2006-10-11 New Music [recital programs]

              UNCG New Music Festival
Shake it Up!
Featuring composers of the Carolinas
October 11-14, 2006
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
School of Music
The Shake it Up! Festival was made possible in part by Eddie C. and Joan Kirby Bass
Wenesday, October 11
UNCG Convocation
James Paul Sain, University of Florida -
“The XYZ’s of Computer Music Improvisation with Game Controllers.”
4:00 pm, UNCG School of Music, Recital Hall.
Thursday, October 12
Open Rehearsal
John Fitz Rogers - “Once Removed”
2:00 pm, Weatherspoon Art Gallery
UNCG Composition, History, and Theory Lecture Series
Reginald Bain, University of South Carolina -
“Strange Attractors & Logarithmic Spirals.”
4:00 pm, UNCG School of Music, Collins Lecture Hall.
Masterclass
John Fitz Rogers, University of South Carolina
11:00 am, UNCG School of Music, room 226
Concert I - Weatherspoon Art Gallery
6:00 pm, John Fitz Rogers - Pre- Concert Talk: “Once Removed.”
6:30 pm, Concert Free Admission
Program
Nightreach (1998-1999) Ben Johnston
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
Strange Attractors & Logarithmic Spirals (2001) Reginald Bain
Computer generated composition
Slammed (2006) James Paul Sain
Susan Fancher, saxophone
James Paul Sain, joystick computer performer
Once Removed (2003) John Fitz Rogers
Scott Herring and Michael Haldeman, marimba
7:30 pm, Reception - Museum is open for visitors.
Friday, October 13
Lecture
Stephen Anderson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -
presenting his compositions.
2:00 pm, UNCG School of Music, Room 224
Lecture
Allen Anderson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -
presenting his compositions.
4:00 pm, UNCG School of Music, Room 226
Concert II - UNCG School of Music, Recital Hall
7:30 pm, Concert $10 admission / $6 seniors / $4 students / $3 UNCG students
Program
Deviations (2003) Stephen Anderson
Wayne Reich, violin
Computer generated sounds
SaxMax (2006) Mark Engebretson
Susan Fancher, saxophone
Mark Engebretson, computer performer
A Function of Memory (2001) Edward Jacobs
Christopher Grymes, clarinet
electronic media
Intermission
If you came this way… (2004) Michael Rothkopf
8-channel electronic media
All These Are Scenes of Life In and Around Allen Anderson
the Rectangle With An Opportunity For Mischief
I. Prelude: These Are Scenes of Life
II. In and Around the Rectangle (after a (misremembered) measure of PMD)
III. Opportunity for Mischief
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
Saturday, Oct. 14
Lecture
Michael Rothkopf, North Carolina School of the Arts -
“Composing with Technology.”
4:00 pm, UNCG School of Music, Room 131 (Electronic Music Studio)
Concert III - UNCG School of Music, Recital Hall
7:00 pm, Scott Lindroth, Duke University - Pre-Concert Talk: “Stomp.”
7:30 pm, Concert $10 admission / $6 seniors / $4 students / $3 UNCG students
Program
Alone John Allemeier
Noah Hock, viola
Appendage (1993) Lawrence Dillon
I. Appendage
II. Tes yeux
III. Warm Eyes
IV. Appendage
V. Recognition
VI. Last lillabye
(movements performed attacca)
UNCG Contemporary Chamber Players
Adam Josephson, director
Wendi Washington-Hunt, soprano
Intermission
it’s you and me and the tuba Adam Josephson
world premiere
Brent Harvey, tuba
electronic media
Stomp (1998) Scott Lindroth
UNCG Chamber Winds
Kevin Geraldi, director
Divertimento for Brass and Percussion (1995) Karel Husa
I. Overture
II. Scherzo
III. Song
IV. Slovak Dance
UNCG Chamber Winds
Kevin Geraldi, director
Composers and Notes
John Allemeier received his Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Iowa, his Master of
Music in Composition from Northwestern University and his Bachelor of Music in Performance
from Augustana College. Allemeier has studied in Europe at the 41st and 42nd Internationalen
Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany and the 6th International Composition Course
in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. His music has been programmed on such international
venues as Russia-America: Music of the XXI Century - Moscow Conservatory, the Seoul
International Computer Music Festival and the 7th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music, on
national conferences of the Society of Composers and the Society for Electro Acoustic Music in
the United States, and at regional conferences of the College Music Society and the Society of
Composers. In the summer of 2005, John presented a concert of his works at the Curmbox
Projektraum fur Electronische und Neue Musik in Frankfurt, Germany. Allemeier’s music is
published by Carl Fischer Music Publishers, C. Alan Publications, M. Baker Publications and
European American Music. He currently teaches composition and music theory at the University
of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Alone is a cadenza without a concerto. The dramatic character of a composition for
solo instrument is similar to that of a cadenza; both are dependent on the potential of a single
performer. The soloist is responsible for sustaining the intensity and drama of the composition.
The music is then an expression of the performer as well as the composer. This idea lead to the
formation of gestures that the performer could shape into unique expressions. These gestures
were inspired by the viola itself.
The pitch material of Alone is both modal and chromatic. The opening section is slow
and lyrical and uses double stops to create counterpoint to the modal melody. The second
section begins with pizzacati but then changes to a chromatic sequence with an irregular metric
pattern. The section ends with a series of dramatic scale passages interrupted by double stops.
This is the true cadenza.
Alone was composed for a performance at the Moscow Conservatory on October 30,
2001.
