2009-09-29 New Music Festival [recital program]

              Sixth Annual UNCG
New Music Festival
School of Music
U N C G
September 29-30, October 1, 2009
Schedule
Tuesday, September 29, 2009—Greensboro, NC
Lecture I
3:30-4:45 p.m.
UNCG Music Building 129/131 (Electronic Music Studios)
Bourges Prize Winner Elainie Lillios
Free
Concert I
7:30 p.m.
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
$10 General / $6 Seniors / $4 Students / $3 UNCG
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 —Greensboro
Lecture II
10:00 a.m.
UNCG Room 233
Composer, Thomas Licota
Free
Young Artist Concert
4:30 p.m.
UNCG School of Music Organ Hall
Post-concert discussion with Elainie Lillios to follow in the hall
Free
Concert II
7:30 p.m.
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
$10 General / $6 Seniors / $4 Students / $3 UNCG
Thursday, October 1, 2009—Greensboro
12:00 a.m. Masterclass Session,
Marcus Karl Maroney, Thomas Licata, Jakov Jakoulov, Kirk OʼRiordan
School of Music, Room 224 free
3:30 p.m. Walking Music, Processional across campus (weather permitting)
from School of Music to the Weatherspoon Art Museum, free
Presented by the UNCG Society of Composers Student Chapter
5:00 p.m. Round Table Discussion,
Phillips/Hilton, Allen Anderson, Todd Coleman, Elainie Lillios, Lance Hulme
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Dillard Room, free
7:00 p.m. Reception, Weatherspoon Art Museum, free
CONCERT III
7:30 p.m.
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Atrium
Free
CONCERT I
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
7:30 p.m.
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
Exquisite Corpse (2004) Todd Coleman
Duration: 10:00
Alexander Ezerman, cello
multiple projection and digital media
another…turning (2005) Thomas Licata
Duration: 6:00
digital media
Corpo di terra (2009) Suzanne Farrin
Duration: 10:00
Alexander Ezerman, cello
Intermission
Listening Beyond (2007) Elainie Lillios
Duration: 8:41
digital media
Inflection Points (2009) Thomas Dempster
II.
III.
Duration: 12:00
Blue Mountain Ensemble
Carla Copeland-Burns, flute
Michael Burns, bassoon
Elizabeth Tomlin, piano
YOUNG ARTIST CONCERT
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
4:30 p.m.
UNCG School of Music Organ Hall
Fanfare David Mettens
Duration: 4:00
Jason DuRoy, organ
Viola Solo in Three Continuous Movements James Kylstra
Duration: 4:30
Grace Kennerly, viola
Primeira Sonata Rafael Valle
Duration: 4:30
Kyle Adam Blair, piano
Sultry Sweet Gregory Underwood
Duration: 3:35
Jason Wallace, saxophone
Gregory Underwood, piano
Interpretations Heather Stebbins
I. Reservoir
II. Shift
Duration: 9:00
Elliot Schreur, piano
Cinco Bocetos for Clarinet Solo Roberto Sierra
II. Canción del campo
V. Final con pájaros
Duration: 5:00 Anna Darnell, clarinet
always in my heart Carlos Fuentes
Duration: 4:00
Carlos Fuentes, piano
Jazzist Removed… Meredith Butterworth
Duration: 3:30
Sabu Yamamoto, violin
Danny Jumper, cello
Meredith Butterworth, vibraphone
Yin-Yang Geometry Kyle Adam Blair
Duration: 5:30
Kyle Adam Blair, piano
CONCERT II
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
7:30 p.m.
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
Five Pieces for Wind Quintet (1999) Marcus Karl Maroney
Duration: 5:00
Relevents Wind Quintet
Laura Stevens, flute
Thomas Pappas, oboe
Shawn Copeland, clarinet
Ann Shoemaker, bassoon
Mary Pritchett‐Boudreault, horn
Instrument of the Tongue (2007) Allen Anderson
II. The Oven Bird (text by Robert Frost)
III. A Turn of the Head (text by Denise Levertov)
V. Song (text by Robert Pinsky)
Duration: 15:00
Lorena Guillén, voice
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Ductus Figuratus (2008, rev. 2009) Kirk OʼRiordan
I. Cadens
II. Abeo
III. Tripudio
IV. Demum
Duration: 18:00
Robert Gutter, conductor
Steve Stusek, alto saxophone solo
Tadeu Coelho, flute
Jonathan Salter, clarinet
Marjorie Bagley, violin
Grace Anderson, cello
Kristopher Keeton, percussion
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Intermission
De profundis... (2007-08) Jakov Jakoulov
I.
II.
III.
Duration: 12:00
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Alexander Ezerman, cello
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Tempest Fantasy (2002) Paul Moravec
Duration: 30:00
Stephanie Ezerman, violin
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Alexander Ezerman, cello
James Douglass, piano
CONCERT III
Thursday, October 1, 2009
7:30 p.m.
Weatherspoon Art Museum Atrium
The Succubus, an electronic tone poem (1993) Lance Hulme
Duration: 7:00
digital media
City of Webs (2009) music by Alejandro Rutty
Duration: 22:00 text by Michael Basinski
Lorena Guillén, voice
Mark Engebretson, alto saxophone
Scott Rawls, viola
Alejandro Rutty, Keyboard
Michael Basinski, recorded voice
digital media
Acorn in the Sun (2009) Mark Engebretson
Duration: 5:30
Lorena Guillén, voice
Mark Engebretson, sound processing
Set (October 1, 2009) Craig Hilton-Tomas Philips
Duration: tbd
Tomas Phillips, laptop
Craig Hilton, guzheng + laptop
Program Notes and Biographies
Composers
Allen Anderson has composed works for the Empyrean Ensemble, Speculum Musicae,
the UNC Chamber Singers, Aleck Karis, Thomas Warburton and Daniel Stepner among
others. His work has been acknowledged with awards or commissions from the
Guggenheim, Fromm and Koussevitsky foundations, Chamber Music America, Phi Mu
Alpha Sinfonia-Alpha Ro, BMI, League of Composers/ISCM (both the National and Boston
chapters) and, in 2005, with the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters. His music is published by C. F. Peters, APNM and Belmont
Music Publishers. He has taught at Columbia University, Wellesley College and Brandeis
University, and since 1996 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has a
Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where his teachers
included Andrew Imbrie and Fred Lerdahl, and both a Masters of Arts and Doctor of
Philosophy in Theory and Composition from Brandeis University where he studied with
Martin Boykan and Seymour Shifrin. He recently completed Iceblink, a 35-minute multi-media
work on Antarctica, with photographer Brooks de Wetter-Smith, a commission from
the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild. He is working on a piece about the 19th century removal
of Cherokees from the south.
These three songs are taken from a set of five, Instrument of the Tongue, all on texts by
New England poets and all involving birds. As a stand-in for the poet, the bird creates
place, expression and melody, and thereby becomes – through the singer – the composerʼs
surrogate as well. In Robert Frostʼs deceptively troubled sonnet, the simple song of the
Oven Bird is cause for philosophizing and “serious” chords. Lighter, playful, erotic, Denise
Levertovʼs words bring out the song and dance. The expanding circularity of Robert
Pinskyʼs poem – with all it has to say about voice, singing and presence – suggested a
slowly turning progression of melody and harmony.
Texts for Instrument of the Tongue
I. The Oven Bird
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
– Robert Frost
II. A Turn of the Head
Quick! Thereʼs that
low brief whirr to tell
Rubythroat is at the
tigerlilies–
only a passionate baby
sucking breastmilkʼs so
intent. Look
sharply after your thoughts said
Emerson, a good
dreamer.
Worldʼs may lie
between you
and the birdʼs return. Hummingbird
stays for a fractional sharp
sweetness, andʼs gone, canʼt take
more of that.
The remaining
tigerblossoms have rolled their petals
all the way back,
the stamens protrude entire,
there are no more buds.
– Denise Levertov
III. Song
Air an instrument of the tongue,
The tongue an instrument
Of the body. The body
An instrument of spirit,
The spirit a being of the air.
The bird a medium of song.
Song a microcosm, a containment
Like the fresh hotel room, ready
For each new visitor to inherit
For a little world of time there.
In the Cornell box, among
Ephemera as its element,
The preserved bird–a study
In spontaneous elegy, the parrot
Art, mortal in its cornered sphere.
