2004-02-26 UNCG New Music Festival [recital program]

              uncg
The UNCG School of Music has been recognized for years as one of the elite
music institutions in the United States. Fully accredited by the National
Association of Schools of Music since 1938, the School offers the only
comprehensive music program from undergraduate through doctoral study in
both performance and music education in North Carolina. From a total
population of approximately 14,000 university students, the UNCG School of
Music serves nearly 600 music majors with a full-time faculty and staff of more
than sixty. As such, the UNCG School of Music ranks among the largest
Schools of Music in the South.
The UNCG School of Music now occupies a new 26 million dollar music building
which is among the finest music facilities in the nation. In fact, the new music
building is the second-largest academic building on the UNCG Campus. A large
music library with state-of-the-art playback, study and research facilities houses
all music reference materials. Greatly expanded classroom, studio, practice
room, and rehearsal hall spaces are key components of the new structure. Two
new recital halls, a large computer lab, a psychoacoustics lab, electronic music
labs, and recording studio space are additional features of the new facility. In
addition, an enclosed multi-level parking deck is adjacent to the new music
building to serve students, faculty and concert patrons.
Living in the artistically thriving Greensboro—Winston-Salem—High Point “Triad”
area, students enjoy regular opportunities to attend and perform in concerts
sponsored by such organizations as the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, the
Greensboro Opera Company, and the Eastern Music Festival. In addition,
UNCG students interact first-hand with some of the world’s major artists who
frequently schedule informal discussions, open rehearsals, and master classes
at UNCG.
Costs of attending public universities in North Carolina, both for in-state and out-of-
state students, represent a truly exceptional value in higher education.
For information regarding music as a major or minor field of study, please write:
Dr. John J. Deal, Dean
UNCG School of Music
P.O. Box 26167
Greensboro, North Carolina 27402-6167
(336) 334-5789
On the Web: www.uncg.edu/mus/
new music festival
February 26 - 28, 2004
Schedule of Events
Thursday, February 26
5:00 Master Class with James Paul Sain and UNCG Composition Students
Room 129 (Electronic Music Studio)
_____
Friday, February 27
1:00 Master Class with James Paul Sain and UNCG Composition Students
Room 129 (Electronic Music Studio)
2:00 James Paul Sain presentation on his work
Room 223
7:30 Concert I
Recital Hall
Works by Vasks, Sain, Johnston, and Engebretson
Performers: Ināra Zandmane
Bob Faub
Scott Rawls
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
_____
Saturday, February 28
9:30 Science Olympiad
New Science Building
7:30 Concert II
Recital Hall
Works by Gallo, Sain, Parks, and Reich
Performers: Susan Fancher
Kelly Burke
L. H. Dickert
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
Burke has received several teaching awards, including UNCG's Alumni Teaching
Excellence Award, the School of Music Outstanding Teacher Award, and has been named
several times to Who's Who Among America's Teachers. She is the author of numerous
pedagogical articles and the critically acclaimed book Clarinet Warm-Ups: Materials for the
Contemporary Clarinetist. She holds the B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Eastman School
of Music and the D.M.A. from the University of Michigan. Burke is an artist/clinician for Rico
International and Buffet Clarinets.
L. H. Dickert is an Assistant Professor at Winthrop University responsible for teaching
guitar, jazz history, theory, and directing the guitar ensembles as well as the jazz combos .
Dr. Dickert also serves as the chair of the Strings Committee. His academic background
includes a B.M. degree from Winthrop University, a diploma from the Berklee College of
Music, an M.M. degree from Wichita State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of
Memphis. Dr. Dickert has studied guitar with a wide array of teachers including William G.
Leavitt, Jerry Hahn, Johnny Smith, and Lily Afshar. Dickert is active both regionally and
nationally as a performer, guest artist, and clinician. Performing credits include work with
such notable artists as Natalie Cole, Lou Rawls, Charlie Rouse, the Diamonds, Ronnie
Milsap, Dixie Carter, Ray Charles, Johnny Mathis, the Guy Lombardo Orchestra, Randy
Brecker, Frank Sinatra, and Wayne Newton. Dr. Dickert also is in demand regionally as a
musical arranger and clinician. Professional affiliations include memberships in Phi Mu
Alpha (faculty advisor for Winthrop's Nu Kappa chapter), Pi Kappa Lambda, Phi Kappa Phi
(president-elect for 2002-2003), Kappa Delta Pi, The Society For Ethnomusicology, and
the International Association of Jazz Educators.
