2012-09-26 NMF [recital program]

              Ninth Annual
UNCG New Music Festival
September 26 - 28, 2012
Greensboro, NC
Mark Engebretson & Alejandro Rutty, Directors
Jonathan Wall, Technical Director
Steven Landis, Assistant Director
Festival Schedule
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Lectures
1 p.m. - (rm. 217) Sebastián Zubieta
Concerts
7:30 p.m. - Recital Hall
Concert I - Music by Rutty, Lorrio, Nancarrow, Zubieta, Marinescu
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Lectures
Symposium on Sustainability and the Arts
1 p.m. - (Peabody Park Bridge) performance of ...and we build our own truths
Steven Landis (CSI winner), music; Elisa Foshay, choreography
1:20 p.m. - (Foyer under the Organ Hall) Jessica Trotman – CSI overview
Organ Hall - Presentations:
2 p.m. - Bart Trotman and Mark Dixon, Invisible: Reinventing the Wheel:
Invisible's Reuse and Re-imagination of Technology
2:30 p.m. - Austin Loman and Corry Mears (CSI winners), Glenwood Duplex:
A model of sustainable and economical living for the UNCG and
Glenwood community.
3:00 p.m. - Lee Walton – The Visual Art of John Cage
3:45 – 4:00 p.m. - break
4: 00 p.m. - Samantha DiRosa – Poignant Actions
5:00 p.m. - Aaron Allen - Eco-Musicology and the Challenges of Sustainability
6:30 p.m. - Pre-concert reception at Weatherspoon Art Museum, Atrium
Concerts
7:00 p.m. - Weatherspoon Museum
Concert II - Voicing Cage: Stacey Mastrian and Friends
Friday, September 28, 2012
Lectures
9 a.m. - (rm. 223) Composition masterclass with Jakov Jakoulov
11 a.m. - (rm. 226) Liviu Marinescu
3 p.m. - (rm. 221) Composition masterclass with Liviu Marinescu, Sebastián
Zubieta, Martin Gendelman
Concerts
12:15 p.m. - Gatewood Art Museum
SCI Student Chapter: Fontana Mix, a Collaboration
8:00 p.m. - Recital Hall
Greensboro Symphony Orchestra Chamber Concert
9:30 p.m. - Mack & Mack (220 Elm St. Downtown Greensboro)
Concert III - Sinister Resonance performs Music by
Torn, Cline, Engebretson, Stevens, Cowell, Dub Trio
CONCERT PROGRAMS
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
CONCERT I
UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.
A Future of Tango (2010) Alejandro Rutty (1967)
(20’)
Part I: Year 2045: Mind Transfer Tango
Part II: Year 2098: Wartime Tango
Part III: Year 2145: I'm a Martian Transfobeat: {milonga}
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet:
Susan Fancher, Robert Faub, Steve Stusek, Mark Engebretson
Janet Philips, flute; Ronnal Ford, oboe; Anthony Taylor, Catherine Keen Hock,
clarinet; Marian Graebert, bassoon; Jacy Burroughs, horn; Naomi Marcus, Justin
Bunting, Percussion; Ināra Zandmane, piano; Naiara Sanchez, Sara Soltau, violins;
Matthew Sharpe, viola; Charles Rassmussen, violoncello; Steve Landis, double bass;
Alejandro Rutty, conductor
Gradus ad Parnassum (2006) Leandro Lorrio (1961)
(10’)
Sally Todd, piano
Alex Kluttz, vibraphone
3 Canons for Ursula (1988) Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997)
(5’)
Cicilia Yudha, piano
CCXCIV (2002) Sebastián Zubieta (1967)
(5’)
Lorena Guillén, voice
Steven Landis, double bass
Harmonic Fields (2010) Liviu Marinescu (1970)
(10’)
Present Continuous
Amanda Mitchell, flute; Anna Darnell, clarinet; Walton Lott, piano;
Nicole Strum, soprano saxophone; Eduardo Vargas, conductor
Thursday, September 27, 2012
CONCERT II
UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
Weatherspoon Art Museum, 7:00 p.m.