– Robert Pinsky
Todd Coleman is a composer and video artist who works within the contemporary
"Classical" concert music tradition, but whose works increasingly defy simple
categorizations. Recent compositions have incorporated visual elements of multiple
projected layers of digital video interwoven with live performers and immersive surround
digital audio, blending studio recording and film scoring techniques with prerecorded
electronic music and live sound. Coleman has a strong background in technology and the
arts, with many commissions and jobs which blur the boundaries between creative
disciplines.
Coleman completed his Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Brigham Young
University in 1996, winning a number of awards and commissions for his work. He went on
to study composition and double bass performance at the Eastman School of Music on a
prestigious Jackno Fellowship, earning his Doctorate in 2002. His composition teachers
included Joseph Schwantner, Christopher Rouse, Augusta Read Thomas and David Liptak.
and he studied double bass with James VanDemark. During that time he received awards
for his orchestral and chamber music as well as several commissioned works.
Coleman is an assistant professor of music at Elon University in North Carolina where he
coordinates and teaches courses in the new B.S. in Music Technology degree program.
Prior to coming to Elon, Coleman taught at Grinnell College in the Music Department for
four years after originally joining the Grinnell staff as a Curricular Technology Specialist in
Fine Arts in 2002 at the completion of his doctorate in composition at Eastman.
Glen Nelson, director of Mormon Artists Group, introduced me to a work of art based on the
surrealist game, Exquisite Corpse. This artwork was itself a collaboration by three artists:
Thomas Epting, Matthew Day, and Natasha Brien. I found the work to be thought provoking
and moving on many levels.
The concept of time and the nature of life (and death) became central elements in my
thinking during the early conceptualization of the music, as did my desire to respond
musically to the many layers of meaning I found in the work. These thoughts led to a
number of crucial decisions regarding the structure and content of the score. First, the
collaborative nature of Exquisite Corpse works prompted me to include musical materials
from other composers (Purcell, Brahms, & Cage). The “borrowed” musical materials allude
somewhat allegorically to infancy, death, and the interplay of destiny, free-will and chance.
Another symbolic aspect of the work is itʼs slow general downward progression. Death is
often represented in music by a (chromatic) descending bass-line. This may be due in part
to associations with burial, decay, etc.
The interactions between sonic layers, live and prerecorded parts, and the unorthodox
musical notation of the score are all outgrowths of my desire to echo and amplify possible
meanings found in the original photographs (and more specifically the effect of the three
images together).
Abiding sentience
or a fleeting vital spark,
Elegy of transience
or essence of the Ageless?
Divinityʼs design
shrouded as fluke of fate,
Or dawnʼs impetus
doomed but to unending stillness?
Utterances of the Sages
surrender to an unbroken silence?
Aspirations of the Almighty
veiled in conundrums of coincidence.
The tomb as journeyʼs end,
or portal to the infinite…
Eternal lives,
or life as momentary consciousness?
– Todd Coleman
Thomas Dempster was born in Sandusky, Michigan in 1980, and eventually settled in
North Carolina with his family. An alumnus of the Governor's School of North Carolina,
Dempster pursued undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, where he studied bassoon with Michael Burns, composition with Eddie Bass,
electroacoustic composition with Craig Walsh, and counterpoint and orchestration with
Frank McCarty. He graduated summa cum laude with a BM in Composition in 2002 and
was awarded scholarships and fellowships to attend the University of Texas at Austin.
There he completed the MM in Composition where he studied with Kevin Beavers, Kevin
Puts, Dan Welcher, Yevgeniy Sharlat and Russell Pinkston. He is currently completing the
requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at UT Austin. His music spans a
wide berth of styles and genre, from solo instrumental works to full orchestra. His chamber
orchestra work camera was awarded a 2004 BMI Student Composer Award, and his work
Four Movements for Saxophone Quartet was awarded an honor by Sigma Alpha Iota. His
music has been performed extensively throughout the United States, and has had
performances in Europe and South America. His electroacoustic music has been performed
in a number of SEAMUS and LA-TEX conferences and has been broadcast as far afield as
Denmark and Australia. He has previously served as an instructor at the University of
Texas and the composer-in-residence at the North Carolina Governor's School. He
currently teaches first-year seminars in popular music, art music, and critical theory at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a position he has held since 2006. He is an
active researcher, melding literary theory and popular music as well as analyzing the work
of Takemitsu, Henze, Larsson, Smalley, and Parmegiani. His interests primarily include
close readings of sub-popular rock music using gender and critical race theory, pedagogical
philosophy in the electroacoustic studio, and harmonic analysis through a cultural theory
lens.
Tom currently resides in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his cat Zarathustra and his
numerous houseplants. Tom is an ardent film buff, a far-too-avid reader, and enjoys
learning foreign languages as a hobby. He has also written a fair amount of poetry and
short prose, none of which you (fortunately or not) will see here. If there is anything else
you would like to know, please ask Tom. He may or may not answer.
Inflection Points: In differential Calculus, an inflection point is a point on a curve at which
the curvature changes sign. The curve changes between positive curvature and negative
curvature. I construe the entirety of the piece as a somewhat long arc; the inflection point
of the entire piece happens somewhere during the second movement.
The first movement (not performed at this concert) takes the idea of a stationary point – in
this case, hovering around Bb and E – as a tonal center and more literally sees a line, or a
curve, or pitches and motives passed around between the ensemble. The first movement
(“quirky rays…”) juggles a number of ideas and verily proffers some short-lived,
rhythmically unstable and tonally ambiguous lines and arcs that return later on.
The second movement (“distant planes…”) contains a fair amount of parallel motion, open
and sparse figures, and static textures. Motion in pitch space extends outward in both
directions from A-flat and eventually returns, retracing the points.
The final movement (“jiggly dots…”) is a mildly psychotic gigue that melds together the
ideas of the previous two movements.
Mark Engebretson is Associate Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a recipient of commissions from the Fromm
Foundation, and Thomas S. Kenan Center for the Arts. His music is founded on
contemporary notions of performer/composer virtuosity, interactivity, melody, harmony and
expressivity.
“Engebretson creates innovative sounds and shapes incorporating high velocity perpetual
motion and multi-phonics. The low pitches reminded me of Central Asian throat-singing,
providing a fascinating juxtaposition of the old and the new.” (Classical Voice North
Carolina)
Mark Engebretsonʼs compositions have been presented at festivals such as ICMC
(International Computer Music Conference), Bowling Green Festival of New Music and Art,
Third Practice Festival (University of Richmond), 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).
The composition of the Acorn in the Sun (2009) is a story of multiple connections, and a
search for the creation of meaningful sounds in a context where so much is possible. The
poem Conservation of Energy was written by Dana Richardson--a friend, composer and
poet. I decided to set the text for solo soprano voice for a mutual friend, Lorena Guillén,
who was present at a reading Dana gave of his poems. Later, it occurred to me that the
vocal composition would make a good instrumental piece with electronics, so when the idea
came to make a piece for violist Javier Garavaglia, I decided to use it, changing it in some
small ways to be better suited to the viola, and giving it the title Where Does Love Go?.
Searching for ways to integrate many threads, I took advantage of a visit Lorena made to
UNCG (where I am on the faculty) to record her singing a portion of the song I wrote for her.
I then recorded a reading of the entire poem by Susan Fancher, a saxophonist and my
main partner in crime. I went on to process these vocal sounds in many ways, creating a
sonic backdrop for the solo viola line. Finally, I have now created a version combining the
original setting of Conservation of Energy with the electronic sounds and processes used
for Where Does Love Go?
To Maria
Conservation of Energy
Where does love go
when love is gone?
Does the exploded sun
forever glow
through further reaches
of galactic space,
its light crashing on beaches
of unknown planets
as it congeals to ice,
invisible
in endless night,
fragmented, desolate,
jagged, small?
Does a fallen tear
fall as snow
on some Himalayan slope,
drip from a pear,
or is it squeezed
as the bitter hope
of limes that lie
on tropical beaches
shriveling in despair?
Does the heartbeat stilled
pound out the years
with the music of the spheres,
thunder on the field
before the rain,
or crash on the sand,
curling without end,
again and again?
Where does love go
when love is gone?
It goes to the acorn in the sun.
It goes to the cardinal and the crow.
Dana Richardson 2000
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Suzanne Farrinʼs works have been performed in the US, Europe and South America.
Commissions have come from a variety of sources and for combinations as diverse as the
Irish bagpipes and string quartet to solo piano pieces and works for vibraphone. Her music
can be heard on Signum Classics, VAI and Albany Records.