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet—see biography given for Feb. 27 concert.
at the
UNCG School of Music
Robert Wells, baritone · Andrew Harley, piano
Sunday, February 29 · 3:30 pm
Recital Hall · ℑ
William Ludwig, bassoon · Guest Artist
Sunday, February 29 · 3:30 pm
Organ Hall · ℑ
Susannah Plaster, viola · Student Recital
Monday, March 1 · 5:30 pm
Organ Hall
Michael Wood, percussion · Student Recital
Tuesday, March 2 · 5:30 pm
Recital Hall
University Band
Tuesday, March 2 · 7:30 pm
Aycock Auditorium · ℑ
Jazz Ensemble
March 3 and 4 · 7:30 pm
Recital Hall · ℑ
ℑ denotes a ticketed event. Tickets available at the University Box Office,
School of Music Room 215 or by calling (336) 334.4TIX (4849)
upcoming performances
new music including Terry Riley, Michael Torke and Charles Wuorinen, to name just a few,
and has performed in many of the world’s leading concert venues and contemporary music
festivals. The most recent additions to her discography are a solo CD entitled Ponder
Nothing on the Innova label and a recording on New World Records of Forever Escher by
Paul Chihara. Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the nationally distributed
Saxophone Journal. Her principal teachers were Frederick Hemke, Jean-Marie Londeix,
Michael Grammatico and Joe Daley.
Robert Faub is an accomplished classical soloist, chamber musician and jazz artist. He
was formerly the alto saxophonist with the widely acclaimed New Century Saxophone
Quartet, with whom he performed extensively throughout the United States and in the
Netherlands. He appears on New Century’s recordings A New Century Christmas and
Standards. As a soloist, he gave the first performance of Ben Boone’s concerto Squeeze
with the University of South Carolina Symphony, adding to a long list of works he has
premiered. His recording of Andrew Simpson’s Exhortation, included on Arizona University
Recording's America's Millenial Tribute to Adolphe Sax , was “immaculately played,”
according to The Double Bassist magazine. Robert Faub currently teaches saxophone at
UNC Chapel Hill, is on the music theory faculty at UNC Greensboro, and appears regularly
with the North Carolina, Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphonies.
Steve Stusek is Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. He performs frequently with Dutch accordion player Otine van Erp in the duo
2Track, was director of Big Band Utrecht and is a founding member of the Bozza Mansion
Project, an Amsterdam-based new music ensemble. The list of composers who have
written music for him include Academy Award winner John Addison. His many awards
include a Medaille d’Or in Saxophone Performance from the Conservatoire de la Région de
Paris, winner of the Saxophone Concerto competition at Indiana University, Semi-finalist in
the Concert Artists Guild Competition, Vermont Council on the Arts prize for Artistic
Excellence, and Finalist in the Nederlands Impressariaat Concours for ensembles. His
teachers include Daniel Deffayet, Jean-Yves Formeau, Eugene Rousseau, David Baker,
Joseph Wytko and Larry Teal. He is a Yamaha performing artist.
Mark Engebretson—see composer biography.
_____
Concert II — Saturday, February 28
Susan Fancher—see Red Clay Saxophone Quartet biography.
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 EastWind Trio d'Anches,
and the Cascade Wind Quintet.
Burke’s discography includes a recent release 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, was released in the Spring of 2003. She has also recorded for the Telarc and
Arabesque labels.
Program
Friday, February 27, 2004
Recital Hall, School of Music
Spring Music (1995) Peteris Vasks
For piano
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Dystopia (1992) James Paul Sain
For saxophone and piano
Robert Faub, soprano and alto saxophones
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Where Does Love Go? (2004) Mark Engebretson
For viola, digital media and live electronics
World Premiere
Scott Rawls, viola
Mark Engebretson, live electronics
Intermission
Coriolis Effect (2002) James Paul Sain
For solo digital media
Nightreach (1998-99) Ben Johnston
For saxophone and electronic drone
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located on all levels of
the auditorium. In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
James Paul Sain
Dystopia
Dystopia (1992) is an exploration of several scalar patterns and their inherent harmonic
resources. The first movement contrasts a percussive piano part with angular saxophone
writing. The second movement allows the saxophone to sing, first alone, then above the
slow moving piano, ending again with the solo saxophone. The last movement is to be
played at a metronome marking of mm-120 (or better!); a highly linear texture is
puncturated by verticalizations of the melodic material. The title, often used in science
fiction to describe a bleak pos-apocalyptic future, is the opposite of utopia.
— James Paul Sain
Mark Engebretson
Where Does Love Go?