Voicing Cage: a concert celebrating the life and work of John Cage (1912-1992)
Stacey Mastrian, soprano
Four5 (1991)
(12’)
Xin Gao, Neil Ostercamp, Tyler Young, soprano saxophone; Hunter Bockes,
Jairo Chavez, John Jepsen, alto saxophone; Andrew Lovett, Nikki Trail,
William Wright, tenor saxophone; Danny Collins, Alanna Hawley, Benjamin West,
baritone saxophone; Benjamin Crouch and Lee Burgess, conductors
Introduction from Lecture on Nothing (1959)
(3’)
Stacey Mastrian
Five (1988)
(5’)
Stacey Mastrian and Lorena Guillén, sopranos; Xin Gao, alto saxophone;
Benjamin Crouch, tenor saxophone; Steven Landis, double bass; Danielle Kinne,
Brianna Taylor, Jennifer McNure, Elizabeth Johnson, and Melissa Pihos, dancers
Story from Living Room Music (1976)
(2’30”)
Sarah Taylor, Stacey Mastrian, Lorena Guillén, and Ainsley Patterson, voice
Experiences No.2 (1948)
(3’30”)
Stacey Mastrian, soprano
Elisa Foshay, dance
Readings from Indeterminacy (1958-1959)
(10’)
Stacey Mastrian
Radio Music (1956)
(6’)
Stacey Mastrian, Joshua Marquez, Steven Landis,
Jonathan Wall, Tyler Miller, Eric Pazdziora, radio operators
Song Books: Solos for Voice 3-92 (1972)
(22’)
Stacey Mastrian and Lorena Guillén, sopranos; Jonathan Wall, electronics
with Richard Fabiano (Bobby Fischer) and Tyler Miller (Boris Spassky), chess players
Friday, September 28, 2012
SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, INC. STUDENT CHAPTER CONCERT
UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
Gatewood Art Museum, 12:15 p.m.
Fontana Mix, a Collaboration:
Music by John Cage
Fontana Mix (1958)
4’33” (1952)
Tyler Miller,
Jonathan Wall, Kaitlyn Wagner,
Steven Landis, Joshua Marquez, Elisa Foshay, Lee Walton,
Brian Koenig, Emily O’Shields, Kelly Norris, Emily Damrell, Eric Pazdziora,
Visual Art Student Studio, Eric Sorenson,
Ellis Robinson,
Caroline Althof,
Amy Smith,
Michael Lee,
Maggie Zhao,
Melanie Greene,
Brianna Taylor
GREENSBORO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
CHAMBER SERIES CONCERT
UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
Recital Hall, 8:00 p.m.
Souvenir d’un lieu cher Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Gate City Camerata
Serenade for strings op. 10 Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960)/arr. Sitkovetsky
Gate City Camerata
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor
Concerto for clarinet, harp & strings (WORLD PREMIERE) Jakov Jakoulov (1958)
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Helen Rifas, harp
Gate City Camerata
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor
Medley from A Future of Tango for string quartet (2012) Alejandro Rutty (1967)
McIver String Quartet
Marjorie Bagley and Fabián López, violins; Scott Rawls, viola;
Alexander Ezerman, violoncello
Scherzo & Melody for violin & strings Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, violin and conductor
"Gate City Camerata
CONCERT III
UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
Mack & Mack (220 Elm St. Downtown Greensboro), 9:30 p.m.
Sinister Resonance
Nagoya Guitars (1994) Steve Reich (1936)
(6’)
Gavin Douglas and Guy Capuzzo, guitars
Sinister Resonance
Mark Hetzler, trombone and electronics; Vincent Fuh, keyboards;
Nick Moran, electric and acoustic bass; Todd Hammes, drums and percussion
AK (2007) David Torn (1953)
(8’)
There’s Something About David H. (2004) Nels Cline (1956)
(9’)
They Said: sinister resonance (2012) Mark Engebretson (1964)
(9’) text by Brian Lampkin
Ballad (2010) John Stevens (1951)
(6’)
Sinister Resonance (1930) Henry Cowell (1897-1965)
(5’)
Agonist/Not for Nothing (2008) Dub Trio
(5’)
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Concert I
Biographies
Alejandro Rutty’s compositional output includes orchestral, chamber, mixed-media,
and arrangements of Argentine traditional music. A unique feature of Rutty’s music
is its affection for textures suggested by modern recording processing techniques, and
the use of tango and other South American genres as part of the music’s surface.
Rutty’s compositions and arrangements have been played by the Minnesota
Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Indianapolis Chamber
Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, National Symphony
Orchestra of Brazil, Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra and others. Rutty’s music has
been published by Effiny Music, SCI/European American Music, and Ricordi
Sudamericana.
Recordings of his music have been released by Capstone Records, Arizona University
Recordings, and ERM Media. His latest CD, The Conscious Sleepwalker (Navona
Records) was released in 2012.
Founder and Artistic Director of the Hey, Mozart! Project, Alejandro Rutty is
Associate Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. www.alejandrorutty.com
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet was formed in 2003 in North Carolina when the
fates conspired to bring four internationally recognized saxophonists together
in Greensboro. The RCSQ takes its name from the area's luscious red soil. The
Quartet's repertoire features music by composers as varied as Ben Johnston, Burton
Beerman, Mark Engebretson, Lenny Pickett, Alejandro Rutty, Ben Boone, Steve Reich
and Gavin Bryars. The 2012-2013 season includes the RCSQ's premiere performance
of Compass by David Rakowski, presented on February 8, 2013 by Music for a Great
Space in Greensboro, NC.
Leandro Lorrio is a composer, orchestrator and songwriter whose work in film,
dance, and literature involve collaboration with other artists. Leandro is Director of
the Official Music Conservatory of Cáceres (Spain), where he teaches Harmony,
introduction to Composition, and Music Analysis. Leandro has also been Associate
Professor of Music at the University of Extremadura for eighteen years.