She has been heard at concert halls such as Carnegie Weill Hall, Symphony Space, The
Kennedy Center, the Tank, Monkeytown, The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College,
Sprague Hall at Yale University, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Walker Art Center
and festivals such as Avantgarde Schwaz, The Carolina Chamber Music Festival, Look and
Listen, The Philadelphia Fringe, Music in Würzburg, Germany, the Norfolk Chamber Music
Festival, the Ernest Bloch Music Festival, Music Mountain and Festival Nuevo Mundo
(Maracaibo).
Musicians that have performed her work include Amanda Baker, Tanya Bannister, Ken
Crilly, Dominic Donato, Julia Lichten, Jesse Levine, Dan Lippel, Steve Mackey, Sara
Okamoto, Vanessa Perez, Jim Pugh, Joshua Rubin, Laurie Smuckler, David Schotzko,
Mark Stewart, Antoine Tamestit, Sayaka Tanikawa, Jason Treuting, Ira Weller and Cal
Wiersma.
Ensembles she has worked with include the Arditti Quartet, So Percussion, The Locrian
Chamber Players, The Meehan/Perkins Duo, Neithermusic, ICE, the iO Quartet, the
Harrington String Quartet, the Parker String Quartet, the Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble,
non|zero, the Yale Philharmonia and the Purchase Symphony Orchestra. Suzanne was
raised in the Casco Bay region of Maine and currently lives in New York City. She
completed a doctorate in music from the Yale School of Music and teaches at SUNY
Purchase, where she is chair of the theory and composition department.
Corpo di terra was written for Julia Lichten in 2009. It is a work that deals with memory
(you may hear allemande figurations throughout) and simple topics such as trills and
glissandi that tip into realms of silence and noise. Pitched worlds submerge and resurface
transformed, extended or untouched.
Craig Hilton was born in New York and now resides in Raleigh, NC. His first
experimentations in sound began as a teenager with a guitar and a 4 track tape recorder,
unknowing of the catalogue of experimental music that came before him. After intensive
study of classical and flamenco guitar for years, he finally started to return to the idea of
abstract sound designs and noise with an industrial project called Sixtus V, where he
became obsessed with the idea of using electronic means (i.e. samplers, treated tape
loops) to achieve sounds he was not able to create with guitar alone. These
experimentations led him down the path of more "stand-alone" pieces, utilizing clusters and
creating large walls of sound completely in the electronic domain. As a result, there was a
collaboration between his project at the time and the late MSBR.
Since 2001, Craig has been involved with many other projects. He toured Europe for the
first time as guitarist/live electronics of the free improv. group The Feraliminal
Lycanthropizers, playing in Sweden, Amsterdam, Berlin and in Hamburg as part of the
Nozart Improvised Music Festival, sharing the stage with the likes of Franz Hautzinger, Tim
Hodgkinson, Hans Koch and others.
Also at this time he was creator and sound designer for The Centre for Transgressive
Behaviors, an experimental theatre group built around the ideals of the Theatre of the
Absurd and the Happenings.
As a full time thought process, this particular group enabled Craig to really coordinate the
interaction between concrete and composed sound with the live action of the performers.
The group still has remnants in the US and Europe. After a few years touring with a band
back in the US, Craig once again gave full effort into his electroacoustic pieces.
Since early 2008, Craig has begun performing live with his guzheng (Chinese zither). He
felt the need to once again have the interaction between live acoustic and live electronics.
He has done two tours in Europe since late 2007, performing in Berlin with Derek Houlzer,
Marcelo Aguirre and Penelope X, in Brussels with Yannick Franck and most recently in
London playing guzheng alongside Steve Beresford.
Tonight's performance marks the second live collaboration between Tomas Phillips and
Craig Hilton. This untitled set continues their exploration of lowercase minimalism in the
format of electro-acoustic improvisation.
Lance Hulmeʼs music “reflects the ambience and musical approach of the North American
musical tradition. Compositional eclecticism, a conscience, playful and uninhibited attitude
with tradition and the crossover between ʻseriousʼ and vernacular music. All these elements
are to be found as well as the most advanced structural and aural techniques.” (Die
Rheinpfalz Zeitung) His music has received awards from the International Witold
Lutoslawski Competition, ASCAP/Rudolf Nissim Prize, Composición Musical Cuitat de
Tarragona, Citta di Trieste Orchestra Competition, International Trumpet Guild Composition
Competition and others, and has been performed by ensembles and orchestras throughout
Europe, Japan and the U.S.
Hulme studied at Yale University, the Eastman School of Music and the Universität für
Musik in Vienna, Austria. Among his teachers were Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick,
Francis Burt, Dominick Argento and Samuel Adler. He has been a MacDowell Colony
Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar and was a guest artist at the Center for Art and Media
Technology (ZKM). A pianist, harpsichordist and conductor, he has premiered his own
works as well as that of other composers, living and historical. His music is available
through In Pegno Music, Seesaw Press and Augsburg/Fortress Press.
For many years, Lance Hulme lived in Germany, where he was founder and director for
Ensemble Surprise, which presented “700 years of new music”. His music has been
presented at the Warsaw Autumn (Poland), New Organ Works (England) and ISCM
(Japan) festivals, and his computer music has been presented at the FICEA and Sonic
Circuits festivals. He has received commissions and performances from numerous
ensembles and organizations including the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo
Philharmonic Orchestra, Southern German Radio, the State Theater of Baden, Pioneer
Valley Symphony, the State Orchestra of Magdeburg, West German Radio, the Karlsruhe
University Chorus, Coro Piccolo, the ProArte concert series, the Raschèr Saxophone
Orchestra, Klammer4, Quattro Mani, the Henschel Quartet and the Tokyo Philharmonic
Orchestra. He has received grants from Fulbright Commission, ASCAP, Culture
Commission of the City of Karlsruhe, Ministry for Art and Education for the States of Baden-
Württemberg (Germany), the Margaret Fairbanks Jory Fund, Leonard Bernstein
Foundation, Southern German Radio and Center for Art and Media Technology. Hulme
began his musical career as keyboardist for the jazz-fusion band “Dreamscape.”
Hulme's musical oeuvre encompasses a wide range of musical genres and styles. Along
with chamber, choral and concert works, he has written for such diverse mediums as jazz,
opera, music theater, liturgical, commercial and computer music. His musical style “cannot
be pigeon-holed into one compositional school” but rather draws upon the diverse elements
of his musical experience to “weave a rich expressive texture.” (Die Rheinpfalz Zeitung)
The Succubus is an electronic tone poem inspired by the Robert Graves poem of the
same name. A succubus is a mythical female spirit that visits men in their dreams. As well
as being “music for speakers,” The Succubus has served as part of installations and dance
evenings. The basic form is a dialogue between a male and female voice. The Succubus
may be unique in the genre of computer music by virtue of its clear sonata structure,
composed with theme, development and recapitulation.
Jakov Jakoulov is the versatile composer of three ballets, five concertos, numerous
symphonic, chamber and choral works as well as music for over 20 theatrical, TV and
cinema productions. In recent years Jakoulovʼs music has been commissioned and
performed by leading orchestras and festivals including the Boston Symphony Tanglewood
Contemporary Music Festival, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony
Orchestra, Boston Symphony Chamber Concerts, Armenian National Symphony Orchestra,
New European Strings Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra,
Kammerspiele Theatre (Munich), Swedish Theater “Lilla”, New England String Ensemble in
Boston and the “Bachanalia” Festival Orchestra in New York City.
Mr. Jakoulov has an international reputation with commissions and performances of his
works in Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Armenia, Russia, Israel as
well as the United States. In 1996 Jakoulov was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda Chapter of
the National Music Honor Society and was nominated for an Annual Award in music
composition of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Jakoulov has recorded extensively both as a composer and a pianist. In 1998, Michael
Zaretsky (viola) and Zak Bjerken (piano) recorded two compositions on a recording Black
Snow interspersed with music of Shostakovich and Glinka. This recording was
subsequently included in the ʻTop Five Classical Recordings Listʼ by Fanfare Magazine.
Between 1999 - 2003 Jakoulov made three recordings of his own piano improvisations:
Emmaʼs Songs, Children of the Wind and Within Four Walls. This summer, Mr. Jakoulov
made his debut at the Verbier Music Festival performing his own violin and piano
arrangement of Gypsy Concerto with renowned violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky.
