Music for
Hi-Hat and Computer (1998) Cort
Lippe
Lee
Ferguson, percussion
Density 21.5 (1936) Edgard
Varse
(1883-1965)
John
McMurtery, flute
Pantograph (2000) Charles
Norman Mason
(b.
1955)
*Ferocious Alphabets (2005) James Romig
(b.
1971)
Helen
Kim, violin
Ted Gurch, clarinet
*Paris Quintet
(2004) Terry
Vosbein
(b.
1957)
Rive
Gauche
Laube
sur la Seine
Fte
de la Musique
John
McMurtery, flute
Ted
Gurch, clarinet
Helen
Kim, violin
Craig
Hultgren, cello
Adam
Bowles, piano
*New
work composed for 2005 Festival
Concert II
*Trenchantor!(2004) Charles
Norman Mason
(b.
1955)
Cynthia
Lawing, piano
Oiseau Mir (2001)
James Romig
(b.
1971)
John
McMurtery, flute
Le Merle Noir
(1951) Olivier
Messiaen
(1908-1992)
John
McMurtery, flute
Adam Bowles, piano
Steinway
Preludes (2004) Dorothy
Hindman
(b.
1966)
Sparkling
Pearly
Velvety
Brittle
Thunderous
Gloria
Cook, piano
Sonata for Cello
and Piano (1915) Claude
Debussy
(1862-1918)
Prologue
Srnade et Finale
Craig
Hultgren, cello
Adam
Bowles, piano
Concerto for
Two Solo Pianos (1935) Igor
Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
Con
moto
Notturno:
Adagietto
Quattro
variazioni
Preludio
e Fuga
Lynn
Raley, piano
Rachel
Heard, piano
*New
work composed for 2005 Festival
Friday, July 29, 2005 7:30
p.m.
Carceri dInvenzione (1984) Brian Ferneyhough
(b.
1943)
John
McMurtery, flute
Durations 4 (1961) Morton Feldman
(1926-1987)
Helen
Kim, violin
Craig
Hultgren, cello
Lee
Ferguson, vibraphone
Theme and
Variations (1932) Olivier
Messiaen
(1908-1992)
Thme: Modr
Modr
Un peu moins modr
Modr, avec clat
Vif et passion
Trs lent
Helen
Kim, violin
Adam
Bowles, piano
Quest for Blue (2000) Robert G.
Patterson
(b.
1957)
Ted
Gurch, clarinet
Robert
Patterson, horn
Cynthia
Lawing, piano
*Crossing
Rivers IV (2005) Jennifer
E. Stasack
Text: Breakfast
for Dinner, Alan Michael Parker (b.
1956)
Prelude
i
- ix
Postlude
Diane
Thornton, contralto
Craig
Hultgren, cello
Adam
Bowles, piano
*New
work composed for 2005 Festival
Concert
IV
Saturday,
July 30, 2005 7:30
p.m.
*Vanishing
Perspectives (2005) Timothy
Kramer
(b.
1955)
Craig
Hultgren, cello
Eleven Echoes
of Autumn (1966) George
Crumb
(b.
1929)
Eco 1. Fantastico
Eco 2. Languidamente, quasi lontano
("hauntingly")
Eco 3. Prestissimo
Eco 4. Con bravura
Eco 5. Cadenza I (for Alto Flute)
Eco 6. Cadenza II (for Violin)
Eco 7. Cadenza III (for Clarinet)
Eco 8. Feroce, violento
Eco 9. Serenamente, quasi lontano
("hauntingly")
Eco 10. Senza misura ("gently
undulating")
Eco
11. Adagio ("like a prayer")
Helen
Kim, violin
John
McMurtery, alto flute
Ted
Gurch, clarinet
Adam
Bowles, piano
Contrasts (1938) Bla
Bartk (1881-1945)
Verbunkos
Pihen
Sebes
Ted
Gurch, clarinet
Helen
Kim, violin
Adam
Bowles, piano
Horn Trio (1988) Gyrgy Ligeti
(b.