Samuel Conlon Nancarrow was born in 1912 in Texarkana, Arkansas. In the mid-
1930s, he traveled to Boston to pursue his two major interests: music (studying
composition with Roger Sessions, Walter Piston, and Nicolas Slonimsky) and
Communism. In 1936, he moved to Spain to fight against Francisco Franco's
Nationalist forces; faced with the challenges of McCarthy-era American politics on his
return, he instead chose to live in Mexico City, becoming a citizen of that nation in
1955. On a brief return to America in 1947, he purchased a machine to punch player-piano
rolls, laying the foundation for what would become his life's work.
Many of Nancarrow's compositions for player piano use the instrument's mechanical
precision to achieve complex rhythmic and harmonic results, particularly in his
canonic writing: notable examples include a four-voice canon in ratios of 17:18:19:20, a
mathematically irrational canon in the ratio of # to e, and acceleration canons where
each voice advances at a distinct rate. These radically innovative developments were
not noticed by the compositional mainstream, however—besides one public
performance in 1962 and brief encounters with Elliott Carter, John Cage, and Merce
Cunningham, Nancarrow worked in virtual isolation for nearly three decades.
In the 1970s, Nancarrow began corresponding with composer Peter Garland, who
published the player piano Study No. 25 in the new music journal Soundings.
Gradually, Nancarrow came to be recognized for his exceptional talent; he received
the MacArthur Award in 1982, and György Ligeti wrote that his works were the "best
music of any composer living today." Conlon Nancarrow died in 1997, having
enjoyed international renown at the end of his life.
Sebastián Zubieta was born in Argentina and currently works as Music Director at
Americas Society in New York. His music has been performed in concerts and
festivals in Europe, Korea, Latin America and the US by musicians including ICE,
Continuum Ensemble, the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, the Momenta Quartet,
violist Antoine Tamestit, and clarinetist Joshua Rubin. He has written music for ICE,
the Centro Cultural General San Martín in Buenos Aires, the New York Miniaturist
Ensemble, and pianist Stephen Buck and has been in residence at The Banff Centre.
Upcoming premieres include ospedali di suoni anemici IV, for clarinet and trombone at
Ars Nova Choele Choel 2012 and once possessed is nothing, which will be premiered by
the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo in 2013.
He has presented papers on baroque and contemporary music at venues including
the 17th Congress of the International Musicological Society in Leuven, and the Society
for American Music. He has lectured on Latin American music at the Wellesley
Chamber Music Center and the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen, and taught
hearing and analysis and music appreciation at Yale, music history at the Universidad
de Buenos Aires, and composition at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. He made
his New York conducting debut with Meridionalis, a group dedicated to Latin
American early music at the Look and Listen Festival in 2010 with music by Guiterre
Fernández Hidalgo, and has performed 16th century music from Guatemala and
Brazilian classical music at Music of the Americas, Symphony Space, and the Raritan
River Music Festival. Sebastián was the conductor of the Yale International Singers
from 1999 to 2005 and premiered a number of new works for chamber ensembles and
orchestra with Yale Philharmonia, New Music New Haven, and NeitherMusic. He
holds a doctorate in composition from Yale University and a licenciatura in
musicology from the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires.
www.sebastianzubieta.com
Liviu Marinescu's works have received recognition in numerous festivals of new
music throughout the world, and have been performed by prominent orchestras and
ensembles, including the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Czech Bohuslav Martinu
Philharmonic, Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia, as well as the National Chamber Radio
and Music Academy orchestras in Bucharest.
His debut at the Bucharest International New Music Festival when he was 21 years
old, was noted by the Parisian newspaper Le Monde de la Musique, which described
one of the concerts he co-organized with other young composers and artists as being
"inventive in its evolution, content, and substance," and promoting an "anti-conformist
view." Soon after, the Bucharest newspaper Actualitatea Muzicala
acknowledged that Marinescu "not only has the intelligence and maturity expected
from a modern artist, but also the ability to express himself through sounds in a
convincing way." In the U.S., his music has been praised by numerous publications,
including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, while
the critics of The Strad, Strings Magazine, and New York Concert Review recognized
its "real expressive power and attractive rhetoric," "majestic assertiveness," and
"startling moments."
Since his 2002 appointment as coordinator of music composition and theory at
California State University Northridge, Dr. Marinescu has received numerous awards
and grants from the Fulbright Commission, the American Music Center, ASCAP,
Meet the Composer Fund, and the Fromm Music Foundation Prize at Harvard
University.
Program Notes
A Future of Tango is a concerto for saxophone quartet and orchestra exploring
possible appearances of Argentine Tango in the popular culture of the years 2045,
2098 and 2145. Each of the movements presents a scenario with probable realities:
mind transfer (2045), holographic theatre (2098) and a Mars colony (2145). A Future of
Tango imagines the musical context in which these styles may appear. In them, there
are references within tango, but also rock, funk, dance-electronica, world music, and
electronic sound-processing.