Jakoulovʼs most recent commissions included the symphonic score Gifts of the Magi for the
Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor; Peter Coyote, narrator),
and ballet Street Talk, Suite Talk which will be a part of the Edinburgh Fringe International
Theatre Festival in August 2009.
Born in Moscow, Jakov Jakoulov began taking lessons at the Gnesin Music Academy from
the age of four and studied piano, theory, counterpoint and composition. He later attended
the Moscow Conservatory as pianist and composer. Subsequently, his experience included
playing in gypsy ensembles and Jewish folk groups, conducting a small circus ensemble,
and performing with an orchestra for news broadcasts. As a composer he began writing for
film and for television primarily for the Moscow Artistic Theatre. By the time he was twenty-five,
he had already written scores for twenty-five productions. In 1987, Jakoulov left
Moscow to work in Munich and traveled extensively throughout Europe before eventually
settling in the United States. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition of
Boston University having studied with Theodore Antoniou and Lukas Foss. He currently
lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano “De Profundis…” (2007-08) was initially written as a
one-movement piece for The Collage Trio and performed in Boston in 2007. After the
performance I decided to add two more movements and made some changes in an existing
one. So now it is a "standard" three- movement piece. However, the tempi are quite
"twisted": the very short fast movement is sort of "squeezed" between two Adagios. The
final Adagio in certain moments has a slight reminiscence of a famous Adagio in G minor
by Tomaso Albinoni but very distorted and vulgarized.
The title of the Trio "De Profundis...” - (" Out of the depths have I called Thee, O the Lord.")
speaks for itself - it is the first phrase of Psalm 130, one of the seven so-called Penitential
Psalms of David. The Penitential Psalms or Psalms of Confession are especially
expressive of sorrow for sin.
Here is the first stanza of this Psalm which will guide you through the music and will help
you to understand what I was trying to express in this work.
“Out of the depths have I called Thee, O Lord.
Lord, hearken unto my voice; let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If Thou, the Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”
Thomas Licata is a composer and theorist. He holds MM and MFA degrees in composition
and music theory and a DMA in composition from the University of Maryland at College
Park. He also studied electroacoustic music at the Institute of Sonology in The Netherlands.
As a composer, Licata has written a wide variety of music that has been performed in the
United States, Europe and Asia. His music is available on Neuma Records and Capstone
Records. As a theorist, much of his recent research has concentrated on the analysis of
electroacoustic music, which is included in the noteworthy book, Electroacoustic Music:
Analytical Perspectives (Greenwood Press, 2002). This book comprises a broad collection
of essays of electroacoustic works while also demonstrating recent approaches to the
analysis of this music. Licata is also editor of the book, Essays on the Music and
Theoretical Writings of Thomas DeLio (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008). Comprised of a
wide collection of essays, written by composers, music theorists, and performers, this book
examines the work of one of the foremost composers and music theorists working today.
Licata teaches music theory, composition and media arts at Hartwick College in Oneonta
NY. He is also founder and director of the Hartwick College Electroacoustic Music Studios.
another…turning is based on a series of recurring sound events that are repeatedly
subjected to various modifications. Set against shifting sonic backdrops, these
modifications obscure and distort the distinction between whether new and separate sound
events are formed and whether they have been simply refashioned, thereby rendering their
intrinsic qualities unclear and rather fluid as they progress throughout the piece. Apart from
how the listener perceives these moments, another…turning projects a constant,
multilayered series of sonic environments that, in and of themselves, each turn to and take
on a life of their own.
Elainie Lilliosʼs music focuses on the essence of sound and suspension of time,
conveying different emotions and taking listeners on “sonic journeys.” The sounds she uses
for her music are varied--sometimes they are simple things like the human voice, cars, wind
chimes, or water. Other times her sound material is less obvious, like crunching bits of
branches, walking through snow, or pebbles shuffling in water. Elainie holds degrees from
Northern Illinois University (BMus, MM, MM), the University of North Texas (DMA), and The
University of Birmingham (MPhil) where she studied electroacoustic composition and sound
diffusion with Jonty Harrison. Other influential mentors in composition include C.T.
Blickhan, Robert Fleisher, Jan Bach, Jon Christopher Nelson, and Larry Austin.
Elainie has been commissioned by the International Computer Music Association,
ASCAP/SEAMUS, La Muse en Circuit (Paris), New Adventures in Sound Art (Toronto), and
Rèseaux (Montreal), and has received awards/recognition from CIMESP (Brazil), Russolo
(Italy), and IMEB (France) among others. Her music has been presented at conferences,
concerts, and festivals internationally, including guest invitations to the GRM (Paris), Rien à
Voir (Montreal), lʼespace du son festival (Brussels), June in Buffalo (New York), and
Sonorities (SARC Centre, Belfast). Elainieʼs music is available on the Empreintes
DIGITALes, StudioPANaroma, La Muse en Circuit, and SEAMUS labels, and is included on
the CD accompaniment to New Adventures in Sound Artʼs The Radio Art Companion.
Elainie teaches music technology and composition at Bowling Green State University in
Ohio, where she serves as Associate Professor and Coordinator of Music Technology, and
participates as a Faculty Research Scholar in BGSUʼs New Media and Emerging
Technology Center.
Listening Beyond (2007)… explores the relationship between sound and silence, and
their intersection in space while simultaneously merging my interests in Deep Listening and
electroacoustics. This Ambisonic composition was commissioned by the Center for
Computation and Technology at Louisiana State University.
Marcus Karl Maroney studied composition and horn at The University of Texas at Austin
(B.M.) and Yale School of Music (M.M., D.M.A.). His principle composition teachers were
Joseph Schwantner, Ned Rorem, Joan Tower and Dan Welcher. In 1999, he received a
fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center, the First Hearing award from the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra (for Those Teares are Pearle ) and an ASCAP/Morton Gould Young
Composerʼs award. Other awards and fellowships followed, including: a Charles Ives
Scholarship from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Music 2000 Prize from
the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, further awards from ASCAP, a
residency at the Copland House and consecutive Woods Chandler Memorial awards from
Yale University. Commissions have come from such organizations and individuals as
eighth blackbird (Rhythms), the Orchestra of St. Lukeʼs (Hudson), The Norfolk Chamber
Music Festival (Introduction and Barrage for the Gryphon Trio), Timothy McAllister (Denk
Dir:), the Moores School Percussion Ensemble (Pantheon), the Texas Music Festival
(Märchenbilder), the Deer Valley Music Festival (Three Pieces for String Quartet) and the
Juventas! New Music Ensemble (Dust of the Road). Mr. Maroney served on the faculty of
the Yale School of Music from 2002-2004. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music at
the University of Houstonʼs Moores School of Music. His academic pursuits include
research on the music and life of Swiss composer Frank Martin, for which he was awarded
a grant from the University of Houston for residency at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel.
Five Pieces for Wind Quintet is a divertissement with an aim to show off the coloristic
possibilities of the ensemble, from the opening solo clarinet to the buzzing of stopped horn
amplified by stratospheric piccolo. The only real departure from the lighthearted mood
comes in the slow Interlude, but even then, the focus is on various blendings and
separations of the five primary colors of the ensemble. The piece was composed in Spring
1999 and premiered at the Tangelwood Music Festival that summer, as Six Pieces for Wind
Quintet. A sixth movement fugue was removed from the work and other small changes
were made to the remaining five movements a few years later.
Paul Moravec, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has composed over one hundred
orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and electro-acoustic compositions. His music has
been described as “tuneful, ebullient and wonderfully energetic” (San Francisco Chronicle),
“riveting and fascinating” (NPR), and “assured, virtuosic” (Wall Street Journal). The New
York Times recently praised his quartet, Vince & Jan: 1945, with, “This masterly miniature
conveyed warm nostalgia, buoyant swing and wartime unease.”
He is University Professor at Adelphi University and recently also served as the Artist-in-
Residence with the Institute for Advanced Study. Both positions are unique to their
respective institutions.
Mr. Moravecʼs first opera, The Letter, commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, with libretto by
Terry Teachout, premieres July 25, and runs till August 18, 2009. Also in the 2008-9
season, his evening-length oratorio, The Blizzard Voices, about the Great Plains blizzard of
1888, with text by Ted Kooser, was premiered by Opera Omaha, and his Brandenburg
Gate was premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
Among Paul Moravec's numerous awards are the Rome Prize Fellowship from the
American Academy in Rome, a Fellowship in Music Composition from the National
Endowment for the Arts, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a Camargo Foundation
Residency Fellowship, two fellowships from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, as
well as many commissions. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University, he
has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hunter College, as well as Adelphi
University.
