthesizer. Babbitt was less interested in producing new timbres than
in the rhythmic precision he could achieve using the Mark II synthesizer, a degree of precision previously
unobtainable in live performances (Barkin & Brody 2001). Babbitt continued to write both electronic music
and music for conventional musical instruments, often combining the two. Philomel (1964), for example,
was written for soprano and a synthesized accompaniment (including the recorded and manipulated voice
of Bethany Beardslee, for whom the piece was composed) stored on magnetic tape. Milton Babbitt died in
Princeton, New Jersey on January 29, 2011 at the age of 94.
Active as a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music, Benjamin Broening
has written pieces for ensembles such Zeitgeist, eighth blackbird, Charlotte
Symphony, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, the Band and Orchestral Division
of Yamaha Corporation of America, the Arts Now Series at North Carolina State
University, Ensemble U: (Estonia), Duo Runedako, and the Connecticut Choral
Society, among many others. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Broening has
also received recognition and awards from the Jerome Composers Commissioning
Program, American Composers Forum, Virginia Commission for the Arts, ACS/
Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Presser Music Foundation. A disk of his piano
music will be released in June 2011 on Innova. Another disc, of his chamber music
with electronics, has been recorded by eighth blackbird and is in preparation. His
music has been recorded on the Centaur, everglade, Equilibrium, MIT Press and
SEAMUS record labels. Broening is founder and artistic director of Third Practice,
an annual festival of electroacoustic music at the University of Richmond, where
he is Associate Professor of Music. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Cambridge University,
Yale University and Wesleyan University, where his principal teachers were William Albright, Andrew Mead,
Alexander Goehr, Robin Holloway, Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman and Neely Bruce.
27
Hailed by The New York Times as “a virtuoso playing at the edge”, composer/
violinist Mari Kimura is widely admired for her revolutionary extended technique
“Subharmonics” and her works for interactive computer music. She is a winner
of 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, and chosen as the 2010
Composer in Residence at IRCAM in Paris. Described as the “Plugged-in Paganini
for the Digital Age”(All Music Guide), Ms. Kimura’s works have been supported by
grants including NYFA, Jerome Foundation, Arts International, Japan Foundation,
Meet the Composer, NYSCA and she was just awarded 2010 Fromm Commission
grant composing for the Cassatt String Quartet. Since 1998, Ms. Kimura has been
teaching a graduate class in Interactive Computer Music Performance at The
Juilliard School. Her new Mutable Music album “The World Below G and Beyond”
features her works for Subharmonics and interactive computer. www.marikimura.
com
Concert 5
Tristan Murail (born March 11, 1947 in Le Havre, France) is a French composer.
His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a
journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail,
aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French
children’s writer. Murail is associated with the “spectral” technique of composition,
which involves the use of the fundamental properties of sound as a basis for
harmony, as well as the use of spectral analysis, FM, RM, and AM synthesis as
a method of deriving polyphony. Following early studies in economics, classics
and North African Arabic, Murail studied composition with Olivier Messiaen at
the Paris Conservatoire from 1967 to 1972. He taught computer music at the
Paris Conservatoire and composition at IRCAM in Paris, where he assisted in the
development of the Patchwork composition software. In 1973 he was a founding member of the Ensemble
l’Itinéraire. Since 1997 he has been a professor of composition at Columbia University in New York City.
Among Murail’s awards are the Prix de Rome (presented by the French Académie des beaux-arts in
1971),the Grand Prix du Disque (1990), and the Grand Prix du Président de la République, Académie
Charles Cros (1992). Murail’s works are published by Salabert and Editions Henry Lemoine. His music
has been recorded on the Una Corda, Metier, Adés, and MFA-Radio France labels. Major pieces by Murail
include large orchestral pieces such as Gondwana, Time and Again and, more recently, Serendib and
L’esprit des dunes. Other pieces include his Désintégrations for 17 instruments and tape, Mémoire/Erosion
for french horn and nine instruments Ethers for flute and ensemble, and Vampyr! for electric guitar. Murail
also composed a set of solo pieces for various instruments in his cycle Random Access Memory, of which
the sixth, Vampyr!, is a rare classical piece for electric guitar. Vampyr! is one of several works in Murail’s
catalogue that do not employ spectral techniques. Rather, in the performance notes, the composer asks
the performer to play the piece in the manner of guitarists in the popular and rock traditions, such as Carlos
Santana and Eric Clapton.
Herve Bailly-Basin was born in 1958. He received degrees in philosophy and visual arts, and he lives and
works in the area of Annecy. His early research was devoted to painting, but in a negative sense: seeking
the figurative within the most radical abstraction. The incompatibility between the risks of experimentation
and the demands of a technically coherent production lead him to employ, at the end of the 1980s,
techniques of the then nascent field of computer graphics and animation. This “continuation of painting by
other means,” in Bailly-Basin’s words, soon lead to the possibility of synthesizing photographed images
with purely synthetic ones. And the recording of transitory states of his compositions have produced (since
1994) sequential works that mingle digital synthesis with filmed video. The figurative aspect of BaillyBasin’s work has recently been present in pieces of video-dance. Currently his works, while opposed to
the romantic notions of the gesamkunstwerk, nevertheless are moving towards the idea of an “intermediate
art,” where the essence of expression crosses between the boundaries of different sensory media.
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American Composer Joshua Fineberg began his musical studies at the age
of five; they have included - in addition to composition - violin, guitar, piano,
harpsichord and conducting. He completed his undergraduate studies at the
Peabody Conservatory with Morris Moshe Cotel where he won first prize in the
bi-annual Virginia Carty de Lillo Composition Competition. In 1991, he moved to
Paris and studied with Tristan Murail. The following year he was selected by the
IRCAM/Ensemble InterContemporain reading panel for the course in composition
and musical technologies. In the Fall of 1997, he returned to the US to pursue a
doctorate in musical composition at Columbia University, which he completed in
May 1999. After teaching at Columbia for a year, he went to Harvard University
where he taught for seven years and was the John L. Loeb Associate Professor
for the Humanities. In September 2007, Fineberg left Harvard to assume a
professorship in composition and the directorship of the electronic music studios
at Boston University. He has won numerous national and international prizes and scholarships and is
published by Editions Max Eschig and Gérard Billaudot Editeur. In 2011, Fineberg was named an Artist
Fellow of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Fineberg’s works are widely performed in the US, Europe
and Asia. A monographic CD of his music recorded by the Ensemble Court-Circuit was released in 2002 as
a part of Unviersal France’s Accord/Una Corda collection and another CD recorded by the Ensemble FA
was released by Mode Records in June 2009. Major recent projects include an ‘imaginary opera’ based on
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita for actor, dancers, video ensemble and electronics realized in collaboration with
JOJI; Speaking in Tongues, a concerto written for Les Percussions de Strasbourg’s 50th anniversary tour
and Objets trouvés written for the ensemble Court-circuit.