Allen Anderson received a Bachelor of Music from the University of California at Berkeley, a
Masters of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Theory and Composition from Brandeis University. A
composer and Head of the Composition Area at UNC-Chapel Hill, he teaches composition,
counterpoint and 20th Century music to undergraduates, along with theory and analysis courses at
both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Mr. Anderson joined the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1996. Before that he taught at
Columbia University, Wellesley College and Brandeis University. He received the Philip and Ruth
Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty at UNC in 1999 and is a
Fellow of the Institute for Arts and Humanities.
Mr. Anderson has composed works for Speculum Musicae, the Empyrean Ensemble,
the UNC Chamber Singers, Aleck Karis and Daniel Stepner among others. His work has been
acknowledged with awards or commissions from the Guggenheim, Fromm and Koussevitsky
foundations, Chamber Music America, BMI and League of Composers/ISCM (both the National
and Boston chapters). His music is published by C. F. Peters, Margun Music and APNM, and is
available on recordings from the CRI label.
All These Things are Scenes of Life In and Around the Rectangle with an
Opportunity for Mischief, was commissioned by Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia – Alpha Rho at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Though the work was not performed by the UNC
undergraduate quartet in mind for the commission, two of its members, William Elder and Brian
Jao, performed it many times with their Michigan State graduate school group, the Rasa Quartet.
Steve Stusek of the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet performing tonight was a member of the pickup
quartet that gave the first few performances of the piece.
The first ideas for the quartet came while watching choreographer and dancer Bill T.
Jones perform to the slow movement of Beethoven’s Op. 135 string quartet at the American
Dance Festival in Durham. His only prop was a rectangle of light on the stage. In each of the
movements of my quartet, the interaction of the four saxophones – the rectangle – ranges
between some form of tight rhythmic agreement and contrapuntal independence, often in the form
of unsynchronized ostinati. The first movement stands as a prelude, constantly returning to its
original harmony while it looks for routes of escape. The middle movement begins with an
inexact (because misremembered) quotation in the soprano and alto saxophones of notes from
the vocal duet in the first bar of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Leopardi Fragments. The third movement,
as long as the first two movements combined, addresses alignment, focus and cooperation as
elements of character and form.
Stephen Anderson is both a composer and a pianist. Anderson earned a Doctorate of Musical
Arts (2005), and a Master’s of Music (2000) in composition at the University of North Texas, and
a Bachelor of Music degree in composition at Brigham University in 1997. He studied
composition with Cindy McTee, Joseph Klein, Tom Clark, Joseph Butch Rovan, Phil Winsor, and
Paris Rutherford at UNT, and Stephen Jones, David Sargent, Michael Hicks, and Murray Boren at
BYU. He studied jazz piano with Dan Haerle and Stephan Karlson at UNT, Dan Waldis at BYU,
Gary Freeman at Eastfield College, and Wilson Brown at Ricks College.
As a composer, his works have been commissioned and/or performed by a variety of artists and
ensembles: The West Point Military Band, Christopher Deane, Brian Bowman, Lynn Seaton and
the Dallas Chamber Symphony, the Crested Butte Chamber Orchestra, the One O’ Clock Lab
Band, Two O’clock Lab band, the Lynn Seaton Trio, Rone Sparrow, and a film score broadcast
nationally on PBS.
Anderson was keyboardist for a short time with (country-western) gold-recording artist,
Kevin Sharp (1996-1997). From 2003 to 2005, he served as Assistant Professor of Jazz Piano at
Western Illinois University and performed in the faculty jazz sextet. Currently, he teaches
composition and jazz studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. Awards and recognition include: a Barlow
Foundation commission to compose a percussion concerto for Rone Sparrow and the West Point
Military Band, Enclosures – Honorable Mention in the International Society of Basses composition
competition, winner of Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival piano competition, and first runner up of all
instrumentalists and notices in Downbeat magazine.
Deviations, for violin and MAX/MSP is a composition that merges acoustic
performance with live-interactive electronics. In order to perform the piece, the violinist plays into
a microphone that sends audio signals to a previously constructed MAX/MSP computer patch.
The patch is controlled by another "performer" who sits at the computer and follows along with the
score.
The premise of the central portion of the piece is to exploit timbre as the primary
compositional feature, in lieu of traditional melodic and harmonic development. Sound
and timbral color, therefore, take precedence over pitch and rhythm. That stated, another
facet of the music is to “juxtapose the seemingly incongruent” (in the words of George
Crumb), as various gestures are performed in alternation with, or are superimposed in
direct contrast with the diatonic introductory material performed by the violin.
The music is scored in proportional notation and the time-scale is loosely calibrated in
elapsed time, allowing the performer to improvise the duration of each gesture according
to the horizontal layout on the page.
A composer and theorist with a specialty in computer music, Reginald Bain (b. 1963) holds
degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Notre Dame where he studied
mathematics, computer science and music. In Chicago, he studied with Gary Greenberg, Gary
Kendall, M. William Karlins and Alan Stout. In 1986, he was awarded a Salter Fellowship in
Composition to study at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where his teachers
included Robert Linn, David Raksin, and Leonard Stein. He is currently Professor of Composition
and Theory, Composition Program Coordinator, and Director of the Experimental Music Studio
(xMUSE) at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.
Dr. Bain has written extensively for the theatre, composing original songs and incidental music for
plays by Brecht, Havoc, Molière, O’Casey, Sophocles and several works by Shakespeare. His
electroacoustic works employ a wide array of algorithmic and real-time interactive techniques
implemented in computer music composition environments such as Csound, Max/MSP and
SuperCollider.
He is the author of several computer-assisted analysis and composition applications
including Algorithmic Composition with Max, AtonalAssistant, MatrixMaker, SLAPI, The Harmonic
Series, and WebNHT which have been featured at a series of papers delivered at the Association
for Technology in Music Instruction national conference.