I. Year 2045: Mind Transfer Tango
Advances in Mind Transfer (the process of copying the contents and patterns of
human brains and downloading them into a computer) produce a brain download
vogue. The most popular computer applications for Mind Transfer include music,
which is played during the download. One of those pieces of music is a tango in
1930's style. This song becomes a part of all memory being downloaded and achieves
preeminence in the virtual mind collective.
II. Year 2098 Wartime Tango
During a war of global reach, a popular holo-theatre piece (holographic fictional
projection) includes a character who plays a bandoneón (tango accordion). This
character, embodying the ideas of the peace movement, has a physical resemblance to
Astor Piazzolla. Spin-off marketing produces toys, ornaments and holo-statues of this
character, making it a cultural icon of the peace movement, popularizing his type of
tango bandoneón playing.
III. Year 2145: I'm a Martian Transfobeat: {milonga}
TransfoBeat (transformation beat), is a genre where one rhythm gradually becomes
another, the second typically being faster. The standard nomenclature is: Name
TransfoBeat: {rhythm}. The lyrics of this famous Transfobeat are repeated throughout
in the bass line: "I am a Martian, Martian I am". Dance clubs in the Mars Colony have
imposed this TransfoBeat: {milonga} in mainstream culture as the Martian colonists
have a strong presence in the media due to the planet's relatively recent colonization
and to a series of well-publicized hardships.
Gradus ad Parnassum represents a personal process of spiritual healing. The work is
a collection of pieces for piano solo or piano and any instrument or group of
instruments. The pieces are based on the harmonic series and are composed in spatial
notation to give freedom to the performer.
3 Canons for Ursula
In response to a commission from Composers Forum in New York, Conlon
Nancarrow wrote two canons for pianist Ursula Oppens (the third movement,
originally abandoned by the composer, has been rescued and reinstated into the
work). While most of Nancarrow's music is written for the mechanical precision of
the player piano, the Canons for Ursula require the (human) pianist to achieve a
comparable level of contrapuntal complexity. In the first canon, the two voices are in
a ratio of 5:7 with each hand playing rhythms of of five against four, resulting in a
composite ratio of 20:25:28:35. The second canon, while written in the much simpler
ratio of 2:3, has a much greater range of performance techniques, including rhythmic
cycles, rapid glissandi, and unison octaves. While perhaps less accurate than its
automated counterpoint, the inclusion of a human element adds a sense of subtlety
and excitement to the performance.
CCXCIV was written in 2002 and premiered by NeitherMusic (Szilvia Schranz and
Kevin Mayner) in New Haven the same year. It is set to one of the sonnets in
Petrarch's Canzoniere, a collection that is for me an inexhaustible source of
inspiration. SZ
CCXCIV
Soleasi nel mio cor star bella e viva
com'alta donna in loco umile e basso;
or son fatto io per l'ultimo suo passo,
non pur mortal, ma morto, et ella è diva.
L'alma d'ogni suo ben spogliata e priva,
Amor de la sua luce ignudo e casso
devrian de la pietà romper un sasso.
Ma non è chi lor duol riconti, o scriva:
che piangon dentro, ov'ogni orecchia è sorda,
se non la mia, cui tanta doglia ingombra,
ch'altro che sospirar nulla m'avanza.
Veramente siam noi polvere et ombra;
veramente la voglia cieca e 'ngorda;
veramente fallace e la speranza.
She used to be in my heart, beautiful and alive
Like a noble lady in a humble and lowly place:
Now by her ultimate passing I am made
Not only mortal, but dead, and she is divine.
The soul despoiled, of all its good deprived,
Love, stripped and denuded of her light,
Could shatter a stone with their disgrace
But no one can tell or write their pain:
They weep inside, where every ear is deaf
But mine, which so much grief burdens,
That I can do nothing but sigh.
Truly are we dust and shadow,
truly is desire blind and insatiable,
truly fallacious is all hope.
Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere
Harmonic Fields proposes a brief reexamination of a few perennial concepts such as
concord, consonance and harmonic unity. At the foundation of this piece one could
find four types of situations: sections based entirely on the first 15 partials of the “C”
fundamental (adjusted to C, D, E, F#, G, Ab, Bb, B), sections that focus on the
remaining four pitches (Db, Eb, F, A), areas that are freely written, and brief 12-tone
segments. For much of the piece, all the attempts to present the “C” partials in their
natural order are interrupted by moments of pitch uncertainty created by moving
textures. Towards the end however, harmonic coherence is obtained when the
overtones of “C” slowly appear in their natural order, thus providing an impression
of focus and clarity. The main goal was to work with very simple archetypal concepts
like consonance vs. dissonance or pulse vs. non-pulse in order to create moments of
departure and return from a state of harmony unity.