Christopher Bailey is a freelance composer residing in Boston, MA. His new album, Immolation Ritual,
featuring Gabby Diaz (and many other amazing performers), is out on Innova Records. For more
information, MP3s, projects, aesthetic screeds, and embarrassing 90’s-style web design, see his website:
Google Christopher Bailey; skip over the fashion guy.
Michael Lowenstern, widely considered one of the finest bass clarinetists in the
world, has performed, recorded and toured as a soloist and with ensembles of
every variety. Michael has written music for concert, film, dance and various other
new media over the span of his 20-year career. He has been a pioneer in the field
of interactive computer music, having created or performed over a hundred works
for bass clarinet and electronics. His collaborations have included remixes for the
landmark recording “In C Remixed”, Michael Gordon’s video opera “Chaos” and
various dance works with David Lang. To date he can be heard on over fifty CDs
— from Reich to Zorn to the Klezmatics — and has released five solo recordings
of his own. Michael received a Fulbright grant to study in Amsterdam and was the
top prizewinner at the 1991 International Gaudeamus Competition. A graduate
of the Interlochen Arts Academy, he trained at the Eastman School of Music, the
Conservatorium Amsterdam, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, studying clarinet and
bass clarinet with Charles Neidich, Harry Sparnaay, Richard MacDowell and John Yeh, and composition
with Daniel Weymouth. Michael has served on the faculties of the Juilliard School and New York University
and is currently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.
Matthew Greenbaum was born in New York City in 1950. Greenbaum’s awards,
fellowships and commissions include the Serge Koussevitzky Music Fund/Library
of Congress, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the American Academy of
Arts and Letters, Meet the Composer, the Fromm Foundation, the Guggenheim
Foundation, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund and the New York Foundation for
the Arts and the Penn Council on the Arts. Greenbaum is also a video artist whose
video and animation accompany theater pieces with solo voice. These include
Rope and Chasm, an hour-long setting of excerpts from Nietszche’s Also Sprach
Zarathustra; America this is Quite Serious on poems of Allen Ginsberg, and In der
Zeit, on a poem of Paul Fleming. Greenbaum is a professor of composition at Temple University.
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The music of Derek Hurst (Massachusetts, USA), which broadly exhibits a
precarious balance between visceral solemnity and muscular jocularity, has
been performed throughout the United States and abroad by ensembles such
as Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Left Coast Ensemble, Brave New Works,
The Contemporary Keyboard Society and Firebird Ensemble, with works featured
on concert events of League-ISCM, SEAMUS, ICMC, Boston Cyberarts and
the Computer Arts Festival (Padova, It). He has received a Fromm Foundation
Commission, an Artist’s Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Wayne
Peterson Prize, Berklee Faculty Fellowship and awards and fellowships from The
Copland House Residency and the Irving Fine Fellowship for Music Composition.
Hurst received the Ph.D. in composition/theory from Brandeis University (Massachusetts, USA) and has
studied composition with Tomas Svoboda, John Melby, Eric Chasalow, Martin Boykan, Yehudi Wyner and
David Rakowski. Currently he teaches courses in electroacoustic music, music theory and composition
at Berklee College of Music (Massachusetts, USA) and has also frequently teaches at Brown University
(Rhode Island, USA) and Brandeis University .
Thomas Kessler was born in 1937 in Zurich. After studies in German
and Romanic linguistics at the Universities of Zürich and Paris he studied
composition with Heinz Friedrich Hartig, Ernst Pepping and Boris Blacher in
Berlin where he founded his own electronic studio in 1965. In the following years
he was director of the Berlin Electronic Beat Studio and musical director of the
Centre Universitaire International de Formation et de Recherche Dramatiques
in Nancy. From 1973 until 2000 he taught composition and theory at the Basel
Music Academy and created the well-known electronic studio there. Together
with Gerard Zinsstag he founded the festival “Tage fuer Neue Musik” in Zuerich
and the live-electronic music festival “ECHT!ZEIT” with Wolfgang Heiniger in
Basel. As a composer of numerous instrumental chamber music, orchestral music and live-electronic music
compositions, he is interested in the interactions between musicians and electronics. Thomas Kessler lives
in Basel and Toronto.
Concert 6
Steven Kazuo Takasugi, born 1960 in Los Angeles, studied composition with Noah
Creshevsky, Bunita Marcus, Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa and
Roger Reynolds (doctoral chair), as well as computer music with Charles Dodge, F.
Richard Moore, and Harold Cohen. He received his masters and doctoral degrees in
composition from the University of California, San Diego and has held artist residencies
in Japan, Germany, France, Israel, and the United States. His work has been presented
worldwide including Acousmain, Frankfurt, E-werk, Freiburg, Transit, Leuven, Belgium,
Ultraschall and MaerzMusik, Berlin, Symphony Space, New York, Stockholm New Music,
State Theater, Freiburg, Bludenz Festival, Austria, ISCM Geneva, ICMC Thessaloniki,
Greece, IRCAM, Paris, Asia Music Week, Yokohama, Tempus Novum, Tokyo, The
Central Conservatory, Beijing, the Darmstadt Summer Courses, Germany. He is the recipient of numerous
awards including a 2010 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship
and Residency, a DAAD, and an ASCAP award. He teaches composition as an Associate in the Music
Department in Harvard University’s doctoral student composition program and is Managing Director of the
Harvard Summer Master Courses in Composition. He has taught at the University of California, San Diego,
the California Institute of the Arts, the Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, and HaTeiva in Jaffa, Israel. He
is permanent faculty at the International Summer Academy for Composition, Academy Schloss Solitude in
Stuttgart, the Tzlil Meudcan Summer Course for Contemporary Performance and Composition in Israel,
and is one of the founding editors of Search Journal for New Music and Culture.
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Mario Davidovsky, a native of Buenos Aires, began his musical training
at age seven. He came to the United States in the late 1950s, when he
was personally invited to study with Aaron Copland at the Berkshire
Music Center, now Tanglewood. Having studied with the Austrian Guillermo
[Wilhelm] Graetzer in Buenos Aires, Davidovsky was influenced greatly
by 20th century European music including the Second Viennese School
and Bartok. Providence brought American composer Milton Babbitt and
Davidovsky together, and it was Babbitt who encouraged Davidovsky
to work at the newly-founded Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music
Center. It was there that Davidovsky’s music greatly departed from his
own aesthetical world; he discovered that sound could behave in an
infinite number of news ways outside the common practice and tradition.
That discovery was pivotal and had a profound influence on the way he
imagined sound. In 1962, Davidovsky began his innovative series of
Synchronisms, each featuring electronics and an acoustic instrument or
chamber ensemble. Synchronisms No. 6, for piano and electronics (1970),
won the composer a Pulitzer Prize in 1971. Completing No. 12 in the series
in 2006, Synchronisms showcase the versatility and flexibility of the marriage of acoustic and electronic
instruments. Vocal music came later for Davidovsky, and was added to his long list of compositions for
strings, chamber orchestra, electronic and mixed media. After directing the Columbia-Princeton Electronic
Music Center for years while serving as Professor of Composition at Columbia, Davidovsky joined the
faculty at Harvard University in 1994 and has only recently retired from active teaching. One might consider
the careers of his diverse and successful students as one of the strongest tributes to a composer still
brimming with enthusiasm for new sounds. From his first visit to Tanglewood on a Koussevitzky Fellowship,
Davidovsky has been honored with two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Rockefeller Fellowships, additional
fellowships in Europe, an Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Naumburg Award,
a Kaske Award (Munich), and the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989, to name just a few.