Mr. Moravec is regularly sought out by leading performing artists and ensembles. Recent
performance highlights include Songs of Love and War with the Oratorio Society of New
York at Carnegie Hall, The Time Gallery at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and
Tempest Fantasy with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recent world
premieres include Anniversary Dances with the Ying Quartet; Atmosfera a Villa Aurelia with
the Lark Quartet; Mark Twain Sez with cellist Matt Haimovitz; Cornopean Airs with the
American Brass Quintet; The Time Gallery with eighth blackbird at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art; Morph with the String Orchestra of New York (SONYC); Cool Fire and
Chamber Symphony for the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival; Capital Unknowns for
the Albany Symphony; Everyone Sang for Troy Cook and the Marilyn Horne Foundation;
Parables for the New York Festival of Song, Vita Brevis, a song cycle for tenor Paul Sperry;
Useful Knowledge, a cantata commissioned by the American Philosophical Society for Ben
Franklin's tercentenary; No Words, commissioned by Concert Artist Guild for pianist James
Lent and the Gay Gotham Chorus; and two works for the Elements String Quartet.
Paul Moravecʼs discography includes Tempest Fantasy, performed by Trio Solisti with
clarinetist David Krakauer, on Naxos American Classics; The Time Gallery, performed by
eighth blackbird also on Naxos; Cool Fire, with the Bridgehampton Chamber Festival on
Naxos; Songs of Love and War for Chorus and Orchestra on a CD featuring The Dessoff
Choirs & Orchestra; Sonata for Violin and Piano performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo
for BMG/RCA Red Seal; Double Action, Evermore, and Ariel Fantasy, performed by the
Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo on an Endeavour Classics CD entitled “The Red Violin;”
Atmosfera a Villa Aurelia and Vince & Jan, performed by the Lark Quartet on an Endeavour
Classics CD entitled “Klap Ur Handz;” Morph, performed by the String Orchestra of New
York on an Albany disc, Spiritdance, an orchestral work on the Vienna Modern Masters
label; an album of chamber compositions titled Circular Dreams on CRI; and Vita Brevis,
with Paul Sperry, tenor, and the composer at the piano, on Albany Records.
Tempest Fantasy is a musical meditation on various characters, moods, situations, and
lines of text from my favorite Shakespeare play, The Tempest. Rather than trying to depict
these elements in programmatic terms, the music simply uses them as points of departure
for flights of purely musical fancy.
The first three movements spring from the nature and selected speeches of the three
eponymous characters. The fourth movement begins from Caliban's uncharacteristically
elegant speech from Act III, scene 2:
Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
The fifth movement is the most “fantastic” flight of all, elaborating on the numerous musical
strands of the previous movements and drawing them all together into a convivial finale.
Tempest Fantasy was begun at the MacDowell Colony in summer, 2001, and completed at
Yaddo in the summer of 2002 and is dedicated with great admiration and affection to David
Krakauer & the Trio Solisti — who gave its premiere at the Morgan Library on Friday, May
2, 2003.
Kirk OʼRiordan is an active composer, conductor, saxophonist, and teacher. His music has
been performed in Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Finland, Italy, and Russia; and in
23 of the fifty United States. Performances of his works have been featured at the Ravenna
Festival (Italy), the Western Illinois New Music Festival, the 2008 Eugene Rousseau
Birthday Celebration, national and regional conferences of the Society of Composers, Inc.
and the College Music Society; and in concert by such performers as the Eaken Piano Trio,
Orchestra Bruno Maderna (Italy), the Arizona State University Chamber Winds and
Symphony Orchestra, the Susquehanna University Orchestra and Chamber Singers,
Kenneth Tse, Jeffrey Lyman, Marco Albonetti, Russell Peterson, Emily Bullock, Andrew
Rammon, Reuben Councill, John Perrine, and Holly Roadfeldt-OʼRiordan.
Kirk is the recipient of numerous awards as both a composer and a performer, including
annual ASCAPlus awards, a Composerʼs Assistance Program grant from the American
Music Center, the 2001 Arizona State University Composition Competition, the 2000
Contemporary Music Society competition, and an ERM-Media Masterworks Prize. In
addition, his Cadenza for Piano Trio was one of two works selected by audience members
at the CMS Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Super-regional Conference for performance at the 2008
CMS National Conference.
Kirk's music has been broadcast on KBAQ, WQSU, and WVIA radio. His Cathedral for Alto
Saxophone and Organ appears on a recording by Frederick Hemke and Douglass
Cleveland (EnF Records), and River Lights will appear on Masterworks of the New Era vol.
15 (to be released in 2009 on ERM-Media). He has recently received commissions from the
EastWind Ensemble, saxophonist Farrell Vernon, flutist Reuben Councill, the University of
Delaware University Singers, and the Grammy-nominated Eaken Piano Trio. In the 2009-10
season, Kirkʼs music will be heard in Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, and North
Dakota.
In August, 2009 Dr. O'Riordan joined the faculty of Lafayette College where he serves as
Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Bands. In addition, he has served on the
faculties of Bucknell University and Susquehanna University. He holds the Doctor of
Musical Arts degree from Arizona State University (the first recipient of that degree from
ASU); the Certificate of Performance in Saxophone from Northwestern University; and three
Master of Music degrees (composition, saxophone performance, and conducting).
His academic pursuits have ranged from writings on musical aesthetics to works in musical
analysis and aural skills pedagogy. Several of his writings were developed from essays
presented on his radio program, Face the Music, which aired from 2007-2008 on WQSU-FM.
His current scholarly work focuses on interdisciplinarity: he presented On Teaching
Composition: Similarities, Differences, and Aesthetics of Teaching Music and Prose at
regional and national conferences of the College Music Society, and continues an active
interest in contemporaneous art works which span multiple disciplines, and developed a
seminar course on art and music of the year 1912-13 for Lafayette College.
Kirk has studied composition with Rodney Rogers, Randall Shinn, James De Mars, Glenn
Hackbarth, Jay Alan Yim, Burton Beerman, Marilyn Shrude, and Donald M.Wilson. He has
studied saxophone with Frederick L. Hemke, John Sampen, Eugene Rousseau, and Iwan
Roth.
Ductus figuratus (trans. “figurative style”) was composed in honor of saxophone virtuoso
and esteemed teacher Eugene Rousseau. The work is approximately 20 minutes in
duration; essentially a concerto for saxophone and chamber ensemble.
The title of the work came to me during work on the second movement, developed a certain
Gregorian quality as it grew. At the time I had been listening to Orffʼs Carmina Burana, and
I found that there were aspects of my piece that were similar, notably the simple verse form
and the medieval-profoundly-reverent mood. My piece reminded me of entering the
Cathedral at Rouen, France (painted many times by Monet) for the first time: one is
overpowered by the history and ritual. Latin seemed to be the appropriate language for the
title and movements.
“Figurative style” here, borrowed from rhetoric, is a bit of a play on words: musical
figurations are elaborate ornaments, which, at least here, add to the austerity of the work.
The movement titles translate as follows: I. Cadens, “cadenza” (from rhetoric, cadence); II.
Abeo, “chant”; III. Tripudio, “dance”; IV. Demum “at last,” or “finally.”
I am pleased to dedicate this work to Eugene Rousseau, with whom I had the privilege of
studying saxophone from 1989-91. It is my hope that this piece might speak as a small
gesture of thanks for many years of commitment to his students, to the saxophone, and to
music.
Tomas Phillips is a composer, novelist, and teacher whose sound work focuses on
improvisational performance and minimalist through-composition. He began composing
electronic music in the early 1990s and has since created music for installations, dance and
theater. He has collaborated with Francisco López, i8u (France Jobin), Chantale Laplante,
Dean King, and Tobias c. Van Veen, among others. Labels to release his music include
Trente Oiseaux (Germany), Line (USA), Non Visual Objects (Austria) and Atak (Japan).
Born in Argentina, composer Alejandro Ruttyʼs output includes orchestral, chamber and
mixed-media music, arrangements of Argentine traditional music, and innovative outreach
musical projects. In his music, Rutty attempts an engaging blend of traditional subtlety,
experimental sophistication, and explosive energy. The Boston Globe wrote about The
Conscious Sleepwalker Loops “…the result is a blaring, multi-channel, gleefully vernacular
carnival. It made a terrific curtain-raiser.” The New York Times said: “Alejandro Ruttyʼs
amusing ʻConscious Sleepwalker Loopsʼ offered an immediate test of the ensembleʼs
mettle…” Other pieces generated similarly positive reactions: “… in every respect, an
impressive listening experience” (Osnabrüker Zeitung on L'accordeoniste); and “…in
Alejandro Rutty's wonderful ʻTango Loops 2Bʼ… a sexy, somewhat inebriated tango pokes
through the orchestral fabric every now and then, as if perceived in memory” (The
Minnesota Star Tribune).
