2010-09-21 New Music Festival [recital program]

              Seventh Annual
UNCG New Music Festival
September 21-23, 2010
Greensboro, NC
Schedule at a Glance
Tuesday, September 21, 2010—Greensboro, NC
Lecture I
Bruce Mahin, Radford University
Developing iPhone applications to promote your music
UNCG Music Building Room 223
11:00-11:50 a.m.
Free
Walking Music
Performances by Virginia Tech University L2Ork laptop orchestra, UNCG Percussion Ensemble,
assorted performing groups
UNCG Campus, various locations, outdoors
12:00 p.m.
Free
Lecture II
Ico Bukvic, Virginia Tech University
Putting Together a Laptop Orchestra
UNCG Music Building, Room 129/131 (Electronic Music Studios)
3:30-4:45 p.m.
Free
Concert I
Works and Performances by L2Ork laptop orchestra, Bruce Mahin, Anthony Taylor, Ron Coulter,
Belinda Haikes and the Robert Rauschenberg Pilottone Experience
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Atrium
7:30 p.m.
Free
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 —Greensboro
Lecture III
Masterclass with the NOW Ensemble
UNCG Music Building, Room 233
10:00-10:50 a.m.
Free
Lecture IV
CEMT Concert and Lecture Series
Janice Misurell-Mitchell, Art Institute of Chicago
Ellipse: Saxing Up the String Quartet
(bring your lunch for this Brown Bag Lunch event)
UNCG Music Building, Room 217
12:00-12:50 p.m.
Free
Lecture V
Missy Mazzoli, MATA Festival of New Music
Cathedral City: The Music of Missy Mazzoli
(coffee will be provided for this after lunch event)
UNCG Music Building, Room 217
1:00-1:50 p.m.
Free
Concert II
UNCG Music Convocation
Performances by the SKIN Ensemble, Marjorie Bagley, Kelly Burke, Carla Copeland-Burns, Mark
Engebretson, Alex Ezerman, Kris Keeton, Scott Rawls
Works by Janice Misurell-Mitchell, Alejandro Rutty, Kostas Karathanasis
UNCG Music Building Recital Hall
4:00-4:50 p.m.
Free
Lecture VI
NOW Ensemble discusses Music Business
UNCG Music Building Computer Lab (Room 116)
5:00-5:50 p.m.
Free
Concert III
Performances by the NOW Ensemble
Works by Patrick Burke, Mark Dancigers, Judd Greenstein, Missy Mazzoli
UNCG Music Building Recital Hall
7:30 p.m.
$10 general / $6 seniors / $4 students / $3 UNCG students
For tickets, contact the UNCG Box Office at 334.4849
Thursday, September 23, 2010—Greensboro
Reading Session
David Felberg, violin
Presenting readings of new works by students Cody Curtis and Nicholas Rich
UNCG Music Building, Room 223
11:00-11:50 a.m.
Free
Roundtable Discussion
(bring your lunch for this Brown Bag Round Table Discussion)
Discussion with Linda Dusman, Bernd Gottinger, Kostas Karathanasis, Alex Kotch, John Supko
UNCG Music Building, Room 223
12:00-12:50 p.m.
Free
Lecture VII
Bernd Gottinger, SUNY Fredonia
Composing Production/Library Music
UNCG Music Building, Room 129/131 (Electronic Music Studios)
3:30-4:45 p.m.
Free
CONCERT IV
Performances by Marjorie Bagley, Susan Fancher, David Felberg, Kris Keeton, Janice Misurell-
Mitchell, Clara OʼBrien
Works by Pierre Boulez, Linda Dusman, Mark Engebretson, Alex Kotch, John Supko
UNCG Music Building Recital Hall
7:30 p.m.
$10 general / $6 seniors / $4 students / $3 UNCG students
For tickets, contact the UNCG Box Office at 334.4849
Concert Programs
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Concert I – Weatherspoon Art Museum
7:30 pm, Free
Future Past (10:00) Pilottone
The Robert Rauschenberg Pilottone Experience
Hassan Pitts, Belinda Haikes, Jennida Chase, laptop, sounds and images
For Every Season… (8:30) Bruce Mahin
Anthony Taylor, clarinet
Half-Life (8:30) Ivica Ico Bukvic
L2Ork
Ivica Ico Bukvic, director
Jared Denniston, Philip Dimotsis, Kyle Ellis, Hillary Guilliams,
Zachary Gulsby, Michael Lipnick, Miles Mabry, Michael Matthews,
Tyler McDonald, David Mudre, Steven Querry, Maya Renfro,
Kaj Verschra, Andrew Street, Elizabeth Ullrich,
Christopher Usher, Adam Wirdzek
Citadel (5:00) Ivica Ico Bukvic
Nicole Bonfiglio, soprano
L2Ork
13 (8:30) Ivica Ico Bukvic
Ron Coulter, percussion
L2Ork
Whatʼs He Building? (7:00) Tom Waits
arr. Ivica Ico Bukvic
Ron Coulter, narrator
L2Ork
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Concert II – UNCG Convocation
UNCG Music Building Recital Hall
4:00 pm, Free
Dionysus (2009) Kostas Karathanasis
11:30
Kristopher Keeton, percussion
Ellipse (2009) Janice Misurell-Mitchell
13:00
Kevin Geraldi, conductor
Marjorie Bagley, violin
Scott Rawls, viola
Mark Engebretson, baritone saxophone
Alexander Ezerman, cello
Black Box Bossa (2010) Alejandro Rutty
(world premiere)
SKIN Ensemble
Carla Copeland-Burns, flute
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Marjorie Bagley, violin
Alexander Ezerman, cello
James Douglass, piano
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Concert III – Music Building, UNCG
Performances by NOW Ensemble
Recital Hall, 7:30 pm
$10 general / $6 seniors / $4 students / $3 UNCG students
NOW Ensemble
Abigail Fischer, mezzo-soprano
Andrew Rehrig, flute
Sara Budde, clarinet and bass clarinet
Michael Mizrahi, electric guitar
Logan Coale, double bass
Change (2009) Judd Greenstein
13:00
Awake (2008) Patrick Burke
10:00
Burst (2008) Mark Dancigers
6:00
Intermission
The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt music by Missy Mazzoli
(excerpts) (2009) films by Stephen Taylor
40:00
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Concert IV – Music Building, UNCG
Recital Hall, 7:30 pm
$10 general / $6 seniors / $4 students / $3 UNCG students
Anthèmes 2 (1998) Pierre Boulez
17:00
David Felberg, violin
Strange Things Begin to Happen When a Meteor Mark Engebretson
Crashes in the Arizona Desert (2010) text by Michael Basinski
(world premiere) images by Wendy Collin Sorin
14:00
Janice Misurell-Mitchell, flute/voice
Magnificat3: lament (2005) Linda Dusman
11:00
Marjorie Bagley, violin
Intermission
this window makes me feel (2005) John Supko
15:00
Clara OʼBrien, mezzo-soprano
James Douglass, piano
Kristopher Keeton, percussion
Polyptoton (2009) Alex Kotch
8:00
Susan Fancher, tenor saxophone
2010 UNCG New Music Festival Bios and Program Notes
Table of Contents
I. People
II. Ensembles
III. Program Notes
IV. Lecture Abstracts
Entries are in alphabetical order:
I. People
Violinist Marjorie Bagley made her Lincoln Center concerto debut in 1997 with the Little
Orchestra Society after beginning her performing career at the age of nine in her home state of
North Carolina with the Asheville, Winston-Salem, and North Carolina Symphonies. Having
graduated from the Manhattan School of Music in the first class of Pinchas Zukerman, she is
active as a recitalist, chamber musician, and teacher. Marjorie has also performed as soloist with
the Utah Symphony, Idaho Falls Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, the University of Michigan
Symphony, and the Washington Square Music Series. As first violinist and founding member of
the Arcata String Quartet, Marjorie performed in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie, Londonʼs
Wigmore Hall, and across Western Europe and the United States. She is also an active
proponent for new music and has premiered works by Paul Chihara, David Noon, Nils Vigeland,
and Judith Shatin. Through her travels to music festivals, Marjorie has had the opportunity to play
with some of the great artists of our time including Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Joseph
Kalichstein, members of the Guarneri, Emerson, American, Tokyo, and Borromeo String
Quartets. Ms. Bagley can be heard on recordings for the VOX, New World and Summit labels,
and a recording of music for violin and percussion on the Equilibrium label featuring a concerto by
Lou Harrison. Marjorie is the Co-Director of the Juniper Chamber Music Festival in Logan, Utah,
which is becoming one of the most elite chamber music festivals in the nation. Ms. Bagley has
been on the faculty of Ohio University, Utah State University, and the International Music
Academy in Pilsen, Ms. Bagley has also taught at the Brevard Music Center, the Perlman Music
Program, the Kinhaven Music School, and the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Program.