1923)
Andantino
con tenerezza
Vivacissimo
molto ritmico
Alla
Marcia
Lamento
Adagio
Helen
Kim, violin
Robert
G. Patterson, horn
Adam
Bowles, piano
*New work composed for 2005 Festival
Concert V
Sunday, July 31, 2005 2:30
p.m.
Concerto Piccolino (1999) Milton
Babbitt
(b.
1916)
Lee Ferguson, vibraphone
Tonoi 4 (2004) Nickitas
Demos
Finalist, 2005 Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial (b.
1971)
Craig Hultgren, electric cello
Fortune
(1979) Charles
Wuorinen
(b.
1955)
Ted Gurch, clarinet
Helen Kim, violin
Craig Hultgren, cello
Adam Bowles, piano
James Romig, conductor
*Butterfly in
Reverse (2004) Brandon
Goff
Lee
Ferguson, percussion
Hyphen Evan
Johnson
(b.
1980)
Lee
Ferguson, crotales
*The
Labyrinth (2004) Erka
Pipkin
2005 ACS Student
Composition Contest, 3rd Place (b.
1983)
John
McMurtery, flute Ted Gurch, clarinet Helen Kim, violin
Craig
Hultgren, cello Adam Bowles, piano Lee Ferguson, percussion
James
Romig, conductor
Short
Intermission
Corporel
(1985) Vinko
Globokar
(b.
1934)
Lee
Ferguson
*Rhuma Sulfa
(2004) David
Kottwitz
2005 ACS Student
Composition Contest, 2nd Place (b.
1982)
Ted
Gurch, clarinet
*Providence
(2004) Andrew
Drannon
2005 ACS Student
Composition Contest, 1st Place (b.
1984)
John
McMurtery, flute Ted Gurch, clarinet Helen Kim, violin
Craig
Hultgren, cello Adam Bowles, piano Lee Ferguson, percussion
James
Romig, conductor
*New
work composed for 2005 Festival
Milton Babbitt
was born on 10 May 1916 in Philadelphia and studied composition privately with
Roger Sessions. He earned degrees from New York and Princeton Universities and
has been awarded honorary degrees from Middlebury College, Swarthmore College,
New York University, the New England Conservatory, University of Glasgow, and
Northwestern University. He taught at Princeton and currently teaches at The
Juilliard School. An extensive
catalogue of works for multiple combinations of instruments and voice along
with his pioneering achievements in synthesized sound have made Babbitt one of
the most celebrated of 20th-century composers. He is a founder the
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and a member of the Editorial Board
of Perspectives of New Music. The recipient of numerous honors, commissions,
and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize Citation for
his "life's work as a distinguished and seminal American composer,"
Babbitt is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Fellow of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Bla Bartok (1881-1945), Hungarian composer, pianist
and ethnomusicologist, was responsible,with Zoltn Kodly, for the awakening of
the interest in Hungarian folk music. While being thus occupied Bartk never
neglected his engagement with Western art music. Initially his musicalstyle was
influenced by composers such as Brahms, R. Strauss, Debussy and Stravinsky.
These influences gradually gave way to the impact of Hungarian, Slavonic and
Romanian folk music, a consequence of his activities in the field of
ethnomusicology. Notwithstanding these influences Bartk developed a
distinctive personal style, a style to which the audience of his own days did
not always respond, but which, towards the end of the twentieth century, is met
with more and more appreciation and admiration. A selection from Bartk's vast
output: Concerto for Orchestra, Dance Suite, Divertimento, Music for Strings,
Percussion and Celesta, 3 Piano Concertos, 2 Violin Concertos, Viola Concerto,
the opera Bluebeard's Castle, the pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin, the ballet
The Wooden Prince, Chamber Music: 6 String Quartets, Contrasts (written for
Benny Goodman), Piano Music: For Children, Mikrokosmos, Sonatas, Bagatelles,
Folk Song transcriptions, and many other works.