World Premiere Performance
Where Does Love Go? (2004) was written for Javier Garavaglia, who will perform it at the
13th Annual Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival at the University of Florida in April
2004. I am thankful to Scott Rawls, who worked with me in the composition of the piece,
and who is presenting this first performance. The composition of Where Does Love Go? is
a story of multiple connections, and a search for the creation of meaningful sounds in a
context where so much is possible. The poem Conservation of Energy was written by
Dana Richardson — a friend, composer and poet. I decided to set the text for solo
soprano voice for a mutual friend, Lorena Guillén, who was present at a reading Dana
gave of his poems. Later, it occurred to me that the vocal composition would make a good
instrumental piece with electronics, so when the idea came to make a piece for Javier, I
decided to use it, changing it in some small ways to be better suited to the viola.
Searching for ways to integrate many threads, I took advantage of a visit Lorena made to
UNCG (where I am on the faculty) to record her singing a portion of the song I wrote for
her. I then recorded a reading of the entire poem by Susan Fancher, a saxophonist and
my main partner in crime. I then processed these vocal sounds in many ways, creating a
sonic backdrop for the solo viola line. Live signal processing specified in the score is used
in performance to create further integration between the viola and the prerecorded
electronic component. At present, these effects are controlled by a real person, who varies
the effects improvisationally, following the soloist's performance. Incidentally, the multiple-channel
stereo aspect of the piece (6 channels) is embedded into the composition of the
piece, rather than being diffused to the various speakers live and on the fly. Below is the
poem that forms the background of Where Does Love Go? :
— Mark Engebretson
Conservation of Energy
Where does love go
when love is gone?
Does the exploded sun
forever glow
through further reaches
of galactic space,
its light crashing on beaches
of unknown planets
as it congeals to ice,
invisible
in endless night,
fragmented, desolate,
jagged, small?
Performer Biographies
Concert I — Friday, February 27
Ināra Zandmane is the staff accompanist at UNCG. She holds the BM and MM from
Latvian Academy of Music, MM in piano performance from Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale, and DMA in piano performance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City
where her piano professor was Richard Cass. Ms. Zandmane has performed in recitals in
St. Paul, Kansas City, Cleveland, St. Louis, and New York, as well as in many Republics of
the former Soviet Union. In April 2000, she was invited to perform at the Glenn Gould
Studio in Toronto and has appeared as a soloist with the Latvian National Orchestra,
Liepaja Symphony, Latvian Academy of Music Student Orchestra, SIU Symphony, and
UMKC Conservatory Symphony and Chamber orchestras. She has performed with various
chamber ensembles at the International Chamber Music Festivals in RĪga, Vilnius, Tallinn,
Helsinki (Finland), and Norrtelje (Sweden). Recent performances include collaboration with
the Kansas City Chorale on Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzer (2002), appearances with the
contemporary music ensemble New Ear (2001 and 2003), and recitals with Michel Debost,
Paul Coletti, and Jim Walker. For a few last years, Ināra Zandmane has worked together
with Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. She has given Latvian premieres of his two latest
piano pieces, Landscapes of the Burnt-out Earth and The Spring Music, and recorded the
first of them on the Conifer Classics label.
Robert Faub—see Red Clay Saxophone Quartet biography.
Scott Rawls holds the B.M. degree from Indiana University and the M.M. and D.M.A. from
The State University of New York at Stony Brook. His major teachers have included
Abraham Skernick, Gorges Janzer, and John Graham, to whom he was assistant at
SUNY-Stony Brook. A champion of new music, Rawls has toured extensively as a member
of Steve Reich and Musicians with recent performances in San Francisco, Milan, and New
York. He is a founding member of the Locrian Chamber Players, a New York City based
group dedicated to performing new music. Rawls is invited frequently as guest artist with
chamber ensembles across the country. He has recorded for CRI, Elektra, Nonesuch,
Capstone, and Philips labels. In addition to serving as viola professor and coordinator of
the string area at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Rawls is very active as
guest clinician, adjudicator, and master class teacher at universities and festivals in
America and Europe.
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
Susan Fancher, soprano saxophone · Robert Faub, alto saxophone,
Steve Stusek, tenor saxophone · Mark Engebretson, baritone saxophone
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet was formed in October of 2003 by four internationally
recognized saxophonists based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Susan Fancher, Robert
Faub, Steve Stusek and Mark Engebretson have distinguished themselves individually as
soloists and members of highly acclaimed chamber music ensembles. Susan Fancher has
15 years of experience as soprano saxophonist with the Vienna, Amherst and Rollin’
Phones saxophone quartets. Robert Faub has performed extensively throughout the US
and Europe as alto saxophonist with the New Century Saxophone Quartet. Steve Stusek,
saxophone professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, is an international
touring solo recitalist and chamber musician. Mark Engebretson is a veteran of the Vienna
Saxophone Quartet and is Assistant Professor of Music Composition at UNCG.