Strange Attractors & Logarithmic Spirals (2001) was executed in Csound, a digital
audio signal processing environment by Barry Vercoe. The work sets into opposition sonic
manifestations of two beautiful mathematical forms: strange attractors, chaotic systems that cycle
periodically, yet never repeat exactly the same pattern; and logarithmic spirals, a perhaps more
familiar shape found throughout nature in shells, sunflowers, galaxies, tusks, etc. This spiral has
a long distinguished history as a source of inspiration for artists and its connections to the golden
proportion and Fibonacci series are explored in this work.
Composer Lawrence Dillon has produced an extensive body of work, from brief solo pieces to a
full-length opera. Partially deaf from birth, Dillon was raised by a widowed mother and seven older
siblings. He began composing as soon as he started piano lessons at the age of seven. In 1985,
he became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at The Juilliard School, and was shortly
thereafter appointed to the Juilliard faculty. Dillon is now Composer in Residence at the North
Carolina School of the Arts, where he has served as Music Director of the Contemporary
Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Performance and Dean of the School of Music. He was the
Featured American Composer in the January 2006 issue of Chamber Music magazine.
Dillon’s music, in the words of American Record Guide, is “lovely...austere...vivid and
impressive.” His works are recorded by Albany Records, Channel Crossings and CRS, and
published by American Composers Editions. He is represented by Jeffrey James Arts Consulting.
Appendage is a song cycle in six consecutive sections depicting a psychological
journey through violence, denial, memory, despair and acceptance. The text, by the composer,
consists of a series of seemingly random but highly suggestive fragments that gradually coalesce
into a tender lullabye. The tempo is static throughout, with a steady, relentless beat. The text --
often spiky and exclamatory -- is mostly spoken at the outset, becoming progressively more
lyrical through the course of the piece. The text for the last movement of Appendage is given, as
it is the kernel for most of the rest. For those wishing to read the entire text, it can be found at
www.lawrencedillon.com.
VI. Last lullabye
Wrap your fingers ‘round my thumb.
my little one, my lovely one,
I will listen while you sleep.
my dearest one, my darling one,
the silence in the stream won’t rise to wake you,
the struggling you have seen won’t come to shake you
from your dreams, your magic dreams, magic and fragile dreams.
Wrap your dreams around my thumb, my sweetest one, my precious one.
I will listen while you sing, my charming one, my helpless one,
fold your wings within my span, my graceful one, my sparkling one,
as long as you hold tight, I will be here, beside you dear.
If I grow old before you wake, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,
just take my place beside the empty crib
and sing the words I whisper in you heart,
my lovely one, my precious one, my only one.
copyright © 1993, Lawrence Dillon, used by permission
Mark Engebretson (b. 1964) is Assistant Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His compositions have been presented at festivals
such as ICMC (International Computer Music Conference), Bowling Green Festival of New Music
and Art, the Third Practice Festival, Wien Modern (Vienna), Gaida Festival (Vilnius, Lithuania),
Sonoimagenes (Buenos Aires) Hörgänge Festival (Vienna), Ny Musikk (Bergen, Norway), Indiana
State University New Music Festival (Terre Haute, Indiana), the Florida Electroacoustic Music
Festival, ISCM Festivals (Tirana, Albania and Baku, Azerbaijan), the UNCG New Music Festival
and World Saxophone Congresses (Pesaro, Italy, Montreal, Canada, Minneapolis, Minnesota and
Ljubljana, Slovenia).
Engebretson earned numerous commissions from official funding organizations STIM
(Sweden) and the Austrian Ministry of Culture. In the U.S., he has received awards from
Fulbright, the American Composers Forum Composers Commissioning Program, the Composers
Assistance Program of the American Music Center, UNCG, the Buffalo Arts Council, SUNY
Fredonia, ASCAP and Extension Works in Boston.
Dr. Engebretson taught composition at the University of Florida, music theory at the
SUNY Fredonia and 20th-century music history at the Eastman School of Music. He studied at
Northwestern University with M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta Ptaszynska, Michael
Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with Frederick Hemke. His teachers
in France were Michel Fuste-Lambezat and Jean-Marie Londeix.
The concept behind SaxMax was to try to invest the computer’s performance with
qualities of humanness that put it on an equal musical level with a live performer. Issues that
stand in the way of achieving this goal include both the computer’s ability to be perfectly
predictable, and it’s capability to generate complete randomness. My solution here, in part, has
been to place a performer at the computer, and to give both the computer operator and the
saxophonist some influence over the computer’s actions.
The also work pays homage to a small collection of masters of the jazz idiom:
Cannonball Adderley, Michael Brecker and Miles Davis. SaxMax was written for Susan Fancher
and James Romain. The two will gave initial performances at UNCG, the Florida Electroacoustic
Music Festival (University of Florida) and the World Saxophone Congress (Ljubljana, Slovenia).
This work was funded in part by the Composers Assistance Program of the American Music
Center.
Karel Husa, the 1969 Pulitzer Prize winner, was born in 1921 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He
studied at the Prague Conservatory, the Paris Conservatory, and at the Ecole Normale. Among
his teachers were Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, French conductors Andre Cluytens,
Eugene Bigot, Jean Fournet, and Czech composer J. Ridky. In 1954, Husa was appointed to the
Music Faculty at Cornell University as professor of composition and director of the Cornell
University Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, the position he held until his retirement.
Karel Husa composed Divertimento for Brass and Percussion in 1958, and the work
received its premiere on February 17, 1960. The Divertimento is a re-orchestrated, four-movement
excerpt of his Eight Czech Duets (1955) for piano, four-hands. Husa dedicated the
duets to his young daughters, wanting to share with them his interpretation of their Czech
heritage. In the same vein, Husa was concerned about the dissemination of his native music in
ways accessible to American students and audiences.