Concert II
Biographies
Stacey Mastrian (www.staceymastrian.com), soprano, is a Fulbright Grantee, Beebe
Fellow, and Richard F. Gold Career Grant recipient. Her repertoire extends from
Monteverdi to the 21st century. She performed last season in Luigi Nono’s
Intolleranza 1960 at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and she has sung with the Konzerthaus
Orchestra (Berlin), Nova Amadeus Orchestra (Rome), and at such venues as the
Fondazione Cini (Venice) with the Experimentalstudio Freiburg, Maxim Gorki
Theater (Berlin), Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur (Montréal), St. Peter’s (Vatican
City), and, in collaboration with Nuria Schoenberg Nono, at the Conservatorio di
Musica Respighi (Latina). She has performed throughout the U.S., most notably with
The Bay Players Experimental Music Collective, the Vocal Arts Society, and Opera
Lafayette at the Kennedy Center and Rose Hall-Jazz at Lincoln Center. The New York
Times has praised her for “intensity, focus, and a warm, passionate sound,” and her
singing has been hailed by the Berliner Zeitung as “very impressive…tremendous ease
and beauty.” She has taught at American University, Peabody Conservatory, and the
University of Maryland and is currently on the faculty of the Sunderman
Conservatory of Gettysburg College.
John Cage (1912-1992) was a composer, writer, performer, amateur mycologist, and
(in Arnold Schoenberg's words) “an inventor—of genius.” By the 1930s, he was at the
forefront of the American avant-garde, contributing to such innovative techniques as
the prepared piano, analog technology, and the introduction of noise and silence as
musical elements. By the 1950s, Cage was employing indeterminacy and Buddhist
philosophies in many compositions and had begun several fruitful collaborations,
including those with the Fluxus art collective; pianist David Tudor; and his life
partner, dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Notable compositions from this
era include Williams Mix for tape and the controversial "silent" work 4’33”.
Program Notes
Four5 is the fifth work for four parts in Cage’s Number Pieces, which spanned the last
six years of his career. Cage’s conductor’s score to the work is a single paragraph that
describes the work in a manner at once poetic, precise, and vague: “Single tones in
flexible time brackets for four saxophones or multiples thereof. The pitches do not
sound as written. The intonation should be his own for each player. A unison will be
a unison of differences. Sounds may be long our short. When they have duration the
loudness should be soft. Very short sounds are free as to loudness even sfz if wished
or ppp.”
Voicing Cage was created to commemorate the legacy of iconic American composer-musician-
artist-philosopher-poet John Cage (1912-1992) in the centenary of his birth
year and beyond. The voice figures prominently in Cage’s oeuvre, appearing in his
earliest works in a simple and unaltered manner, and it continues to figure into his
output throughout his lifetime: from spoken word to sung, running the stylistic
gamut, and occurring live or being recorded, transmitted, or transformed. Cage’s
own words, provided in the instructions of his pieces and quoted below, offer insight
into this remarkably diverse array of works.
Introduction to Lecture on Nothing
“This lecture was printed in Incontri Musicali, August 1959. There are four measures
in each line and twelve lines in each unit of the rhythmic structure. There are forty-eight
such units, each having forty-eight measures….The text is printed in four
columns to facilitate a rhythmic reading. Each line is to be read across the page from
left to right, not down the columns in sequence. This should not be done in an
artificial manner (which might result from an attempt to be too strictly faithful to the
position of the words on the page), but with the rubato which one uses in everyday
speech.”
Five
The second of Cage’s many “number” pieces, this work was dedicated to Wilfried
Brennecke and the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik and was premiered by the
Kronos Quartet with John Cage at the piano. Pitches and dynamics are indicated.
Cage writes: “The five parts are for five voices or instruments or mixture of voices
and instruments having…[specified]…ranges. Time brackets are given. Within these
the durations of tones are free, as are their beginnings and endings….”
Story from Living Room Music
This work is for “Percussion and Speech Quartet,” and “Story,” the second of four
movements, has text from a poem by Gertrude Stein. Regarding its
“instrumentation” David Nicholls (in "Cage and America," The Cambridge Companion
to John Cage, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 14) writes that in the context of the
Great Depression, “the instrumentation of such works as the First Construction (in
Metal) (1939) and Living Room Music (1940) becomes attributable as much to poverty
as to sonic imaginativeness."
Experiences No. 2
“This music [for voice, unaccompanied] was written for the dance by Merce
Cunningham….Any range may be employed, preferably low. The text is from III, one
of Sonnets—Unrealities of Tulips and Chimneys (1923) by e e cummings. The two last
lines have been omitted. Other lines and a word have been repeated or used in an
order other than that of the original. The humming passages (not part of the poem”
are interpolations. The original poem is as follows:
it is at moments after I have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) I have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always) and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:
one pierced moment whiter than the rest
--turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.”
Readings from Indeterminacy and other writings
“In oral delivery of this lecture, I tell one story a minute. If it’s a short one, I have to
spread it out; when I come to a long one, I have to speak as rapidly as I can….My
intention in putting the stories together in an unplanned way was to suggest that all
things—stories, incidental sounds from the environment, and, by extension, beings—
are related, and that this complexity is more evident when it is not oversimplified by
an idea of relationship in one person’s mind. ….I suggest that they be read in the
manner and in the situations that one reads newspapers—even the metropolitan
ones—when he does so purposelessly: that is, jumping her and there and responding
at the same time to environmental events and sounds.”