His talents have been sought after by, among others, the Philadelphia Orchestra, The San Francisco
Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the Juilliard String Quartet and Centennial
Commission, the Emerson String Quartet, and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. (notes by
Lisa Freeman)
Olga Neuwirth (born 4 August 1968 in Graz) is an Austrian composer. As a
child at the age of seven, Neuwirth began lessons on trumpet. She later studied
composition in Vienna at the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts under
Erich Urbanner, while studying at the Electroacoustic Institute. Her thesis was
written on the music in Alain Resnais’s movie “L’Amour à mort.” In 1985-86, she
studied music and art at the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco with Elinor
Armer. In 1993-94 she studied with Tristan Murail and worked at IRCAM, producing
such works as “...?risonanze!...” for Viola d’amore. Earlier in her career, Neuwirth
had the chance to meet with Italian composer Luigi Nono, who had similarly radical
politics, and has claimed this had a strong influence on her life. In 2000, Neuwirth
was appointed Composer-in-residence of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, Antwerp and in
2002, she was appointed Composer-in-residence at the Lucerne Festival (together with Pierre Boulez).
She has numerous chamber music works released on the Kairos label, and has collaborated with Elfriede
Jelinek on an opera of David Lynch’s film Lost Highway incorporating both live and pre-recorded audio and
visual feeds, alongside other electronics. The world premiere took place in Graz in 2003, performed by the
Klangforum Vienna with the electronics realized at the IEM. The American premiere of the opera took place
at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH and featured further performances at Columbia University’s Miller Theater
in New York City, produced by Oberlin Conservatory and The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. The
surround recording released at Kairos was awarded the Diapason d’Or. The UK premiere took place at
the Young Vic in London in April 2008, in a co-production with English National Opera, directed by Diane
Paulus and conducted by Baldur Bronnimann.
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Mathew Rosenblum’s works have been performed throughout the United States,
South America, and Europe including the ISCM World Music Days in Oslo, the
Gewandhaus in Leipzig, De Ijsbreker in Amsterdam, the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf,
Sala Nezahualcóyotl in Mexico City, and the Guggenheim Museum and Miller
Theatre in New York City by ensembles including the California Ear Unit, Opera
Theater of Pittsburgh, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Rascher
Saxophone Quartet, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Calmus Ensemble
of Leipzig, Sequitur, Speculum Musicae, and others. His multi-media chamber
opera RedDust, commissioned by Sequitur, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, and Meet
The Composer Commissioning Music/USA, was premiered at the Andy Warhol
Museum in 2007 and called a “sweeping emotional experience” by the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette. Other recent commissions include Double Concerto for Baritone
Saxophone, Percussion, and Orchestra commissioned by the Boston Modern
Orchestra Project, and Yonah’s Dream commissioned by the Harry Partch Institute. In the fall of 2001 he
was a core participant in the American Composers Orchestra’s Orchestra Tech Festival and Conference
in New York City, and in 2009 he was a Senior Faculty Composer at the June in Buffalo Festival. Other
honors include four Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Music Fellowship Grants, a Heinz Endowments
Creative Heights Award, two Fromm Foundation Commissions, a National Endowment for the Arts Music
Fellowship Grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Artists Fellowship Grant. He has also received
awards and fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Institute of Contemporary
American Music, the Rockefeller Foundation, BMI, the MacDowell Colony, the Djerassi Foundation,
the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. He received degrees in composition from the New
England Conservatory of Music and Princeton University and is currently Professor of Composition and
Chair of the Department of Music at the University of Pittsburgh where he also co-directs the Music on the
Edge new music series.
John Young is an electroacoustic music composer born March 4, 1962 in Christchurch, New Zealand, and
currently living in Leicester, UK. He studied at the University of Canterbury, completing a doctorate on the
manipulation of environmental sound sources in electroacoustic music. In 1989, with the assistance of the
Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand (now the Creative New Zealand), he travelled to the UK to
further his studies of electroacoustic music composition working privately in the studios of the University of
East Anglia (Norwich, UK) with Denis Smalley. He returned to New Zealand in 1990 to take up a position
at Victoria University of Wellington where he became a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Electroacoustic
Music Studios. In November 2000 he joined the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre
at De Montfort University in Leicester (UK) where is now Professor of Composition. His main interest
in composition continues to be in acousmatic music, particularly forms based on the interplay between
recognizable natural sound sources and computer-based studio transformations, but also combines
electroacoustics with instrumental media. He has a received a number of international awards, including
First Prize in the 1996 Stockholm Electronic Arts Award (Sweden) (for his work Inner), a First Prize in the
34th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Art Competition (France, 2007) (for Ricordiamo
Forlì) and Second Prize in the 4th Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo
(CIMESP ’01, Brazil) (for Liquid Sky). He has been a visiting composer at San Jose State University (CA,
USA), Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM, Paris, France),
the iM-PACT Center of the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) (MO, USA) and, with the assistance
of the Swedish Institute, at EMS (Stockholm, Sweden). He has also given invited concerts and talks at
many other places around the world, including well-known BEAST series in Birmingham (UK), at the Aimaako festival (Santiago, Chile) and Sonoimágenes (Remedios de Escalada / Buenos Aires, Argentina).
Lala Meredith-Vula was born in Sarajevo and moved to England in 1970. She attended Trent University,
Nottingham (1984-/85) and Goldsmiths College (1985–88), then the University of Priština, Kosovo, for
postgraduate studies.In 1988 she was one of the exhibitors in the seminal YBA show Freeze show,
organised by Damien Hirst. Since then she has exhibited widely internationally.From 1989 she has lectured
at various colleges in the UK, US and Kosovo. In 1995 she set up the first photography department at the
University of Tirana, Albania, and in 2000 a photography department at Priština University. A particularly
significant experience for Meredith-Vula was a series of photographs in Kosovo showing haystacks built by
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Albanian farmers. The juxtaposition of her cosmopolitan art experience with her provincial origin, asking the
question “What is art?”, provided a resolution of the two:
“Having studied art for many years and visited many galleries throughout the world I soon
found that the context of a work of art played a major part on where it is placed. For all my
research, it took my returning home to discover the real significance of my search, it was in
the fields of my former home town that I witnessed a way of life as old as the land itself where
farmers went about their business, everything had its place. Within all this, I saw that somehow
the farmers were unconsciously creating strange, sculptures that had the presence of modern
sculptural pieces. Here part of my search was over. I had found the meeting place between my
new world of art, being an artist, and my past, in the landscape of Kosova.”