Michael Basinski is the Assistant Curator of the Poetry/Rare Books Collection of the University
Libraries, SUNY at Buffalo.His poems, articles and reviews have appeared in numerous
publications including: Proliferation, Terrible Work, Deluxe Rubber Chicken, Boxkite, The Mill
Hunk Herald, Yellow Silk, The Village Voice, Object, Oblek, Score, Generator, Juxta, Poetic
Briefs, Another Chicago Magazine, Sure: A Charles Bukowski Newsletter, Moody Street
Irregulars: A Jack Kerouac Newsletter, Kiosk, Earth's Daughters, Atticus Review, Mallife, Taproot,
Transmog, B-City, House Organ, First Intensity, Mirage No.4/Period(ical), Lower Limit Speech,
Texture, R/IFT, Chain, Antenym, Bullhead, Poetry New York, First Offence, and many others. For
more than twenty years he has performed his choral voice collages and sound texts with his
intermedia performance ensemble: The Ebma, which has released two Lps: SEA and
Enjambment.
Basinksiʼs books include: Idyll (Juxta Press, 1996), Heebee-jeebies (Meow Press, 1996), SleVep
(Tailspin Press, 1995), Vessels (Texture Press, 1993), Cnyttan (Meow Press, 1993), Mooon Bok
(Leave Books, 1992) and Red Rain Too (1992) and Flight to the Moon (1993) from Run Away
Spoon Press.
Pierre Boulez (born 1925) is a French composer of contemporary classical music and a
conductor. One of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Boulez continues today to be
one of the foremost proponents of musical modernism.
Sara Budde (clarinet/bass clarinet) performs frequently as a recitalist and chamber musician.
Studying with David Shifrin, she recently received her Master of Music degree in clarinet
performance from Yale University. Having premiered many works, including Kyle Gann's Last
Chance Sonata and Judd Greenstein's The Sirens, for bass clarinet, Budde focuses primarily on
recent and contemporary music, emphasizing newly-emerging composers. Sara has appeared
with such dynamic groups as Bang on a Can, The American Composers Orchestra, Tactus, Arête
Ensemble, The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra and The American Symphony Orchestra.
The art of composer and multimedia sculptor Ivica Ico Bukvic (b.1976) is driven by the notion of
ubiquitous interactivity. Bukvicʼs passion for computer music, multimedia art, and technology in
conjunction with his traditional music composition background has resulted in a growing portfolio
of aural and visual, acoustic and electronic, performances and installations, creative technologies,
as well as research publications, grants and awards.
Dr. Bukvic is currently working at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor in music composition &
technology, the founder and director of the Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio
(DISIS) and Worldʼs first Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork), assistant co-director of the
Collaborative for Creative Technologies in the Arts and Design initiative, a member of the Center
for Human-Computer Interaction, and as a faculty (by courtesy) in departments of Computer
Science and Art & Art History.
Kelly Burke joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1989. She is
currently the principal clarinetist of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and bass clarinetist of
the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra. Equally at home playing Baroque to Bebop, she has
appeared in recitals and as a soloist with symphony orchestras throughout the United States,
Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and Russia. An avid chamber musician, Burke is
frequently heard in concert with the Mallarmé Chamber Players, for whom she plays both clarinet
and bass clarinet, the East Wind Trio d'Anches, Middle Voices (clarinet, viola and piano), and the
Cascade Wind Quintet. Burke's discography includes several recent releases with Centaur
Records: The Russian Clarinet, with works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Glinka, Melkikh, and
Goedicke; Middle Voices: Chamber Music for Clarinet and Viola, featuring works by several
American composers; and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Chamber Music featuring the quintet and
nonet. She has also recorded for Telarc, Albany and Arabesque labels. Burke has received
several teaching awards, including UNCG's Alumni Teaching Excellence Award, the School of
Music Outstanding Teacher Award, has been named several times to Who's Who Among
America's Teachers, and was recently honored with the 2004 UNC Board of Governor's Teaching
Excellence Award. She is the author of numerous pedagogical articles and the critically acclaimed
book Clarinet Warm-Ups: Materials for the Contemporary Clarinetist. She holds the BM and MM
degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the DMA. from the University of Michigan. Burke
is an artist/clinician for Rico International and Buffet Clarinet.
Patrick Burke composes visceral, emotionally charged music for chamber ensemble, orchestra,
vocals, and electronic media. Formally tight, narrative structures are balanced with lyricism and a
dream-like logic that is often inspired by film. He is a co-founder and core member of NOW
Ensemble, a young group on the forefront of the indie classical scene “suggesting the shape of
the sounds that will define art music in the early part of this new century" (Ed Montgomery,
Context Studios). Patrickʼs works have been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, the
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird, the Yale Philharmonic, the Eugene
Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, IonSound Project and Alia Musica. In 2007, Patrick
composed the score for Behind Forgotten Eyes, an award-winning WWII documentary featured
on History Channel Asia. His music appears on NPRʼs All Things Considered, and on NOW
Ensembleʼs debut album, named one of the top classical recordings of 2008 by The New Yorker
critic, Alex Ross.
Jennida Chase is an electronic artist who currently explores and combines several aspects of
media-based art, ranging from film, video, animation, sound and photography. Her BFA was
completed at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998 with a concentration in film, video
and sound. In 2009 she completed her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth Universityʼs
department of Photography and Film. Themes within her work deal with relational interaction
played out in society at large. Her work has been extensively shown in galleries and film/video
festivals. She currently collaborates in and performs with experimental sound and multi-media
ensemble Pilottone, and is a member of the HzCollective based in the mid-Atlantic region of the
U.S.
NOW Ensemble double bassist Logan Coale is a native of Portland, Oregon. Mr. Coale is the
Assistant Principal Bass of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra and is on faculty at the Kinhaven Music
School in Weston, Vermont. In New York, Mr. Coale is a member of NOW Ensemble, The Knights
Chamber Orchestra, and William Brittelle's Television Landscape. He also performs with Alarm
Will Sound, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Wordless Music Orchestra, and
The Long Count with members of The National. Mr. Coale is a graduate of the Tanglewood Music
Center where he was a fellow in 2004 and 2006, and has participated in the Aspen, Schlesswig-
Holstein, Domaine-Forget, National Repertory Orchestra, and Moritzburg Festival Academy
summer music programs. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in double bass performance
from Boston University. His teachers include Edwin Barker, Principal Bass of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, BSO member Todd Seeber and Tim Pitts, Principal Bass of the Houston
Symphony. Mr. Coale can be heard on Sony Classical with The Knights, XL Recordings and
Parlophone Records with Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros, and on New Amsterdam Records with
NOW Ensemble and Television Landscape.
Carla Copeland-Burns, flute, 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. She has performed over 300 concerts with the North Carolina Symphony,
including numerous appearances as Principal flute. Since 1995 Burns has served as Piccoloist
for the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Principal Flute in the Salisbury Symphony, and in the
ongoing chamber groups Blue Mountain Ensemble (flute/bassoon/piano) and the Cascade Wind
Quintet, a North Carolina Arts Council Touring Roster Ensemble. Chamber Music activity includes
recital appearances across the United States, as well as in Canada and New Zealand, and at
international conferences. Burns has recorded with ensembles on the Albany, Centaur, and
Klavier labels and has been heard on several editions of NPRʼs Performance Today. Burns holds
a Bachelor of Music with Honors degree from the Florida State University, the Master of Music in
Flute Performance from the New England Conservatory, and is a Doctoral Candidate in Flute
Performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).
Ron Coulter is Senior Lecturer of Percussion Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
and an Educational Endorser with the ProMark Corporation. He has toured internationally
appearing in 43 U.S. states, Europe, Canada, and Japan. He has performed with the Glenn
Miller Orchestra, Four Aces, Sean Jones, L2Ork, Al Martino, Tatsuya Nakatani, Sandy Duncan,
Bolokada Condé, and Rapture7, among others. Ron has presented at numerous conferences
including: ISIM, PASIC, MENC, IMEA, JEN, Futurisms, Sound Lines, RadiaLx, Athena Festival VI.
