ACA Festival 2009

ACA Festival 2009 Photos

2009-06-28T21:17:00.006-04:00

With great pride, and with gratitude for the hard work shared by so many people, I am posting these photos from our festival concerts and rehearsals (see links below). You're welcome to copy and distribute freely, giving credit to ACA whenever possible. If you have photos from any of the concerts to share, please send them to us. Thank you so much--from everyone at the Alliance, see you next summer!
-g. genova, festival producer

Wednesday June 17
Thursday June 18
Friday June 19
Saturday June 20

note: As soon as festival audio and video recordings are available, an email will be sent to all participants. Pdf copies of the programs will also be posted here soon.

Wednesday concert images

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Thursday festival images

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Friday festival images

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Saturday 4:30 and 7:30 concerts - photos

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RARE PREMIERES: ACA Summer Festival

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JUNE 17-20, 2009

ACA celebrates BMI Classical Composers!

All concerts at Symphony Space Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 95th St. New York, NY 10025
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:30 PM
ELECTIONS, TRANSITIONS, AND REFUGE
with SECOND INSTRUMENTAL UNIT

• Frederick Tillis: SONG for Sister Hokkaido (2008) for Brass Quintet and Latin percussion; Trumpets: Nathan Botts, Paul Murphy;Horn: Sydney Braunfeld;Trombone: Nathan Maryland;Tuba: Dan Peck; Percussion: Alex Lipowski (world premiere)
• Brian Fennelly: 'Sigol' for Two, Fantasy Duo for Violin and Cello (2008) Duo Parnas; Madalyn Parnas, violin, and Cicely Parnas,cello.
• Travis Alford: Transitions* (2006-07) for flute/alto fl, trumpet, and piano; Flute/Alto flute:Jonathan Engle;Trumpet: Nathan Botts;Piano: Vicky Chow. (New York Premiere)
• Richard Cameron-Wolfe: Arq III: Refuge (2008); David Fulmer, violin; Molly Morkoski, Vicky Chow, piano 4-hands (world premiere)

• Robert Ceely: METAMIR; ALTO flute, bass clarinet, viola, and piano. Jonathan Engle, alto fl; Carol McGonnell, bass cl; Aaron Boyd, viola; Molly Morkoski, piano; David Fulmer, conductor; (world premiere of revised version).
Lewis Nielson: What about you? (2007) Helena Piccazio, violin; Gabrielle Athayde, cello; Wendeline Everett, bassoon; (New York Premiere)
• John Eaton: Our Four Candidates (2008) for flute, clarinet, oboe, and bassoon. Flute/alto flute: Jonathan Engle; Oboe/English horn: Arthur Sato; Clarinet/bass clarinet: Carol McGonnell; Bassoon/contrabsn: Adrian Morejon; Conductor: David Fulmer (world premiere)

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Thursday, June 18, 2009 7:30 PM
WORK SONGS, BLUE STATES, AND THE ZUKOFSKY STRING QUARTET
Aaron Boyd and Cyrus Beroukhim, violins; David Fulmer, viola; Alberto Parrini, cello

• John Melby: Concerto No. 2 for Clarinet and Computer; Esther Lamneck, clarinet.

• Anthony Greene: String Quartet 'Chance'* 2007 (New York premiere)
• Griffith Rose: 63 Bars for John Cage (1994); Jane Rigler, flute.(U.S. Premiere)
• Matthew Davidson, String Quartet “I Had Five Long Years” (world premiere)

• Joel Gressel: Blue States (electroacoustic)
• Gilbert Galindo: Lost in the Caves (world premiere)* Thomas Piercy, amplified bass clarinet
• David Fulmer: String Quartet No. 3 (world premiere)*

Phyllis Bryn-Julson to receive the 2009 Laurel Leaf Award from ACA on Thursday, June 18th, during this concert. For more information, click here.

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Friday, June 19, 2009 7:30 PM
SHAKE THE TREE AND KOLOT ENSEMBLE

• Kirsten Volness: Hverfa* -Piano quartet; KOLOT Veronique Mathieu, violin; Jung-Min Shin, viola; Yotam Baruch, cello; Yael Manor, piano.
• Robert Carl: Shake the Tree; John McDonald and Donald Berman, piano (world premiere)
• Gary Schneider: Friends, Romans, Countrymen Jan Opalach, Baritone, (NY Premiere) with KOLOT- Gerardo Ubaghs, violin; Veronique Mathieu, violin; Jung-Min Shin, viola; Yotam Baruch, cello; Yael Manor, piano.

• Elizabeth Bell: String Quartet No. 1 (1957) KOLOT Gerardo Ubaghs, violin; Veronique Mathieu, violin; Jung-Min Shin, viola; Yotam Baruch, cello.
• Richard Brooks: Sonata for Solo Violin (world premiere) Gerardo Ubaghs
• Joyce Hope Suskind: Two Yeats Songs “The Wild Swans at Coole” and “The Shadow-Like Generations” Nicole Pantos, Soprano and KOLOT- Gerardo Ubaghs, violin; Veronique Mathieu, violin; Jung-Min Shin, viola; Yotam Baruch, cello; Yael Manor, piano.

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Saturday, June 20, 2009
SUMMER SUITE: RARE PREMIERES 4:30 PM
• Harold Seletsky: Microtonal Variations on My Country, 'Tis of Thee (world premiere) Susan Palma, flute; Christopher Oldfather, piano/24-tone electronic keyboard; Ashley Horne, violin; David Calhoun, cello; Richard Cohen, clarinet.
• David Gordon, eclectronic playback "MY GRAIN" (2006)
• Joan Tower: Circles (1964); Yael Manor, piano
• Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy: Four Contrasting Images for Piano (1961); Christopher Oldfather
• Paul Kerekes: Soliloquy, Aside (world premiere)*; Paul Kerekes, piano, Ed Rosenberg, alto saxophone
• Earle Brown: Summer Suite ’95; Christopher Oldfather, piano (world premiere)

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PIANO AND FRIENDS - 7:30 PM

• Hubert Howe: Composition for Piano (2008), Jonathan Howe, piano (world premiere)
• Darleen Mitchell: Metaxu; Sharon O'Connell Campbell, mezzo-soprano; Turner Rogoff, cello; and Nathan Buckner, piano (world premiere)
• John Gibson: SLUMBER (2006) (electronic playback)
• Gheorghe Costinescu: Sonata for the Piano (1957, Rev. 2007-08) Stephen Gosling (U.S. Premiere)

• Raoul Pleskow: Konzertstück for Violin and Piano (world premiere) Yael Manor, piano, and Gerardo Ubaghs, violin.
• Ronald Keith Parks: Anacoustic Zones (2008) (electronic playback)
• Elliott Schwartz: The Seven Seasons (2008) Catherine Cushing, piano (world premiere)
• Christopher Bailey: Time Lash*- KOLOT-Robert Spady, clarinet; Veronique Mathieu, violin; Yotam Baruch, cello; Yael Manor, piano; Chris Bailey, conductor.

*Funding for the Young Composers initiative of ACA received from the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University; Additional support provided by BMI, Proskauer Rose LLP,the Rose Foundation, and the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in New York.

Piano courtesy of Yamaha Artist Services in New York.

Wendeline Everett

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Wendeline Everett graduated from Oberlin Conservatory with a degree in bassoon performance. In addition to performing solo works and chamber music on the bassoon, she is also an expert on Turkish and Middle Eastern wind instruments. A devoted performer of contemporary music, she has appeared on recordings produced by Centaur Records, and been a frequent performer at the Lucerne Festival.

Gabri Athayde

2009-03-15T08:43:00.000-04:00

Gabri Athayde was born in Orinda, California ( a place with fog, green bubbly hills, and oak trees.) Gabri decided to be a cellist when she was four and a half. She graduated from Oberlin, where she also learned to speak Japanese and Mandarin. She's currently a graduate student at UCSD, mentored by Charles Curtis, and some of her best friends in the music industry are Helmut Lachenmann, Lewis Nielson and Xiu Xiu. She is a frequent performer at the Lucerne Festival in Europe.

Joan Tower

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Even as she prepares for her 70th birthday in September 2008, Joan Tower is looking forward as much as she is looking back on a career that spans over five decades.

Hailed as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time" in The New Yorker magazine, Joan Tower was the first woman to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Composition in 1990. She was inducted in 1998 into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, and into the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in the fall of 2004.

She was the first composer chosen for the ambitious new Ford Made in America commissioning program, a collaboration of the League of American Orchestras (at that time, the American Symphony Orchestra League) and Meet the Composer. In October 2005, the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra presented the world premiere of Tower's 15-minute orchestral piece Made in America. The work went on to performances in every state in the Union during the 2005-07 seasons.

The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded Made in America, Tambor, and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three 2008 Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance.