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PERFORMERs
Concertmaster of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Sung is also
a faculty member at both Minnesota State University-Moorhead and North Dakota
State University. Highlights of the 2010-11 season include a regional tour with the
James Sewell Ballet of Mineapolis, an outreach residency with Escape to Create of
Seaside, Florida, and appearances at the Santader Cultural of Porto Alegre, Brazil, the
Virtuosi Festival of Recife, Brazil, and the Camerata Romeu of Havana, Cuba.
Sung is a past winner of the Starling Award competition of the Eastman School of
Music and the Violin Fellowship competition of the Montgomery Symphony, and
received the Gladys Gingold Scholarship at Indiana University. An enthusiastic
advocate of contemporary music, Sung has appeared in recital for Studio 2021 at
Seoul National University, has recorded the music of composers Steve Rouse and Marc Satterwhite for
Centaur Records, and will soon release an album of new American music for violin and piano, supported by
a Recording Grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
Sung holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Oleh Krysa, and
Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, from the studio of
Nelli Shkolnikova. In the fall of 2011, Sung will take up a new appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor
of Violin at Florida State University.
Saxophonist Philipp A Stäudlin, a native of Friedrichshafen, Germany has appeared as
a soloist with numerous orchestras and ensembles throughout Germany and Switzerland,
including the Basel Symphony, the Niederrheinische Symphoniker, and the Bielefeld
Orchestra He has performed recitals as a chamber musician in Germany, Switzerland,
Russia, Austria, Sweden, France, Italy, and the USA, as well as performing at major music
festivals in Schlesswig-Holstein, and at Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival. He was
invited to be the representative of German musical culture on a visit to South Korea and
Mongolia with Bundespresident Roman Herzog. Mr. Stäudlin has won many awards as
both a saxophone soloist and chamber musician in contemporary, experimental, and classical music As
the youngest competitor, Stäudlin won First Prize as well as the Audience Prize in the Gustav Bumcke
International Saxophone Competition. As a member of the New Art Saxophone Quartet he has received
First Prize in the Chamber Music Competition of the German Music Foundation and the Artist in Residence
newcomer’s award with German Radio, in which Jessye Norman received the main award. Graduated from
Basel Musikhochschule in 1999, Stäudlin received a Soloist Diploma with Honors, having studied
with Marcus Weiss and Iwan Roth. Philipp A. Stäudlin has been funded by a full scholarship from the
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study with Kenneth Radnofsky at Longy School of
Music, where he received the Artist Diploma in 2002. Mr. Stäudlin teaches as the applied faculty at Tufts
33
University and is the soprano saxophonist of the Radnofsky Quartet. Current CD releases with the New Art
Saxophone Quartet on the “ars musici” and “ enja” labels.
Pianist Jihye Chang was chosen as the winner of the first annual Yvar-Mikhashoff
pianist-composer commissioning project, with composer Derek Johnson. She was
a member of the New Music Ensemble for several semesters. She later appeared
with the Ensemble as a soloist for Garrett Byrnes’s Concerto for Piano and Chamber
Orchestra, which was written for her, and for the US premiere of the Double Concerto
of Unsuk Chin. She has worked closely with composers Claude Baker, David Dzubay,
John Harbison, George Perle, and Ramon Zupko, among others. She has recently
recorded music of Steve Rouse and Marc Satterwhite for the Centaur label, and has
appeared as a guest artist for the new music festivals and series at Seoul National
University, Korea, University of Louisville, and Ball State University.
Ms. Chang’s Doctoral document discussed the piano etudes of Unsuk Chin, and her lecture recital
presented selections of the piano music of Gyorgy Ligeti. These initial efforts have grown into a broader
interest in the 20th century genres of etudes and miniatures, and she has presented lectures and
recital programs of this repertoire at the Indiana University, University of Louisville, Auburn UniversityMontgomery, and Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Jihye was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center during the 2004 and 2005 seasons, where she
received the Henry Kohn Award for outstanding achievement. She has also received an Honorary
Fellowship from the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Prize of the Samick Piano Competition
in Seoul, Korea, President’s award from Seoul National University. She received her Bachelor’s degree
Summa cum laude from Seoul National University, and her Master’s and Doctoral degrees from Indiana
University, where she studied with György Sebök, Reiko Neriki and Edward Auer. Currently she is on the
faculties of Concordia College, MN, and North Dakota State University. This season she will appear as
a soloist with the Fargo Moorhead Symphony, appear at the Olivet Summer Festival in France, tour with
James Sewell Ballet and the Arsenal Trio, and present a series of concerts entitled “Fusion” presented by
the Schubert Club of Minneapolis.
Punkte is a collaborative project between Roth Michaels, percussion and John Aylward, keyboards. The
project centers around improvisation with real time audio processing. Michaels and Aylward, both veteran
improvisers, use advanced electro-acoustic techniques to treat their instruments as both controls and
source signals for real time audio processing and synthesis.
Punkte improvisations are created first through a phase of pre-composition where basic musical materials
are discovered. The gestures, motives and phrases discovered in this initial phase are then used as raw
material to dialogue with the live electronics in a second phase of experimentation. In this learning phase,
Michaels and Aylward teach the electronics the parameters in which it can respond to the raw materials
of the composition. Through a final process of refinement, the basic gestures and motives of the work
combine, sometimes unexpectedly, with the learned responses of the live electronics.
Joshua Gordon has won international acclaim from audiences, critics,
colleagues, and composers for his dramatic music making and rich
tone. Along with his work as cellist with the Lydian String Quartet since
2002, recent guest appearances include the Apple Hill Chamber Music
Center, Bargemusic, Boston Chamber Music Society, Chameleon Arts
Ensemble, Composers In Red Sneakers, Emmanuel Music, Mistral, North
Country Chamber Players, Worcester Chamber Music Society, and with the
Ying Quartet. He is featured on over twenty recordings, of works ranging
from Roger Sessions and Charles Wuorinen to Morton Feldman and Gerry
Hemingway. His New World recording with Randall Hodgkinson, “Leo
Ornstein: Complete Works For Cello and Piano,” was named one of the top
10 classical recordings of 2007 by the All Music Guide, and as a Lydian he
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can be heard on Centaur Records in the four quartets of Vincent Persichetti and on a new release of John
Harbisonʼs Third and Fourth Quartets. In the Boston area he is heard regularly at Jordan Hall as principal
cellist of the New England String Orchestra (formerly Ensemble) and as resident cellist for the Composers
Conference at Wellesley College held every summer. Gordon has played recitals in New York City’s
Merkin Hall, Weill Hall, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as at Brandeis University, the University
of California at San Diego and the University of Maryland at College Park. He is on the music faculty of
Brandeis University and has his own website at www.joshuagordoncello.com. Equally active as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, and jazz
performer, Geoffrey Burleson, pianist, has performed to wide acclaim
throughout Europe and North America. The New York Times has hailed Mr.