Drawing upon song forms and modal melody, Husa deftly merges his Bohemian heritage
with modernist harmonic language in the Divertimento. The robustly majestic “Overture” unfolds in
AABA form. In the outer sections, Husa contrasts the strictly modal trumpet melody with its
polychordal accompaniment. The B section of the work acts as one large crescendo derived from
the initial portion of the trumpet melody. Harmonized in 5ths, this section has an antique,
meditative quality.
Set in broad ABA form, the second movement, Scherzo, extensively utilizes polychords and
ostinatos to support the melody. In the central section of the movement, the trumpet melody is
harmonized in non-traditional fashion, supported by two contrasting ostinatos. Upon the truncated
return of the A section, trumpets, horns and trombones/tuba receive melodic treatment.
Song, originally titled “Der Abend” [The Evening], uses mutes to create its distant, veiled
atmosphere. The simple AA form has at its core a melody which is played first by the horn, then
trumpet. The solos are separated by an interlude which draws its rhythm from the motive played
by the orchestra bells in the first measure.
Slovak Dance, a loose set of variations containing an extended interlude, acts as one long
accelerando, edging toward a near-frenzied conclusion. After a bravura introduction, the tuba
introduces the jocular theme. Two variations follow, gradually increasing texture and intensity
(although the second variation augments the theme to half-speed). The interlude is the most
texturally complex portion of the Divertimento, with ostinatos of differing lengths layered under a
harmonized melody in trumpets. The return of the introduction (now much faster, however)
heralds the last two variations. The first is expanded by the inclusion of 3/8 meter interjection, and
the last is compressed with glissandi literally “gluing” the four-statements of the theme together.
The coda commences with a sudden shift to piano, followed by a long crescendo and
accelerando to the end of the piece.
Edward Jacobs studied at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (B.A., 1984) in jazz
performance and arranging (Jeff Holmes) and composition (Sal Macchia, Robert Stern) was
followed by study in composition (Andrew Imbrie, Olly Wilson, Gerard Grisey) and conducting
(Michael Senturia) at the University of California, Berkeley (M.A., 1986) and at Columbia
University (composition with Chou Wen-Chung, Mario Davidovsky, Marty Boykan, George
Edwards, David Rakowski; conducting with George Rothman) where he completed my D.M.A. in
1993.
Jacobs has written numerious works for computer-generated sound and clarinet (A
Function of Memory(2001), Beauty Shop (2005)), and cello (al momento (2002), and for dancers
(dis/Connect (2004). His music is published by C. F. Peters Corp., NY, and ACA. In 2005 Jacobs
work as a composer was recognized by a Charles Ives Award presented by the American
Academy of Arts & Letters. The Academy’s citation reads “Edward Jacobs’s music masters the
‘virtual’ and ‘real’ sound habitats and embeds them into a unified and consistent single space with
grace, broad orchestral imagination and expressivity. Jacobs’s music is immediately engaging,
attractive and intellectually demanding.” Other recent activities have included the founding and
direction of the Annual NewMusic@ECU Festival, begun in March, 2000.
“A Function of Memory, my first work including computer-electronic sounds, was
composed and realized in the Center for Composition with Electronic Media at the East Carolina
University School of Music during the first months of 2001. The sound images that emerged in
both clarinet and tape parts are drawn from sounds that have consumed me since my childhood.
The pre-recorded sounds makes much use of several aural images, in particular, that have lived
vividly in my imagination and dreams: Namely, the inarticulate ‘groan’; the sound which might be
described as ‘slow motion breaking glass’; and the clarinet’s ‘calls’ just after its opening cadenza-like
passage, which return in several places.
Perhaps the most important thing to know about this piece is that I had an enormous
amount of FUN during its writing. Each day I awoke with the excitement of a child with a new toy,
eager to get to the studio and PLAY with sounds. Even while the source of many of the sounds
are deeply personal and, in some cases, bring on troubling memories, I found the process of
writing this piece to be tremendously cathartic as the sense of interaction between tape and
clarinet—the spirit of fun and play—helped me put certain memories into perspective.”
For 35 years, 1951-1986, Ben Johnston (b. 1926) taught at the University of Illinois, in touch
with composers the likes of John Cage, La Monte Young and Iannis Xenakis. Johnston has since
retired to North Carolina. Nine string quartets form the core of Johnston’s output. His best-known
work, String Quartet No. 4, is a series of variations on the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Ben
Johnston’s music is rooted in hymnody and jazz and can be enjoyed by those who have no
knowledge of the compositional theories behind it. The one modern technique that has held
Johnston’s lifelong allegiance is the use of microtonality. Johnston uses potentially hundreds of
pitches per octave in his music.
Written using his hallmark “extended just intonation,” Ben Johnstons’s Nightreach is a
stunningly beautiful piece that brings upper partials of the overtone series down into the normal
saxophone range and employs them melodically. The result is a kind of purity of sound and
expression that our equal-tempered world seldom experiences. Formally, the piece features each
instrument in alternating melodic solo statements that respond to and complement each other in
similarly perfect harmony. The drone that is heard continuously throughout the piece forms a kind
of glue by providing a sonic backdrop into which the justly-tuned sonorities are placed.