Adam Bowles
is becoming increasingly active on the contemporary art-music scene, performing
frequently in the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, Artburst, and similar venues
for new music. Mr. Bowles is a native of Los Angeles who is nearing completion
of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music. He obtained his Bachelor of Music degree at the
Eastman School of Music, and received his Master of Music at the New England
Conservatory of Music. His main teachers have been Milton Stern, Barry Snyder,
Jacob Maxin, and Eugene and Elizabeth Pridonoff. He has also received
periodic coaching with Richard Goode, Malcolm Bilson, and Seymour Lipkin. He is
now an instructor on the Birmingham-Southern College Conservatory faculty where
he teaches the two highest levels of music theory in addition to maintaining a studio of private students. At the
college level he teaches Accompanying and both years of Keyboard Harmony for
music majors. During the year Mr. Bowles frequently collaborates in recital
with both students and faculty at BSC.
Gloria Cook
holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Cleveland Institute of Music.
She has won many competitions including the Cleveland Institute Concerto
Competition, the Springfield Symphony Concerto Competition, and the Ohio
Federation of Music Club State Competition. As a soloist, she has performed
with the Springfield Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Cleveland
Institute of Music Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony, and the Bach Festival Choir
and Orchestra. She also performed as a chamber music player at the Tanglewood
Music Festival and the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. Dr. Cook is an Assistant
Professor of Piano at Rollins College.
George Crumb
was born in Charleston, West Virginia, on October 24, 1929. His principal
teacher in composition was Ross Lee Finney at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, the university from which he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree.
Crumb has been the recipient of numerous honors, awards and commissions,
including: the 1968 Pulitzer Prize; the 1971 International Rostrum of Composers
(UNESCO) Award; Fromm, Guggenheim, Koussevitsky and Rockefeller Foundation
Awards; and is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and
Letters. In 1995 Crumb became the 36th recipient of the MacDowell medal, an
award named in honor of the American composer which is awarded annually to a
composer, writer or visual artist who, in the judgment of his/her peers has
made an outstanding contribution to the nation's culture. He is internationally
recognized as a composer and has traveled abroad extensively for the State
Department and other organizations to Asia, Australia and Europe. His music has
received numerous performances both in the US and around the world and his
orchestral works have been performed by all the major American orchestras. Audience enthusiasm, critical acclaim
and colleagues' praise have been extensive for Crumb's works. The attributes
most frequently cited are: an extraordinarily sensitive ear producing highly
refined timbral nuances, a very powerful evocative sense, and a sureness and
concision in realizing his musical intentions.
Nickitas J. Demos,
founder and Artistic Director of the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble, holds a
D.M.A. degree in composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case
Western Reserve University where he studied with Donald Erb. He received his
M.M. degree in composition from the Indiana University School of Music and
earned his B.M. degree in clarinet performance form the University North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has received performances by many major
orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the
Nashville Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Lukes. His chamber music
works have been performed by North/South Consonance, Thmyris, the Rialto Brass
Quintet and the Converse College Brass Quintet. Demos has recently been
commissioned by the Georgia Music Teachers Association to write a work honoring
the organizations 50th anniversary. Tonoi IV is the fourth in a series of
works for solo performers.
Andrew Drannon,
is a senior at Rhodes College and studies composition
with Brandon Goff. "Providence" is his first work and has been
featured in master classes with Claude Baker and Stephen Paulus. He has
received numerous piano and organ performance awards, including the Gladys
Cauthen Orchestral Soloist Award, the Ruth Moore Cobb Award in Instrumental
Music, and the American Guild of Organists Scholarship. He attended the
2000 Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts and was a featured artist at the
Beethoven Club in Memphis. Andrew formerly maintained a music and film review
site on the Internet and was part of the short-lived Memphis experimental rock
band The Orange Minute. He has dabbled in screenwriting and filmmaking,
and currently serves as the organist at Trinity Baptist Church in Cordova, TN.