Burleson’s solo performances as “vibrant and compelling,” praising his “rhythmic
brio, projection of rhapsodic qualities, appropriate sense of spontaneity, and rich
colorings.” In 2010, Naxos released Mr. Burleson’s latest solo recording, Roy
Harris: Complete Piano Music. Other recent recordings by Burleson include
Vincent Persichetti: Complete Piano Sonatas (New World Records), which was
accorded high acclaim from Gramophone and the BBC Music Magazine (“BBC
Music Choice”; 5/5 stars), and Odd Couple (Oxingale), a duo CD of American
works with cellist Matt Haimovitz. Mr. Burleson’s latest recording project is
Camille Saint-Saëns: Complete Piano Music, which will be released on 4 CDs
by Naxos. Mr. Burleson is a core member of Boston Musica Viva, the New York Art Ensemble, David
Sanford’s Pittsburgh Collective and Princeton University’s Richardson Chamber Players. He holds degrees
from the Peabody and New England Conservatories, and Stony Brook University, where he studied with
Gilbert Kalish. He teaches piano at Princeton University, and is Associate Professor of Music and Director
of Piano Studies at Hunter College-City University of New York.
Shanna Gutierrez appears throughout the US and abroad as a soloist,
clinician, and a core member of Ensemble Dal Niente, with whom she was
awarded a Kranischsteiner Stipend prize at the 2010 Darmstadt Summer
Courses. She has been involved with the commissioning and premiere
performances of dozens of works, including the US premiere of Michel van
der Aa’s ‘Rekindle’ in October 2010. Her collaborations have included work
with Kaija Saariaho, Mark André, Hans Thomalla, and Kyong Mee Choi,
among others. She regularly presents workshops as a guest lecturer on
contemporary flute music and techniques, as well as lecture recitals on the relationship between language
and movement in music. In addition she presents recitals that integrate multimedia elements, movement,
and lighting into a seamless production. She is also a former fellow of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble
at the Aspen Music Festival. She has studied contemporary music with Matthias Ziegler, Camilla Hoitenga,
Eva Furrer, Kathinka Pasveer, and Philippe Racine, and received degrees from Northwestern University
and the University of Michigan. Shanna plays a Burkart flute and piccolo. For more information: www.
shannagutierrez.com.
Nicholas Isherwood is US-born bass singer, who specialises in contemporary and baroque music.
Notable roles include “”Lucifer”” in the world premieres of Stockhausen’s Montag, Dienstag, and Freitag
from Licht at La Scala and the Leipzig Opera and in Donnerstag aus Licht at Covent Garden.
Isherwood has worked with Joel Cohen, William Christie, Peter Eötvös, Paul McCreesh, Nicholas
McGegan, Kent Nagano, Zubin Mehta and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky as well as composers Sylvano
Bussotti, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Hans Werner Henze, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Olivier
Messiaen, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis in venues such as La Scala, Covent
Garden, the Théatre des Champs Elysées, Salzburg Festival, Concertgebouw, Berlin Staatsoper, Vienna
Konzerthaus, Tanglewood).
His operatic roles include: “”Antinoo”” in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria with Boston Baroque;
35
“”Claudio”” in Händel’s Agrippina with Nicholas McGegan; “”Satiro”” in Rossi’s Orfeo and “”Pan”” in Marais’
Alcione with Les Arts Florissants; “”Joas”” in Porpora’s Il Gedeone with Martin Haselböck; “”Frère Léon””
in Saint François d’Assise in the last composer supervised production; “”Der Tod”” in the two productions
of Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart and 2e2m, “”Roméo””
in Dusapin’s Roméo et Juliette at the Avignon Festival; “”Lear”” in Hosokawa’s Vision of Lear for the
Munich Biennale; “”Il Testimone”” in Bussotti’s Tieste at the Rome Opera, and “”Micromégas”” Mefano’s
Micromégas. Recent performances include works by Sylvano Bussotti at the Stockholm New Music
Festival in 2008.[1]
In addition to singing, Isherwood has had an extremely active pedagogical career. He has been engaged
as professor (or assistant professor) of vocal music and/or music theater (opera) at institutions in France,
Germany, and the United States, including the IRCAM Summer Academy, Stockhausen-Kurse (Kürten,
Germany), State University of New York, Conservatoire de Montbéliard, University of Notre Dame, Ecole
Normale de Musique (Paris), California Institute of the Arts, and the University of Oregon (starting in Fall,
2008[2]).
He has presented masterclasses, workshops, and lectures at the Salzburg Mozarteum; Iannis Xenakis
Summer Courses (Paris); Conservatoire de Reims; Paris Conservatoire (CNSMP), California State
University, Los Angeles; Stanford University; University of California, Santa Barbara; University of
Washington; San Francisco State University; California Institute of the Arts; ARIAM (Paris); Conservatorio
Giuseppe Verdi (Milano); Institute of the Living Voice (Berlin); Troyes Conservatoire; Mexico City University;
Normal University of Taiwan; and at CCMIX (Paris).
Elizabeth England is an active freelance musician and oboe instructor in the New England
area and can be seen performing in varied settings, including orchestras, contemporary
ensembles, and chamber music. She has performed with many Boston based ensembles
including the Boston Lyric Opera and Boston Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, she
has performed throughout New England and has appeared as a guest artist at the Virginia
Arts Festival. Ms. England is also on faculty at the Community Music Center of Boston and
with Wellesley Public Schools. She holds a bachelor’s degree in oboe performance from
the New England Conservatory.
Bill Solomon is a Hartford, CT-based percussionist specializing in solo and
chamber contemporary classical music performance, mentioned as “a stand out
among unfailingly excellent performances” in the Boston Globe. Mr. Solomon
performed the solo vibraphone part for Pierre Boulez’s Répons in collaboration with
the Lucerne Festival, IRCAM and Ensemble InterContemporain with Mr. Boulez as
conductor in 2009. He is assistant project manager and percussionist of Ensemble
Signal, having performed at Miller Theatre, June in Buffalo, EMPAC, Eastman
School of Music and (Le) Poisson Rouge. Recordings of Helmut Lachenmann’s
Zwei Gefühle and Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians will be released in the
near future, as well as performances at Tanglewood, the Society for Ethical Culture
and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Recent projects have included compositions and performances with Hartfordbased Full Force Dance Theater; a long-running collaboration with composer Matt Sargent, including
performances throughout the east coast of his concert-length solo Ghost Music and a sound installation at
Yale-Haskins Labs Gallery; and as co-curator of the Hartford New Music Festival at The Studio at Billing’s
Forge. He is currently on the board of directors for the Studio of Electronic Music, Inc. where he has
presented major works by Stockhausen and MC Maguire. He also co-directs the Hartford Sound Alliance,
an organization dedicated to the presentation and creation of new music in Hartford. Other performance
and festival highlights include: Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival (ME), Tune In Festival (NYC),
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Percussive Arts Society International Conference (TX, IN), Bang on
a Can Marathon, HOT!Fest NYC, Pixelerations (RI), Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Miami String Quartet,
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Yale Repertory Theatre, Brattleboro Music Center (VT), EXILKABARETT (NYC), Luduvico Ensemble
(MA) and Island Chamber Musicians (CT). Current and forthcoming recordings can be heard on Mode,
EUROArts, Cantaloupe, Naxos, Capstone, Tzigane and Equilibrium labels. Bill currently teaches at The
Loomis Chaffee School and is a doctoral candidate at The Hartt School where he studies with Benjamin
Toth.