Adam Josephson is dedicated to creating unique and personal experiences through sound. His
music generally focuses on providing the listener with opportunities to realize personal
connections with sounds and their structures. He graduated from Susquehanna University in
Selinsgrove, PA, as a Presser Scholar and Outstanding Senior in Music. He is currently pursuing
his Master’s degree in music composition at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His
primary teachers include Mark Engebretson and Patrick Long.
it’s you and me and the tuba is a work that is part of a larger set of pieces that
utilizes silences and very quiet sounds in order to allow the listener to achieve a sense of
awareness and introspection. The work starts with a simple ostinato, which is then subtley
stretched, compressed, added to, and taken away from. Nuances of these combinations inspired
new sounds, which combine with silences and existing sounds to create a distorted image of the
original pattern.
Scott Lindroth has been on the faculty at Duke University since 1990, having earned
degrees in music composition from the Eastman School of Music (BM 1980) and the Yale School
of Music (DMA 1991). His work as a composer has centered on instrumental and vocal media,
including compositions for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the
Philadelphia Orchestra, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, and the Ciompi Quartet. He has also
composed music for dance, theater, and video. Recordings of his works are available on CRI,
Equilibrium, and the Centaur labels. Recent works include Nasuh for soprano and string quartet,
and Bell Plates for percussion solo and electronic sound.
At Duke, Lindroth teaches undergraduate seminars in electronic music and music theory,
and graduate seminars on composition-related topics. Lindroth, together with Stephen Jaffe and
Anthony Kelley, presents the concert series Encounters with the Music of Our Time each year,
featuring music by distinguished visiting composers in residence in performances by faculty
artists and visiting performers.
“Stomp was composed as a 60th birthday present for Jacob Druckman in 1988. It was
premiered by Musical Elements under the direction of Robert Beaser at the 92nd Street Y in New
York. Stomp is constructed around an agile and disjunct melodic line which is rapidly passed
from instrument to instrument. Over time the melody generates an aural “halo” which eventually
takes on a life of its own. This process of elaborating a single melodic line through figuration and
orchestral color was a favorite device of Druckman’s, and it has become a favorite of mine.”
John Fitz Rogers (b.1963) has composed a wide range of chamber and orchestral music, and
his work is recognized by audiences, critics, and colleagues alike for its emotional directness,
lyricism, and imagination. His music has been programmed throughout the United States and
abroad by ensembles and venues such as the Louisville Orchestra, Charleston Symphony,
American Composers Orchestra, MATA Festival, Ensemble Sospeso, World Saxophone
Congress, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, New York Virtuoso Singers, XVII Festival del
Centro Historico de la Ciudad de Mexico, Synchronia, 21st Century Chamber Orchestra of Poland,
Composers, Inc., Lionheart and the Philips Collection Concert Series.
Rogers has received many commissions, including those from the Albany Symphony,
Tulsa Philharmonic, New York Youth Symphony, Dogs of Desire, the American Composers
Forum and the Jerome Foundation, Music at the Anthology and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable
Trust, Furious Band, the Ambassador Duo, and the Dale Warland Singers, as well as a joint
commission by the Capitol Quartet, New Century Saxophone Quartet, and San Francisco
Saxophone Quartet. His recordings include Transit and Push (both on Gale Recordings), A
Savage Calculus on Equilibrium Records, and the Albany Symphony’s performance of Verge on
Albany Records.
Rogers holds degrees from Cornell University, the Yale School of Music, and Oberlin
College; his composition teachers included Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Martin Bresnick, and
Jacob Druckman. Rogers is currently an Associate Professor of Composition at the University of
South Carolina School of Music, where he founded and is artistic director of the Southern
Exposure New Music Series. His work is published by Base Two Music Publishing.
Once Removed is based on a simple premise: two marimbists play the same or
related music at a fairly fast tempo, but they almost never play together. Individually, each
performer must execute fairly simple patterns with great rhythmic precision, and to help, each
listens to a click track (electronic pulses not heard by the audience) over headphones supplied by
an audio CD. However, what is recorded on the CD are two different click tracks on the separate
left and right stereo channels (one performer listens to the left channel, the other to the right
channel). Though both click tracks proceed at the same tempo, one track stays at a fixed
distance behind the other, which mean that one performer is always slightly "behind" the other
performer. When their individually simple patterns are combined in performance, the resulting
mosaic is both very fast and quite complex—something that sounds like one "super marimba"
rather than two individual lines.
Of course, the conceptual challenge for the performers is difficult, even though the
patterns themselves are not overly virtuosic. Musicians are trained to communicate and to play
together, yet in some ways this work demands that the performers not listen to each other.
Though the technology of multiple click tracks creates new possibilities of texture and ensemble
precision, the trade-off in "Once Removed" is that each player remains somewhat isolated from
the instrument he or she plays, and more importantly, musically separated from the other
performer, like two people trying to reach one another from opposite sides of a thin glass pane.
A composer of chamber, electronic, orchestral and vocal music, Michael S. Rothkopf has been
actively involved in the creation and performance of contemporary music for the last 28 years.
Noted for their remarkable sensuousness and their integration of music technology, his works
have been performed throughout the United States and are published by American Composers
Editions. Dr. Rothkopf currently teaches graduate level composition and career enhancement
courses as well as undergraduate and graduate music technology courses at the North Carolina
School of the Arts. He has served on the music review board of MERLOT, an international
repository of online learning tools for higher education since 2000 and was promoted to principal
co-editor of the music collection in 2002. Dr. Rothkopf is also a founding editor for the Journal for
Online Learning and Teaching. He is currently involved with the development of Internet 2 and
has formed a network of music schools and conservatories around the country. Dr. Rothkopf
currently serves as President of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington,
Vermont now embarking on its third season. He has served as Music Director of the Ariel
Contemporary Chamber Music Ensemble for 1982-1986 and as the Executive Director of the
League of Composers/International Society for Contemporary Music U.S. Section from 1989-91
as well as the New York Guild of Composers from 1988-1991. He has been awarded fellowships
from the National Orchestral Association, Yaddo, Carnegie Hall and Columbia University. His
principal composition teachers have been Normand Lockwood and Mario Davidovsky. Other
composition teachers include Jack Beeson, Susan Blaustein, George Edwards and Chou Wen-
Chung, and he studied counterpoint and analysis with Jacques-Louis Monod and double bass
with Harry Safstrom. Past teaching appointments include Columbia University, Yeshiva
University and Stern College.