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was born in New York on January 12th 1926. In 1949 Feldman met
John Cage, commencing an artistic association of crucial importance to music in
America in the 1950s. Cage was instrumental in encouraging Feldman to have
confidence in his instincts, which resulted in totally intuitive compositions.
He never worked with any systems that anyone has been able to identify, working
from moment to moment, from one sound to the next. His friends during the 1950s
in New York included the composers Earle Brown and Christian Wolff and painters
Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, and Franz Kline. The painters in particular influenced
Feldman to search for his own sound world, one that was more immediate and more
physical than had existed before. This resulted in his experimentation with
graph notation. From the late 1970s his compositions expanded in length to such
a degree that the second string quartet can last for up to five and a half
hours. Feldman died in Buffalo, NY in 1987.
Lee Ferguson
studied as a scholarship student at the University of Iowa under Thomas Davis.
In 1995 he received a B.M. in percussion performance and then was awarded a
Fulbright Scholarship to study with Bernhard Wulff at the Staatliche Hochschule
fr Musik in Freiburg, Germany (1996-98). Lee was a member of the Freiburg
Percussion Ensemble which received first prize in the German Music School
Competition for the category New Music (Leipzig 1998). He has played with
Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Surplus, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Musik
Fabrik NRW and is a member of the new-music initiative Suono Mobile. He is
dedicated to the performance of new music in solo and chamber repertoire.
Ferguson is a percussion instructor at the Southern Black Forest Music School
in Tiengen, Germany.
Brian Ferneyhough (b.
1943, Coventry). Is a renowned British composer of orchestral, chamber, choral,
vocal, and piano works that have been performed throughout the world.
Ferneyhough received his formal musical training at the Birmingham School of
Music from 1961-63 and studied composition with Sir Lennox Berkeley at the
Royal Academy of Music in London in 1966-67. He then studied composition with
Ton de Leeuw in Amsterdam in 1968-69 and with Klaus Huber at the Basel
Konservatorium from 1969-71. Ferneyhough taught composition at the
Musikhochschule Freiburg/Breisgau from 1973-86 and regularly gave masterclasses
at the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan from 1984-87. He then taught as
principal composition teacher at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag in 1986-87
and as Professor of Music at the University of California at San Diego from
1987-2000. He has taught composition as the William H. Bonsall Professor in
Music at Stanford University since 2000. He has given classes and lectures at
Darmstadt since 1976 and served as coordinator of its composition course from
1984-94. Moreover, he has directed the Voix Nouvelles courses in composition at
Royaumont since 1990 and has taught at IRCAM since 1993. He has also held guest
professorships at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm and the
University of Chicago.
Vinko Globokar was
born in 1934 in Anderny (France). From 13 to 21 years of age he lived in
Ljubljana (Slovenia), where he made his debut as jazz musician. He subsequently
studied trombone at the National Conservatory in Paris (1st prize in trombone
and chamber music). Globokar studied composition and conducting with Rene Leibowitz,
counterpoint with Andre Hodeir, and continued his studies with Luciano Berio.
He has performed the premires of a large number of works for trombone,
compositions by Luciano Berio, Maurizio Kagel, Rene Leibowitz, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu, and others. He has conducted his own works with
the orchestras of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Radio France, Radio Helsinki, Radio
Ljubljana, Jerusalem, and the Warsaw Philharmonic.From 1967 to 1976, Globokar
was Professor at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. In 1969, he was among the
founders of the free improvisation group "New Phonic Art ". From 1973
to 1979, he was the Director of the Department of Instrumental and Vocal
Research at Ircam in Paris, and from 1983 to 1999, he taught and conducted 20th-century
repertoire with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana based in Florence.
Brandon Goff,
is music librarian and instructor of composition and music technology at Rhodes
College. He hold an M.M. from Arkansas State University and recently completed
a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from the University of Memphis.
He has been an organizer of Imagine II electronic
music conference and has extensive experience as a recording engineer.