Radio Music
The piece, for 1 to 8 performers, each at one radio. has four sections that must “take
place within a total time-length of 6 minutes. Duration of individual tunings free.
Each tuning to be expressed by maximum amplitude. A _______ indicates ‘silence’
obtained by reducing amplitude approximately to zero.”
Song Books: Solos for Voice 3-92
Dedicated to Cathy Berberian and Simone Rist, Cage writes of the Song Books: “The
solos may be used by one or more singers. Any number of solos in any order and any
superimposition may be used….A given solo may recur in a given performance….
Each solo belongs to one of four categories: 1) song; 2) song using electronics; 3)
theatre; 4) theatre using electronics. Each is relevant or irrelevant to the subject: ‘We
connect Satie with Thoreau.’ Given a total performance time-length, each singer may
make a program that will fill it. Given two or more singers, each should make an
independent program, not fitted or related in a predetermined way to anyone else’s
program. Any resultant silence in a program is not to be feared. Simply perform as
you had decided to, before you knew what would happen.”
Society of Composers, Inc. Student Chapter Concert
Fontana Mix is a structural process developed by John Cage in 1958. Even within the
oeuvre of the composer's indeterminate works, Fontana is especially open-ended;
rather than notating pitches or rhythms, the score is a collection of curves and dots on
assorted transparencies. These sheets are overlaid and measured to determine time
durations and the events that occur within those durations. The content of these
events, however, is entirely unconstrained—Cage used Fontana procedures in creating
electronic music, a solo for mezzo-soprano, and 1960's Theatre Piece (for unspecified
nouns and verbs on index cards).
This presentation of Fontana Mix represents a multidisciplinary collaboration between
UNCG's music, literature, dance, media studies, and visual arts departments, with
each artist constructing realizations within his or her medium (sculpture,
instrumental composition, painting, choreography, poetry, and so on). In the
tradition of Cage's "happenings," all of these works are presented in a chaotic,
overlapping fashion; in the composer's words, this approach aims to "remove
intention in order that what is done will not oblige the listener in any one way…
[we're not] really interested in the validity of compositions any more. We're interested
in the experiences of things."
From Greensboro Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series Concert
Jakov Jakoulov (b. 1958) Concerto for Clarinet, Harp, & String Orchestra
Jakov Jakoulov is an author of three ballets, five instrumental concertos, five string
quartets, music for over 20 theatrical, TV and cinema productions and numerous
symphonic, chamber and choral works.
In recent years Jakoulov’s music has been presented by London’s New European
Strings Orchestra, Boston Symphony Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival,
“Future Classics” Series with Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony
Chamber Concerts, Armenian National Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony
Orchestra, New England String Ensemble, Bachanalia Festival Orchestra, among
others.
Recipient of six Annual Awards of the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers, Doctor of Music of Boston University, Elected Member of National Honor
Music Society, Jakov Jakoulov has 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. His latest work, the Concerto for
Clarinet, Harp, & String Orchestra, will receive its world premiere at tonight’s
concert.
Concert III
Biographies
Guy Capuzzo is a guitarist and music theorist teaching at UNCG. His book on Elliott
Carter's opera "What Next?" was recently published by the University of Rochester
Press.
Gavin Douglas is a guitarist and ethnomusicologist teaching at UNCG. His book
Music in Mainland Southeast Asia was recently published by Oxford University Press.
Sinister Resonance is a quartet of players who explore a diverse range of styles and
genres- from classical to jazz to rock and beyond. With an electro-acoustic approach
to sound and musical exploration, the group relies on both computer software and
acoustic instruments to perform music that ranges in mood from mellow to ecstatic
and melodic to dissonant.
Sinister Resonance:
Mark Hetzler – trombone, electronics
Born in Sarasota, Florida in 1968, Mark Hetzler began playing his dad's trombone at
the age of twelve. He went on to receive a B.M. from Boston University and an M.M.
from the New England Conservatory of Music. Mark was a fellow at the Tanglewood
Music Center and completed a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony,
under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. As a member of the Empire Brass
Quintet since 1996, Mark has performed in recital and as a soloist with symphony
orchestras in Australia, Taiwan, Korea, China, Venezuela, Brazil, Japan, Hong Kong,
Germany, Italy, Austria, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, Bermuda, St.
Bartholomew and across the United States. Mark is active as a solo artist, performing
recitals in Asia, Australia and throughout the United States. In addition to
commissioning major solo works from leading American composers he has released
five solo recordings on the Summit record label. Former Principal Trombone of the
Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Mark has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra,
the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops and the Florida Orchestra. Mark is
the Associate Professor of Trombone at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a
member of the Wisconsin Brass Quintet.