Joan Tower has been a member of the American Composers Alliance since the mid-1960s. ACA is the proud publisher still, for several of her early works, including the well-known Hexachords for solo flute (1972), Brimset for 2 flutes and 2 percussion (1965), and two early piano works, Fantasia (1966) and Circles (1964), and quite a few others. We chose the earlier piano solo piece for this festival, because it appears that this work has not been performed in concert, perhaps ever. It's a complex thoughtful piece by the young composer, the ideas moving in waves and in circles, often turning around the same notes.

Kirsten Volness

2009-03-14T19:20:00.006-04:00

Kirsten Volness (b. 1980) grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota, a place that fostered in her a keen interest in the outdoors and the wonders of nature. The magic to be found in the natural world informs and inspires her creative work as do earth-based spiritual traditions.

She completed her DMA in Composition at the University of Michigan (from which she also holds an MM). She worked with Bright Sheng, William Bolcom, Betsy Jolas, Michael Daugherty, Karen Tanaka and studied electronic music with Evan Chambers and Erik Santos. She received a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota where she studied with Judith Lang Zaimont. Kirsten was named winner of the 2007 BMI Women's Music Commission and received a 2007 ASCAP/Seamus student commission. Her electronic work has been performed at numerous festivals including Bourges, SEAMUS, Electronic Music Midwest, and Third Practice. Her acoustic work has been performed by the Colorado Quartet, Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, featured at Midwest Composers' Symposia, the Montreal and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, and presented at various concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Australia.

Hverfa, (2006) pronounced ker'fa, means to "disappear" or "vanish" in Icelandic. The word also has connotations of revolution, spiraling and change. I had this image of a long winter's journey in my mind as well as the theme so commonly found in Scandinavian short stories that the forest and sea are places of (super)natural danger. If one chooses to go venturing, one may or may not return (and who knows what mischief one may meet along the way.) (New York premiere)

Frederick Tillis

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Frederick C.Tillis was born in Galveston, Texas on January 5, 1930.
His catalog includes more than 150 compositions and commissions, spanning both jazz and classical European traditions in various media - symphony orchestra, jazz, instrumental, choral, chamber music, and vocal works. Melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic textures reflect elements of various musics of the world, including Asian and Western cultural backgrounds.

Dr.Tillis has written thirteen books of poetry. Among his honors and
awards are several commissions,as well as grants from the Rockefeller
Foundation, the National endowment for the Arts,the United Negro College Fund, the Commonwealth Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and The Distinguished Faculty Lecturer's Award at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

As a jazz saxophonist, he has traveled with the Tillis-Holmes Jazz
Duo and the Tradewinds jazz Ensemble to Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, England, Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand,Poland, the former Soviet Union, Switzerland, and Turkey. In addition, he was artist in residence in South Africa, Japan, and Thailand.

Song For Sister Hokkaido (2008) is a piece written for Brass Quintet and Latin Percussion that combines western European harmonic and melodic vocabulary, Jazz rhythmic figures and Latin American pulse and cultural nuances. A cultural mixture and brew of American, Asian, Latin and western European flavors. (World premiere)

Hubert Howe

2009-03-14T18:44:00.003-04:00

Hubert Howe was educated at Princeton University, where he studied with J. K. Randall, Godfrey Winham and Milton Babbitt, and from which he received the A.B., M.F.A. and Ph.D. degrees. He is Professor of Music and Director of the Electronic Music studios at Queens College of the City University of New York. He is also a former Director of the Aaron Copland School of Music. He has been a member of the American Composers Alliance since 1974 and has been President since 2002. Recordings of his computer music (Overtone Music, CPS-8678, Filtered Music, CPS-8719, and Temperamental Music and Created Sounds, CPS- 8771) have been released by Capstone Records.

Composition for Piano (2008)
My first composition for the keyboard was such a disaster, from the standpoint of playability, that I refrained from attempting another such undertaking for over 20 years. This was especially regretful, since my son Jonathan is a fine pianist. Finally, as I worked out how to avoid unreasonable stretches and confine the music to the range of two hands, I have written this work, which is dedicated to my son.

The piece is in three parts and ten sections. It begins with a full statement, covering five octaves, and then proceeds to an agitated passage that spans the entire seven-octave range of the piano, although in selected portions at a time, followed by a transition. The middle part is slow and lyrical, gradually intensifying, until a transition back to the texture of the opening. The third part begins with a transformed recapitulation, including both of the first two sections, to the conclusion. The ending covers a six octave range, but only three at a time, and it is arranged so that no single hand spans more than an octave and a third. Nevertheless, it is still probably extremely difficult to play. I am grateful to Jonathan for being the first to play it.
(World Premiere)

Joyce Hope Suskind

2009-03-14T18:44:00.002-04:00

Joyce Hope Suskind has enjoyed a varied career as composer, concert singer, oboist, pianist, and teacher. After completing her studies at Juilliard as a scholarship student in oboe and voice, Suskind discovered her talent for composing while playing improvisational piano at the Martha Graham School. She received a commission from Lehman College to compose a score for a Balinese dance which was written for gamelons, flute, and percussion. She went on to specialize in vocal music, composing a score for a musical comedy, a revue, a feminist anthem, which was her first published song, cabaret songs, and numerous art songs, most of them set to the poems of WB Yeats. She is currently interested in composing vocal chamber music. She resides in Manhattan, her hometown.

The Wild Swans at Coole (1993)

Yeats has spent nineteen summers at Coole Park, home of his great friend and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, Lady Augusta Gregory. He is now fifty-one years old.

He writes, “All’s changed”… His tread is heavy. He is no longer in love with Maude Gonne and feels incapable of passion. He feels like an old man. But the hearts of the swans “have not grown old”. They passionately inhabit two worlds, the sky and the water. Theirs is a changeless pattern that goes on forever, always remaining at fifty- nine swans, even though individual swans may die. They symbolize immortality. Yeats ends the poem with a question. Where will they go? Who will be delighted some day by their presence? Where will Yeats be?

One year later, Yeats married Georgie Hyde-Leeds. He felt his life was finally “in order” and went on to write some of his finest poems and win the Nobel Prize.

The Shadow-like Generations (1992)

This poem by Yeats is a paraphrase of commentary made by the chorus of Elders in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.

The song is a lamentation for all humanity, which, like Oedipus, is doomed. The singer plays the role of storyteller, not a disinterested commentator, but one who is emotionally involved in the tragedy. This means that the soloist is not merely telling a story, but expressing it. Even the great king Oedipus who solved the riddle of the Sphynx could not escape his destiny. The singer depicts the sadness and resignation of this commentator.

In the third stanza, Oedipus innocently commits the terrible sin of incest. This lyrical section in the music combines the feelings of love in the melody with the sense of doom in the harmony. The singer expresses the lovemaking with the voice, but lets the facial expression and gesture bespeak of Oedipus’s terrible fate.

The storyteller becomes more and more desperate. She tries to make sense of all this. She personifies Time who sees all things. Only the eyes of the singer move to depict the eagle-eyed Time who sees all and reveals all. The body is motionless. In the final stanza the singer laments the tragedy, feeling the heart-break of Oedipus and expressing the wish that it had never happened.

Harold Seletsky

2009-03-14T18:40:00.002-04:00

Harold Seletsky is a prolific and versatile composer and a virtuoso clarinetist and improviser whose playing is marked by great expressivity and vitality. He has distinguished himself, as both a composer and performer, in the realms of classical music, jazz, folk and popular music.

Born in 1927 in Brooklyn, Seletsky studied clarinet and from 1944-49 music theory and composition with composer-conductor Josef Schmid, a prize pupil of Alban Berg. Soon thereafter Seletsky used Schoenbergian techniques in such early works as the Gradual Variations on a Simple Theme for clarinet and string quartet, Op.1 (1958), the Sonata for clarinet and piano (1958) and the First String Quartet (1963). In the 1960s, Seletsky began experimenting with various microtonal concepts based on equal temperament. Yet in his many quartertone works, Seletsky remains indebted to the composers of the Second Viennese School in that the development of thematic ideas continues to be paramount.

Seletsky explored manifold musical genres including opera, music for ballet and film, song, orchestral and chamber music. Some of his compositions have a political and social dimension. These include Christ in Concrete for narrator and orchestra (1963) and Apathy for voice and three instruments (1980). Seletsky also composed a wide variety of jazz-inspired works, Yiddish songs, music for the Broadway and Off-Broadway productions as well as music for film and television.

Moreover Seletsky pursued a career as a critically acclaimed virtuoso clarinetist, improviser and conductor in the classical, jazz and popular realms. As a performer of classical music, Seletsky played clarinet in the Houston Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 1957 and performed in numerous contemporary music ensembles in the New York City area including the New York Chamber Players, the Inoue Chamber Ensemble, the New Amsterdam Chamber Ensemble and with members of the New York Philharmonic. He performed in the Broadway and Off-Broadway productions Rags and Hot Klezmer and collaborated with the renowned folksinger and guitarist Richie Havens.

As clarinetist and bandleader of the West End Klezmorim, he is dedicated to the performance of old and modern Klezmer music including Yiddish songs, theater songs, and various types of gypsy, Hungarian, Russian and Ladino folk music. Since the mid-1950s Seletsky has also been active as a teacher of composition and clarinet. Among his students are jazz pianist Armen Donelian, Richard Hayms, and the jazz saxophonists Roger Rosenberg and David Schnitter.