He is co-founder of the Percussion Art Ensemble, RED VIXA, duende entendre, and artistic
director of the Perkusiv Arts Elektronik and Southern Illinois Improvisation Series. Other
performance credits include the Youngstown Symphony, Paducah Symphony, Chicago Chamber
Orchestra, and Music from China. Additional interests include noise, acoustic ecology,
interdisciplinary collaboration, and organizing Fluxusconcerts. As a composer, Ron has created
more than 100 compositions and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies.
www.roncoulter.org
Mark Dancigersʼ music has been called “entrancing”, “beguiling”, and “rich” (The New York
Times). He has written music for the New York Youth Symphony, Opus 21, the Minnesota
Orchestra, and members of So Percussion. His music has been heard at the Virginia Arts
Festival, the Cabrillo Festival, the Percussive Arts Society International Conference, Merkin Hall,
and BAM Café. As a guitarist he has performed with Tactus, the Norfolk Chamber Music
Festival, and has premiered a concerto by Kathryn Alexander. Mark studied composition at Yale
and the Yale School of Music, and he is currently completing a PhD at Princeton University.
James Douglass, assistant professor of collaborative piano and auditions coordinator for
applications to the Accompanying and Chamber Music degree program, has been involved in
diverse genres including chamber music, vocal arts, opera, choral arts, symphonic repertoire,
jazz, cabaret, and musical theater. He received the BM and MM in piano performance from the
University of Alabama and the DMA in collaborative piano from the University of Southern
California where he was a student of Dr. Alan L. Smith; additional studies with collaborative Anne
Epperson and Martin Katz. While at USC he received a Koldofsky Fellowship and the
Outstanding Keyboard Collaborative Arts award. Douglass has served on the faculties of
Mississippi College, Occidental College LA, USC, and Middle Tennessee State University where
he was coordinator of the collaborative piano degree program. In 2003 he began teaching in the
summer study program AIMS (American Institue of Musical Studies) in Graz, Austria as the
instructor of collaborative piano and a coach in the lieder program with Harold Heiberg.
Performances as a collaborative pianist have included recitals and television/radio broadcasts
across the United States and in Europe (France, Germany, Austria, Hungary); in master classes
given by artists Dawn Upshaw, Carol Vaness, Vladimir Chernov, Norman Luboff, Paul
Salamunovich, Natalie Hinderas, Leon Bates. Douglass is also active as a clinician and recently
completed a recording with soprano Hope Koehler of John Jacob Niles songs which was released
on the Albany label in 2008.
Linda Dusmanʼs compositions provide stimulating and thought-provoking listening experiences
for audiences throughout the world. Recent premieres include her piano trio Diverging Flints, Skra
for clarinet and fixed media, and Triptych of Gossips for soprano and violin. Her work has been
awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music, the State of Maryland (in both the
Music: Composition and the Visual Arts: Media categories), and in February 2009 she was in
residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts as a Mid-Atlantic Arts Fellow. Her
compositions are published by Silent Editions and are recorded on the NEUMA, Capstone, and
New Albany labels. As a frequent contributor to the literature on contemporary music and
performance, Dr. Dusmanʼs articles have appeared in the journals Link, Perspectives of New
Music, and Interface, as well as a number of anthologies. She was a founding editor of the journal
Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, and is as an associate editor for
Perspectives of New Music. Recently, she founded I Resound Press, a digital press/archive for
music by women composers. Dr. Dusman is a Professor of Music at the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County (UMBC), and served as Chair of the Music Department there from 2000-2008.
Prior to her tenure at UMBC, she held the Jeppson Chair in Music at Clark University in
Massachusetts.
Mark Engebretson (b. 1964) is Associate Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He received commissions from the Fromm Music
Foundation and the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts. His works have been presented at
SEAMUS, ICMC, Bowling Green Festival of New Music, Third Practice Festival, Wien Modern,
Gaida Festival, Sonoimagenes, Hörgänge Festival, Ny Musikk, Indiana State University New
Music Festival, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, ISCM Festivals, World Saxophone
Congresses. He founded the UNCG New Music Festival in 2004, and is director of the A.V.
Williams Electronic Music Studio at UNCG.
Alexander Ezerman comes from a family where the cello runs four generations deep, including
two former associate principals of the Philadelphia Orchestra. A prize winner in national and
international competition, he has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across the United
States, Canada, Europe and South America. He is newly appointed to the faculty of the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro as Associate Professor of Violoncello. His previous position was
at Texas Tech University, where he was a founding member of the Botticelli String Quartet. He
also regularly performs with his wife, violinist Stephanie Ezerman, as the Ezerman Duo. An active
advocate and performer of new music, he has been involved in numerous premiers, and has
performed all twelve of the “Sacher” pieces for solo cello in a single recital. His most recent
premiere, Ignis Fatuus for solo cello, by composer Teresa LeVelle, has been recorded on the
Innova Label. During the summer, he is on the faculty of the Green Mountain Chamber Music
Festival in Burlington Vermont. He has previously been on the faculties of the Brevard Music
Center and the Killington Music Festival. Ezerman holds a BM degree from Oberlin College
Conservatory and a Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts from the State University of
New York at Stony Brook. His primary mentors include Timothy Eddy, Norman Fischer, David
Wells and his grandmother Elsa Hilger.
Susan Fancher is known for her deep and poetic musical interpretations. A much sought after
performer of new music, she has inspired and premiered dozens of new works for saxophone.
The 2010-2011 season includes premiere performances of Lance Hulme's Sax Attractor for
soprano saxophone and piano, to be presented in Chengdu and Beijing, China, as well as the
premiere performances of Michael Torke's Concerto for soprano saxophone in its new version,
commissioned by Susan Fancher together with a consortium of wind ensembles. This concert
season also features the premiere performance of Chester Udell's Wakdjunkaga (the Trickster),
commissioned by SEAMUS (Society of Electroacoustic Music in the US). Other recent
performances as a concerto soloist include the world premiere of Hilary Tann's Shakkei for
soprano saxophone and orchestra with the National Orchestra of Brazil under the leadership of
Ligia Amadio and the Asian premiere with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by
Allan McMurray.
Her 2009 CD release In Two Worlds (Innova 736) features music for saxophone and electronics
by John Anthony Lennon, James Paul Sain, Mark Engebretson, Reginald Bain, Judith Shatin,
Morton Subotnick and Edmund Campion. Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the
nationally distributed Saxophone Journal. She is a clinician for the Selmer and Vandoren
companies and teaches saxophone at Duke University.
Violinist David Felberg, currently the associate concertmaster of the New Mexico Symphony,
was recently named concertmaster of The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. He has recently
appeared as soloist with the Santa Fe Symphony, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra,
Albuquerque Philharmonic, Palo Alto Philharmonic, and the Balcones Orchestra, Upcoming solo
performances include Shostakovich Concerto No. 1 with the New Mexico Symphony in 2011. He
is an advocate of performing contemporary violin repertoire, and has performed works of
composers such as Pierre Boulez, David Lang, John Adams and Richard Hermann. He is
Conductor and Musical Director of Chatter, a chamber orchestra dedicated to 20th and 21st
century music, Conductor of the Albuquerque Philharmonia, and Assistant Conductor of The
University of New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He is also artistic director of the Church of
Beethoven, a Sunday morning concert series that was recently featured on NPR's All Things
Considered. He was a participant in the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music
Festival in the summer of 2000. Felberg attended the University of Arizona where he received a
degree in history, and went on to earn a Masters of Music degree in conducting from the
University of New Mexico. In addition, he took advanced string quartet studies at the University of
Colorado with the Takacs Quartet. Felberg made his New York City recital debut in Merkin Hall in
June of 2005 and plays an 1829 J.B. Vuillaume violin.
Equally expert at music from the Baroque era to contemporary work, mezzo-soprano Abigail
Fischer has performed with New York Collegium, Early Music New York, the Rebel Ensemble,
Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Boston Pops, and has given world premieres of music by
John Zorn, Elliot Carter, Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, Bernard Rands, and the Bang on a Can
artists. Recent highlights include the VOX contemporary opera showcase and the Chandler
Carter opera Strange Fruit with New York City Opera, and an outreach production of Hansel and
Gretel with New Jersey State Opera. Other recent productions include the Lee Hoiby premiere
This is the Rill Speaking with American Opera Projects, and the Peter Westergaard premiere
Alice in Wonderland with Center for Contemporary Opera. Ms. Fischerʼs relationship with new
music ensembles such as Continuum and Sequitur has led to performances from Lincoln Center
to Jakarta, Indonesia. She is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music (MM) and Vassar
College (BA), and has been a resident artist at the Banff Music Centre, the Tanglewood Music
Center, the Aspen Music Festival and School, Opera North, and the Lucerne Festival Academy.