Vincent Fuh - keyboards
Collaborative pianist Vincent Fuh received a Bachelor of Arts degree in piano
performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His primary ensemble
experience came as a jazz pianist in Madison and Milwaukee, before switching his
focus to classical music. He is currently pianist with the Oakwood Chamber Players
and has performed with Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society and the Madison
Symphony Orchestra. Since 1998 Fuh has been pianist for Opera for the Young, a
touring company that brings fully staged adaptations of operas to schools throughout
the Midwest. Fuh stays active in popular music as pianist and composer/arranger for
Madisalsa, an 11-piece salsa and latin jazz group, and El Clan Destino, a
contemporary Afro-Cuban quartet that fuses elements of sacred and secular Cuban
music with North American popular music. Fuh is most recently featured with Marc
Vallon, Professor of Bassoon at the UW-Madison, on the CD "Morceaux de Concours",
released in 2010.
Nick Moran – electric and acoustic bass
Nick Moran debuted in the Madison, WI music scene in 1993 while in the 10th grade,
and has continued to make music professionally ever since. Moran studied double
bass under Dr. James Klute of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra at UW-Eau Claire.
He also studied the tumbao with Orlando ‘Chachaito’ Lopez of the Buena Vista Social
Club. Nick completed his studies at UW-Madison with a Bachelor of Arts. Nick
Moran has performed and recorded with a diverse collection of national and
international acts, including Roberto Vizcaino Guillot (2001 Grammy winner), Ben
Sidran, Clyde Stubbelfield, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Hip Hop legend DJ Kool Herc.
Currently he lives in Madison, WI and performs regularly with El Clan Destino,
dumate, Phat Phunktion, and Madisalsa.
Todd Hammes – drums and percussion
Among the world’s percussionists, Todd Hammes of Madison, Wisconsin is a
singular individual. Through his music – a fascinating, eclectic blend of classical,
world and improvisational styles – Todd presents to the world his own unique inner
vision of sound and music. Todd’s work includes performances both domestically
and abroad, extensive musical composition, teaching and outreach programs to
groups large and small. He has trained with some of the world’s leading
percussionists and is a life-long student of the percussive arts. In 2005, Todd was
awarded a prestigious McKnight Visiting Composer Residency from the American
Composer's Forum, which allowed him the opportunity to make music with people in
assisted living situations. Todd has been studying Hindustani drumming with the
great Pandit Sharda Sahai since 1993 and became his ganda-band disciple in 1998.
Todd holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Arizona (1992) and a
Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (2010).
Mark Engebretson is Associate Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the recipient of the 2011 North
Carolina Artist Fellowship in Composition, and has received major commissions from
Harvard University’s Fromm Music Foundation and the Thomas S. Kenan Center for
the Arts.
He is the founder of the UNCG New Music Festival, with performances at SEAMUS,
ICMC, Wien Modern, Third Practice, Festival of New American Music, ISCM, BGSU
Festival of New Music and Art, Carnegie Hall, Sala São Paulo, Argentina, Albania,
Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, China, across America, and throughout
Europe. Recordings of his compositions are available on the Albany, Innova, Lotus,
and Capstone labels.
Engebretson taught composition at the University of Florida, music theory at the
SUNY Fredonia and 20th-century music history at the Eastman School of Music. He
studied at the University of Minnesota (graduating Summa cum Laude), the
Conservatoire de Bordeaux (as a Fulbright Scholar), and Northwestern University,
where he received the Doctor of Music degree. At Northwestern he studied
composition with M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta Ptaszynska, Michael
Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with Frederick Hemke.
His teachers in France were Michel Fuste-Lambezat and Jean-Marie Londeix.
Brian Lampkin is a poet and writer living in Greensboro. His work has appeared in
dozens of literary journals and magazines, and he is currently working on a
nonfiction book about The Tarboro Three. Another collaboration with composer Mark
Engebretson, "The Difficulties," will be performed at SECCA in Winston-Salem on
October 18.
Program Notes
"Nagoya Guitars" is an arrangement of Reich's "Nagoya Marimbas." The arrangers
are David Tanenbaum and Steve Reich. “Nagoya Marimbas (1994) is somewhat
similar to my pieces from the 1960s and ‘70s in that there are repeating patterns
played on both marimbas, one or more beats out of phase, creating a series of two
part unison canons. However, these patterns are more melodically developed, change
frequently and each is usually repeated no more than three times, similar to my more
recent work. The piece is also considerably more difficult to play than my earlier ones
and requires two virtuosic performers.” - Steve Reich
AK
This tune is the first cut off David Torn's 2007 ECM release Prezens.
Guitarist/composer Torn was joined on this recording project by saxophonist Tim
Berne, keyboard player Craig Taborn and drummer Tom Rainey. Based on a simple
blues riff, this piece is essentially a group improvisation with a groove that winds its
way into a powerful heavy metal riff. In addition to being a talented guitarist, David
Torn is a film composer, a sound artist and an expert in electronic and electro-acoustic
music. Check out his website here: http://www.davidtorn.net/
There's Something About David H.