Susan Fancher’s tireless efforts to develop the repertoire for the saxophone have
produced dozens of commissioned works by contemporary composers, as well as
published transcriptions of music by composers as diverse as Josquin Desprez and Steve
Reich. She has worked with a multitude of composers in the creation and interpretation of
Steve Reich
Born in 1936 in New York and raised there and in California, Steve Reich graduated with honors
in philosophy from Cornell University in 1957. For the next two years, he studied composition
with Hall Overton, and from 1958 to 1961 he studied at the Juilliard School of Music with William
Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. Mr. Reich received his M.A. in Music from Mills College in
1963, where he worked with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud. During the summer of 1970, with
the help of a grant from the Institute for International Education, Mr. Reich studied drumming at
the Institute for African Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra. In 1973 and 1974 he studied
Balinese Gamelan Semar Pegulingan and Gamelan Gambang at the American Society for
Eastern Arts in Seattle and Berkeley, California. From 1976 to 1977 he studied the traditional
forms of cantillation (chanting) of the Hebrew scriptures in New York and Jerusalem.
In 1966 Steve Reich founded his own ensemble of three musicians, which rapidly grew to 18
members or more. Since 1971, Steve Reich and Musicians have frequently toured the world, and
have the distinction of performing to sold-out houses at venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall and
the Bottom Line Cabaret. Mr. Reich's 1988 piece, Different Trains, marked a new compositional
method, rooted in It's Gonna Rain and Come Out , in which speech recordings generate the
musical material for musical instruments. The New York Times hailed Different Trains as "a work
of such astonishing originality that breakthrough seems the only possible
description....possesses an absolutely harrowing emotional impact." In 1990, Mr. Reich received
a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition for Different Trains as recorded by the
Kronos Quartet on the Nonesuch label.
In June 1997, in celebration of Mr. Reich's 60th birthday, Nonesuch released a 10-CD
retrospective box set of Mr. Reich's compositions, featuring several newly-recorded and re-mastered
works. He won a second Grammy award in 1999 for his piece Music for 18 Musicians,
also on the Nonesuch label. In July 1999 a major retrospective of Mr. Reich’s work was
presented by the Lincoln Center Festival. Earlier, in 1988, the South Bank Centre in London,
mounted a similar series of retrospective concerts.
In 2000 he was awarded the Schuman Prize from Columbia University, the Montgomery
Fellowship from Dartmouth College, the Regent’s Lectureship at the University of California at
Berkeley, an honorary doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts and was named
Composer of the Year by Musical America magazine.
Over the years, Steve Reich has received commissions from the Barbican Centre London, the
Holland Festival; San Francisco Symphony; the Rothko Chapel; Vienna Festival, Hebbel Theater,
Berlin, the Brooklyn Academy of Music for guitarist Pat Metheny; Spoleto Festival USA, West
German Radio, Cologne; Settembre Musica, Torino, the Fromm Music Foundation for clarinetist
Richard Stoltzman; the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; Betty Freeman for the Kronos Quartet;
and the Festival d'Automne, Paris, for the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.
Steve Reich's music has been performed by major orchestras and ensembles around the world,
including the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, New York
Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta; the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael
Tilson Thomas; The Ensemble Modern conducted by Bradley Lubman, The Ensemble
Intercontemporain conducted by David Robertson, the London Sinfonietta conducted by Markus
Stenz and Martyn Brabbins, the Theater of Voices conducted by Paul Hillier, the Schoenberg
Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by
Robert Spano; the Saint Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin; the Los Angeles
Philharmonic conducted by Neal Stulberg; the BBC Symphony conducted by Peter Eötvös; and
the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.
In 1994 Steve Reich was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, to the Bavarian
Academy of Fine Arts in 1995, and, in 1999, awarded Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et
Lettres.
Does a fallen tear
fall as snow
on some Himalayan slope,
drip from a pear,
or is it squeezed
as the bitter hope
of limes that lie
on tropical beaches
shriveling in despair?
Does the heartbeat stilled
pound out the years
with the music of the spheres,
thunder on the field
before the rain,
or crash on the sand,
curling without end,
again and again?
Where does love go
when love is gone?