Kevin Geraldi is Associate Director of Bands and Director of Orchestral Activities at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In this capacity, he conducts the UNCG Symphony
Orchestra, Symphonic Band, and Casella Sinfonietta, and is associate conductor of the UNCG
Wind Ensemble. Dr. Geraldi appears regularly as a guest conductor and he maintains an active
schedule as a clinician throughout the country. With the UNCG Wind Ensemble, he has
performed in the Music Center at Strathmore, at the national CBDNA convention in Austin, Texas,
at the NCMEA conference, and on several commercially available compact discs. A proponent of
contemporary music and chamber music, he has commissioned and premiered numerous
compositions and published articles in the Music Educators Journal, the Journal of Band
Research,the Journal of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, andvolume
7 of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band. His compact disc leading the Minerva
Chamber Players, featuring nonets by Johannes Brahms and Louise Farrenc, is available on the
Centaur Records label. Dr. Geraldi holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees
in instrumental conducting from the University of Michigan where he studied with H. Robert
Reynolds and Michael Haithcock. He received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from
Illinois Wesleyan University, where he studied conducting with Steven Eggleston.
Bernd Gottinger has been active producing and engineering classical, contemporary, and
popular music tracks and records for various international and national recording labels for over
twenty years. His particular interest lies in commercial music composition and audio mixing and
mastering. Dr. Gottinger is also a committed educator in the field of audio engineering and has
held the position of Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Sound Recording Technology
Bachelors of Science program at the State University of New York in Fredonia since 1999. He
holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at New York University with a
dissertation investigating sonic signatures in sound recording technology.
Judd Greenstein was born and raised in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City,
where he began his compositional life by writing hip hop beats as a teenager. His concert works
reflect those origins, as well as his traditional piano background, combining an urban, beat-oriented
sensibility with a late Romantic classical harmonic language. He has received degrees
from Williams College and the Yale School of Music, has been a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music
Center and the Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music, and is currently a fifth-year doctoral
Fellow and Taplin Scholar at Princeton University, where he is writing a dissertation on hip hop
music.
Belinda Haikes is an interdisciplinary artist working in social media, digital media as well as
traditional mediums. Influenced by having lived in three countries by the time she was 15, her
work is centered on the poetics of identity construction in the post-human world and how
technology creates connections to each other through art. Recent exhibitions include the Asian
Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, Los Angeles Center for the Digital Art, Village Nomad, France, Digital
Fringe, Australia, and the Weatherspoon Museum in North Carolina. Currently a PhD candidate in
the Media Art and Text Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She currently holds the
position of Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
teaching in the digital design program.
Konstantinos Karathanasis is an electroacoustic composer who draws inspiration from modern
poetry, artistic cinema, abstract painting, mysticism, and the writings of Carl Jung. His
compositions have been performed at numerous festivals and have received awards in
international competitions, including Bourges, Musica Nova, and SEAMUS/ASCAP. Recordings of
his music are released by SEAMUS, ICMA, Musica Nova, and broadcast by the Art of the States.
Konstantinos holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University at Buffalo, and is currently
an Assistant Professor of Composition & Music Technology at the University of Oklahoma. You
can find more at http://music.ou.edu/oukon.
Kristopher Keeton joined the School of Music faculty as Assistant Professor of Percussion in
2009. Prior to his appointment at UNCG, he served on the faculties of Virginia Commonwealth
University, the University of Richmond, Trinity International University and the Eastern Music
Festival. Keeton, a member of the Percussive Arts Society (PAS) Keyboard Committee, is active
as a soloist and as a member of the Sympatico Percussion Group. He is a former member of the
Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Owensboro Symphony Orchestra,
and Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps. Keetonʼs performing credits also include the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra MusicNOW Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird contemporary ensemble,
Virginia Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Chicagoland Pops Orchestra and Nashville Chamber
Orchestra. He performed several concerts across Europe in January 2008 with the professional
Swedish percussion ensemble Global Percussion Network. Keeton made his Carnegie Hall
debut in March 2008, performing as featured soloist with the VCU Wind Ensemble. Keeton has
appeared as a performer and soloist at multiple Percussive Arts Society International
Conventions. Dr. Keeton earned doctoral and masters degrees at Northwestern University
School of Music, with additional studies at Western Kentucky University. Keeton has studied with
acclaimed percussionists Michael Burritt and Christopher Norton, James Ross of the Chicago
Symphony, and drum set artists Chester Thompson and Paul Wertico. Kristopher Keeton is a
Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist/educator for Innovative Percussion and Zildjian.
Alex Kotch (b. 1983 in North Carolina) is a fresh new voice in contemporary music, fusing
instrumental composition with an electronic dance style. In bringing together "propulsive, post-
Minimalist rhythms" (New York Times) with an extensive background in jazz, pop, experimental,
electronic, and West African music, he has received honors and fellowships from ASCAP, The
Transatlantic Arts Consortium, Duke University, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival,
Sequenza21, and Juventas, and commissions from Ensemble Zellig, Trio Saxiana, Nicolas Prost,
Silvia Lenzi, Michael Straus, EAR Duo, and Rachael Elliott. Alex's works, heard throughout the
United States and France, have also seen performances by eighth blackbird, Odd Appetite, the
Lost Dog Ensemble, and Susan Fancher. As a multimedia artist, he has received coverage from
ABC News and The Associated Press, and as a performer on clarinet, saxophone, and laptop, he
plays concerts and DJ sets along the East Coast. With a B.A. in Music from Brown University and
a Masterʼs in Composition from Duke University, Alex is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Duke.
Recent premieres include a multimedia opera in Los Angeles, a work for cello, electronica, and
dancer in Paris, and Pas de deux, for alto saxophone, bassoon, and electronica, which Rachael
Elliott and Susan Fancher have recorded for Rachael's upcoming album. Alex's next premiere is a
work for bassoon and electronica, commissioned by Rachael Elliott, in Vermont this November,
and his next DJ performance is September 30 at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts
in Minneapolis, MN.
Bruce P. Mahin is a Professor of Music, and Director of the Radford University Center for Music
Technology. He received the B.Mus from West Virginia University, M.Mus from Northwestern
University and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns
Hopkins University. Mahin is a former president of the Southeastern Composers League, a former
co-chair of Society of Composers Region 3, a former research fellow at the University of Glasgow
(Scotland), and the recipient of awards from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Meet the
Composer, Annapolis Fine Arts Foundation, Res Musica, Southeastern Composers League and
others. His works are available on compact disc through Capstone Recordings (CPS-8747, CPS-
8624 and CPS-8611) and published in score by Pioneer Percussion, Ltd. and in the Society of
Composers Journal of Musical Scores.
Missy Mazzoli was recently deemed "one of the more consistently inventive, surprising
composers now working in New York" by the New York Times and "Brooklyn's post-millenial
Mozart" by Time Out New York. Her music has been performed all over the world by the Kronos
Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, eighth blackbird, the Spokane Symphony, and the South
Carolina Philharmonic. Missy is also active as an educator, arts advocate, and performer. She is
Executive Director of the MATA Festival of New Music, a festival which was co-founded by Philip
Glass and is devoted to young composers. She recently taught at Yale University and has been a
composer-in-residence with the Carnegie Hall Academy Program. Missy also performs regularly
as a member of Victoire, an "all-star, all female quintet" (Time Out New York) that she founded in
2007 to perform her own music.
Janice Misurell-Mitchell, composer, flutist and vocal artist is on the faculty of the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. A member of CUBE Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, she was recently
a featured composer at Art Chicago, the International Alliance for Women in Music Congress in
Beijing, the Voices of Dissent series at the Bowling Green College of Musical Arts, the Outside
the Box Festival at Southern Illinois University, the Robert Helps Festival at the University of
South Florida, the Festival of Winds in Novara, Italy, and at the Randspiele Festival in Berlin. Her
honors include grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs,
Meet the Composer, residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Ragdale Foundation,
and awards and commissions from the National Flute Association, the Youth Symphony of
DuPage, the International Alliance for Women in Music, Northwestern University and others. Her
works are performed throughout the United States and Europe and have been played on the
Public Broadcasting Network, the National Flute Association Conventions, at the National
Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C, the Museum of Contemporary Art and
Symphony Center in Chicago, and at Carnegie Hall. Her music is available on compact disks
produced by MMC Recordings, OPUS ONE Recordings, Capstone Records, and Arizona
University Recordings and is published by Margun Music (available through the Music Sales
Group), the Needham Publishing Company, and Arizona University Publications. A CD featuring
her music for flute, voice and percussion will be released by Southport Records later this year.