Seletsky has received numerous awards including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and awards from the Council on International Non-Theatrical Events, the International Film and Television Festival of New York, the Venice Film Festival, and the American Society for Jewish Music.

VARIATIONS FOR PIERROT ENSEMBLE (2009) is a special world premiere event, in which the composer presents a new work commissioned by family members of Arnold Schoenberg, Nancy Bogen and Arnold Greissle. It promises to be microtonal, but there will be some familar music within it. Seletsky draws influence from the ensemble genre of Schoenberg's landmark piece from 1912, featuring flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, and also from Ives' Variations on America.

Joel Gressel

2009-03-14T18:39:00.001-04:00

Joel Gressel (b. Cleveland, 1943) received a B.A. from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton University. He studied composition with Martin Boykan and Milton Babbitt, and computer music with Godfrey Winham and J.K. Randall. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State CAPS program. His computer music has been recorded on the Odyssey and CRI labels. He currently lives in New York, working as a computer programmer, maintaining and extending software that models tax-exempt housing-bond cash flows. The portrait of me (above) for the festival program was drawn by my daughter, Katherine.

Blue States (2008) was composed during the fall and winter of 2008. The title alludes not only to states that voted for the Democratic nominee in the 2008 election, but also to various jazz elements and moods of sadness, largely abated by the results of the election. The opening introductory section settles on jazz chords at the end of its long phrases. In the next fugal section a jazz tune is presented in several timbres and speeds, as if a group of players were standing around waiting for their turn to get in a lick. A strong bass line proves counterpoint here and elsewhere throughout the piece. Tow introspective sections follow – the first with sustained white-noise chords punctuated by bell-like attacks, the second with vibraphone-like chords. A further set of variations moves from an almost catatonic state to a full emotional outburst, perhaps occasioned by the election results. Another faster jazzy section leads to a recapitulation that expands and alters the original three sections.
All the sounds in Blue States are produced by computer algorithms. Nothing has been prerecorded or sampled. Most sections present quasi-transpositions of the same materials at different speeds, catching up and passing one another so that a following voice becomes a leader halfway through its phrase. (World Premiere)

Anthony Green

2009-03-14T18:35:00.001-04:00

Anthony Green (b. 1984) holds a Bachelors of Music in theory and composition from Boston University (summa cum laude), and a Masters of Music in composition from the New England Conservatory (magna cum laude). As a pianist, he has performed at Jordan Hall, Symphony Hall, and other places throughout New England and Long Island. He has played works by David Liptak, Berg, and Crumb with the Time’s Arrow New Music Ensemble, he has premiered and performed in many solo and chamber pieces of colleagues, and also participated in the world premiere of Moirologhia by Theodore Antoniou. Recently, he performed James Tenney’s Chromatic Canon with the Callithumpian Consort, and Steve Reich’s City Life with the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble for the composer. Additionally, he has been active as a church musician, playing in both gospel and traditional styles, and he accompanies singers in numerous genres, including musical theater and Israeli folk music. He also maintains a private piano studio, with students ranging from 6 to 50, as well as a private tutoring studio, teaching music history, theory, and basic composition.
As a composer, he has had readings, commissions, and performances across the country by pianists Sivan Etedgee and Daniel Holt, violists Greg Williams, Sarah Darling, and Ashleigh Gordon, sopranos Yael Handelmann, Rebekah Alexander, and Ceceilia Allwein, the Laurel String Quartet, the Callithumpian Consort, the Mimesis Ensemble, the Playground Ensemble, the Tasman String Quartet, the Apple Hill Chamber Players, ALEA III (with Gunther Schuller conducting), and Alarm Will Sound, among others. He is currently composer-in-residence with the Providence String Quartet for their 2008 - 9 season, funded by a grant from the Argosy Foundation, and he is the recent winner of the 2nd Ossia International Composition Prize for his work 3 Groups. Radio broadcasts include Chance on Radio 1190 KCBU Boulder/Denver in Colorado, and the last movement of Dona Nobis Veritatem: a setting of American text on Radio Papesse in Florence, Italy. Future performances include a commission for a chamber piece by the Playground Ensemble in Denver, Colorado, and performances in Italy and the United States by Italian clarinetist Guido Arbonelli of Ahnungen for solo clarinet. Past teachers include Martin Amlin, Richard Cornell, Theodore Antoniou, Lee Hyla, and Robert Cogan for composition, and Maria Clodes-Jaguaribe for piano. He has also participated in masterclasses with Lukas Foss, Joshua Feinberg, Michael Finissey, Walter Zimmermann, and Michael Daugherty. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he teaches Introduction to Music Technology, and is the first recipient of the university’s Atlas Fellowship. He is currently studying composition with Michael Theodore.

Chance, composed in 2004, was originally the last movement of a 4 movement string quartet. However this movement was composed first. The revisions done in 2007 were executed to make this movement stand alone from the others. It was premiered in Jordan Hall by the Laurel String Quartet – a quartet of students at New England Conservatory, and was also featured in the “Listen Local” series of the Providence String Quartet for their 2007 – 2008 season. It has recently been performed during the 14th Biennial Florida State University New Music Festival by the Eppes Quartet, and in Dublin, New Hampshire by the Apple Hill Chamber Players. This year’s performance during the ACA Summer Festival will mark its New York debut.

Elliott Schwartz

2009-03-14T18:31:00.001-04:00

Elliott Schwartz was born 1936 in New York City and studied composition with Otto Luening and Jack Beeson at Columbia University. He has recently retired from the faculty at Bowdoin College, where he served for 43 years, twelve of them as department chair. His many extended residencies and/or visiting professorships include Ohio State University, the University of California (San Diego and Santa Barbara), Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge. Schwartz’s compositions have been performed by such groups as the Minnesota Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and the Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands and featured at numerous international music centers and festivals including Tanglewood, the Library of Congress, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), DeIjsbreker (Amsterdam), Music of the Americas (London), and the European Youth Orchestra Festival (Copenhagen). Leading orchestras and chamber ensembles have recorded his music for New World, CRI, Albany, Innova, Capstone and other labels. Honors and awards for his compositions include the Gaudeamus Foundation (Netherlands), the Rockefeller Foundation (two Bellagio residencies), and the National Endowment for the Arts. Over the course of his career he has served as president of The College Music Society, president of the Society of Composers, Inc, vice-president of the American Music Center, and board member of the American Composers Alliance.

Schwartz has also written or edited a number of books on musical subjects. These include Music: Ways of Listening, Electronic Music: A Listener’s Guide, Music since 1945 (co-author with Daniel Godfrey) and the anthology Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music (co-editor with Barney Childs).

During 2006, Schwartz’s 70th birth-year was celebrated with concerts and guest lectures at Oxford, the Royal Academy of Music (London), Butler University, Concordia College, the University of Minnesota, the ACA Festival (NYC) and the Library of Congress. The last-named also celebrated the Library of Congress acquisition of his collected papers and archives.

A CD recording of four recent works has just been released by Innova Records, and a disk containing Schwartz's six chamber concertos (played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose conducting) will appear on the BMOP Sound label later this summer.

The Seven Seasons was composed in 2007 for one of my students, Katie Cushing, who is an excellent pianist with experience in playing new music and great interest in extended piano techniques. I had originally thought of a work depicting the four seasons, but then decided that it would be more interesting to add three more "seasons" -- Holiday, Monsoon and Wildfire --to the traditional foursome. Katie played /The Seven Seasons /at a Bowdoin College student recital in May 2008; the present performance is the work's New York premiere.

Gilbert Galindo

2009-03-14T18:20:00.002-04:00

Gilbert Galindo (b. 1982)
Gilbert Galindo’s music has been heard at venues and festivals in the United States, Germany, and Scotland. He has received commissions from the Chicago Fine Arts Society, Duo Petrarca, and the Lone Star Brass with additional premieres and performances from the Midland Odessa Symphony, Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, Bard Institute Composers Orchestra, the ai ensemble, pianist Mabel Kwan, and ensemble dal niente. He is a recipient of the 2008 Van Lier Fellowship from Meet The Composer, two BMI Student Composer Awards (2006 & 2008), a first place winner in the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs 2006 Young Composers Contest, a winner in Northwestern University’s first orchestral competition in 2004, the Cacavas Award, two awards from the Chicago Union League Civic & Arts Foundation 2003 Music Composition Contest, and Northwestern’s William T. Faricy Award for Creative Music. His teachers in composition have been Samuel Adler, Margaret Brouwer, Jason Eckardt, Donald Freund, William Karlins, Zhou Long, Augusta Read Thomas, Amnon Wolman, and Jay Alan Yim. He received a B.M. in music composition and outreach and education in music in 2004 from Northwestern University where he co-founded the new music group Exposure-musicians for new music and a M.M. in music composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2006 where he served as conductor and graduate assistant of the CIM New Music Ensemble. Additional studies include the Bard Conductor's Institute, the Freie Universität International Summer University Composition Course in Berlin, Germany on scholarship from the DAAD, and the Brevard Music Festival. His music is available from Cuicatl Publications (BMI) in New York City.