Pianist Roberto Durante (from L’arsenale) graduated summa cum laude in 2007 at the Venice
“Conservatory B. Marcello” under the guidance of Massimo Somenzi. He then moved to Firenze where he
studied with Pier Narciso Masi at the “Music Accademy of Florence”, and then to Graz for post-graduate
studies at the Kunst Uinersity Graz with “Klangforum Wien”. During these years he also studied with Aldo
Ciccolini, Riccardo Risaliti, Gustavo Romero and Lya de Barberiis.
He has performed as soloist and chamber musician all over Italy, Europe and USA in several important
theaters and auditoriums. He collaborated with composers, conductors and performers such as Mario
Caroli (Treviso 2009 and 2010), György Kurtág, Zoltan Peskó (53° Venice Biennale), Neue Vocalsolisten
Stuttgart, K. Putninsh (54° Venice Biennale), Marco Angius. He performed several premieres of piano solo
and ensemble pieces (C.Roy, F.Perocco, L.Tomio, A.Lunsqui, M.Rataj, F.Costanza, D.Sibilla, M.Lanza,
C.Ciardi). His activities encompass a wide stylistic range, from contemporary music (notated) to improvised
music, playing in several jazz formations and projects involving extemporaneous composition.
He has been a member of ensemble L’arsenale since 2007.
“Things done right..” (Boston Globe), “…Excellent left hand..” (Toronto Star), “…lovely
tonal bloom…” (LeDROIT), and “..heartbreaking..” (Worcester Telegram & Gazette) are
words that describe the performances of violinist Krista Buckland Reisner. An artist
of great diversity, she has toured across her native Canada as a recitalist, performed
concertos in cities ranging from New York City to St. John’s, Newfoundland, toured
internationally throughout Europe, Russia, and New Zealand, and has created multimedia works for herself involving dance and movement. Ms. Reisner’s love of working
with singers led her to be Principal Second Violin of the Canadian Opera Company
Orchestra for five years, perform Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” with the Arizona Opera, hold a
position with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and act as Concertmaster of Opera Boston.
Viewing early music akin to new music, which she approaches as boundless musical maps not mired in
tradition, she has sought out period instrument work with Canada’s Aradia, was formerly the music librarian
and a period violinist for Boston Baroque, is a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society period
orchestra and recently began playing with Arcadia Players. Her involvement in new music includes winning
the Eckhardt Gramatté Competition for New Music, serving as Principal Second Violin of Boston Modern
Orchestra Project, premiering concertos written for her by Canadian composers and developing countless
collaborative relationships with living U.S. composers like Charles Dodge, Yehudi Wyner, Theodore
Antoniou, John MacDonald, Paul Moravec, Joseph Summer, Peter Child, Charles Shadle, Matthew
Malsky, Mark Berger, and John Alyward, and their students at institutions like Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Clark University, Boston University, Tufts University, and Boston Conservatory of Music. As
a chamber musician, Ms. Reisner is first violinist of the string quartet QX, which is in residence at Clark
University in Worcester and has run the Thayer Chamber Music Festival in Lancaster, MA, for the past four
years. She is also lead violinist of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Alea III, a frequent player
with Boston Musica Viva, and performs annually as part of the Shakespeare concerts, held in Jordan Hall,
which mixes chamber musicians and vocalists with music both freshly written and classic, synergizing
many of her passions. She can be heard on many recording labels including Naxos, Albany, Filharmonika,
BMOPsound, Telarc and CBC.
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Jeffrey Means has been hailed as a musician demonstrating “outstanding gifts
and accomplishments” by the Boston Globe, and as an “intrepid conductor,
his sure hand seemingly unfazed” by Bruce Hodges for Seen and Heard
International. His career encapsulates a passion for a wide-ranging repertoire
spanning the pre-Baroque to today’s most progressive music.
Means is an established presence in Boston’s New Music Community. He
regularly leads many of Boston’s new music ensembles including the Xanthos
Ensemble, Firebird Ensemble, the Ludovico Ensemble, and the Callithumpian
Consort. He also guest conducts New-York based ensembles, including the East
Coast Composers Ensemble, and the Mimesis Ensemble. Early in the ‘08/’09
season, Means led the opening concert of the Ditson Festival of New Music,
a four-day festival showcasing Boston’s premiere new music ensembles. In
2009, Means was one of two conductors selected to study with Pierre Boulez in
Lucerne, Switzerland. This season, Means led the opening concert of Boston’s
“Celebrating Boulez” festival; the program included the composer’s seminal
Marteau sans Maitre. Later this year, Means will lead the first three works of Gerard Grisey’s Les Espaces
Acoustique with Sound Icon, a sinfonietta ensemble for which he is artistic director.
Jeffrey has served as assistant or guest conductor for numerous ensembles in the New England area.
This past season, Means prepared the chorus for performances of Tosca with the Raylynmor Opera
of New Hampshire. Recently, Means was also invited to guest conduct the Boston Civic Symphony.
Additional performances include concerts with the Parkway Concert Orchestra of Norwood, MA, and
with many ensembles of New England Conservatory. Means continues to guest conduct at New England
Conservatory, frequently leading the Jordan Winds and the Percussion Ensemble.
An accomplished instrumentalist, Means continues to pursue a parallel career as a percussionist. He has
performed on New England Conservatory’s First Monday series - a chamber music series for distinguished
faculty and alumni. This past season, Means played a central role in Boston’s Steve Reich festival,
serving as ensemble director for the composer’s seminal Drumming. Jeffrey also frequently performs
with pianist Stephen Drury, most recently in performances of Stockhausen’s Kontakte. In recent years,
Means performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Philharmonic, the Atlantic
Symphony, the Harvard Group for New Music, the Back Bay Chorale, and many others.
In addition to the Lucerne Festival Academy, Means has taken part in numerous festivals, including
the Casals Festival (Puerto Rico), the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Institute for Contemporary
Performance in Manhattan. He holds a BM in percussion from New England Conservatory with distinction
in performance, and a MM in conducting from the same institution with honors. At NEC, Means was
awarded the 2005 John Cage Award, the 2006 Tourjee Alumni Award, and the 2008 Gunther Schuller
Medal. He has recorded for Mode, Albany, New World, and Navona records.
Called “enchanting” by the Boston Globe, flutist Sarah Brady is sought after
across the country as a soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher. An avid
promoter of new music she has premiered and recorded new music from many
of today’s top composers. Recent projects have included premieres of new
solo flute and electronic music from Elena Ruehr, Andy Vores and John Mallia
as well as music for flute and strings from Marcos Balter and Johnathan Bailey
Holland. Her solo, chamber and orchestral recordings can be heard on the
Albany, Naxos, Oxingale and Cantalope music labels. As a leading interpreter
of contemporary music, she was invited to read and record new music
commissioned by Yo Yo Ma for his Silk Road Project at Tanglewood.