Pianist Michael Mizrahi has been hailed for his “splendid powers of concentration” (The
Washington Post) and performances that are “exciting to watch and hear” (The San Diego Union-
Tribune). Dazzling audiences and critics alike, Mizrahi has been hailed for his compelling
performances of a wide-ranging selection of music and his ability to connect with audiences of all
ages. He has appeared as concerto soloist with some of the leading orchestras of the United
States in addition to appearances as recitalist, chamber musician, and music educator. He has
won several prizes in major competitions and has appeared in several prominent music festivals
around the world.
Mezzo Soprano Clara OʼBrien comes to the University of North Carolina Greensboro after more
than twenty years of performing in Europe and the United States. For over seventeen years,
Professor OʼBrien based her career in Germany and has appeared on the operatic and concert
stages of such cities as Berlin, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Dresden, Frankfurt, Chicago, Dallas and
many others. Her professional career began when she was awarded the Sonderpreis des
Badischen Staatstheater, a prize created specially for her at the 1st International Coloratura
Competition, Sylvia Geszty. Her many roles range from Baroque to contemporary and include
Octavian, Komponist, Adalgisa, Mignon, Dorabella, Donna Elvira, Elisabetta (Maria Stuarda),
Rosina, Angelina (Cenerentola), Musetta, Helene (La Belle Hélène), Fenena (Nabucco) and
numerous roles at the International Handel Festpiel. Her performances have been noted in
Opernwelt as Best Performances in both the Emerging and Established Artist categories. Other
awards include 1st Prize, Erika Koth Meisterkurs and Finalist in the International Belvedere
Competition. Recordings include releases on the Bella Musica and Albany Records labels and
she has been recorded and broadcast on Southwest German Radio and Television. Ms. O'Brien
studied at the Eastman School of Music (M.M., Performance Certificate), the Curtis Institute of
Music ,the Dana School of Music (B.M., Summa cum laude) and the Hochschule fur Musik,
Heidelberg/Manneheim. She was an apprentice with the Chicago Lyric Opera Center for
American Artists, the Aspen Music Festival and the Boris Goldovski Opera Institute. She received
a Fulbright Grant to Germany and was awarded a fellowship to the Münchener Singschulʼ. Her
teachers included Jan DeGaetani, Astrid Varnay, Erika Köth and Daniel Ferro.
Hassan Pitts is an interdisciplinary artist interested in fashioning images around absorption,
sensation, emotion, movement and gesture. Currently he splits his time
examining issues of masculine gestures of the everyday and themes of transience, both
emotional and physical. Hassan received a BFA in photography from Kutztown University, a BA
in German studies from Dennison University and has most recently completed his MFA at
Virginia Commonwealth University in photography and film. Hassan has shown regionally
throughout the Mid-Atlantic and in Miami, Fl. Virginia is where he currently resides and produces
work.
Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada,
Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Chamber music endeavors include performances with the Diaz Trio,
Kandinsky Trio and Ciompi Quartet as well as with members of the Cleveland, Audubon and
Cassatt String Quartets. His most recent CD recording, released on the Centaur label, features
the chamber music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and was released summer 2004. His recording of
chamber works for viola and clarinet was released spring 2003 on the same label. The ensemble,
Middle Voices, will record another disc for Centaur featuring the chamber music of American
composer, Eddie Bass. Additional chamber music recordings can be heard on the CRI,
Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels. Also a champion of new music, Rawls has toured
extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians since 1991. As the violist in this
ensemble, he has performed the numerous premieres of The Cave and Three Tales, multimedia
operas by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. Dr. Rawls currently serves as Associate
Professor of Viola in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina
at Greensboro. Under the baton of maestro Dmitry Sitkovetsky, he plays principal viola in the
Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. He is very active as guest clinician, adjudicator, and master
class teacher at universities and festivals in America and Europe. During the summers, Rawls
plays principal viola in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates
the viola program. He holds a BM degree from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State
University of New York at Stony Brook. His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges
Janzer, and John Graham.
First alternate flutist Andrew Rehrig began his studies of the flute at the age of 12 and two years
later gave his concerto debut with the Ludwig Symphony Orchestra in Atlanta, GA. He went on to
continue studies at Indiana University with Thomas Robertello, where he received his Bachelor of
Music degree. While still an undergraduate, Mr. Rehrig was invited to become a member of the
Columbus, IN Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held until graduation. During that time he
was also invited to play with several orchestras throughout Indiana and Kentucky, including the
Owensboro Symphony and the Evansville Philharmonic. Having completed a Master's degree at
Stony Brook University under the direction of Carol Wincenc, Mr. Rehrig appeared regularly as a
substitute flutist forBeauty and the Beast on Broadway, as well as with the Brooklyn Philharmonic
and the New England Symphonic Ensemble. Mr. Rehrig is a finalist for and substitute flutist with
the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the New World Symphony and the Charleston, (SC)
Symphony Orchestra. He was the guest principal second flutist of the Florida Grand Opera and
the principal flutist of the Chamber Orchestra of New York. As a proponent of new music, Mr.
Rehrig is dedicated to commissioning and premiering new works for flute, as well as the regular
performances of contemporary music.
Born in Argentina, composer Alejandro Ruttyʼs output includes orchestral, chamber, mixed-media
music, and arrangements of Argentine traditional music. 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, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, among other groups. Recordings of his music have
been released by Capstone Records, Arizona University Recordings, and ERM. Media Founder
and Artistic Director of the Hey, Mozart! Project, Alejandro Rutty is currently Assistant Professor
of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Wendy Collin Sorin, of Durham, North Carolina, received her B.F.A. in printmaking from the
Cleveland Institute of Art in 1993. She later studied waterless lithography with Nik Semenoff at
the University of Saskatchewan. She has taught his experimental methods at Zygote Press in
Cleveland, Ohio and at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. In addition to exhibiting her work in
print, drawing and collage, her artist book collaborations include: Strange Things Begin to
Happen When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert (with poet Michael Basinski; Burning
Press; 2001), which was awarded an Ohio Arts Council project grant, Ghost of a Chance, (with
Robert Miltner; Zygote Press and Idlewild Press; 2002), ABZU (with Michael Basinski; Runaway
Spoon Press; 2003), P.S. At Least We Died Trying to Make You in the Backseat of the
Taxidermist (with Derek White; calamari press; 2005), name cloud (with John M. Bennett;
fabelhaft press and Luna Bisonte Prods.; 2005 ) and TELLTHISMUCH (with Carlos M.Luis;
Runaway Spoon Press; 2005.) W the Movie, a film inspired by Strange Things Begin to Happen
When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert, and done in collaboration with Indiana filmmaker
Alfred Eaker, won Best Experimental Film at the New York International Independent Film &
Video Festival in March 2009. In 2000, Sorin was an artist-in-residence at the Grafikwerkstatt in
Dresden, a yearly exchange program sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council between the German
printmaking workshop and Zygote Press. In 2004, she was project director and co-curator for a
traveling retrospective exhibition (Cleveland, Columbus, Dresden) of the exchange program
which included a bilingual catalogue.
Sorinʼs work is in numerous private and public collections including The Ruth and Marvin Sackner
Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry (Miami Beach, Florida); Avant Writing Collection, The Ohio
State University (Columbus); Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (New
Haven, Connecticut); Brown University Library (Providence, Rhode Island); Poetry/Rare Books
Collection, State University of New York, Buffalo; Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio; The
Cleveland Institute of Art artistsʼ book collection; Millersville University, Millersville, PA; Hahn,
Loeser & Parks LLP, Cleveland; Ohio Building Commission, Columbus, Ohio; Champion
International Corporation, Hamilton, Ohio.