A unique feature of Ruttyʼs music is its affection for textures suggested by modern
recording processing techniques, and the use of Tango – a genre he performs as a pianist
– and other South American genres as part of the musicʼs surface.
Ruttyʼs compositions and arrangements have been played by the Minnesota Symphony
Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, National Symphony Orchestra of
Brazil, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Linköping
Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Amherst
Saxophone Quartet, and the Cassatt String Quartet among other groups. Recordings of his
music have been released by Capstone Records, Arizona University Recordings, and ERM
Media.
Recipient of a 2008 MATA Festival commission and First Prize Winner of the 2008
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Competition, Ruttyʼs recent and upcoming events include
chamber and symphonic performances in North America, South America and Asia.Ruttyʼs
appearances as conductor include the National Symphony Orchestra of Brazil (UFF), the
UNCUYO Symphony Orchestra (Argentina), Hey, Mozart! Orchestra, June in Buffalo
Festival Chamber Orchestra, Catskill Choral Society, Albuquerque Philharmonic Orchestra,
American Opera and Musical Theatre Company, Orpheus Theatre Company and Grand
Opera Theatre.
Founder and Artistic Director of the Hey, Mozart! Project, Ruttyʼs activities have included
his work as conductor for numerous organizations, and arranger and pianist for Argentine-
Tango performances. He has been Artistic Director of the Hartwick College Summer Music
Festival for the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
Alejandro Rutty (Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo) is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
City of Webs is created from Michael Basinskiʼs reading of his own text, City of Webs. The
text consists of two pages with words, symbols, and graphics from which the poet creates a
performance partially improvised, weaving themes and extrapolating commentaries about
the text. Alejandro Rutty uses the voice of the poet to orchestrate around the voiceʼs
different semantic and not semantic utterances. Part of the music is pre-recorded, while
some of the music comes from live instruments, mirroring Basinskiʼs procedure of having
some degree of improvisation and some scripted material.
Performers
Grace Anderson is a concert cellist and pianist whose performances have been described
as "transforming" (Classical Voice of North Carolina), and characterized by "boundless
energy and rapier definition" (New York Concert Review). She has performed as soloist
and chamber musician in major venues nationally and internationally, including the Weill
Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and throughout Europe. Her performance
with the Tedesca Chamber Players, an all-strings ensemble that she established in New
York City, was broadcast worldwide on BBC Television.
The Blue Mountain Ensemble is based in central North Carolina and brings together very
familiar faces to classical music audiences of this region and beyond. The ensemble
performs engaging repertoire from many style periods written for this combination of flute,
bassoon, and piano, but also seeks existing repertoire that adapts well to the ensemble
along with newly commissioned works. The name of the ensemble is taken from
exceptionally beautiful and diverse natural areas in Florida, Australia, and North Carolina
that hold special significance for the members, with each of these places carrying the name
Blue Mountain. Programming by the group mirrors the diverse environments of these areas
ranging from serene, young, old, laid-back and joyful, to rugged and intense.
Tadeu Coelho currently teaches at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He
has served as associate professor of flute at the University of Iowa from 1997-2002, as
assistant professor of flute at the University of New Mexico from 1992-1997, and as visiting
professor at the Ino Mirkovich Music Academy in Croatia. Mr. Coelho frequently appears as
soloist, chamber musician, and master clinician throughout Europe, Asia, and the
Americas. He has performed as first solo flutist of the Santa Fe Symphony, Hofer
Symphoniker in Germany, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy, among others,
including guest appearances with the Boston Symphony in the summer of 1996.
A recipient of many awards and scholarships, Rockefeller Foundation, Fideicomiso para la
cultura México/EUA, USIA/Fulbright, LASPAU, and CAPES, Tadeu Coelho received his
Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Julius
Baker and Ransom Wilson. Started on the flute by his father, Dr. Coelho also studied with
Keith Underwood, Thomas Nyfenger, Andrew Lolya, and Arthur Ephross. Mr. Coelho gave
his New York recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in April of 1992. In his
native Brazil, Coelho studied also with Spartacco Rossi, João Dias Carrasqueira, and Jean
Noel Sagaard. Tadeu Coelho is an avid proponent of new music and the music of the
Americas. He has commissioned, performed, and recorded works by notable composers.
Carla Copeland-Burns currently enjoys an active freelancing career with several
ensembles including the North Carolina Symphony, the Opera Company of North Carolina,
and the Carolina Ballet among others. Burns serves as Piccoloist for the Greensboro
Symphony Orchestra, Principal Flute in the Salisbury Symphony, and in the ongoing
chamber groups Blue Mountain Ensemble, Radford University Faculty Chamber Players,
and the Cascade Wind Quintet, a North Carolina Arts Council Touring Roster Ensemble. A
dedicated teacher, Burns has served on an adjunct basis at Indiana State University, the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mars Hill College, and served with the New
England Music Camp faculty for six years. She currently teaches flute at Radford University
in Virginia and coaches chamber music at the Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop. Prior
to moving to North Carolina, Burns maintained an active recital schedule, as a teacher and
guest artist on flute and baroque flute, while based in the Boston and Cincinnati areas.
Following her time in Cincinnati she became the Principal Flute for the Midland-Odessa
Symphony in Texas and then relocated to the Greensboro, NC, area in fall 1994. Burns
holds a Bachelor of Music with Honors degree from the Florida State University and the
Master of Music in Flute Performance from the New England Conservatory. Her teachers
include Charles Delaney, Lois Schaefer, Carol Wincenc, Nadine Asin, Jack Wellbaum and
Stephen Preston. www.carlacopelandburns.com
Shawn Copeland is originally from Titusville, Florida. An avid chamber musician, Shawn is
a founding member of The Bellwood Trio (clarinet, cello and piano) and Una Voce, a
professional clarinet quartet, both based in North Carolina. He has presented recitals and
premiered works throughout Europe, the United States, Ireland and Japan. He is currently
principal clarinetist of the Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra and performs with the North
Carolina Symphony, the Carolina Pops, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and the
Winston-Salem Symphony as well as many other local orchestras throughout the region.
He has served as co-principal for Southern Winds, a professional wind ensemble in
Orlando, Florida and as second clarinetist/bass clarinetist for the Bach Festival Orchestra in
Winter Park, FL.
Shawn completed the Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro. He holds additional degrees from the University of Central Florida
and Stetson University. As an accredited teacher of Alexander Technique and a specialist
in the application of anatomy and physiology called body mapping, Shawn maintains an
active teaching schedule, presenting masterclasses and lessons throughout the southern
United States. His book, What Every Clarinetist Needs to Know about the Body will be
published in early 2009. Dr. Copeland is on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival,
teaching Alexander Technique to the faculty and young musicians participating in the
festival. Shawn resides in Greensboro, NC with his Jack Russell Terrier, Scribble.
Stephanie Ezerman has appeared in concert across the United States and Canada as a
soloist and chamber musician. She has performed with the Memphis Symphony, New
World Symphony, Pine Mountain Music Festival, and Spoleto Festival USA. Active as a
chamber musician, she performs regularly with her husband, Alex Ezerman, as part of the
Ezerman Duo. She has participated in numerous premiers, most recently a recording of
Theresa LeVelle's The Shadowlands, released on the Innova label in 2005. She studied
with Sally O'Reilly, Mark Bjork and, most recently, John Gilbert.