Lost in the Caves (2008)
Unfamiliar landscapes
A night of new encounters, of new escapes
The joy, the thrill the excitement of the unknown
Absolutely clueless
What bliss!
(World Premiere)

For more information, score and sound samples, please visit:
www.gilbertgalindo.com
www.myspace.com/gilbertgalindo

Gary Schneider

2009-03-14T18:11:00.002-04:00

Gary M. Schneider, composer, is more widely known locally as an award winning conductor of orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. In addition to his activities on the podium, he has composed a wide variety of concert works as well as music for theater, dance and for film. He holds both Bachelors and Masters Degrees in composition from the Indiana University School of Music. Mr. Schneider has received commissions to write works for Opera at Florham, Shirley Broughton Dancers, Fran Snygg Modern Dance Company and The Rockport Chamber Music Festival, where
he served as composer-in-residence during the summer of 1985. His
Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and String Orchestra, written for the noted jazz clarinetist Perry Robinson, has been heard numerous times in the United States and in Europe including the New York premiere performance by the American Composers Orchestra at Merkin Concert Hall. During Mr. Schneider’s six years as music director of the International Zelt Musik Festival in Freiburg, Germany, he was awarded the Society of Baden-Wurttemberg Cultural Prize in recognition of his distinguished work as composer, conductor and pianist. Mr. Schneider’s works are published by Berben edizione musicali, Peer Music and American Composers Editions.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen (2005) is a musical setting of Mark Anthony’s great soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. My setting of the text attempts to capture the great affection that Mark Anthony felt for Caesar as well as the great contempt he felt for Caesar’s betrayer, Brutus. In setting Shakespeare’s text, I have strived to allow his words to come through as clearly as when spoken unadorned on the stage. The musical coloration I have dressed it in is clearly my own personal interpretation of Mark Anthony’s feelings for Caesar. The soliloquy is a mere seven minutes in duration, but it is packed with a broad range of drama and emotion. Opera at Florham commissioned this work in 2005 and presented the premiere performance with Jan Opalach as Mark Anthony under the direction of the company's gifted music director Thomas Carlo Bo. (New York Premiere)

Raoul Pleskow

2009-03-14T18:04:00.003-04:00

Raoul Pleskow, composer, was born in Vienna, Austria and educated in New York City. His principal teachers in composition were Karol Rathaus, Otto Luening, and Stefan Wolpe. He has been recipient of many honors, the most recent of which include awards by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His works have been performed by the Cleveland Philharmonic, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the Plainfield Symphony, the Orchestra de Camera, the South Dakota Symphony, the Pierrot Consort, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, the Queens Symphony Orchestra and many others. Commissions include those by the Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center, the Aeolian Chamber Players, the New York Virtuosi, Camarata, the North/South Consonance and the Unitarian Church of All Souls. He was Chairman of the music department at C.W. Post University from the late 1960s until 1994. His work can be found on CRI, Serenus, Ars Nova-Ars Antiqua, Golden Crest, Centaur, CRS, Capstone, and North-South Records.

Konzertstück for Violin and Piano (2008)

This piece consists of a brief cadenza for solo violin that leads into a quasi-fantasia for violin and piano. It is followed by a second movement in form of a rondo. The work is non-tonal and is dominated by the violin. It is dedicated to the memory of my father, a violinist. (World Premiere)

David Fulmer

2009-03-14T17:57:00.001-04:00

DAVID FULMER
Violinist and composer David Fulmer was just named a winner of the 56th annual BMI Student Composer Awards, and was recently presented the prestigious Charles Ives Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his original compositions. Other honors and awards include a special citation from the Minister of Education of Brazil for his lectures entitled “The History of Music Theory”, the Hannah Komanoff Scholarship in Composition (2006-07) and the 2005 Dorothy Hill Klotzman Grant from the Juilliard School, and the highly coveted 2004 George Whitefield Chadwick Gold Medal from the New England Conservatory. After graduating from the Masters program at Juilliard pursuing studies in composition with Milton Babbitt and violin with Robert Mann, David is currently resuming his studies at Juilliard as a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow maintaining his role as violinist and composer. He just returned from touring with the Zukofsky Quartet performing the pioneering program of the complete string quartets of Milton Babbitt. He appears frequently and records often with the premiere new music ensembles Speculum Musicae, the Group for Contemporary Music, the New York New Music Ensemble, and also with the Second Instrumental Unit, an ensemble that he co-founded and directs. His recent compositions have been commissioned by and written for the Mimesis Ensemble, Zukofsky Quartet, Cygnus Ensemble, Lyndon Institute, Tetras Quartet, Monadnock Music Festival. Between academic and performing engagements, he often presents lectures on a myriad of musical topics around the globe, with recent appearances at the Philadelphia Modern Languages Association Conference; International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture (Germany); BRIDGES International Mathematics Conference (Maryland); Banff Centre; Hildegard Von Bingen Society.

My String Quartet No. 3, affectionately dedicated to the Zukofsky quartet, was written for the 2009 American Composers Alliance Festival. When deciding upon a new work for the Festival, I immediately leapt at the opportunity to write a string quartet, perhaps because as a string player myself, the string quartet presents one of the ultimate, and singularly unique chamber music expressions. For a composer, the string quartet medium presents an extended registral spectrum, a diversified palate of timbres (through the uses of such techniques as pizzicato, sul ponticello, sul tasto, col legno, etc.), and a wonderful asymmetric balance of instruments. Lastly, the quartet is such an appealing ensemble to write for simply because of the wealth and quality of repertoire that has been written for this formation; the models are countless.

This work is structured around sequences articulated by registers of varying lengths. The succession of these registers is continuously changing as a result of the transformations of pitch material together with the changing of instrumental groupings within the quartet (ie. solo, duo, trio). This sort of rapid succession of smaller and extended sections enables a spontaneous contour to unravel as the resultant formal design of the work. In the harmonic sense, this quartet aims at creating a texture of ever-changing chromatic saturations. Utilizing the full 24-tone chromatic gamut, the use of quartertones allows dense concentration of pitch material. The employment of such an extended gamut also entails greater variety and differentiation regarding the size and qualities of particular pitch collections. In assembling the collections contained in this work, I became fascinated with the very tightly-knit ones (containing the smallest intervals), and on the contrary, others that contained only larger intervals. Some of the harmonies heard this evening will behave sonorously, while others will not. It is with great pleasure that I present my quartet this evening with the Zukofsky Quartet. Lastly, I would like to thank the Festival for inviting me to write and perform this new work for this year’s program. (World Premiere)

Christopher Bailey

2009-03-14T17:52:00.004-04:00

CHRISTOPHER BAILEY
Born outside of Philadelphia, PA, Christopher Bailey turned to music composition in his late 'teens, and studied at the Eastman School of Music, and later at Columbia University. Recent performances of his music occurred in Taiwan, Germany, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Minneapolis, and in Seoul, Korea, where he was a 2nd-Prize recipient in the International Composers Competition. Other awards include prizes from BMI and ASCAP, and the Bearns Prize. In summer 2007, he released a CD of piano music with electronics. For more information, mp3's, software, and fun, informative and interactive paraphernalia, see http://music.columbia.edu/~chris .

TIMELASH 2000/revised 2003
Timelash was written in 1999 as a kind of antidote to another work of mine, SL III: Trio, which is a long, mostly slow composition. Timelash proceeds rapidly, sometimes repetitively, in jolts and fits and starts, beeping out quasi-morse code rhythms, and occasionally colliding its instruments into scrunching climaxes. It also explores resonance: a chord is depressed silently by the pianist at the beginning of the work, and is allowed to resonate for the duration of the composition. I was very careful about the sounds of the harmonies in the work, though sometimes they whiz by too rapidly to follow the detail.

Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy

2009-03-14T17:49:00.002-04:00

Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy writes for chamber groups, voice, orchestra, contemporary dance and mixed media. She was Composer in Residence for Dance and Theater Arts at Bennington College and Cornell University.

Awards and Grants include the NEA and NEH Endowments, the Georgia Commission on the Arts, Meet the Composer grants ,and the Cornell Council for Creative and Performing Arts. She was a winner in the Philadelphia Classical Symphony/Maxfield Parrish and Women Composers' Showcase, New Jersey City University, competitions.

Commissions include the Walker Art Center, Cornell Theater Arts Dept., several choreographers and commissions for 20th and 21st century works.

Performances include the Alabama Symphony. Atlanta String Quartet and Relache Ensemble; venues at Eastman School of music, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, the Bowling Green College of Musical Arts Festival,''05, and abroad in Paris, Upsala and Beijing.

She is published by ACA, in the SCI Journal of Music Scores, American Composers Alliance, and EC Schirmer Publishing. CDs are on Capstone, ACA Digital and Euterpe labels.