Composer John Supko was born in 1980 on Long Island, New York. He holds degrees from the
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (BM) and Princeton University (MFA & PhD). He is a
recipient of the Fulbright (2002) and Georges Lurcy (2007) fellowships, both for Paris, France,
where he studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique. He has won numerous prizes and grants,
among which the BMI Student Composer Award, two ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composers
Awards (including the 2008 Leo Kaplan Award), the Grand Prize of the National Young
Composers Competition, the Perkins Prize of the Princeton University Music Department and a
Commissioning Music/USA Meet The Composer commission. His work has been published in
collaborative editions with the poet Philippe Denis by Collection Mémoires (Paris) and, most
recently, by Harpo & (Marseille). Future projects include a string quartet for the Ciompi Quartet
and an opera on the lives of Paul and Jane Bowles with poet Karren LaLonde Alenier. John
Supko lives in Durham, NC, where he is Assistant Professor of Composition at Duke University.
A commercial DVD of the works This Window Makes Me Feel and Littoral is scheduled for
release in September 2011 on New Amsterdam Records. More information is available at
www.johnsupko.com.
Anthony Taylor joined the UNCG School of Music faculty in 2007, and was also recently
appointed as Principal Clarinet of the Winston-Salem Symphony. He is also an active solo,
chamber, and jazz musician. This fall, he presented a paper on his research into John Adamsʼs
clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons in Bangor, Wales at the International Conference on Music and
Minimalism. Recent performance highlights include the world premiere of Seattle composer Gail
Grossʼs Bossa Velha at the Washington State Music Teacherʼs Association convention, solo
performances with jazz piano master Dick Hyman, and the world premiere recording of Gregory
Yasinitskyʼs solo clarinet work For All That Has Been Given. He has been a member of the
Spokane Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, Spokane Opera and professional contemporary
music ensemble Zephyr. He has been on the faculties of Washington State University, Eastern
Washington University, Whitman College and Gonzaga University. Each August, Taylor also
teaches at the Midsummer Musical Retreat, a week-long camp for adult amateur musicians. In
summer 2007, he completed his doctorate at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of
Music, and also holds degrees from The Florida State University and Washington State
University.
Stephen Taylor has been directing and editing documentary films for the past seven years,
working in New York and Europe. He directed and edited four award-winning half-hour
documentaries on various criminal-justice-related subjects while working for Youth Rights Media,
an acclaimed youth-oriented documentary production company. With American Beat Films, where
he currently works as an editor and director, he has directed and edited two hour-long
documentaries, and co-produced several others.
Tom Waits (born 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and actor. Waits has a
distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of
bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over
with a car.” (Wikipedia)
II. Ensembles
Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork): L2Ork, founded by Dr. Ivica Ico Bukvic in May 2009, is part of
the latest interdisciplinary initiative by the Virginia Tech Music Departmentʼs Digital Interactive
Sound & Intermedia Studio (DISIS). As the worldʼs first Linux-based laptop orchestra L2Ork offers
optimal infrastructure for creative research at minimal cost. By providing a seamless integration of
arts and sciences it is in part designed to bridge the gap between STEM and the Arts, with
particular focus on K-12 education.
As an emerging contemporary intermedia ensemble, L2Ork thrives upon the quintessential form of
collaboration found in the western classical orchestra and its cross-pollination with increasingly
accessible human-computer interaction technologies for the purpose of exploring expressive
power of gesture, communal interaction, discipline-agnostic environment, and the
multidimensionality of arts.
Hailed as "a deft young group gaining attention" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) and "a smart young
chamber group that straddles a line between contemporary classical music and indie rock," (John
Schaefer, WNYC), NOW Ensemble is a collection of performers and composers dedicated to
making new chamber music for the 21st century. With a unique instrumentation of flute (Alex
Sopp/ Andrew Rehrig), clarinet (Sara Budde), electric guitar (Mark Dancigers), double bass
(Logan Coale), and piano (Michael Mizrahi), NOW Ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new
perspective to the classical tradition, infused with a blend of musical influences that reflects the
diverse backgrounds and listening experiences of their members. NOW has premiered over 60
works, including those by composer-members Patrick Burke, Mark Dancigers, and Judd
Greenstein, along with many more by a cross-section of the top young voices in contemporary
composition, such as Ryan Brown, David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, and dozens more.
NOW Ensemble has performed at a wide variety of venues, such as the Bang on a Can
Marathon, the Festival Internacional de Chihuahua, Pittsburgh's Music on the Edge, the Carlsbad
Music Festival, Sarasota's New Music New College, Wordless Music, and Look & Listen; in New
York, they can regularly be heard at diverse venues such as Le Poisson Rouge, Joe's Pub,
Galapagos Art Space and the Chelsea Art Museum, as well as on WNYC radio. Their first album,
NOW, was released in 2008 to rave reviews around the country, including on AllMusic.com (five
stars): "a first-class debut...more of this is demanded, not requested." Newsweek's Seth Colter
Walls wrote, "NOW... imports a catchy inflection to classical forms... Striking a balance between
the old and the new has rarely sounded this good.”
The Robert Rauschenberg Pilottone Experience is an experimental sound ensemble with a
revolving cast of members. Three core members include Jennida Chase, Belinda Haikes and
Hassan Pitts. Pilottoneʼs live work is electronically driven sound improvisation, which occasionally
employs more traditional instrumentation. Pilottone includes video in their live performances and
has also created sound tracks for still photography and makes non-trad ʻmusicʼ videos. The group
has performed with Stephen Vitiello, Blevin Blectum, Anduin, Caustic Castle, The Grapefruit
Experiment and many other sound/noise artists.
III. Program Notes
13 (Ivica Ico Bukvic) is a game of prime numbers and primal instincts pitting timbre against
rhythm. Driven by conductorʼs oversight over an array of performer-specific and ensemble-wide
parameters, a networked ensemble acts as one large meta-tracker where each individual
performer contributes its own gesture-driven motives or tracks. The ensuing meta-tracker texture
is superimposed against improvised acoustic percussion in a search of a meaningful discourse
and ultimately musical synergy.
Awake (Patrick Burke) combines the cyclic processes and layers of Javanese gamelan music
with harmonies and colors of Western classical and popular music. From a very quiet beginning
of plucked piano strings and electric guitar, the music builds momentum and gradually
accelerates to a frenetic pace, only to slow down and settle into a new cycle that seems to
transcend all that came before it. Personally, I see this as a journey from the anxieties of daily life
to an awareness of the larger world and all of the possibilities within it. In Buddhism there is a
principle that the self and the universe are mutually inclusive--the entire universe is contained
within the self, and the self permeates the entire universe. Awake is a meditation on this principle.
Black Box Bossa (Alejandro Rutty) is a Bossa Nova living inside a granular sampler. As such,
this metaphorical sampler segments the song into tiny grains, only to play them in erratic back-and-
forth patterns, altering the length of the excerpts, the starting and ending place of the
samples, and the size of the grains or segments. After hearing Black Box Bossa It may be
possible, perhaps, to reconstruct the (newly composed) song, but even if it were not possible, the
bossa will infuse the black box with a calm, tropical sense of longing.
Burst (Mark Dancigers) combines some elaborate African-inspired guitar licks with Mozart-inspired
counterpoint and harmony. The piece cycles through its main themes twice, the second
time doubling each melody with two instruments.
Change (Judd Greenstein): In times when people seem ready to entrust our broken systems with
their hopes of making positive change, it's most important to step up and, as Gandhi said, 'be the
change you want to see in the world'. This piece represents my own reminder to myself to always
keep that fire lit.
Citadel (Ivica Ico Bukvic) for soprano and L2Ork draws inspiration from a famous poem "Himna
Slobodi" (Hymn to Freedom) by the 17th century Croatian poet Ivan Gundulic. As the first piece
ever written for the newfound ensemble, it relies upon pervasive tonality, in many ways posing as
an electronic counterpart to a traditional string ensemble. Using the infinite-bow metaphor to
create lush tonal harmonies the piece forms a compelling aural foundation for a lyrical showcase
of soloist's vocal talent.
Dionysus (Kostas Karathanasis): Changing forms, volatile, brutal, benevolent, chased and
menacing, dismembered and resurrected, ceremonious, clamorous, mystic, inspirational, ecstatic,
patron of tragedy and comedy. Dionysus is the god who embodies primitive instinctual forces of
life, irresistible, inexorable, ever triumphing. The piece is written in MaxMSP. The software tracks
the percussionistʼs attacks, amplitude, rhythm and density. This information is used to trigger
various real-time sound transformation routines and pre-recorded materials. The whispered texts
are from Euripides Bacchae. Many thanks to Dr. Ricardo Souza for commissioning this work and
for his enhancing suggestions. Dionysus was also made possible with the partial support of funds
from the Research Council of University of Oklahoma.