Ted Gurch
is Assistant Principal/E-flat Clarinetist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra,
a position he has held since 1989. He also performs frequently as a saxophonist
with the ASO, both in the orchestra and accompanying jazz and pop artists. He
attended the Eastman School of Music, earning a Bachelor's Degree in Applied Clarinet,
and the Performer's Certificate in 1986. Ted is a member of the contemporary
music ensemble Thmyris, with which he has performed and recorded numerous
world and regional premieres. He teaches in the ASO's Talent Development
Program, and is an Artist Affiliate at Emory University.
Rachel Heard is
active as performer, teacher and adjudicator for music organizations around the
U.S. She combines her experience on both the fortepiano and modern piano to
present recitals, lectures and demonstrations of the application of period
performance practice to interpretation today. She appeared at the International
Symposium in Calgary, Canada on The Young Mozart 1756-1776, during the 1991
Mozart Bicentennial. Other appearances include lectures at The Juilliard
School, Concordia College in Bronxville, NY, the Texas Music Teachers
Association State Convention, Piano Teachers Forum of Central New Jersey, South
Jersey Music Teachers Association, and Shore Music Educators Association. Ms.
Heard received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers University,
specializing in the 18th century fortepiano, after having earned Bachelor and
Master of Music degrees at The Juilliard School. Ms. Heard is not only a
performer on the fortepiano, but has been staff technician for the prestigious
Aston Magna Academy for three of their academies. She was a full-time artist
faculty member at the Westminster Conservatory in Princeton from 1992-1997, and
served a two-year term as president of the New Jersey Music Teachers Association
while in New Jersey. Before joining the Millsaps Performing Arts Department in
2002 as Assistant Professor, she was at Emory & Henry College, where she
was Chair of the Music Department.
Critics have called Dorothy
Hindman's music intense, gripping, and
frenetic, sonorous and affirmative, and music of terrific romantic
gesture. Each of her unique pieces explores her ongoing interest in issues of
musical perception, beauty, timbre, contextual meaning, and profundity. Her
work has been performed extensively in the U.S., and also in France, Germany,
Italy, Russia, Romania, and the Czech Republic, and has received numerous
awards. Recent commissions include Drift for
the Lithium Saxophone Quartet, Taut for
the Corona Guitar Kvartet, and Time Management for
bassist Robert Black. A native of Miami, Florida, Hindman has taught music
theory and composition at Birmingham-Southern College since 1994. Her works are
available on the Living Artist CD series.
Cellist Craig Hultgren
is an activist for new music, the newly creative arts, and the avant-garde. A
recipient of Artist Fellowships in 1992 and 1999 from the Alabama State Council
on the Arts, he has been a member since 1993 of Thmyris, a contemporary
chamber music ensemble in Atlanta. A long-time member of the Alabama Symphony,
he also plays in the Chagall Trio and the newly formed Luna Nova, new-music
ensemble of the Associated Colleges of the South. Hultgren is featured in three
solo CD recordings including most recently Electro-Acoustic Cello Book
on Living Artist Recordings. Currently, he is Secretary the Birmingham Art
Music Alliance. Hultgren has also served as president of the Birmingham Art
Association, where he instituted Birmingham Improv, the annual international
festival of improvisation. Nationally, he is a consultant for the Living Music
Foundation and on the Steering Committee of the New Directions Cello
Association. Every other year he holds the Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial,
an international competition highlighting the best new compositions for the
instrument
Evan Johnson (b. 1980) is a Presidential Fellow in
composition at the State University of New
York at Buffalo. A summa cum laude graduate
from Yale University in 2002, Johnson attended the
2003 Sommerakademie Schloss Solitude International Masterclass for Composers as well as the "Voix
Nouvelles" composition courses of the Fondation Royaumont, at which
Johnson was chosen as one of three composers to have a work of music
theatre fully produced and directed at Royaumont in October 2003. That
work, se relire contre le piano-jouet, co-created with director Richard Brunel, was repeated in
April 2004 at the Opra de Lille as part of that city's 2004 European
Capital of Culture festival. Also active as a pianist, electric bassist and
conductor, Johnson is one of the founding members of Augenmusik, a
Buffalo-based ensemble specializing in the performance of graphic or otherwise
open scores. His translation of Helmut Lachenmann's article "On my Second
String Quartet" appeared in a recent issue of Contemporary Music Review.