Fairlie-Kennedy is a member of ACA, SCI, AMC, IAWM, NYCC and BMI.
Some reviewers comments: "Expressive use of a 12 tone row...eloquence and energy... atmospheric and dreamy" N.Y. Times. "extended the usual sonorities of the instruments... its emotional focus was strong and the expressive range of the instruments spoke well for the composer's gift." Philadelphia Inquirer; "Mr. Ueyama's opening dance was set to urgent and atmospheric music by Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy" N.Y. Times Dance Review. '05.

Four Contrasting Images for piano (1961)

Four Contrasting Images is based on a single tone row. The movements are Scintillante ma delacato, Toccata - Selere Con Animazione, Adagio Mezzo and Moderato - Vivo Con Spirito.

Jane Rigler

2009-03-14T17:48:00.000-04:00

Jane Rigler, flutist, composer, educator and curator is known for her innovations in new flute performance, techniques and unique musical vocabulary. She is a featured performer in contemporary music festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe as a soloist as well as within chamber ensembles (Ensemble Plural, Either/Or, Ne(x)tworks, Ensemble Sospeso, Anthony Braxton 12tet, etc.). Besides premiering works written especially for her, Jane’s compositions cover simple solo acoustic pieces inspired by language to complex interactive electronic works that pay homage to painting, poetry and dance. After receiving a B.M. (Northwestern University) and then pursuing flute studies in various parts of Europe and North America, she gained her M.A. and Ph.D. (UC San Diego) completing The Vocalization of the Flute, a book demonstrating both new and ancient methods of singing-while-playing the flute. Her expertise has led to performances in contemporary operas, experimental theater and dance events as well as other interactive electronic festivals. Her compositions are sought after by other flutists and have been performed in South Korea, Australia, France, Spain, and in concert halls and universities throughout the U.S.
After living in Spain for 9 years, Jane resides in Brooklyn, NY and organizes events such as the Relay~NYC! held at MoMA, the Spontaneous Music Festival, and collaborated with the Conflux Festival in 2007. She has received several Brooklyn Arts Council grants for her community activities, a Global Connections grant to perform in Munich this year and was awarded several artist residencies for her interactive electronic works from Harvestworks Studios, Art Omi and RPI’s Create @ iEar Studios.
As an Artist Educator, Jane Rigler works with several arts organizations such as the Lincoln Center Institute and the Orchestra St. Luke’s where she helped launch a Young Composer Program in the NY schools. Her most notable work is for the Manhattan New Music Project (MNMP) where she spent several years working and researching music education programs such as CME and CIAE for underserved populations and children with disabilities. Together with artist-programmer Zachary Seldess, she is currently co-designing and developing the Music Cre8tor (patent is pending), a new interactive sensor-driven music composition program for young people with disabilities.
She is a Japan-US Friendship Commission NEA/Fellowship winner for 2009.

Lewis Nielson

2009-03-14T17:47:00.001-04:00

Lewis Nielson (b. 1950) studied music at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, Clark University in Massachusetts and the University of Iowa, receiving a Ph.D. in Music Theory and Composition in 1977. His music appears through American Composers Edition and CDs of his music are available from Albany, MMC, Capstone, Centaur, and Innova Recordings. He has received numerous grants and awards for his works, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Delius Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Georgia Council for the Arts, the Groupe de Music Expèrimentale de Bourges in France, the Ohio Council for the Arts, and the 2008 Cleveland Arts Prize. After 21 years at the University of Georgia, he joined the composition faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2000 where he is currently Professor of Composition and chair of the Composition Department.

Layers of music and speech both define the structural integrity of what about you? (2007) and account for its ultimate cohesiveness. The text consists of repeating consonants and vowels, text fragments of indeterminate language, and intelligible—if occasionally fragmentary—utterances in German, Spanish, and English. Similarly disjointed organizational schemes can be heard in the music as short articulations shun connection to longer events and delay the emergence of meaning and clarity. From somewhere within this interwoven texture, the dialectical purpose of the work surfaces. The final text (taken from an unfinished poem fragment by Osip Mandelstahm in my own translation) provides a clue to the means of creating this unified form of expression: “And suddenly, out of my ineloquent stammering, sounds fill out and stretch.” (New York Premiere)

John Eaton

2009-03-14T17:44:00.003-04:00

John Eaton was called "The most interesting opera composer writing in America today" by Andrew Porter in The London Financial Times. He has received international recognition as a composer and performer of electronic and microtonal music as well.

Eaton's work has been performed extensively throughout the world. International performances include those in Italy (at the Venice Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentina, RAI, etc.), Germany (Hamburg Opera, NDR, Sud-West Funk, etc.), France, England, Spain, Portugal, Czechoslovakia (Prague Festival), Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Israel, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Latvia and Estonia. In America, his work has been performed by the San Francisco Opera, Cincinnati Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, New York City Opera and Brooklyn Academy of Music, among others, and has been featured at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and Pepsico Summerfare Festivals. In addition, several works have been broadcast on Public Radio and Television, and, his opera, Myshkin, was seen throughout the U.S.A. and foreign countries by an estimated 15,000,000 people.

Among his best known works are his opera, The Cry of Clytaemnestra, which has received great public and critical acclaim at its nearly twenty performances, including those under the auspices of the San Francisco Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The Lion and Androcles , written especially for children, was shown on national television and taken on tour by the Cincinnati Symphony. The Tempest was called a "formidible intellectual as well as musical achievement ... an opera of stark beauty" by Michael Walsh of Time Magazine following its premiere by the Santa Fe Opera. His most recent grand opera, The Reverend Jim Jones, was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1993 he formed the Pocket Opera Players, which presented his operatic pieces Peer Gynt and Let's Get This Show on the Road to great public and critical acclaim; as was the case in 1996, when it premiered Don Quixote and Golk as well. On May 30th, 1997, Boston Musica Viva premiered his Travelling with Gulliver, commissioned by them and made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Fndt. A new opera, Antigone, was added to it in very successful performances in Chicago by his opera company on Dec.9th, 10th, and 11th, 1999.

In 2000, his provocative opera Youth was premiered. After it’s first performances at Symphony Space, May 21st and 22nd, 2002, Anne Midgette of the New York Times called “inasmuch…” “creative, antic, quirky and enchanting”. Further New York Premieres of Travelling with Gulliver and Golk as well as the World Premiere of Salome’s Flea Circus were done on June 23rd and 24th of 2003. A festival of his music occurred at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center on May 18th and 19th of 2004, featuring the World Premiere of Pinocchio and the New York Premiere of Antigone, as well as panels on The Acting Instrumentalist: Eaton’s Pocket Operas and Eaton’s Contributions to Electronic Music. His full length comic opera Pumped Fiction, premiered at Symphony Space on June 20th, 2007, was repeated by popular demand on Sept. 6th. Allan Kozinn spoke of it as a “…considerable achievement” in the New York Times.

Eaton has been the recipient of many awards. In 1990, he received the "genius" award from the MacArthur Foundation. His music was chosen to represent the U.S.A. in 1970 at the International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO). He has received a citation and award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, three Prix de Rome Grants, 2 Guggenheim Fellowships, and, among others, commissions from the Fromm and Koussevitsky Foundations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He has lectured at the Salzburg Center of American Studies, and was Composer in Residence at the American Academy in Rome. In September, 2000 his career was celebrated in the American Music Center’s web site and excerpts of his operas can still be seen as well as an extended interview in the archives of www.newmusicbox.org for Sept., 2000. He has done a lecture tour for Phi Beta Kappa as well as lecturing on his operas at Oxford.

Eaton is Professor Emeritus of Music Composition at the University of Chicago. He taught there for 10 years and at Indiana University (Bloomington) for 20. His compositions are handled by Shawnee Press, G.Schirmer (A.M.P.), and the American Composers Alliance.

Our Four Candidates (2008) is a lark, not a serious piece. It was written rather quickly last year during the height of the presidential campaign, generally on flights between Laguardia and Iowa City.

The five movements are meant to represent, respectively, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joseph Biden, Sarah Palin, and The Campaign (or “Camp-Pain”) itself. Generally, the clarinet portrays Obama; the bassoon (and contra-bassoon), McCain; the plaintive oboe (and English horn), Biden; and the carping flute (and piccolo and tin whistle), Palin. Often, however, the instruments go out of character and take other parts in the musical continuity – e.g., in the beginning of the Obama movement, the English horn and contra-bassoon represent exotica and the flute atmosphere; and, in the Palin movement, the oboe and bassoon play Eskimo songs.

The movements are further broken down as follows: Obama: An Exotic Birth and Youth, Coming of Age, A Somewhat Misspent Youth, The Statesman Emerges; McCain: He Comes from a Military Background, Military Service, Pilot Training, The Hanoi Hilton, In the Air over ‘Nam, Shot Down, A Prisoner, The Rescue, The Temporary Decline; Biden: Stentorian, Frenetic, and, throughout, The Orator; Palin: Coming to Life, Life in the Arctic, The Mature Biting Sarah, Sarah the Huntsman (complete with rifle shots); the Campaign: no specific episodes, but listen for the candidates oratorical style and songs.