Sarah lives in Boston and performs regularly as principal flute with the Boston
Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Boston. She can also be heard with
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performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, Portland Symphony
Orchestra and the Albany Symphony. As a chamber musician she has been described as “clairvoyantly
sensitive” (New Music Connoisseur), and has collaborated with the Fromm Players at Harvard, the
Firebird Ensemble, the Radius Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva and NotaRiotous. She is a member of
the Michigan based new music ensemble Brave New Works a group that is dedicated to promoting new
music throughout the US and Canada by premiering new music and educating young composers through
a college residency program. The ensemble has been in residence at Cornell, Bowling Green University,
the University of Michigan, Tufts University, University of Puget Sound, Williams, Western Washington
University and the Boston Conservatory.
Georgia native Gabriela Diaz began her musical training at the age
of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her
father. Gabriela came to Boston to study at New England Conservatory,
where she completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. As a cancer
survivor, Gabriela is committed to cancer research and treatment. In 2004
Gabriela was a recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation.
This grant enabled Gabriela to begin organizing a series of chamber
music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston called the
Boston Hope Ensemble. Devoted to contemporary music, Gabriela has
been fortunate to work closely with many significant living composers
on their own compositions, namely Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg,
Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Osvaldo Golijov, Steve Reich,
Brian Ferneyhough, Lee Hyla, Hans Tutschku, and Helmut Lachenmann. In the summer of 2007 Gabriela
acted as Concertmistress under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Highlights of the 2010-11 season include Boulez’s Anthemes 2 at The Boston Conservatory’s Boulez
Festival, performances of the complete Beethoven sonatas with pianist Lois Shapiro, recitals of music
for solo violin written after 1945 with performances in Boston, Worcester, Georgia, and Pennsylvania,
and performances of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Chile.
“…Re’ut Ben-Ze’ev… offered a bold, committed account…so deeply physical was her
performance…” writes the New York Times. The Israeli-American mezzo soprano has won critical
acclaim for her “intense expression and pure voice” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), “impassioned”
(The New York Times) interpretations and “emotionally and vocally masterful performance” (New
Music Connoisseur.) She has performed standard operatic and concert repertoire as well as cuttingedge collaborations and appeared throughout Canada, Europe, Israel, and the United States in
venues such as Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival, USA, Jerusalem Music Centre, Lucille Lortel
Theater, The American Academy in Berlin, the Israel Vocal Arts Institute, the Tel-Aviv Museum of
Art, on WQXR NY Classical station, and on Kol Hamusika. Ben-Ze’ev collaborated with composers
such as Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Del Tredici and Samuel Adler Matthew Greenbaum
and Dalit Hadass Warshaw, among many others. Accompanied by Pulitzer Prize winning composer
Yehudi Wyner, and composer John Musto, she recorded multiple CDs for the Milken Archive of Jewish
American Music on the Naxos Label. She also recorded for Albany Records, Furious Artisans and the
YIVO Label. As a concerts soloist, she sang repertoire from Hayden’s ARIANNA A NAXOS to Britten’s
PHAEDRA and Adler’s NUPTIAL SCENE with St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra (David Randolph,
Conductor), the Arcos Chamber Orchestra, The Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Jewish
Festival Orchestra (Lucas Richman, conductor) Heidelberg Symphony, Germany, ProArte Symphony,
CA, Israeli Defense Forces Orchestra among others. She collaborated with various ensembles as
the Israel Contemporary Players, Cygnus Ensemble, and the LINK ensemble among others. BenZe’ev performed with artists as clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein, members of the Israel and the Berlin
Philharmonic, actor Theodore Bickel and choreographer Yasmeen Godder (nominated for the Bessie
Award for her performance.) Ms. Ben-Ze’ev was also a finalist in the Kurt Weill Competition. BenZe’ev’s operatic roles include Anna (DIE SIEBEN TODSÜNDEN/Weill), Donna Elvira in Mozart’s DON
GIOVANNI (California Music Festival), Charlotte (WERTHER), Paride in PARDIE ED ELENA/Gluck
(California Music Festival), and Octavian (DER ROSENKAVALIER) among others. She studied theater
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in Israel at the Thelma Yelin High school of Performing Arts, where she also toured as the vocal soloist
of its Big Band. She continues her vocal studies with David Jones and coach/conductor William Hicks
and pursues “Method” acting studies with Terese Hayden-a protégé of Lee Strasberg.
Michael Norsworthy’s virtuosity, versatility and musicianship has garnered critical acclaim around the
globe. As soloist with numerous orchestras around the USA and abroad, as a captivating recitalist and
chamber music performer and as one of the most celebrated champions of the modern repertoire having
premiered over 100 new works at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Moscow’s
Tchaikovsky Hall, The Casals Festival and the Aspen Festival, Norsworthy has defied categorization,
dazzling critics and audiences alike. He has recorded for Mode, Gasparo, Albany, New World, BMOP/
sound, Nonesuch, Canteloupe and Cauchemar records and recently premiered concerti by Michael
Finnissy, Pozzi Escot and Noel Zahler. He is principal clarinet with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project,
Professor at The Boston Conservatory and a performing artist for Buffet Crampon and Rico Reeds
International. For more info, please visit www.michaelnorsworthy.com.
Flutist Christoph Bösch’s activities as a performer and teacher have taken him
throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America. In addition to
his devotion to conventional fields, he is very interested in contemporary music. He
is the solo flutist of the dynamic 15-member Ensemble Phoenix Basel (conductor:
Jürg Henneberger), which he co-founded in 1998. The ensemble claims a
great part of his time with its numerous projects, and regularly involves him, as
interpreter and new-music specialist, with many of today’s leading composers,
including Harrison Birtwistle, Maurizio Kagel, Pierre Boulez, Beat Furrer, and Franz
Furrer-Münch. In addition to performing a full season of concerts each year in both
Basel and Bern, the ensemble makes frequent tours to such countries as Italy,
France, Japan, China, Mexico, Argentina, Estonia, and Rumania. Bösch enjoys the
challenges of the full range of the ensemble’s projects – from large-scale musictheater productions to solo work on everything from piccolo to bass flute, and
occasional performances on exotic wind instruments. He is especially delighted to play on his rare wooden
flute made by Louis Lot in 1860.
Bösch is much in demand as a chamber musician and soloist – in duo B&B with percussionist Daniel
Buess; with the Swiss Australian Collectables, a group involving flute, percussion and electronics.
His recordings include a CD of works by Franz Furrer-Münch; numerous recordings - also with “Ensemble
Phoenix Basel” - are available at United Phoenix Records www.unitedphoenixrecords.com.