“My point of departure for …If You Came This Way comes from the following passage
from “Little Gidding,” the fourth poem from the Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot.
“If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report,” …
The nature of the musical unfolding is to convey the sense of familiarity, unfamiliarity,
consciousness and epiphany as expressed in the poem. My intent was to create a polyphony and
orchestration of electro-acoustic sounds perceived to exist in three-dimensional space. This work
is second in a series of electroacoustic compositions each devoted to a poem from the Four
Quartets.”
James Paul Sain (b. 1959) is Professor of Music at the University of Florida where he teaches
acoustic and electroacoustic music composition as well as music theory. He is Composition,
Theory and Technology Co-Chair and the Director of Electroacoustic Music. His duties include
directing the internationally acclaimed annual Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, now in its
thirteenth year of programming. He is responsible for programming over 1500 works of
contemporary art music. HIs MIDI Movement Module, M3, developed for Ender’s Game was
nominated by the editors of Discover Magazine for their 1998 Award for Technological Innovation
in Sound.
He has worked at the Institute for Electroacoustic Music in Sweden (EMS) and the
Folkwang-Hochschule/ICEM in Essen, Germany. The project initiated at EMS was awarded a
Bicentennial Swedish-American Exchange Fund grant from the Consulate General of Sweden. In
2001 Sain was in residence at the Sonoimágenes festival hosted by the University of Lanús in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, and he has been a guest composer at the University of Birmingham,
University of Oregon, DeMontfort University, Mercer University, Luther College, University of Hull
- Scarborough, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University of Aberdeen, and Winthrop
University.
Dr. Sain studied composition privately with Frederic Goossen, David Ward-Steinman,
Hubert Howe, Jr., Merle Hogg, and Brent Dutton. His works have been featured at societal events
including the International Computer Music Association, Society of Composers, Inc., Society for
Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, College Music Society, American Composers
Alliance, American Guild of Organists, T.U.B.A., International Clarinet Association, World
Saxophone Congress, North American Saxophone Alliance, Southeastern Composer’s League,
Southeast Horn Workshop, and on the Computer Music at Clark [U.S.A.], Arts Now [U.S.A.],
Soundings [U.K.], Pulse Field [U.S.A.], Discoveries [U.K.], Sonoimágenes [ARGENTINA], 3rd
Practice [U.S.A.], Nong [SOUTH KOREA], Nuit Bleue [FRANCE], and Electronic Music Mid-West
[U.S.A.] concert series. Dr. Sain served as Board Member in Composition for the College Music
Society Southern Chapter. He is an elected member of the American Composers Alliance and
currently is chair of the Society of Composers Inc. Executive Committee. Sain was named the
2005 San Diego State University Music Alumnus of the Year. His compositions can be found on
CD on the Capstone, Electronic Music Foundation and NACUSA labels. His music is published by
Brazinmusikanta Publications and American Composers Editions.
SLAMMED- the one word title of the work can be used in many contexts such as
"gee...I'm slammed," or "do you want to get slammed?" Slammed in these contexts can have any
number of meanings. This work is meant to convey a sense of "slammedness" arriving at the
point of psychosis. Though, this might only be the plight of a delusional composer and his
personal hypnopompic hallucinations related to the melodic third.
Thanks to Ron Parks for his spectral accumulation and evaporation MSP algorithm.
SLAMMED was written for saxophone virtuoso Susan Fancher.
Performers
Susan Fancher's efforts to develop the repertoire for the saxophone have produced dozens of
commissioned works by contemporary composers, as well as published transcriptions of music
by composers as diverse as Josquin Desprez and Steve Reich. Her career has featured
hundreds of concerts internationally as a soloist and as the member of chamber music
ensembles, including the Red Clay, Amherst, Vienna and Rollin' Phones saxophone quartets. A
much sought after performer of new music, she has worked with a multitude of
composers including Terry Riley, Charles Wuorinen, Philip Glass, Hilary Tann, Friedrich Cerha,
M. William Karlins, Ben Johnston, Ed Campion, Perry Goldstein, Olga Neuwirth, David Stock,
Michael Torke, Robert Carl and Paul Chihara, just to name a few.
Susan Fancher has performed in many of the world's leading concert venues including
Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Amphitheater at the Chautauqua Institution, London's
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Vienna's Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Filharmonia Hall in Warsaw,
Orchestra Hall in Malmö, Sweden, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and at ISCM
festivals in Albania and Bulgaria, the Gaida Festival in Lithuania, June in Buffalo, Hörgänge and
Wien Modern Festivals in Vienna, and on CBS Sunday Morning. Tours have taken her to
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and throughout the US.
Susan Fancher has recorded over 10 CDs available on the Philips, New World
Records, Lotus Records Salzburg, Extraplatte and Innova labels. The most recent additions to
her discography are a solo CD entitled Ponder Nothing on the Innova label, which features her
composer-approved arrangements of music by Steve Reich and Ben Johnston, and a recording
as soprano saxophonist with the Amherst Saxophone Quartet and the Arcata String Quartet on
New World Records of Forever Escher by Paul Chihara. Her many radio recordings as well as
live broadcasts have been heard on Swedish, Austrian, Canadian and American radio stations.
Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the nationally distributed
Saxophone Journal. She holds the Médaille d'Or from the Conservatoire of Bordeaux, France,
and the Doctor of Music in saxophone performance from Northwestern University, for which her
dissertation topic was the saxophone music of Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988). Her
principal teachers were classical saxophone masters Frederick Hemke, Jean-Marie Londeix and
Michael Grammatico, and Chicago jazz legend Joe Daley. Susan Fancher is a clinician for
the Selmer and Vandoren companies and teaches saxophone at the University of North Carolina
at Greensboro.
Kevin M. Geraldi began his appointment as Associate Director of Bands at UNCG in Fall 2005.
He conducts the Symphonic Band, teaches courses in undergraduate conducting, and directs the
Wind Ensemble chamber music program. He completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in
instrumental conducting at the University of Michigan where he received a full fellowship to study
with Michael Haithcock. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he served as Director of Bands at
Lander University in Greenwood, S.C. Dr. Geraldi holds a Master of Music degree in conducting
from the University of Michigan, where he studied with H. Robert Reynolds. He received his
Bachelor of Music Education degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, where he studied
conducting with Steven Eggleston. From 1996-1998, he was director of bands for the
Westchester Public Schools in Westchester, IL, where his ensembles received top honors. Dr.
Geraldi has served as assistant conductor of the Central Illinois and Michigan Youth Symphonies
and as a guest conductor he has conducted honors groups in Michigan, South Carolina, and
Connecticut. He maintains an active schedule as a clinician throughout the country. As a member
of the Franklin Park Brass Quintet, Dr. Geraldi has toured the Midwest, New England, and South
Carolina, performing recitals and conducting brass and chamber music masterclasses. Dr.
Geraldi has studied conducting privately and in seminars with teachers including Kenneth Kiesler,
Gustav Meier, Pierre Boulez, and Frederick Fennell. Most recently, he was a participant in the
Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina’s opera conducting workshop at the Spoleto Festival,
USA. Dr. Geraldi was named as the 2001-2002 recipient of the Thelma A. Robinson Award, an
award presented every two years by the Conductors Guild and the National Federation of Music
Clubs
An eclectic and versatile performer, clarinetist Christopher Grymes has been described as
"brilliant" (The Clarinet). The recipient of numerous prizes and awards, he won first prize in the
1996 MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) National Collegiate Woodwind Soloist
Competition. He has also been a member of the National Repertory Orchestra and a fellow at the
Norfolk/Yale Summer School of Music Chamber Music Festival (Contemporary Music Seminar).
From 1999-2001 he was a member of Tales & Scales, a quartet of young musicians/actors
dedicated to bringing quality new music and storytelling to young audiences across the country.
An active performer of orchestral, chamber, and new music, Mr. Grymes has been a featured
performer at the Third Practice Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, is a frequent performer with the
Wilmington Chamber Society, and from 2002-2005 was principal clarinetist of the Winston-Salem
Symphony. In addition, he has performed with the Boston Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony,
the Utah Symphony, and many other orchestras thoughout the United States. Mr. Grymes
composition, "Dancing Piece No. 2", has been performed by numerous orchestras, among them
the Atlanta Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony. Mr. Grymes' first clarinet teacher was F.
Edward Knakal in Virginia Beach, VA. He has also been a student of Avrahm Galper, Eli Eban,
Nathan Williams, and Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr. Mr. Grymes is currently on faculty at the East
Carolina University School of Music.
Michael E. Haldeman is currently serving as a D.M.A. graduate teaching assistant in the
percussion studio under the direction of Dr. Cort McClaren at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, where he also earned his Master of Music degree in percussion performance in
2005. In addition, he received his Bachelor’s degree in percussion performance from Indiana
University of Pennsylvania in 2003, where he studied with Dr. Gary J. Olmstead. Among his most
notable experiences are performing as a percussion ensemble member with the Santa Clara
Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps in 2001, serving as a percussion ensemble instructor with the
Glassmen Drum & Bugle Corps in 2003, and performing in a master class and chamber concert
with resident composer Eric Ewazen, composition professor at the Julliard School of Music, on
the campus of IUP in February 2003. Michael actively performs and teaches in both the North
Carolina and Pennsylvania areas.
Raised in Apple Valley, Minnesota, just south of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Brent Harvey is currently
finishing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, where
he is studying with Dr. Dennis AsKew. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of
Minnesota, formerly studying with Ross Tolbert, and a Master of Music degree from UNCG.
Harvey has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Catania International Festival Orchestra
in Italy, the Pine Mountain Music Festival Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, the Charleston
Symphony and Long Bay Symphony Orchestras in South Carolina, the Greensboro Symphony
Orchestra, and has appeared on NPR and MPR broadcasts with the Minnesota Orchestra.
Presently he is the principal tubist for the Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra and the Long Bay
Symphony Orchestra, and is the primary substitute tubist for the New World Symphony (Miami,
FL), Charleston, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Western Piedmont, and Salisbury Symphony
Orchestras. Harvey also plays with the Big Dixie Dixieland Band and the internationally award
winning tuba quartet, Tubas in the Sun.
Scott Herring currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University
of South Carolina. At USC, Scott directs the Percussion Ensemble and the Palmetto Pans Steel
Band. Previously he served as Assistant Professor of Percussion and Assistant Director of Bands
at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from East
Carolina University and a Masters degree and Doctor of Music degree from Northwestern
University. While residing in Chicago, Scott performed with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago under
the batons of Daniel Barenboim, John Adams and Pierre Boulez. He has presented clinics and
concerts in North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Michigan and Texas as well as
a clinic at the 2002 Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Columbus, Ohio. He also
serves as a New Music Reviewer for Percussive Notes, the journal of the Percussive Arts Society
and as Vice-President of the South Carolina Chapter of PAS. Scott is an endorser of Innovative
Percussion mallets and sticks, Grover Pro Percussion, Pearl Percussion and Adams Keyboard
instruments. Scott’s primary teachers include Michael Burritt, Mark Ford, James Ross, and Harold
Jones.