It goes to the acorn in the sun.
It goes to the cardinal and the crow.
Dana Richardson 2000
Reprinted by permission of the author.
James Paul Sain
Coriolis Effect
Coriolis Effect (2002), gets its title from the "effect" that determines, among other things,
the swirl direction of water going down the drain. Like most Northern Hemisphere dwellers,
I was delighted my first morning in Buenos Aires to witness the hemispherical difference of
the swirl direction first hand. Coriolis Effect was composed as a tribute to all my wonderful
Argentine friends as they search for the return of economic and cultural stability to the
country they love so much. From the crunch of the harmonies in the tango to the
exhalations of the bandoneón, from the creative navigation of their cars to the sharing of
mate (a tea made from Ilex paraguarensis) between dear friends, the passion of the
Argentine people is evident in every part of their lives. This composition emerged from
research initiated in the summer of 2001 when I was invited to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for
the "Sonoimágenes 2001" festival of electroacoustic music.
— James Paul Sain
Ben Johnston
Nightreach
For SATB saxophone quartet and electronic drone
Written using his hallmark “extended just intonation,” Ben Johnston’s Nightreach (1998-99)
is a stunningly beautiful piece that brings upper partials of the overtone series down into
the normal saxophone range and employs them melodically. The result is a kind of purity
of sound and expression that our equal-tempered world seldom experiences. Formally, the
piece features each instrument in alternating melodic solo statements that respond to and
complement each other in similarly perfect harmony. The drone that is heard continuously
throughout the piece forms a kind of glue by providing a sonic backdrop into which the
justly-tuned sonorities are placed.
— Mark Engebretson
Program
Saturday, February 28, 2004
Recital Hall, School of Music
This is not about you (2003) Sammy Gallo
For digitized sounds and video
Zygote (1993) James Paul Sain
For solo soprano saxophone
Susan Fancher, soprano saxophone
Kornighet (1995) James Paul Sain
for solo B-flat clarinet and digital media
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Intermission
Afterimages 6 (2003) Ronald Keith Parks
For guitar and computer
L. H. Dickert, guitar
New York Counterpoint (1985/94) Steve Reich
For SATB saxophone quartet and prerecorded sounds arr. Susan Fancher
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet
Susan Fancher, soprano saxophone
Robert Faub, alto saxophone
Steve Stusek, tenor saxophone
Mark Engebretson, baritone saxophone
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located on all levels of
the auditorium. In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
Ben Johnston
For 35 years, 1951-1986, Ben Johnston (b. 1926) taught at the University of Illinois, in
touch with composers the likes of John Cage, La Monte Young and Iannis Xenakis.
Johnston has since retired to North Carolina. His music is more communicative than that
of most of his colleagues, and, perhaps, sounds less experimental than it is. Nine string
quartets form the core of Johnston’s output. His best-known work, String Quartet No. 4, is
a series of variations on the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Ben Johnston’s music is rooted in
hymnody and jazz and can be enjoyed by those who have no knowledge of the
compositional theories behind it. The one modern technique that has held Johnston’s
lifelong allegiance is the use of microtonality. Johnston uses potentially hundreds of
pitches per octave in his music.
Sammy Gallo
Sammy Gallo is a UNCG student who created his piece “This is not about you” while
studying Electronic Music with Mark Engebretson in the Alice P. Williams Electronic Music
Studio fall semester 2003.
Ronald Keith Parks
Ronald Keith Parks is an active composer of acoustic and electronic music. His diverse
output includes large orchestral works, instrumental and vocal chamber music, choral
music, electroacoustic music, and interactive computer music. His compositions and
papers have been selected for inclusion at numerous national and international festivals
and conferences including the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Society for
Electroacoustic Music in the United States conference, the International Computer Music
Conference, the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, the National Flute Association
conference, The Australian Flute Festival, Society of Composers' national and regional
conferences, the The Two-Sided Triangle concert series in Essen Germany, the
NextWave~ festival in Melbourne Australia, the Earfest and Computer Music at SUNY
Stony Brook series, Southeastern Composers' League concerts, the College Music Society
composers' concerts and numerous performers' and composers' concert recitals. Dr.
Parks’ research into granular sampling and granular synthesis methods is included in the
Amsterdam Catalogue of Csound Computer Instrument and has been featured at SEAMUS
and SCI conferences.