He has given masterclasses and workshops in New York City; Tokyo; Beijing; Recife, Brazil; Melbourne,
Australia; and Ulan Bator, Mongolia, where he launched a new pedagogical aid-project to nurture budding
professional musicians, with the financial support of DEZA (Schweizer Direktion für Entwicklung und
Zusammenarbeit).
Christoph Bösch was born in Tübingen, Germany in 1969 and is half Austrian, half Swiss. He grew up in
Switzerland and studied at the Basel Musikakademie with Felix Manz . He received teaching, orchestral,
and concert diplomas in 1993-95. Instruction from Aurèle Nicolet and masterclasses with William Bennett
and Robert Winn complemented his training. www.myspace.com/christophboesch and www.ensemblephoenix.ch
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Talea Ensemble After celebrating the 85th
birthday of Pierre Boulez with an all-Boulez
program at New York’s Miller Theatre- with the
composer in attendance- The New York Times
wrote, “The Talea musicians moved through
Mr. Boulez’s music with astonishing fluidity and
warmth.” The Talea Ensemble has given many
important world and US premieres of new works
by composers including Pierre Boulez, Tristan
Murail, Jason Eckardt, Pierluigi Billone, JeanLuc Hervé, Stefano Gervasoni, Marco Stroppa,
and Fausto Romitelli. The Talea Ensemble was
the guest ensemble for the 18-day Spectrum XXI
Festival tour in Paris and London and has twice
been invited as guest ensemble to the Nevada
Encounters of New Music (NEON) as well as La Ciudad de las Ideas (Mexico), Art Summit Indonesia
(Jakarta), and the International Contemporary Music Festival of Lima, Peru. Assuming an ongoing role
in supporting and collaborating with student composers, the Talea Ensemble has served as ensemble in
residence at Harvard University, Columbia University and New York University. The Talea Ensemble has
recorded works on the Living Artists Label and Gravina Musica. Recently commissioned composers for
upcoming seasons include James Dillon, John Zorn, Pierluigi Billone, Eric Chasalow, Victor Adan, and
Georges Aperghis. For more information, please visit www.taleaensemble.org
The Swiss conductor Jürg Henneberger was born in Lucerne in 1957. He studied at the
Basel Music Academy with Jürg Wyttenbach and then at the Hamburg Academy of Music
and Performing Arts with Klauspeter Seibel and Christoph von Dohnànyi. Since 1987
he worked at Theater Basel, where he has regularly appeared as a guest conductor
and which has provided the setting for his most important music theatre productions to
date: “Aus Deutschland” by Mauricio Kagel and “Satyricon” by Bruno Maderna, both
directed by Herbert Wernicke and performed in Venice at the invitation of Teatro La
Fenice, as well as Christoph Marthaler’s “The Unanswered Question”, which was also
invited to the German-speaking theatre festival Theatertreffen Berlin in 1998, and “20th
Century Blues”, as well as the first Swiss production of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s
“Die Soldaten”. Since 1989 Jürg Henneberger has been Lecturer for Chamber Music and Interpretation
of Contemporary Music at the Basel Music Academy and was elected President of the International
Society for Contemporary Music (IGNM) in 1998. In 1998 he founded the Ensemble PHŒNIX Basel, one
of the most important ensembles for Contemporary Music in Switzerland. Since 2009 he is Professor
and (together with Mike Svoboda and Marcus Weiss) Artistic Director of the Program „Master of Arts in
Specialized Musical Performance Contemporary Music“ at the University of Music Basel.
“The American clarinetist Jean Kopperud was absolutely smashing” (New
York Post). Reviewers have called Kopperud “superhuman,” “magnificent,”
“unforgettably visual,” “staggering,” “sensational,” “dazzling,” “wonderful,”
“the total clarinetist” and the list goes on. But possibly Allan Kozinn of the
New York Times says it best. “It began brilliantly, with an overdriven, virtuosic
clarinet line that Jean Kopperud played with the power, texture and coloration
that have become her trademark… Ms. Kopperud has the technique and
imagination to make nearly anything sound interesting.”
A graduate of The Juilliard School and former student of Nadia Boulanger
in France, Kopperud has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan,
China, the Caribbean and Australia as concert soloist and chamber musician.
Presently she is performing with The New York New Music Ensemble,
Omega, Ensemble 21, Washington Square Chamber Players and University
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at Buffalo’s Sinfonietta. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Bridge Records, CRI, Albany
Records, Mode, G M Recording, Koch, Musical Heritage, New World Records and Centaur Records.
Kopperud is also a performer on the cutting edge of the Music-Theater genre. National acclaim for her
presentations of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “”Harlekin,”” the demanding performance work for dancing
clarinetist, resulted in her Avery Fisher Hall debut presented by the New York Philharmonic. Each holiday
season, she takes part in the Twelfth Night Festival in Westerly, Rhode Island, where she is seen starring in
unusual performance art roles. Working with Broadway director, Tom O’Horgan, Jean Kopperud developed
“”CloudWalking”” a music-theater work that previewed at ClarFest in 1988 and toured for three years.
“”Cloud Walking”” is a reference to Kopperud’s passion for skydiving. She found a way to include even
that in her show, which amused and amazed audiences with her very special combination of musical and
athletic abilities.
Ms. Kopperud is a tenured Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo. (Formerly on the New York
University and Columbia faculties and 18 years with Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program.) She also
teaches a class called “”On the Edge” in the Evening Division at the Juilliard School. “”On the Edge”” is a
course to practice performing that is also done in workshop around the country.
“Extreme Measures” is the first project in the Rated X series and was released in a two CD set in August
of 2010 by Albany Records. It is seven clarinet and piano works written for Kopperud asking composers to
dare to stretch the medium. The Winnipeg Free Press reviewed a past project that Kopperud toured, which
might best describe Rated X. “You can expect to have your head bent a little. ou will stay awake. You will
be fascinated and infuriated . . . and exhilarated by what you have heard.” Rated X (“Extreme Measures”)
premiered in the fall of 2008 on the West coast and was recorded in the spring of 2009. Rated X II is six
commissions for clarinet and percussion and premieres in the fall of 2010.
Percussionist Tom Kolor specializes in 20th and 21st century music, and is
one of New York City’s most in demand chamber musicians. Currently an
Assistant Professor at University at Buffalo, Mr. Kolor directs the Percussion
Ensemble, teaches private lessons, and is Principal Percussionist with UB’s
Slee Sinfonietta.
Professor Kolor appears throughout the United States and Europe as
a member of Talujon Percussion, Manhattan Sinfonietta, Ensemble 21,
Sospeso, American Modern Ensemble and Newband. In addition, he is a
frequent guest of such ensembles as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center, New York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, Continuum,
Da Capo Chamber Players, Group for Contemporary Music, and Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra.
As a soloist, Professor Kolor has given dozens of premieres by such
composers as Milton Babbitt, John Zorn, Wayne Peterson, Tania Leon, and
Jerome Kitzke. He has recorded for Bridge, New World, Albany, Capstone, Innova, Wergo, Naxos, CRI,
Koch, Tzadik, North/South Consonance, and Deutsche Grammophon labels.
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