The piece is very challenging for the instrumentalists, especially with the ubiquitous microtones and multiphonics. I hope you forgive my having some fun and enjoy reminiscing about the campaign. (World Premiere)

Sharon O'Connell

2009-03-14T17:43:00.000-04:00

Sharon O’Connell Campbell, mezzo-soprano, has performed numerous opera roles, most recently the Third Lady in the Lyric Opera of Kansas City production of Die Zauberflöte. She has also appeared as Baba in The Medium and Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro with Civic Opera of Kansas City. Dr. Campbell is a recent graduate of the University of Kansas, where she earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance, as a student of Joyce Castle. She holds the M.M. from the College Conservatory of University of Missouri-Kansas City (Inci Bashar), and B.M. from the University of New Mexico (Bradley Ellingsboe).
A 2007 Lotte Lenya Competition finalist, Dr. Campbell is at home in opera, musical theatre, concert, and recital repertoire. Recently, she appeared as a soloist in the Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Kansas City Philharmonic, and in Bradley Ellingboe’s Requiem with the Chicago Arts Orchestra. As soloist with the early music group, the Spencer Consort, she performed works by Handel and Buxtehude, as well as appearances with the ensemble Musica Nova (Kansas City) and the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque. Her recent solo recitals have featured the work of Mahler and Berlioz.
Dr. Campbell joined the faculty of the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2008.

Noah Turner Rogoff

2009-03-14T17:41:00.001-04:00

Described by The Boston Globe as a “talented, . . .fine player,” Noah Turner Rogoff, cello/double bass/Director of String Project began studying cello at the age of four. He holds a Master of Arts in music theory and a doctorate in cello performance from the University of Minnesota, where he studied with Tanya Remenikova, former assistant to Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory. He was a student of Hans Jensen at Northwestern University. Mr. Rogoff earned his B.M. at Northwestern along with a certificate in music criticism from the Medill School of Journalism and a minor in French.
Dr. Rogoff has performed solo in the masterclasses of Steven Isserlis, Paul Katz and Nathaniel Rosen and has studied chamber music with members of the Shanghai and Juilliard Quartets at the Hampden-Sydney and Kneisel Hall summer festivals.
An active supporter of new music, Mr. Rogoff performed two solo works of Elliott Carter in the presence of the composer at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Center in the 2006 Contemporary Composers Festival. He attended the Meadowmount School of Music for three summers and has performed chamber works with members of the Saint Louis Symphony, Eighth Blackbird and Prague’s dynamic Penguin Quartet.

Nathan Buckner

2009-03-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

Nathan Buckner, piano (Associate Professor) joined the U.N.K. music faculty in 1997. Mr. Buckner has appeared throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. Performances include solo recitals at Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center, as well as chamber concerts with the DaCapo Chamber Players at Merkin Hall, and Washington's Contemporary Music Forum at the Corcoran Gallery. He has appeared summers as artist and teacher at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp: Michigan (2003-2006), Delmarva Piano Festival: Delaware (1992-2007), and Shandong University Summer Session: Weihai, China (2008). Other performances include multi-recital tours of Taiwan and Mexico; performances in China, Korea, Belarus, and Slovenia; and a recital series "The Nine Mature Piano Sonatas of Franz Schubert" in 2007.

Mr. Buckner is a champion of both contemporary and historic American piano music. Since the 1980s, he has commissioned and performed piano works by numerous emerging American composers.

A native of Eugene, Oregon, Mr. Buckner holds a B.M. from The Juilliard School, an M.M. from Indiana University and a D.M.A. from University of Maryland. His studied piano with Shoshana Cohen, Olegna Fuschi, Beveridge Webster, Edward Auer, and Thomas Schumacher; and early keyboard instruments with Albert Fuller. At U.N.K. he teaches applied piano, piano literature, and core curricula.

Darleen Mitchell

2009-03-14T17:38:00.003-04:00

Darleen Cowles Mitchell has written over 100 compositions for various instrumental and vocal combinations, from solo flute to full orchestra and chorus. Her compositions have been performed throughout the United States and in Europe, by many performers and organizations, such as the American Chamber Symphony, Chicago; the Aurora String Quartet, San Francisco; The Contemporary Chamber Players, Chicago; and by Duo 46 at the International Guitar Festival, Hermoupolis, Greece. Her works are published by American Composers Editions in New York.

Dr. Mitchell has been the recipient of many awards, including the National League of American Pen Women Composition Competition, for her work Visions, a concerto for tuba and concert band, Meet the Composer grants, and grants from the Florida Arts Council and the Illinois Arts Council. She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the Nebraska Arts Council, the “Distinguished Artist Award” in 2005. Dr. Mitchell received a BM from De Paul University, MM from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where her teachers included Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran. She has been on the faculties of De Paul University and the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and the City Colleges of Chicago, European Division, in Belgium. Dr. Mitchell is currently an Associate Professor of music theory and composition at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where she created and oversees the annual New Music Festival.

Dr. Mitchell's most recent compositions include Metaxu (2008) for Mezzo-Soprano, Cello and Piano and Music of the Upper Worlds (2008), a concerto for violin which will be premiered by the Kearney Symphony Orchestra in October, 2009. Other recent works include Luminous Mysteries for two pianos, which was commissioned by the Nebraska Music Teachers Association, Passages, for piano trio, and Dakota, a song cycle for female voice and piano on texts by Kathleen Norris, which was performed at the ACA New Music Festival in June, 2007. O Vos Angelis, for soprano, clarinet and piano premiered in 2003 in California at the Hildegard Festival of Women in the Arts and was performed at the ACA New Music Festival in 2005. Watery Moon, for alto flute/bass flute and vibraphone was premiered in London, July 2004, at the Royal College of Music.

Mitchell’s Music of Remembrance, for chamber ensemble, was commissioned by the Third Chair Chamber Players and the Angels Theater Company, Lincoln, Nebraska, as incidental music for the play The Train. The work premiered at the Lied’s Johnny Carson Theater in Lincoln in April 2007, and was subsequently performed in Omaha and Kearney at the Merryman Performing Arts Center. The Train is a play about holocaust survivors and remembrance.

The text for Metaxu (2008) is from Simone Weil’s La Pesanteur et La Grâce (Gravity and Grace). Weil, born to a well-to-do Jewish family, embraced the social teachings of Jesus (although she never was baptized.) She preferred to live and work among the poor and died of tuberculosis, refusing the proper nutrition and medical attention that the poor could not afford. My setting uses short phrases from different sections of her book. (World Premiere)

The text translation is:

1. Accepter le Vide

Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.

2. Détachement

He emptied himself of his divinity, to empty ourselves of the world, to reduce ourselves to the point we occupy in space and time, that is to say, to nothing.

3. Décréation

He who gives us our being loves in us the acceptance of not being. Our existence is made up only of his waiting for our acceptance not to exist.

4. Metaxu

This world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through. The essence of created things is to be intermediaries leading to God.

5. Beauté

Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul…the instantaneous and the eternal. The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible.

Metaxu is a Greek word for the boundary between the material and spiritual worlds. The passage through is possible by meditation as well as music. My interest in women mystics and stumbling upon Weil’s book inspired the piece, which took shape as a work for two new faculty members, Sharon Campbell and Noah Rogoff. The melodic and harmonic resources grow from a group of set classes from (0167) to (01267) and (012367). The textures, use of the sets in embedded layers, soloistic searching melodies in the cello, and especially in #4, Metaxu, the crossing of the voice and cello parts, with the voice and cello basically on top of each other, are meant to symbolize the image of metaxu and bring out the liminal qualities of the music.

Esther Lamneck

2009-03-14T17:29:00.001-04:00

The NY Times calls clarinetist Esther Lamneck “an astonishing virtuoso”. Winner of the prestigious Pro Musicis Award, she has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras including the Houston Symphony and conductors such as Pierre Boulez, and in chamber music concerts with renowned artists throughout the world. A versatile performer and an advocate of contemporary music, she is known for her work with electronic media including interactive arts, movement, dance and improvisation. Her collaborations with composers have produced new compositions in many genres for the clarinet and the tárogató. Ms. Lamneck makes frequent solo appearances at music festivals world wide and maintains an active career performing and presenting Master Classes in Universities and Conservatories throughout the United States and Europe. Ms. Lamneck currently serves as Director of Instrumental Studies and the Graduate Music/Dance Program in Italy for New York University. Artistic director of the NYU New Music and Dance Ensemble, the group maintains its residence at the University during the season and in Italy during the summers. Esther Lamneck has appeared on major television and radio programs both here and abroad. She has recorded for companies including Capriccio Records, Centaur, Music and Arts, CRI, EMF, Opus One, Capstone, Romeo/Qualiton and SEAMUS.