Elizabeth Tomlin, piano, is an active piano soloist, chamber musician and new music
advocate. Notable solo performances include the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard
Festival, the Dudley Profiles Series at Harvard University, and solos with orchestras in
Illinois, Indiana and North Carolina. In demand as a collaborative pianist, she performs
regularly throughout the Triangle area with local and visiting artists, including appearances
with North Carolina Symphony artists, visiting New York Philharmonic artists, Mallarme
Chamber Players, Durham Choral Society, and the Carolina Wind Quintet. She has been a
chamber coach at the UNC Chamber Workshop, American String Workshop, and Depauw
University, and was the coordinator of the piano accompanying programs at Indiana
University and the Harid Conservatory of Music. Elizabeth often premieres works by
established and emerging composers such as T.J. Anderson, Derek Bermel, Benjamin
Crawford, Jennifer Fitzgerald, and John Bower. She holds a Doctor of Music from Indiana
University, a Masters of Music from the University of Michigan and a Bachelors of Music
from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Principal teachers include Edward
Auer, Louis Nagel and Duke Miles, and she has worked in master classes with Murray
Perahia, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Levin and John Perry. Previously on the music
faculties of the Harid Conservatory of Music and the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, she joined the Duke University music department in 2005 and the Blue Mountain
Ensemble in 2008.
Relevents Wind Quintet was founded in 2008 by a group of professional musicians in
Greensboro, NC who were looking for the exceptional collaborative experience that only
chamber music can provide. The group has performed throughout North Carolina and
South Carolina and made their international debut on a tour of southern Germany in March,
2009. Dedicated performers and teachers, the individual members maintain active teaching
appointments with local universities throughout North Carolina and South Carolina as well
as extensive performance schedules with symphonies throughout North Carolina and the
southeast. Relevents is committed to removing the traditional boundaries that exist
between the performer and the audience. By performing in both traditional and
non‐traditional venues, Relevents works to welcome new fans to the world of wind quintet
repertoire. We strive to present exciting and diverse programs, performing standards as
well as new works for the wind quintet developed through close collaboration with up and
coming composers. Relevents Wind Quintet is committed to performing music that is
relevant to each of us and to our time.
Lorena Guillén, soprano, was born in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Her performance
experience ranges from the madrigal operas of Banchieri to the avant-garde musical
theater of Berio and Stockhausen or the traditional American-Broadway of Yeston.
As an active performer of contemporary repertoire, she has been a guest artist in: “New
Music New Haven” of Yale University, Chautauqua Institution, College Music Society
Convention 1999, Music Gallery at Toronto (Canada), June in Buffalo Festival, Boston
Conservatory, Buffaloʼs Symphony Circle. One of Guillénʼs highlights in her career as a
contemporary music performer has been her participation and performance at Karlheinz
Stockhausen Curses 1999 and 2000 in Kuerten (Germany) where she performed
“Indianerlieder: In the Sky I Am Walking” under the direction, lighting and sound design of
Stockhausen himself. This event was followed by the Argentine tour of Indianerlieder at
Fernández Blanco Museum (Buenos Aires) and University of San Juan (concert-lecture),
concerts at different venues in Buffalo (US) and Toronto (Canada).
Guillén has sung as leading singer and guest soloist with Orpheus Music Theater Company
(NY, US), the Chamber Opera of Morón (Arg.), Chamber Vocal Group of Quilmes (Arg.), La
Zarzuela de Albuquerque (NM, US), Catskill Choral Society (NY, US) and Santa Fe Opera
Educational Concerts Touring Quartet (NM, US).
Mary Pritchett-Boudreault, originally from Boone, North Carolina, is a founding member
da Capo Brass, a professional brass quintet. As a chamber musician, Mary has been a
featured performer on multiple concert series including the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild
and the Triad Chamber Music Society. Mary has performed as the principal horn for the
Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Carolina Chamber
Symphony, Charlotte Philharmonic, and Raleigh Symphony Orchestra. She also regularly
performs with the North Carolina, Roanoke (VA), Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Salisbury,
and Western Piedmont Symphonies. She has performed in conjunction with professional
conferences including the International Horn Symposium, the Southeast Horn Workshop,
the North American Saxophone Alliance and the Society of Composers, Inc.
Mary is currently on the faculty at Winston-Salem State University where she teaches horn,
music theory, and aural skills. She holds the Master of Music degree from the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro. Mary resides in Greensboro with her husband, Luke, a
professional trumpet player, and their retriever, Mandolin.
Thomas Pappas is active as an oboe soloist, chamber, and orchestra musician. He has
performed throughout the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, the Czech
Republic, and Wales. Recent solo appearances include performances of oboe concertos in
Greensboro, NC and with the Aalen Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where he grew up
and first learned how to play the oboe. He has performed principal and section oboe with
the Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra as well as the Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Western
Piedmont and the Salisbury symphony orchestras. Recently Pappas was a featured soloist
on the annual computer music concert xMUSE at the University of South Carolina. Other
professional conferences he has performed at include the North American Saxophone
Alliance, the Society of Composers Inc., UNCG Cello Celebrations (Silva and Varga) and
the UNCG New Music Festival. He enjoys performing new music and has premiered
several works, including ones written for him by his brother, the composer Daniel Pappas.
He is a member of the Pappas Family Recorder Quartet, who released their first
commercially available CD in 2005.
Pappas holds the Bachelor of Arts degree from Grace College, IN, the Master of Music
degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and is currently completing
work on the Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
with Dr. Mary Ashley Barret. Thomas resides in Greensboro with three dogs: Bella, Delphi,
and Winnie.
Jonathan Salter grew up in Oberlin, Ohio, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree at
Williams College where he majored in mathematics and music, graduating with highest
honors. He received his Master of Music degree from Indiana University. Salter was the
associate principal clarinetist for the Berkshire Symphony from 1998 to 2002, and was
selected to perform Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie with the orchestra for the concerto
competition in 2001. He was the recipient of the Hubbard Hutchinson Memorial Fellowship
from Williams College, the Excellence Fellowship from UNCG and also received the
Leopold Schepp Foundation Fellowship. Salter's teachers include Michele Gingras, Susan
Martula, Alan Kay, Eli Eban, Howard Klug, and he is currently working on his Doctor of
Musical Arts degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with Dr. Kelly Burke.
Salter is also active as a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, and his
research concerns intersections between contemporary mathematics and music theory.
Ann Shoemaker is active throughout the Carolinas as both a teacher and performer. She
is the second bassoonist with the Greensboro Symphony, and plays regularly as both
principal and section bassoon with the Charlotte, Greenville (SC), Winston-Salem,
Asheville, and Charleston Symphony Orchestras, the South Carolina Philharmonic,
Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle. An avid chamber
musician, she has also performed in Washington D.C. and New York City with the Jupiter
Symphony Chamber Players.
Ann has been on faculty at Furman University since 2004 as Adjunct Professor of Bassoon,
and has previously served as instructor of bassoon at North Carolina School of the Arts,
Davidson College, and Yale University. She has played on the Greensboro Symphony
Orchestraʼs Chamber Music Series and regularly collaborates with other faculty at Furman
University. Ann is currently working towards her doctoral degree at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro, where she lives with her Brittany Spaniel, Rio.
Laura Dangerfield Stevens is the principal flutist of the Western Piedmont Symphony and
holds the piccolo position with the Salisbury Symphony. She has performed with many
orchestras, including the New World Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Long Bay
Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Long Leaf
Opera Orchestra, and the Piedmont Opera Orchestra. Laura is the Applied Flute Instructor
at Lenoir-Rhyne University and maintains a private flute studio in Winston-Salem.
Laura is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Musical Arts degree at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Salem
College School of Music and her Master of Music degree from the University of North
Carolina School of the Arts. Laura performs recitals throughout the east coast, performs at
weddings and special events, and performs in studio recordings. Laura lives in Winston-
Salem with her husband, composer William R. Stevens, and their three dogs Naima,
Phaedra, and Kendra.
Young Artists
Pianist/composer Kyle Adam Blair searches for ways to fuse minimalist and post-minimalist
compositional techniques with classical and romantic gestures and forms. Blair
is also interested in mathematical ideas and functions, and seeks to incorporate points of
symmetry, palindromes, and angularity into his compositions. He has studied piano with
Dr. Andrew Willis and Dr. Joe DiPiazza at UNCG, and has participated in master classes
with Jerome Lowenthal, Jon Nakamatsu, and Stephen Drury. Blair has received guidance
in composition from Dr. Mark Engebretson and Dr. Alejandro Rutty. He is currently
completing the fourth and final year of a B.M. in Piano Performance at UNCG.
Yin-Yang Geometry evolved as an exploration of touches at the keyboard, namely a
variety of articulations while the hands are rapidly alternating single notes or chords. This
music also explores the harmonic implications and possibilities of symmetry around a pitch.
In this piece, that pitch is presented at the outset, and the piece expands out of that sonic
space. The final seed of this piece is a simple melodic motive: a stepwise-descending
tetrachord (performed simultaneously with its inversion). This piece and performance is
dedicated to Lindell Carter, David Clark, and John Brown, without whom my voice as a
performer, composer, and individual might not be heard.