His honors and awards include the 2003 South Carolina Music Teacher’s Association
Commission, two Giannini Scholarships for Music Composition plus the Chancellor's
Award for Excellence at the North Carolina School of the Arts, three Graeffe Memorial
Scholarships for Composition, and the Presidential Recognition Award at the University of
Florida. His flute quartet Counterparts was selected as the set piece for the 2002
Australian Flute Festival quartet competition. He was commissioned by the North Carolina
School of the Arts' International Music Program to write a work for their 1988 European
tour and was awarded a grant from the Semans Creative Arts Foundation for the
composition of an orchestral work which was premiered by the North Carolina School of
the Arts Orchestra. He has received a Meet the Composer grant and in 1995 was
nominated and elected to the Gamma Zeta Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, a national honor
society for musicians. His music is available on the Electronic Music Foundation label (CD
031) and the Society of Composers, Inc. Student Chapter CD Volume 1 from the University
of Florida.
Dr. Parks received the BA in composition from the North Carolina School of the Arts, an
MM in composition from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in composition from the
University at Buffalo. He is currently assistant professor of music technology, theory, and
composition and Director of the Winthrop Computer Music Labs at Winthrop University.
forging new avenues, Vasks followed the lead of his mentors Lutosławski, Penderecki and
Crumb. By the 1980's, Vasks had found his unique "vocabulary" in string, brass and piano
music, consolidating his unchanging "pro", even calling his dramatic piano trio, Episodi e
canto perpetuo. Through daily dramas and conflicts, there is always a path to the eternal
and the merciful that can be found in the life's primitive, natural order. A pastoral scene
seen from afar as constant and familiar, upon closer visual (and aural) examination
becomes live matter with strong inner currents and gradual vertical ascension. To
understand the music of Peteris Vasks is to understand the Latvian language and spirit.
The smallest segments in musical language - intonation, phrasing and accents to an all
encompassing historical and emotional experience of the Latvian people are contained in
Vasks' works, especially in Litene, Latvia, Lauda and Voices (Balsis) . Just as to
understand the Estonian vernacular through Pärt, the Polish vernacular through Górecki
and the Georgian through Giya Kancheli, all of whom Vasks considers his contemporaries
in music and soul.
Peteris Vasks is the 1996 recipient of the Vienna Herder Award and the 1997 Latvian
Grand Music Award (Liela muzikas balva) for his concerto for violin Tala Gaisma. More
recently, a recording of the Symphony No. 2 and the violin concerto Distant Light took Disc
of the Year prize at the 2004 Cannes Classical Awards.
Mark Engebretson
Mark Engebretson attended the University of Minnesota, graduating Summa cum Laude in
1986. He pursued composition and saxophone studies in Bordeaux, France on a Fulbright
Fellowship and then pursued Masters studies at Northwestern University. He
subsequently lived as a freelance musician in Stockholm, Sweden and spent three years
living in Vienna, Austria, where he performed with the Vienna Saxophone Quartet and
received commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Culture. Returning to Northwestern in
1995, Engebretson received the Doctor of Music degree in 2000. He has taught at the
Eastman School of Music, the University of Florida and at SUNY Fredonia. He joined the
faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the fall of 2003 as Assistant
Professor of Composition.
Dr. Engebretson’s works have been performed in concerts, festivals and venues around
the world, including Wien Modern (Vienna), Gaida Festival (Vilnius, Lithuania), Hörgänge
Festival (Vienna), Filharmonia Hall (Bialystock, Poland), Ny Musikk (Bergen, Norway),
Théâtre la Chapelle, (Montreal), Indiana State University New Music Festival (Terre Haute,
IN), ISCM Festivals (Tirana, Albania and Baku, Azerbaijan), World Saxophone Congresses
(Pesaro, Italy, Montreal) and Stockholm Radio. He has received numerous commissions
from the Austrian Ministry of Culture as well as from STIM (Sweden) and the American
Composers Forum Composers Commissioning Program.
As a performer, he was a member of the Vienna Saxophone Quartet from 1992-1999. In
addition to performances all over the world with the quartet, he has performed in many
countries as soloist with orchestra, in recital and as a chamber musician, particularly with
Susan Fancher, Swedish percussionist Anders Åstrand and the Chicago-based ensemble
MeloMania!.
Dr. Engebretson’s teachers in France were Jean-Marie Londeix (saxophone) and Michel
Fuste-Lambezat (composition). At Northwestern University he studied composition with M.
William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and
Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with Frederick Hemke.