Helen Hwaya Kim,
Canadian violinist, earned her Bachelor and Master Degrees from The Juilliard
School. She has appeared as soloist with the Boston Pops, Atlanta, Milwaukee,
Green Bay, Vancouver, Calgary, Aspen, Juilliard, National Arts Center, and Montreal Metropolitan
Orchestras. She also performed for three
seasons as assistant and associate concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony
Orchestra. In 1992, she won the prestigious Artists International Competition
in New York and, as a result, gave
debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall and the Aspen Summer Music Festival. An
active chamber musician, she has performed at the Sante Fe and the La Jolla
chamber music festivals. Her performances have been broadcast on NPR, CBC and
KBS radio networks. Ms. Kim
resides in Atlanta where she is associate concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera
and performs with local contemporary music ensembles Thmyris and Bent
Frequency.
David Kottwitz
is a 2005 graduate of Rhodes College and is the 2nd place winner of
the 2005 ACS Student Composition Contest.
Timothy Kramers
works have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico,
including performances by the Indianapolis, Detroit, Tacoma, and San Antonio
Symphony Orchestras, the Winters Chamber Orchestra, North/South Consonance, the
SOLI Ensemble, the ONIX Ensemble (Mexico), and the Detroit Chamber Winds and
Strings. He has received grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the
NEA, the MacDowell Colony, Meet the Composer, BMI, ASCAP, the American Guild of Organists, and the
American Music Center among others.
His degrees are from Pacific Lutheran University (B.M.) and the
University of Michigan (M.M., D.M.A.), and he was a Fulbright Scholar to
Germany in 1988-89. He is
currently Associate Professor and Composer-in-Residence at Trinity University
in San Antonio. His works are
published by Southern, Earnestly Music, Hinshaw, and Selah and recorded on
Calcante, North/South, and MMC.
Cynthia Lawing
received her advanced degrees in both piano and Dalcroze Eurythmics from The
Cleveland Institute of Music. She
has appeared as a concerto soloist with numerous orchestras, including the
Cleveland Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony and the Hong Kong Philharmonic,
performing concertos of Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, Shostakovitch, Bach, and
Gershwin. She is a member of the
piano faculty at Davidson College where she composes, arranges music, and
participates in various chamber music ensembles in the area. Cynthia Lawing has
also established an outstanding reputation in the Far East, having embarked
upon five separate concert tours to the region, highlighted by inauguration
recitals for the Governor of Macau, and concerto appearances with the Hong Kong
Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of Macau.
Gyorgy Ligeti studied
at the Budapest Academy, where he began teaching in 1950. During this period he
followed the prevailing Kodaly-Bartk style in his works while also writing
more adventurous pieces (First Quartet, 1954) that had to remain unpublished.
In 1956 he left Hungary for Vienna. He worked at the electronic music studio in
Cologne (1957-8) and came to international prominence with his Atmosphres
(1961), which works with slowly changing orchestral clusters. This led to teaching
appointments in Stockholm (from 1961), Stanford (1972) and Hamburg (from 1973).
Meanwhile he developed the 'cloud' style in his Requiem (1965) and Lontano
for orchestra (1967), while writing an absurdist diptych for vocal soloists and
ensemble: Aventures (1966) and Nouvelles aventures
(1966). His interests in immobile drifts and mechanical processes are seen
together in his Second Quartet (1968) and Chamber Concerto (1970), while the
orchestral Melodien
(1971) introduced a tangle of melody. The combination of these elements, in
music of highly controlled fantasy and excess, came in his surreal opera Le
grand macabre (1978). His subsequent output has
been diminished by ill health, though it includes a Horn Trio (1982) in which
perverse calculation is carried into Romanticism. Other later works include Monument,
Selbstportrt, Bewegung, for two pianos (1976), two pieces
for harpsichord (1978), two Hungarian studies for chorus (1983) and a book of
piano studies (1985).