Noah Hock received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Puget Sound in 2003, where he
was the first violist to win their annual Concerto Competition. He completed a Master of Music at
UNCG in 2005 and is now an active orchestra and chamber music performer throughout the
Piedmont area, performing as a member of the Winston Salem Symphony among other activities.
He has been a full scholarship recipient at the Brevard Music Center and has performed as a
soloist with the UPS Symphony Orchestra, the Alban Elved Dance Company, and at past UNCG
New Music Festivals.
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet is a topnotch chamber music ensemble formed in October
2003 by four internationally recognized saxophonists. Susan Fancher has 15 years of experience
as soprano saxophonist with the Vienna, Amherst and Rollin' Phones saxophone quartets.
Robert Faub has performed extensively throughout the US and Europe as alto saxophonist with
the New Century Saxophone Quartet. Steve Stusek, saxophone professor at the University of
North Carolina in Greensboro, is an international touring solo recitalist and chamber musician.
Mark Engebretson is a veteran of the Vienna Saxophone Quartet and is Assistant Professor of
Music Composition at UNCG. The RCSQ's repertoire features recent works by American
composers including Allen Anderson, Burton Beerman, Ben Boone, Robert Carl, Perry Goldstein,
Ben Johnston, M. William Karlins, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Alejandro Rutty and Michael Torke,
as well as music by Alexander Glazunov, W. A. Mozart, Francis Poulenc and Jean-Baptiste
Singelée.
Ralph Wayne Reich, Jr. received his BM from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
and his MM from Syracuse University. He is currently pursuing his DMA having returned to
UNCG. As an undergraduate, Reich was a member of the Gate City Camerata and the
Contemporary Chamber Players. At Syracuse University, Reich served as concertmaster of the
University Symphony Orchestra and co-founded the Syrus Chamber Musician ensemble. Reich
has taught violin lessons at UNCG and at SU, including beginning students through
undergraduates. He served as the mentor for the second violin section of the Danville Symphony
Orchestra, Danville, VA, for two semesters and has participated as an adjudicator at the B#
Young Artists Competition as well as other regional competitions.
The UNCG Contemporary Century Chamber Players specializes in contemporary literature for
both instrumental and vocal chamber forces. Advanced students and faculty often perform side-by-
side in concerts that cover a broad gamut of styles and traditionally feature at least one work
by a North Carolina composer. The Players, who have appeared in such venues as Raleigh's
North Carolina Museum of Art, have received several grants and have welcomed such
distinguished composers as Thea Musgrave, Emma Lou Diemer, George Rochberg, Robert Ward
and Michael Colgrass to campus. During the 1990s, the players performed by invitation at the
world conference of the International Society for Music Education.
The UNC Greensboro Wind Ensemble Chamber Winds is a highly select concert band of
sixty-four performers majoring in music at the UNCG School of Music. Performers range from
freshman through masters and doctoral candidates in music performance and music education.
Membership in the organization is highly competitive. These students have achieved numerous
individual honors including solo competition awards on regional and national levels, music
scholarships, undergraduate teaching fellowships, graduate assistantships and fellowships,
teaching positions in music at all levels including
college, membership in all-state bands, as well as professional performing credentials in
orchestras, top military bands and professional quintets. Performers in the current UNCG Wind
Ensemble are drawn from fourteen states.
Wendi Washington-Hunt has woven a career tapestry that includes operatic and orchestral
performances, and composing. Her guest artist engagements with orchestras throughout the US
have captivated audiences from Phoenix to Annapolis. Ms. Washington-Hunt is well known for
aria concerts, which offer an enchanting variety of well-loved operatic solos. A favorite with
Phoenix Symphony, she has appeared on several occasions, treating audiences to a wide variety
of favorites from the vocally acrobatic role of Queen of the Night from Die Zauberflöte to
selections from Phantom of the Opera. As guest artist, she has also bowed with Annapolis
Symphony, Mesa Symphony and Symphony of the West Valley.
Equally comfortable in leading operatic roles, Wendi Washington-Hunt has engaged in a number
of performances with companies such as Lyric Opera of San Antonio where she appeared as
Adele in Die Fledermaus. Among her other operatic performances were Queen of the Night in Die
Zauberflöte with East Texas Symphony Orchestra, Lucy in The Telephone with Symphony of the
West Valley in Sun City, AZ, Isabelle/Madeline in Face on the Barroom Floor, Miss Silverpeal in
The Impresario, Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Cass in Achilles’ Heel under the baton of
the composer, Craig Bohmler. Through OPERA-tunity, she traveled throughout Arizona
appearing in over 300 youth “informances,” giving many students their first introduction to opera.
As a composer, she blends engaging music with eloquent text to deliver messages of hope,
peace and comfort in her vocal music for soloists and anthems for choirs. Lullaby for September’s
Children continues to reach out with consoling text and soothing music to many who are dealing
with the aftermath of recent world events. And delightful keyboard compositions from her pen
charm pianists and audiences alike.
Ms. Washington-Hunt earned her Bachelor of Music degree, cum laude, from Arizona State
University and has been the recipient of several honors, including placing first in the Jennings
Butterfield Voice Competition, receiving second place in the Bel Canto Foundation auditions, and
winning the Gorin Grant for career development on two occasions. Additional information about
her repertoire, compositions and performances is available through her web site,
www.wwhunt.com.