Sammy Gallo
This is not about you
For this piece, I recorded guitar for the backbone of the piece and then used the software
synthesizer program Reason to fill out the rest. The first section is just the first part of the
guitar line reversed. The accompanying parts are: a drone made with a Subtractor synth, a
sort of choir part made with a Mälstrom synth with an “angelic choir patch, the reversed
guitar line sped up twice as fast, a cello sample, a double bass sample, and another
accordion-like voice made with a synthesizer -- all of which were, of course, not used as is.
Sound processing I used within Reason included reverb, delay, parametric equalization,
and compression. I also did a little more compression in the Logic sequencer when I did
the final mixdown.
— Sammy Gallo
James Paul Sain
Zygote
Zygote (1993) is a exploration in sound for the saxophone. It utilizes a non-traditional
scale, "fingered" multiphonics (as opposed to singing and playing the instrument at the
same time), and key slaps. The duality of the material, slow/fast, loud/soft, high/low, single
pitch/multiphonic, and their separation/integration is the primary compositional foci. Though
the score indicates the work is free, there should be obvious metric emphases. Shortly
after starting work on this composition the composer found out his wife was expecting their
first child.
— James Paul Sain
James Paul Sain
Kornighet
Kornighet (1995), the Swedish word for "granulated," was commissioned by clarinetist
Anna Carney and East Tennessee State University. It is the result of research initiated at
the Institute for Electro-Acoustic Music in Sweden (EMS). This research was made
possible through grants from the Office of Research, Technology, and Graduate Education,
the College of Fine Arts, and the Department of Music at the University of Florida as well
as a Swedish-American Exchange Fund from the Swedish Consulate General to the United
States. The electroacoustic elements of the piece were generated and manipulated with
the Csound software synthesis system. All tape sounds utilize granulation synthesis as
macro-control over the synthesis methods and sample manipulation. All timbres originate
from clarinet or "clarinet-like" sounds.
— James Paul Sain
Ronald Keith Parks
Afterimage 6
Afterimages 6 (2003), for guitar and computer, is the sixth in a series of works for
instruments with computer processing. The guitar portion of Afterimage 6 moves between
a sound world of pitched and un-pitched sounds. Sound resources are approached as
physical objects and acted upon as such. They are constructed, deconstructed and
otherwise altered by both conventional compositional development methods and by
computer processing. The computer’s role is that of extending the timbral resources of the
guitar while also processing the guitar input to create an autonomous but related stream of
development. Formally, the piece moves through two sections, the second marked by
relative stability and a more sparse texture. The processing features Max/Msp based
granular sampling and a real-time spectral filtering patch developed by the composer, as
well as a host of more conventional real-time processing. Afterimage 6 was written for
guitarist Dr. L.H. Dickert.
— Ronald Keith Parks
Steve Reich, arr. Susan Fancher
New York Counterpoint
Steve Reich is one of American's best-known composers, and an acknowledged leader
among composers of so-called "minimal" music. I had the pleasure of meeting both Steve
Reich and video artist Beryl Korot after their stunning video opera The Cave was
premiered in Vienna's 1994 Festwochen. I wrote to Steve asking if he thought any piece of
his might work in a transcription for saxophone quartet. He replied that New York
Counterpoint, originally for clarinet solo with tape or clarinet ensemble, could work well on
saxophones and encouraged me to make an arrangement for saxophone quartet and tape.
My arrangement of the work is published by Boosey & Hawkes. Steve describes the work
below:
“New York Counterpoint (1985) is a continuation of the ideas found in
Vermont Counterpoint (1982), where a soloist plays against a pre-recorded
tape. The soloist pre-records ten clarinet and bass clarinet
parts and then plays a final 11th part live against the tape. The
compositional procedures include several that occur in my earlier
music. New York Counterpoint is in three movements: fast, slow, fast,
played one after the other without pause. The change of tempo is
abrupt and in the simple relation of 1:2. The piece is in the meter 3/2 =
6/4 (=12/8). As is often the case when I write in this meter, there is an
ambiguity between whether one hears measures of three groups of
four eighth notes, or four groups of three eighth notes. In the last
movement, the bass clarinets function to accent first one and then the
other of these possibilities, while the upper clarinets essentially do not
change. The effect, by change of accent, is to vary the perception of
that which in fact is not changing.”