Nels Cline is currently the guitarist with the band Wilco. Like David Torn, he is
known for his innovative approach to the guitar, specifically his ability to draw
layered and complex sounds from the instrument. This tune is the 6th cut off of The
Giant Pin, a 2004 release from The Nels Cline Singers, a trio featuring Nels Cline,
Devin Hoff (bass) and Scott Amendola (drums/percussion). This piece is an elegy in
which Cline is remembering a friend from his youth who has long since passed away.
The work's haunting opening melody becomes developed into an eventual rush of
powerful sound and emotion.
They Said
Music by Mark Engebretson; text by Brian Lampkin
They Said: sinister resonance, score for trombone, piano, bass and percussion with
interactive electronics, is a piece that creates multi-layered connections between
numerous facets. The text can be understood as a kind of resonance from the events
that took place in the Abu Ghraib (Iraq) prison in 2004. The original performers,
going by the name Sinister Resonance, are heard reading a text that was developed by
Brian Lampkin, a friend and kindred spirit based in Greensboro, NC. The ensemble
takes it’s name from the composition Sinister Resonance by Henry Cowell, a work I
have long admired, and which the group often uses in live performances as a starting
point for extended group improvisations. Throughout the work, the computer
“listens” to the performers, and produces responses based on the input of what they
are playing. These responses form “sinister resonances” as well, in that the electronic
sounds heard are altered recordings of sounds produced by the ensemble members as
they (slowly) played through isolated elements of Cowell’s composition. Finally, a
fragmentary, resonant homage to Cowell is heard toward the end of the piece.
The work was developed in close collaboration with Sinister Resonance members
Mark Hetzler (trombone), Vincent Fuh (piano), Nick Moran (bass) and Todd Hammes
(percussion). The project was funded with support from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison.
--Mark Engebretson
The pronouns and verbs in this poem are taken from the 2007 testimonies of Abu
Ghraib prisoners as witnessed by writer Nick Flynn. Flynn’s book, The Ticking Is the
Bomb, describes his response to the privilege.
--Brian Lampkin
I, They and Abu Ghraib
by Brian Lampkin
I woke I asked I heard
I was taken I heard They took
I was dragged I heard I was
They hit They threw They let
They were laughing
I was
They said
They cut
They did not give
They took
They relaxed
They said I was
They threw
I went I cannot talk I did not I am not
They put They started asking They put
I still have They took They put They took
They would take They were hitting I tried
They took I had
They said They were I remember
I don’t remember
They said they were
I don’t remember
They had raped
They would beat They would count
I would have to
I was I woke They chose
I had I started to
They gave They told I feel
They took They took They asked They kicked They hit
They left
I am I was I was
I vomited
I was I was
They told
I removed I was taken I was
I had I refused
They tied
I spat
They left
I could not
They broke
I was still
I will be I saw I had to I was
Ballad
This piece is actually the second movement of John Stevens Sonata for Trumpet and
Piano, first recorded by John Aley- trumpet and Martha Fischer-piano on the CD
Autumn (Helicon Records, 2010). Titled Adagio espressivo, the work is originally
scored for flugelhorn. With a harmonic and melodic structure reminiscent of jazz
ballad constructs, this work features lyricism in the piano and dramatic cadenza-like
moments in the horn line. John Stevens is currently the Director of the School of
Music at UW-Madison, as well as the Professor of Tuba and Euphonium. As fellow
UW-Madison colleagues of John Stevens and Mark Hetzler, Martha Fischer is the
Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano and John Aley, for whom this piece was
written, is the professor of Trumpet.
Sinister Resonance
This work was composed in 1930 and explores "inside the piano" techniques, in which
the pianist is to play notes on the keyboard while reaching into the piano to hold
down the strings at key locations and with varying pressures. Depending on where
on the string is touched and how hard it is pressed, the piano will elicit a diversity of
colors. An avid experimenter with sound and extended playing techniques, Henry
Cowell's music brings to life a wild assortment of energies and sonic possibilities. Our
arrangement of this work serves as a vehicle to explore and improvise, in the spirit of
Cowell's experimental technical approach.
Agonist/Not for Nothing
Appearing on Dub Trio's 2008 Ipecac release Another Sound is Dying, these tunes
represent a wide assortment of the styles and grooves for which this band is known.
Dub Trio, a dub-rock cross over band from Brooklyn, NY, is made up of David
Holmes-guitar, Stu Brooks- bass and Joe Tomino-drums. Mixing everything from
electronic to dub to heavy metal and progressive rock, this group combines a tight,
rhythmic precision with a powerful and unbridled energy. Agonist is a sort of
reggae-based melodic 8-bar form with a punk rock interlude. Not for Nothing starts
out with a heavy metal riff and ventures into the depths of death metal with a half
time riff for the hardiest of metal heads. With plenty of mixed meter and jagged
melodic lines, these progressive rock tunes offer a gripping intensity.