Ellipse (Janice Misurell-Mitchell), for baritone saxophone, violin, viola and cello, was
commissioned by composer and saxophonist Mark Engebretson. It is dedicated to the memory of
our dear, late friend and my mentor, M. William Karlins (1932 – 2005), Professor of Music Theory
and Composition at Northwestern University from 1967 to 2001. In 1974 Bill wrote his Quintet for
Alto Saxophone and String Quartet, a piece about which we had had numerous discussions. As I
began writing it became clear to me that I needed to find a way to recognize some of Billʼs ideas
in my own piece. Thus there is an “In Memoriam” section in two parts: the first uses one of Billʼs
note series in an espressivo form, as a development of the section that precedes it; the second
uses it as a more direct “steal” from the third movement of Billʼs piece—a movement, which,
ironically, uses the same first five pitches that my row for Ellipse uses. (I choose not to make
much of this, even though the relationship was not intentional...) The piece takes its title from the
image of the ellipse: the shape appears in either upright or inverted forms in the ensembleʼs
phrases, and often in the relationship of the voices to each other. The baritone saxophone is used
at times as an equal member of the ensemble and at other times as a soloist. I would like to thank
the Ragdale Foundation for providing me with support and solitude in 2008 as I worked on this
piece.
For Every Season . . . (Bruce Mahin) is representative of my interest in creating expressive,
interesting music from very economical structures. Hence, the inspiration for the work is
emotional and spiritual. The actual composition, however, is based solely on a four-note
unordered pitch collection (C-C#-F-G) manipulated by transposition, inversion and various re-orderings.
Pilottoneʼs performance Future Past springs form William Gibsonʼs idea of “Locative arts”, an art
that finds the hidden history, the ghost moments of what has gone before. It is the remnants of
memory given to the future. Using electronic media, sound and video, pilottone brings the
audiovisual history of points in time to present.
Half-Life (Ivica Ico Bukvic) for solo narrator and L2Ork is a texture-based exploration of electronic
percussion and its recontextualization through the use of unique opportunities inherent to the
L2Ork ensemble. The ensuing soundscape draws inspiration from the writings and experiences of
Elena Filatova on her solo motorcycle ride through Chernobylʼs dead zone.
The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt (Missy Mazzol, music; Stephen Taylor, film)
INTRODUCTION
Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was an explorer, nomad, journalist, novelist, passionate romantic,
Sufi, and one of the most unique and unusual women of her era. At age twenty, after the death of
her mother, brother and father, she left her life in Switzerland for a nomadic and unfettered
existence in the deserts of North Africa. She traveled extensively through the desert on
horseback, often dressed as a man, relentlessly documenting her travels through detailed
journals. At age twenty-seven Isabelle drowned in a flash flood in the desert. The Lives and
Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt uses texts inspired by her writing to immerse the audience in the
surreal landscapes of Isabelle's life; she describes the death of her family, the thrill of her arrival
in Africa, her tentative joy at falling in love, the elation of self-discovery and the mystery of death.
COMPOSER'S NOTE
In 2004, within hours of picking up a copy of her journals in a Boston bookstore, I officially
became obsessed with Isabelle Eberhardt's strange and moving life story. Within two weeks I had
read everything she had ever written and nearly everything written about her, but despite my
compulsive reading habits, I still had more questions than answers.
I was struck by the universal themes of her story – how much her struggles, her questions, her
passions, mirrored those of women throughout the 20th and 21st century. Isabelle made a great
effort to define herself as an independent woman under extreme circumstances. She dressed as
a man, seeing this as the only way to move freely and live the life of her choice. She let herself
fall deeply in love but struggled to maintain her independent lifestyle.
I knew immediately that I wanted to create a large-scale work about Isabelle, and I knew that I
wanted it to be more of a personal response to her life than a detailed retelling of her story. I
needed to start answering my own questions, imagining how she felt, filling in the spaces
between journal entries and exploring the universality that make her story so vibrant and relevant
to me over one hundred years after her death.
In 2007, three years after discovering Isabelle, I began work on the libretto for The Lives and
Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, pulling phrases and ideas from her journals and creating singable
texts that, over the following year, I set to music. Working in response to my score, Stephen
Taylor started to create films using archival footage from the early 20th century, generating a
collection of images that went beyond a mere depiction of Isabelle's story to reflect the emotional
themes of each section. Early in 2009 Steve and I began our collaboration with director Gia
Forakis, who worked with us to stage the work and bring together all the elements of the project.
I wrote this work for NOW Ensemble and Abigail Fischer, musicians whose virtuosic technique
and adventurous spirit made them an ideal choice for what I envisioned. What you are seeing
tonight is a concert version of what we hope will one day be an evening-length opera.
PROGRAM NOTES/LIBRETTO
1. Overture
"I am alone, sitting facing the grey expanse of the shifting sea... I am alone... alone as I've always
been everywhere, as I'll always be throughout this seductive and deceptive universe…"
2. This World Within Me is Too Small
"What urges me, though, to restlessness and keeps thrusting me onto life's roads, is not the
wisest voice in my soul; it is a side of me that finds the earth too limited, and is unable to find in
myself a sufficient universe."
[Isabelle is reeling after the death of her mother, father and brother. Her only solace is the
thought of leaving Geneva for Africa.]
Death moves his hands through me again
A lonely outsider among men
I'll keep my silence here
I'll leave this place alone
I'll give myself to no one at all
Death moves his hands through me again
A lonely outsider among men
This world within me is too small
But still inside me something sings
I'll keep my silence here
I'll leave this place alone
3. Interlude 1
"My soul, too, has begun to stir again. A nomad I was even when I was very small and would
stare at the road, that spellbinding white road headed straight for the unknown... and I shall stay a
nomad all my life, in love with changing horizons, unexplored, far-away places, for any voyage,
even to the most crowded and well-traveled countries, is an exploration."
4. I Have Arrived
"Everything has come to life again, and so has my soul. Yet, as always, I also feel a boundless
sadness, an inarticulate longing for something I cannot describe, a nostalgia for some other place
for which I have no name.”
[Isabelle arrives in Algeria at age twenty-one.]
I have arrived- I'll pick out my own song,
a music that will bleed the heart into silence.
I have arrived - I'll pick out my own song,
line by line, and at last
throw back my head and sing.
5. You are the Dust
"And all the time the secret joy of knowing that I will leave tomorrow at dawn, leave all these
things which are still pleasing and dear to me this evening. Who but a nomad, a vagabond, could
understand this double rejoicing? Once more astounded by all that has captured me and all I
have left, I tell myself that love is a worry and that what's necessary is to love to leave - persons
and things being loveliest when left behind."
[Isabelle falls in love with Slimene Ehnni, an Algerian soldier. Their relationship is marked by long
periods apart, during which Isabelle restlessly roams the desert on horseback.]
you are the dust
you are the sand
you are the breathing earth
you are the flood
you are the road
you are the flood
you are the one
the one most loved
when left behind
6. Interlude 2
"Where is destiny taking me?!"
7. Where Footprints Erase the Graves
"Soon, the solitary, woeful figure that I am will vanish from this earth, where I have always been a
spectator, an outsider among men."
[Isabelle is killed when a flash flood destroys her house, and she drowns in the desert she loves.
She is twenty-seven years old.]
here where footprints
erase the graves
a tranquil heart
is mine
here where footprints
erase the graves
these hours are
no more than
moments of light
in this blanket
of blazing stars
"It seems to me that I am not meant to disappear without having plumbed the depths of this
enigma, from its strange beginnings to the present."
SONG FROM THE UPROAR: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt is underwritten by the
American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation, with additional
support from Free Speech Zone Productions and the American Music Center.
magnificat 3: lament (Linda Dusman): My music in recent years comprises a weaving together
of disparate elements. Commissioned by Airi Yoshioka as a work for violin and electronics, I
began contemplating magnificat 3 during the US occupation of Iraq, and began composing it as
the 17-year cicadas emerged during the spring of 2004, with final revisions in 2005. This
composition is the third in a series of works that began as a reflection on the Virgin Maryʼs text:
“My soul doth magnify the lord,” but which were interrupted by world events beginning with
September 11, 2001. I realized that “magnificat 3” was a lament late one night when I was
working on the piece and my 8-year-old son woke screaming from a nightmare in which “the war
in Iraq came here.” Afterward I realized how much world events had been weighing on me as
well. I imagined how much worse, and more frequent, must be the nightmares of the children in
Iraq, whose parents cannot shelter them from the constant violence there. “magnificat 3” in the
end is a lament for all children who are victims of violence.