— Susan Fancher
Composer Biographies
Invited Guest Composer James Paul Sain
James Paul Sain (b. 1959), a native of San Diego, California, is
Associate Professor of Music at the University of Florida where he
teaches acoustic and electroacoustic music composition as well as
music theory. He is Composition, Theory and Technology Co-Chair
and the Director of Electroacoustic Music. His duties include
directing the internationally acclaimed annual Florida Electroacoustic
Music Festival, now in its thirteenth year of programming an
international selection of electroacoustic music. Composers-in-residence
for the festival have included renowned electroacoustic
music composers such as Hubert Howe, Cort Lippe, Gary Nelson,
Jon Appleton, Joel Chadabe, Larry Austin, Barry Truax, Richard
Boulanger, Paul Lansky, James Dashow and Alvin Lucier. His ongoing dedication to the
design and implementation of interdisciplinary projects lead to a cooperative project with
colleagues in dance and electrical engineering aimed toward developing an alternative
MIDI controller for dance. This project culminated in the premiere of his techno-ballet,
Ender's Game, during the summer of 1994 at the University of Utrecht with an additional
performance at the University of Amsterdam. The MIDI Movement Module, M3, developed
for Ender's Game was nominated by the editors of Discover Magazine for their 1998 Award
for Technological Innovation in Sound.
In the fall of 1993, Sain was in residence at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music as part
of the Swedish-American Music Exchange. He returned to Sweden by invitation to
compose at the Institute for Electroacoustic Music in Sweden, EMS, for the summer of
1995. The project initiated at EMS, "Recontextualization of Granulated and Concrete Sonic
Resources," was awarded a Bicentennial Swedish-American Exchange Fund grant from
the Consulate General of Sweden. During the summer of 1998 he presented and curated a
concert of American electroacoustic music at the Folkwang-Hochschule/ICEM in Essen,
Germany, as well as giving a workshop on computer music. His visit was funded by the
Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Ruhr and the Folkwang-Hochschule, Essen. In 2001 Sain was
in residence at the Sonoimágenes festival hosted by the University of Lanús in Buenos
Aires, Argentina, where he gave a workshop and premiered a new work for the M3 dance
suit. He has also been visiting composer at the University of Oregon, Mercer University
and Winthrop University. Sain recently curated exchange concerts with Stanford
University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and the University of
Washington's DXArts program. Most recently Dr. Sain has coordinated formal exchanges
with the Korean National University for the Arts in Seoul, South Korea, and the University
of Lanús in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Dr. Sain has studied composition privately with Frederic Goossen, David Ward-Steinman,
Hubert Howe, Jr., and Brent Dutton. His works have been featured at societal events,
including the Society of Composers, Inc., Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United
States, College Music Society, American Composers Alliance, American Guild of
Organists, T.U.B.A., International Clarinet Association, World Saxophone Congress, North
American Saxophone Alliance, Southeastern Composer's League, Southeast Horn
Workshop, and on the Computer Music at Clark [U.S.A.], Arts Now [U.S.A.] , Discoveries
[U.K.], Pulse Field [U.S.A.], Sonoimágenes [ARGENTINA], 3rd Practice [U.S.A.], Nong
Electronica [SOUTH KOREA], and Electronic Music Mid-West [U.S.A.] concert series. Dr.
Sain served as Board Member in Composition for the College Music Society Southern
Chapter. He is an elected member of the American Composers Alliance and currently is
chair of the Society of Composers Inc. Executive Committee. Sain's compositions can be
found on CD on the Capstone and Electronic Music Foundation labels. His music is
published by Brazinmusikanta Publications and American Composers Editions.
Peteris Vasks
The music of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks and each individual work is a "message".
Vasks resolutely addresses, preaches, advocates, therefore his music is not classical but
programmed in a literary sense: in conjunction with an idea, a moral and emotional frame
of reference.
Peteris Vasks has always composed for the listener. This fact became most apparent after
1990, when, thanks to the Schott Publishing Company (Germany) his scores became
readily available, CD's began to be recorded and released and such renowned musicians
as violinist Gidon Kremer, Finnish conductor Juha Kangass, cellist David Geringas and the
Hilliard Ensemble began to take notice. A whole new world was also opened for Vasks'
music through the Bill T. Jones Dance Troupe (U.S.) and the Netherlands Ballet Theater.
Peteris Vasks was born in Aizpute, Latvia on April 16, 1946. The son of a minister and with
its ensuing stigma in the former Soviet Union, Vasks finally found a safe haven for his
budding talents in neighboring Lithuania. Finishing his musical education in 1970 as a
double-bass player, Vasks became a member of the Latvian National Opera orchestra, the
Latvian Symphony Orchestra and chamber orchestra. In 1978, after graduating the Latvian
State Conservatory's Composition Class, Vasks began his career as a pedagogue. Many
of his pupils are now noted Latvian composers in their own right. His initial compositional
forays were noted for their unconventionality. In utilizing the new aleatorical approach and