John Melby

2009-03-14T17:28:00.003-04:00

Born in 1941 in Whitehall, Wisconsin, John Melby attended the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University. His composition teachers include Henry Weinberg, George Crumb, Peter Westergaard, J. K. Randall, and Milton Babbitt. In 1973 he was appointed to the Composition/Theory faculty in the School of Music of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was Professor of Music until his retirement in August of 1997 and where he now holds the title of Professor Emeritus.

John Melby is best known for his music written for computer-synthesized sounds, including a series of concerti for various instruments with computer; other compositions include two piano sonatas, three string quartets (the most recent of which includes computer), songs for voice and piano, pieces for larger ensembles, numerous compositions for computer alone, an opera, and two symphonies. His compositions have won numerous awards and have been widely performed both in the United States and abroad. He has been the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an associateship in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study, and numerous other grants and awards, including First Prize in 1979, at the International Electroacoustic Music Awards (Bourges, France). His music is published by Associated Music Publishers, ACA, Shawnee Press, and Merion Music, Inc. (Theodore Presser Co.), and recorded on the CRI, Advance, New World, Centaur, and Zuma labels, and on a CD issued by the Institute International de Musique Electroacoustique in Bourges, France.

John Melby is a member of BMI, American Music Center, SEAMUS, International Computer Music Association, SCI, American Composers Forum, and American Composers Alliance. His biography is included in the current edition of Who's Who in America.

The Concerto No. 2 for Clarinet and Computer was composed in 2006 for clarinetist Esther Lamneck, who gave the first performance of the work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in March of 2007. It is scored for B-ﬂat clarinet and a computer-synthesized accompaniment.

The electronic component of the work exists in two versions, a stereo version (the one used for this performance) and a version for eight channels, and was produced in my Macintosh-based studio using the MacCsound program for digital sound synthesis and my own C and FORTRAN data-manipulation routines.

The Concerto is in one extended movement that loosely parallels the formal structure of a typical three-movement concerto, including a cadenza. The piece is virtuosic in nature and makes use of some of the extended clarinet techniques for which Dr. Lamneck is renowned as a performer. This composition is one in a series of (so far) nineteen concerti for various instruments and computer-synthesized sounds.

Travis Alford

2009-03-14T17:25:00.009-04:00

Travis Alford (b. 1983) is a composer, trumpet player, and improviser in the Boston area. Growing up in Spring Hope, NC, he began playing the trumpet at the age of 11 in school concert and jazz bands, community groups, and in church. In college he discovered he was much better at composing than playing the trumpet (though he still tries). His compositions have been heard at venues across the United States and beyond including: the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, the Exploring Trumpet International Seminar in Kalavrita, Greece, the NewMusic@ECU Festival, the Western Carolina University Trumpet Festival, East Carolina University, Brandeis University, and New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall.

As a performer, Travis has played with the ECU Symphonic Wind Ensemble, various chamber and jazz ensembles, and has subbed with the North Carolina "Pops" Orchestra. While at NEC he was a member of The Forge, a contemporary improvisation collective under the direction of Tanya Kalmanovitch, which aims to navigate the waters between composition and improvisation, and to bridge the divides between any and all musical genres. Current projects include Test Pattern, a composer/performer collaboration with composers Dan VanHassel (piano) and Mu-Xuan Lin (voice), and the experimental & collaborative music series COMPROVISED (BOS & NY), of which Travis is co-founder (in collaboration with violist Tanya Kalmanovitch) and Artistic Director. He is also co-founder of the Park Street Brass Ensemble, based at Park Street Church in Boston, where he is also on the leadership board of the arts ministry, which helps to connect, involve, and promote artists within the church.

Travis holds degrees from the New England Conservatory (MM, Music Composition 2008) and East Carolina University (BM, Music Theory/Composition 2005), and is currently working toward a PhD. in composition at Brandeis University. His principle composition teachers have included Eric Chasalow, David Rakowski, Lee Hyla, Edward Jacobs, Mark Richardson, and Mark Taggart. He has studied trumpet formally with Britton Theurer, and informally with Brian McWhorter and Jon Nelson. He has also studied Contemporary Improvisation with Tanya Kalmanovitch.

Travis resides in Watertown, MA with his lovely wife, Lauren.

Transitions (2006-2007)
2005-06 was a time of transitions for me. I graduated from college, became engaged, got married, moved to Boston, and began graduate study. It was also a year of emotional transition and loss, as my high school music teacher, friend, and colleague, Michael Lancaster, passed away unexpectedly. Mike or “L” as he was affectionately known was a jazz aficionado and a rocker at heart, which heavily influenced my early musical upbringing. His passion for music however transcended these genres, and he helped instill in me the idea that "music is music," some good, some bad, while any further labels/genres are inadequate at best, and ultimately unimportant. I do not wish to get into much formal discussion of the work except to say this: Michael once told me, when he found I was going into composition, that he knew I would get into "new" music, but to remember to "write something with a melody". Although I feel most of my music is "melodic", I knew what he meant. So for this piece, the destination is the trumpet (Mike's instrument) melody at the end. L, I hope you enjoy.

Kolot Ensemble

2009-03-14T17:25:00.008-04:00

Kolot Ensemble (“voices”) was born in 2006 when a group of young and talented musicians from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music discovered a shared passion for contemporary compositions. The ensemble emerged out of a desire to give expression to this extraordinary body of work with its wealth of styles and intricate musical and cultural influences. The mission of Kolot Ensemble is to become a voice to largely unknown new music by bringing it to the attention of wider audiences.

The music performed by Kolot Ensemble encompasses early 20th century and recent compositions. Its repertoire is diverse and challenging, with a focus on music written by Jewish and Israeli composers. Kolot Ensemble's programs are therefore uniquely positioned to combine solo and chamber pieces, creating musical experiences which journey through a multiplicity of styles and dynamic combinations.

The Ensemble is currently working on different programs of contemporary music, including several world premieres. Last April the Ensemble performed in Carnegie Hall as part of the David Krakauer Workshop: Exploring Klezmer. Other performances have included collaborations with the Melton Center for Jewish Studies at Ohio State University.

In recognition of the importance of providing a platform for up and coming young composers, Kolot Ensemble welcomes commissioned works.

The aspirations of Kolot Ensemble are matched by the talent and track record of its young members. They are:
Melissa Block, singer, student at Indiana University, was a soloist in the Metropolitan Youth Chorale of New York, and as Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Indiana University;
Robert Spady, clarinetist, doctoral student and associate instructor at Indiana University, was a soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra;
Gerardo Ubaghs, violinist, Artists Diploma from Reina Sofía in Madrid, graduate student at Indiana University, first prize-winner in the International String Competition in Shanghai;
Véronique Mathieu, violinist, doctoral student at Indiana University, first prize winner of Canadian Music Competition, Clermont-Pepin Music Competition, winner of Canada Council Bank of Instruments Competition;
Jung-Min Shin, violist, doctoral student at Indiana University, Associate Concertmaster of Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, Artist in-Residence at University of Evansville as a member of Eykamp String Quartet;
Yotam Baruch, cellist, Master’s degree from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, doctoral student at Indiana University, winner of the chamber and solo competition at the Tel-Aviv Academy of Music; and
Yael Manor, pianist, Master’s degree from the Tel-Aviv Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, doctoral student and associate instructor at Indiana University, founder and director of Kolot Ensemble.

Kolot Ensemble is endorsed by the Borns Jewish Studies Program and the Institute for Jewish Culture and the Arts at Indiana University.

Paul Kerekes

2009-03-14T17:22:00.004-04:00

Paul Kerekes (b.1988) is an undergraduate Piano Performance and Composition student at Queens College. He has attended notable programs such as Stony Brook Summer Music Festival, the Young Artists Piano Program at Tanglewood, and California Summer Music. This summer Paul is looking forward to attending Yale’s New Music Workshop in Norfolk, CT. At Queens College, Paul received the Gabriel Fontrier award for achievement as an undergraduate composer and has had the privilege of hearing his music performed by the Second Instrumental Unit, Stonewall Chorale, and the Mannes Preparatory Division Choir. Additionally, Paul enjoys playing the cello, drawing, and painting. He currently studies piano with Donald Pirone and composition with Bruce Saylor.

In Soliloquy, Aside (2009) I wanted to create a musical texture of two different perspectives happening simultaneously based upon the same material. The piano part is a seven chord chorale that moves through different combinations and voicings while the tenor saxophone’s melody moves primarily in minor thirds. I was influenced a lot by free improvisatory jazz and material from improvisations I did with composer/saxophonist Ed Rosenberg a couple years ago. Special thanks to Bruce Saylor for helping me write the piece and Ed Rosenberg for playing it. (World Premiere)

Jonathan Howe

2009-03-14T17:20:00.000-04:00

Originally from Armonk, NY, Jonathan Howe earned a BA in Music from Princeton University in 2001, and an MA in Music Education from Queens College/CUNY in 2005. He has been teaching music at East Hampton High School since 2003 and teaches privately as well. Mr. Howe studied piano with David Richards, Donald Pirone, Elizabeth Wright, and Edmund Niemann and currently studies with Teresa Dybvig. Unlike several of his prior performances, this program will not require the use of paper clips, wood chisels, or glass rods.