Meredith Butterworth (b. 1987) grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina and has been
studying music since the age of ten. She began studying percussion in her middle school
and shortly after began competing at the All-District level. It wasnʼt until she reached her
junior year of High School that she began taking private lessons. Earning spots in All-
District Band, Western Regional Orchestra, All-State Orchestra and All-State Band, she
concluded her High School career and chose to pursue Music Performance at UNC
Charlotte. Here, Meredith has studied percussion with Mr. Rick Dior and composition with
Dr. John Allemeier. Upon her graduation in December of 2009, she plans to continue
exploring and creating music.
Jazzist Removed is a juxtaposition of “swing feel” over “straight feel” rhythm. Using this
combination propels the piece through faster sections that contrast with opposing sections
that are long and flowing. The idea of these two different styles and sections make this
piece a conflict in disguise.
Anna Darnell began studying the clarinet at age 10 as a student of Dr. Monty Cole,
Associate Professor of Clarinet at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She remained
under his instruction throughout middle and high school. Other teachers have included Dr.
Deborah Bish, Dr. Sandra Jackson, Ronald DeKant, and Deborah Chodacki. In the summer
of 2007, Anna attended Interlochen Arts Camp as an Emerson Scholar. While at
Interlochen, she performed as a member of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra and the
Interlochen Philharmonic. Anna was the 2007 winner of the Macon Symphony Orchestra
High School Concerto Competition and performed the Rondo of Mozartʼs Clarinet Concerto
with the MSO. In the summer of 2008, she was a finalist in the International Clarinet
Association High School Competition and the third place winner of the Oklahoma Clarinet
Symposium Young Artist Competition. She was the state winner of the 2008 Georgia Music
Teacherʼs National Association Senior Woodwind Competition and performed at the
Southern regional competition. She was the principal clarinetist of the Mercer/Macon
Symphony Youth Orchestra for three seasons. From 2007-2009, she performed as a
member of the Georgia College & State University Concert Band. She was a member of
the First Baptist Church of Gray Celebration Orchestra, and she has participated in various
musical activities in the communities of Macon and Gray, Georgia. Anna is currently
pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
under the instruction of Dr. Anthony Taylor.
Cellist Daniel Jumper has been performing since the age of seven. His appreciation for
music performance began in early childhood, thumping away at his mother's piano where
endless sessions of pure aesthetic entertainment gave way to self-taught musical literacy
and vocalization. By age 11, Daniel was performing in a plethora of church and community
choirs until presented the cello by his junior high orchestra director. the rest, as they say, is
history. In a few years' time, Daniel had begun studying privately, in turn, under the
directions of cellists Robert O'Brien of the Greenville Symphony Orchestra, Alan Black of
the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, and Dr. Miranora Frisch, Director of String Chamber
Ensembles and Associate Professor of Cello at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte. His musical experiences range from dance to theater. He currently performs as
Principal Cellist of the UNC-Charlotte Symphony and Chamber Orchestras and UNC-Charlotte's
Honors Bonnie Cone String Quartet.
Daniel is pursuing his Bachelors Degrees in both Cello Performance and Mathematics with
a concentration in Actuarial Science.
Grace Kennerly, 20, started playing the viola at the age of 11 under the direction of Mr.
Jesse Suggs. Currently, she is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
where she is a candidate for a bachelor of music in viola performance and studies with
Hugh Partridge. Grace is a recipient of the Fred Morrison Academic Scholarship and the
Vollmer Music Scholarship. She has been principal violist of the UNC Symphony Orchestra
since her freshman year and enjoys performing with her string quartet. Grace is also a
member of the UNC Baroque and New Music Ensembles. In 2007, Grace won the
Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition. Previous teachers include
Dr. Scott Rawls of UNC-Greensboro and Sheila Browne of the University of North Carolina
School of the Arts where Grace attended her senior year of high school. She has performed
in the masterclasses of Carol Rodland, Karen Ritscher, Ara Gregorian, Kenneth Goldsmith,
Sheila Browne, the Boromeo String Quartet, and the Arditti String Quartet.
James Kylstra (b. 1989) is a junior Music Composition and Philosophy double major at
UNC-Chapel Hill. He has studied composition under Julie Harris, Stephen Anderson, and
Allen Anderson and trombone under Michael Kris. In 2007, he won the NCMTA state
composition competition. In 2009 he participated in the summer music festival at the
American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, where he studied with Allain Gaussin
and Francois Paris and took masterclasses with Fabien Levy and Betsy Jolas.
Viola Solo in Three Continuous Movements was written in the fall of 2008 for
performance by Grace Kennerly. Evolutionary transformations through three distinct sets of
material drive the piece. The piece starts with a long line of motoric staccato eighth notes,
wherein the pitch and rhythmic material are severely restricted. New pitches and rhythms
are introduced gradually, first as ornaments and then as elements of the piece's
fundamental structure, and the viola moves higher in its register. The piece ends with
slower, more reflective material punctuated with high harmonics.
Elliot Schreur (piano) studies music theory, composition, and English literature at the
University of Richmond.
Heather Stebbins (b. 1987) is a graduate of the University of Richmond where she studied
music theory and composition under Benjamin Broening. She is also interested in
philosophy, mathematics, and cello performance and has studied cello with Pei Lu of the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Nick Photinos of eighth blackbird. She was a recipient
of the IAWM Search for New Music 2007 Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize for her piece,
Confessions, Reactions. She was also the winner of the 2008 University of Louisville
Search for New Electroacoustic Music Competition. Her music has been performed at the
Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival,
and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro New Music Festival. She is currently the
Music Technology Lab Specialist at the University of Richmond.
Interpretations is a two-movement set of solo piano pieces based on a series silk-screen
prints created by my talented roommate and friend, Soizic Ziegler. The two movements are
inspired by her prints titled ʻReservoirʼ and ʻShift.ʼ ʻReservoirʼ explores the notion of a
reservoir being a generator for some other structure. A reservoir is a distinct object, but it
also depends on this other structure in order to maintain its function. ʻShiftʼ examines the
idea of a shift in perspective and once again, the dependence of two structures. In the print,
an ornate figure is seen both independently and again when coupled with another structure.
When seen alone, ones perspective of the object is very narrow, while when coupled with
the other object, ones perspective broadens.
Rafael Valle was born Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1985. His music has been performed in
Brazil, Chile, Germany, and the United States in festivals dedicated to contemporary music
such as the Tsonami festival and the UNCG New Music Festival. Valle has been recently
accepted for the masters program at East Carolina University, where he studies with Prof.
Edward Jacobs, and at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart in Germany, where he will study with
Prof. Marco Stroppa. Valle has had masterclasses with Krzysztof Penderecki and Kurt
Masur and additional studies in composition with Jocy de Oliveira and Rodrigo Chicchelli.
For more information please visit www.youtube.com/jrafaelvalle.
Saxophonist Jason Wallace, a native of Georgia, has appeared as a soloist and chamber
musician throughout the United States, France, and Switzerland. Mr. Wallace has earned
both a Master of Music degree in saxophone performance and the Bachelor of Music
Education degree from the University of Georgia. While a student, Mr. Wallace was a
winner of the University of Georgia Concerto Competition, the Directorʼs Excellence Award
and named Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant for the year 2001. Mr. Wallace has
served as soloist and principal saxophonist of the U.S. Military Intelligence Corps Band,
presenting concerts and master classes throughout the southwestern United States. As an
educator, Mr. Wallace has taught instrumental music at the elementary, middle and high
school level, most recently as Director of Bands at Booth-Fickett Magnet School in Tucson,
Arizona. Additionally, he has served on the faculty of Georgia College and State University
as an adjunct instructor of saxophone. Mr. Wallace is currently pursuing the Doctor of
Music Arts degree in saxophone performance from the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro.
Sabu Yamamoto grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and began studying violin at age ten.
As a budding musician, Sabu participated in school orchestras as well as the Triangle
Youth Philharmonic, Raleigh Symphony Orchestra, Durham Symphony Orchestra and the
All State and Honors orchestras; sitting first in school and at Honors in Winston Salem.
After graduating from Enloe High School, Sabu chose to further his education at UNC
Charlotte where he now studies with world-renowned violinist David Russell. At UNCC,
Sabu and three others make up the Bonnie Cone String Quartet in a collective effort to
make beautiful music and build up a relatively new string program.