Polyptoton (Alex Kotch) is a rhetorical figure in which words from the same root but with different
inflections appear in close proximity. For example, Robert Frost wrote, “Love is an irresistible
desire to be irresistibly desired.” Of the great Latin poets, Ovid is most well known for his use of
this figure. He uses many variations of polyptoton in his works, and one such variation is two
pairs of words in symmetric order:
quid, Agenore nate, peremptum
serpentem spectas? et tu spectabere serpens.
(Metamorphoses, iii 97-98)
Why gaze, son of Agenor, at the serpent you have killed?
You too shall be a serpent to be gazed on.
Latinʼs flexible word order allowed writers to use rhetorical figures quite liberally; music is the
same way.
The piece includes plenty of true repetition, but it also features many musical polyptotons, or
slightly altered repetition. The first fast section, when repeated phrases slowly shift their rhythms
and occasionally their pitch while still maintaining the same character, and a later section, which
emulates a skipping compact disc by varying the particular segment of the phrase that is
repeated, are just two instances that embody the workʼs title.
The work was originally commissioned by Nicholas Prost for saxophonist Jean-Yves Chevalier for
performance at the 2009 Festival Saxophone en Fête in Paris on January 31, 2009. Tonight is the
version for saxophone and electronica, written for Susan Fancher. All of the electronic playback is
derived from a recording of Susan playing her tenor saxophone.
Work on Strange Things Begin to Happen When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert
(Mark Engebretson/Michael Basinksi/Wendy Collin Sorin) began shortly after enigmatic
sound/art/poet Michael Basinskiʼs appearance at the 2008 UNCG New Music Festival. I asked
Michael whether he had any text I might consider setting, and he responding with this
extraordinary book—all black and white--of the same name he produced in collaboration with
visual artist Wendy Collin Sorin (see Wendyʼs note on her engagement with this project). The
book contains, when read front to back, a collection of texts in Basinskiʼs highly personal idiom of
invented letters, imagery, ciphers and symbolism. Read backwards (and upside-down), the book
presents a “mutated rondeau” in relatively “normal” language. Using this rondeau as the basis for
my composition, I had friends, family and colleagues read one or two pages each, and then used
their recorded voices to generated a “musicalized” electronic score. This was developed in
conjunction with a solo flute part, which brings us back many years earlier when my friend from
Chicago, Janice Misurell-Mitchell and I cooked up the idea that we would each write pieces for
each other, and do performances in our home locales and abroad. Janice specializes in, among
other things, the performance of text while playing her instrument, and I thought this would be a
perfect match for her, my music, and the book. The flute interacts in many ways with the
electronic score as well as the visual element, for example by commenting on the “upside down”
portions of text, dramatizing or vocalizing certain text fragments, or interacting with the musical
element of the spoken/musicalized texts in a more or less conventional musical way. Finally, with
the kind contribution of color pictures Wendy had provided, I created a kind of montage of the
images that syncs up with the musical element, trying to capture the flavor of the process of
overlapping emails and photocopies that she and Basinski used in the original book.
--Mark Engebretson
Strange Things Begin to Happen When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert began in
1998 with a “sex-text” performance poem in need of visual imagery and a format. Men, women,
the flying patterns of bees, and codes were tied together by a snaking trail of overprinted emails
written between poet Michael Basinski, publisher/typographer luigi-bob drake and myself. The
book caught the attention of Indiana filmmaker Alfred Eaker and began its next transformation: W
the movie, with additions from a script by Eaker and the Anti-War Manifesto of Columbus poet
John M. Bennett. Through four years of writing, drawing, ongoing conversation, filming and
editing, new images were generated and further informed by current events: a Dr. Strangelove on
steroids with bombs & Saddam, W. & the Rapture. Earlier this year, Mark Engebretson contacted
me asking for permission to use the images from the book for a video to accompany his
composition inspired by meteors and all things strange. I sent him the additional, reworked
drawings from the film project: STBtHWaMCitAD, Part 3.
--Wendy Collin Sorin
This Window Makes Me Feel (John Supko) was composed in 2005 as part of the requirements
for the General Examination in the Music Department at Princeton University. The music, scored
for mezzo soprano, keyboards, percussion and electronics, is a partial setting of Robert
Fittermanʼs enormous text of the same name. In his work, Fitterman uses the phrase “This
window makes me feel” as the basis of hundreds of Google searches in which the results
complete the sentence over and over again, creating over time a unique portrait of humanity.
Sometimes funny, sometimes mundane, often surprisingly meaningful, the text accumulates a
poignancy that I found intriguing. I also saw in it a simple musical structure, with the title phrases
acting as a ʻrefrainʼ and each search result supplying the verses. I applied this structure to the
musical setting in which the mezzo-soprano sings “This window makes me feel” continuously in
long, slow phrases while a recorded voice whispers the rest of the text.
After I finished the music, I had the idea to approach Don Sheehy, at that time a senior in
Princetonʼs Computer Science Department, about making a video for my piece. He agreed, and
got to work taking a digital camera – often clandestinely, sometimes illegally – around New York.
Though there is nothing explicitly connected to New York in the text, we felt that it gave the
impression of being in the middle of a bustling city in which each sentence represented a different
personʼs private thoughts. This view of the text provided a meditative counterpoint to the image
of contemporary urban life and, we hope, can be heard and seen in the various sonic and visual
layers of work.
Whatʼs He Building? (Tom Waits, arr. Coulter/Bukvic): An adaptation of Tom Waitsʼ famous
work for L2Ork and narrator explores juxtaposition of concrete and digital, sound and
choreography; an exercise in participatory listening; a communal experience of the American
Dream gone awry.
IV. Lecture Abstracts
Inspirations, Ideals, and the Reality – How L2Ork Turned My Creativity (and my Life!) Upside
Down
Ivica Ico Bukvic, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Linux Laptop Orchestra or simply L2Ork is by far the most demanding undertaking of my creative
career. Not only has it reshaped my creative focus, it has also redefined the very core values that
have been the driving force behind my creativity for more than a decade. I would like to use this
opportunity to share with the audience L2Orkʼs exhilarating journey, important lessons I learned
along the way, and a vision of what I see as the future of human-centric and ensemble-driven
computer music.
Composing Production/Library Music
Bernd Gottinger, SUNY Fredonia, New York
Production or Library Music belongs to the realm of music publishing and has experienced a
considerable growth in the past couple of decades. Large conglomerates such as Sony ATV,
Warner Chappell, and Universal Music Publishing, among others, are strong contenders in the
field, and are concerned with growing their catalogues. Since production music often is created by
a single person who delivers the work in the form of a recorded master, it requires a combination
of traditional music production skills; music performance, music composition, electronic synthesis,
and audio engineering. Combining these different skills and talents successfully may result in a
significant source of income for a technologically savvy composer.
The presentation will feature a demonstration of how the production of library music may be
approached. Furthermore it seeks to answer questions pertaining to the nature, time frame,
styles, and financial ramifications of production music.
Developing iPhone applications to promote your music.
Bruce Mahin, Radford University, Virginia
Social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and RealSpace, have become the way to
promote your music and your skills as a musician. Mobile devices, like the iPhone, offer another
way to help people access your music 24/7. This presentation will show you how to get started
developing your own iPhone application as a promotion tool. It will cover the potential inherent in
these applications, the basic logistics of getting started, and introduce you to the programming
skills involved in developing your own applications.
Ellipse: “Saxing up the String Quartet”
Janice Misurell-Mitchell, Art Institute of Chicago
Ellipse, for baritone saxophone, violin, viola and cello, was commissioned by composer and
saxophonist Mark Engebretson. In writing for saxophone and strings I wanted to explore the
combination from different viewpoints: an overall unified sound; the instruments in pairs, often
with contrasting musical ideas; the saxophone as a soloist with a trio of strings; and all four voices
as independent, but with a common rhythmic foundation. I was also interested in creating music
that at times had more of a string quartet style, and more of a saxophone quartet style at others. I
found that the baritone saxophone blended quite well with the strings, complementing the sound
with added warmth and darkness, rather than standing out as an intruder (this works also
because of the timbre of the baritone saxophone). The piece takes its title from the image of the
ellipse: the shape appears in either upright or inverted forms in the ensembleʼs phrases, and
often in the relationship of the voices to each other.