Jan Opalach

2009-03-14T17:16:00.004-04:00

Jan Opalach, whose voice has been described as "lyric," "flexible," and "displays a wonderful variety of color," is one of America's most versatile performers on the operatic stage today, combining serious musicianship with excellent acting skills.

Mr. Opalach has been a regular guest of the New York City Opera since 1980. Among the many roles he has performed during his long association there, are Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, the title role in Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Sancho Panza in Don Quichotte. He has appeared as Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, a new production directed by Jonathan Miller and as Lotario in Chas Rader-Scheiber's charming production of Handel's comedy Flavio. In the Spring of 2008, Mr. Opalach had critically acclaimed performances in the title role of Verdi's Falstaff with the company. In July of this year, he will be heard in the title role of Don Pasquale for PortOpera (ME).

He has also appeared with the Seattle Opera, Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, Portland (OR) Opera and the Santa Fe Opera. Elsewhere, he has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Washington Opera, Atlanta Opera and the Opera Theater of St. Louis. He has also achieved international recognition, appearing with the Canadian Opera Company, English National Opera, Netherlands Opera, Scottish Opera, Teatro Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and Sweden's Drottningholm Royal Court Theater.

Mr. Opalach has sung with the acclaimed orchestras of Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Montreal, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, and the National Symphony. Among the many conductors with whom he has collaborated are Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Charles Dutoit, Gunther Herbig, Christopher Hogwood, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Roger Norrington, Christof Perick, Sir Simon Rattle, Robert Shaw, Leonard Slatkin, Edo de Waart, and David Zinman.

A winner of the prestigious Walter M. Naumburg Vocal Competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions, and the International Vocalisten Concours of s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, as well as the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Soloist Recital Grant, he is also busy with an active career as a recitalist. He was invited to be the featured recitalist at the 2006 National Association of Teachers of Singing Convention in Minneapolis, MN. Notable recital venues in which he has appeared include Alice Tully Hall, Ambassador Auditorium (Pasadena), the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and the Morgan Library (NYC). In addition, he collaborates with many new music ensembles, including Speculum Musicae, Continuum, Parnassus, and the American Composers Orchestra.

Mr. Opalach has recorded for a numerous labels including Argo, Bridge, CRI, Decca, Delos, EMI, Koch International, L'Oiseau-Lyre, Nonesuch, Telarc, and Vox Unique. Works recorded include Igor Stravinsky's Renard/Pulcinella (St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff), Solo Cantatas 56, 82, 158 by J.S. Bach (Bach Ensemble; Joshua Rifkin), Stefan Wolpe's Quintet with Voice, Elliot Carter's Syringa (Speculum Musicae), Robert Beaser's Seven Deadly Sins (Premiere Recording, American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies), G.F.Handel's Acis and Galatea (Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz), Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Kernis' Mourning Song, and an CD of selected lieder by Franz Schubert.

Stephen Gosling

2009-03-14T17:08:00.002-04:00

Pianist Stephen Gosling enjoys a varied career as soloist and chamber musician with a particular focus on the music of our time. He is currently a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso, Manhattan Sinfonietta, American Modern Ensemble, Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, and Ne(x)tworks. He is additionally a frequent guest artist of many other groups, including the New York Philharmonic, Orpheus, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, American Composers Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Speculum Musicae, and Absolute Ensemble. His work has garnered consistent critical acclaim, and he was profiled by the New York Times in October
2005.

Mr.Gosling earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the Juilliard School, during which time he was awarded the Mennin Prize for Outstanding Excellence and Leadership in Music and the Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship. He was also featured as concerto soloist an unprecedented four times, in works by Stravinsky, Schnittke, Schoenfield and Corigliano (the latter conducted by Leonard Slatkin).

Mr. Gosling has collaborated with a huge number of American composers, among them Adams, Babbitt, Carter, Reich, Reynolds, Wuorinen and Zorn, as well as several European ones, including Boulez, Ferneyhough, Knussen, Lachenmann, Ruders and Turnage. He has also worked extensively with New Zealand’s pre-eminent composer, John Psathas, recording two award-winning CDs of his work (Rhythm Spike and Fragments) and premiering his piano concerto Three Psalms with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Recent highlights include solo performances at Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, and in Miller Theater’s Stravinsky festival; tours of Thailand and Belgium with New York New Music Ensemble; a program of Elliott Carter’s chamber music (with violinist Rolf Schulte and cellist Fred Sherry) at Zankel Hall to celebrate the composer’s centennial, performances of Berio’s Points on a Curve to find in New York and
Boston with Manhattan Sinfonietta and a tour and recording of newly commissioned works for clarinet / piano duo (with Jean Kopperud), collectively titled Rated X.

In ever-increasing demand both as soloist and chamber musician, Mr.Gosling has performed throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, and made over 30 recordings to date.

duo parnas

2009-03-14T17:05:00.001-04:00

duo parnas has established itself as an extraordinary musical force with flawless and amazing ensemble. Its performances include a wide range of double concerti with orchestra, an expanding repertoire of duo literature, piano and string trios, quartets and more. This season these teen-aged phenoms of duo parnas, Madalyn and Cicely Parnas, have performed duo concerti with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Jaime Laredo, the Albany Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Alan Miller, and the Catskill Symphony Orchestra led by Charles Schneider. They have given recitals at the Grand Montgomery Chamber Series, the Hewitt Pantaleoni Series at SUNY Oneonta, the Renaissance Musical Arts Series, among others. They were awarded 1st prize in the 2008 International Chamber Music Competition at Weill Recital Hall and in the 2008 NYASTA Solo Competition, and are recording their second CD, following the release of their highly successful debut CD. duo parnas will give the premier of Brian Fennelly's "Sigol for Two", a duo written for them, which earned 1^st prize at the New York Composer's Circle Competition. duo parnas’ pedigree boasts grandfather Leslie Parnas, one of the greatest of living cellists, winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition and founding member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as their equally remarkable uncle, Richard Parnas, who served as principal violist for the National Symphony Orchestra for 35 years.

Seventeen-year-old violinist, Madalyn Parnas, revealed a robust musical personality early, earning top competition prizes in violin, voice, and piano by age 10. Now a veteran performer, she has performed more than thirty concerti with orchestra. Miss Parnas is described by critics as "a dazzler" and "a show-stopper", who displays "breathtaking dexterity achieved with effortless grace... technical virtuosity... [and] emotional maturity far beyond her age." Madalyn is a college junior earning the highest academic honors. She studies with renowned violinist James Buswell at the New England Conservatory. Madalyn plays a violin made in 1687 by Gioffredo Cappa.

Sister cellist Cicely Parnas, 15, has also performed over 20 concerti with orchestra. She, too, made known her extraordinary talent early, soloing with orchestra and taking 1st prize, the youngest winner ever, in the Berkshire Scholarship Competition at age 9. A seasoned performer and an exciting young artist, Miss Parnas has earned critics' endorsements as a player "possessed of prodigious technique and an Olympic gymnast's poise" who charms the listener with "an astonishing mix of pungency and finesse." Cicely, a freshman in college, studies with Peter Wiley. She plays a William Forster cello made in 1790. Together Madalyn and Cicely are chamber music students of Peter Serkin, with whom they will present several trio concerts later this season, including the opening of Music Mountain's 80th year on Sunday, June 14, 2009.

Ed Rosenberg

2009-03-14T17:01:00.003-04:00

Ed is biography.
To be proper and electrical.
To be improper and electrical.
To be biography, proper, improper and electrical.
Ed is biography.
Is biography.
Is Ed biography.
Biology and biography and electrical.
By young.
By old.
Is Ed electrical.
Is Ed by saxophone.
To compose and is Ed saxophone.
Ed is to compose and to saxophone.
By young or by old.
Time to be young and old.
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Catherine Cushing

2009-03-14T16:59:00.000-04:00

Catherine Cushing has recently completed her junior year at Bowdoin College, with a double major in English and Education. She has also spent a semester in Paris under the Vassar-Wesleyan study-away program. A native of Westwood, Massachusetts, she studied piano at the New England Conservatory prep division, and has been a piano student of Anastasia Antonacas and Joyce Moulton at Bowdoin.

John McDonald

2009-03-14T16:57:00.000-04:00

John McDonald, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Graduate Music Studies at Tufts University, is a composer who tries to play the piano and a pianist who tries to compose. McDonald was named the 2007 MTNA—Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association. His recordings appear on the Albany, Archetype, Boston, Bridge, Capstone, Neuma, New Ariel, and New World labels, and he has concertized widely as composer and pianist.
His recent compositions include:
Peace Process (basset horn and piano)
The Creatures’ Choir (evening-long song cycle for voice and piano)
Ways To Jump (choral work concerning frogs)
Piano Albums (annual collections of piano miniatures)
Stäudlin As Vogl: Preamble To A Winter Journey (alto saxophone and piano)
Four Compositions (flute and piano)