Cort Lippe is
Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Buffalo. He has been
active in the field of interactive computer music for more than 20 years. He
studied composition with Larry Austin in the USA; spent a year in Italy,
studying Renaissance music; and three years in The Netherlands, at the Instituut
voor Sonologie working with G.M. Koenig and Paul
Berg in the fields of computer and formalized music. He also lived for eleven
years in France, where he spent three years at the Centre d'Etudes de
Mathematique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu), directed
by I. Xenakis, while followed Xenakis' course on formalized music at the
University of Paris; and he worked for eight years at the Institut de
Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique
(IRCAM), founded by P. Boulez, where he developed real-time musical
applications and gave courses on new technology in composition.
Charles Norman Mason has received numerous awards including the 2005-06 Rome Prize in
Composition (Samuel Barber Fellowship), the Premi Internacional de Composici
Musical Ciutat de Tarragona Orchestra Music prize, National Endowment of the
Arts Individual Composers Grant, two fellowship awards from Alabama State
Council on the Arts, first prize in Atlanta Clarinet Society competition,
Delius Prize, BMI Award for Young Composers, International Bourges
Electro-Acoustic Competition, commission awards from MTNA, Dale Warland
Singers, Fairbanks Symphony, and Alabama Symphony. Mason is vice-president of
SEAMUS, founder of Living Artist Recordings, and teaches composition at
Birmingham-Southern College.
John McMurtery
holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School. He received
an M.M. from Rutgers University and a B.M. from Central Washington University.
Mr. McMurtery performs with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, the Manhattan
Chamber Orchestra, UpTown Flutes, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic,
The Society for Chromatic Art, and the New Vienna Chamber Ensemble. Recently,
he appeared as soloist with the
Artemis Chamber Ensemble in a performance of Carl Nielsen's Flute Concerto. Mr.
McMurtery has commissioned and premiered works by several composers, including
Jackson Hill, James Romig, and Edward Taylor. His primary teachers
include Dr. Hal Ott, Bart Feller, and Julius Baker.
Olivier Messiaen
(1908-1992), French composer and organist, was one of the most influential
teachers of the twentieth century. Messiaen was organist at the Sainte Trinite
Cathedral, and composed a large body of organ music. His harmonic idiom is
always highly colorful, and rhythmically ingenius. He was able to unify the
rhythmic intensity of Igor Stravinskys work with the dodecaphonic technique of
Arnold Schoenberg, being one of the first instructors to carefully analyze
their music and pave the way for such students as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Messiaen was
also one of the first composers to apply serial principles to rhythmic
organization, though serial techniques are used only as one means among many in
his arsenal. He had a predilection for cyclic forms, often using juxtaposed
blocks of differing sonority in his larger works. His thematic material is
drawn primarily from two sources: Catholic religious themes, and birdsong. To
this is added an advanced feeling for modality, building on the work of Charles
Tournemire. Messiaen composed in every musical genre of his time, though his
concertos and symphonic works are not entitled as such. His music revels in
naturalistic evocations and spiritual meditation. His Quartet for the End of
Time, composed in a German prison camp,
is one of the signature pieces of the mid-twentieth century.
Robert Patterson
holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Pennsylvania. His
mentors include George Crumb, John Baur, and Don Freund. His compositions have
been performed from South Africa to Norway and Spain to Seattle. Among the
awards he has received are the 1999 University of Michigan Bands Commission and
the 1994 International Composition Prize from the City of Tarragona in Spain.
In addition to his musical activities, Patterson helps develop PC-based hotel
software for Hilton Hotels, and his interest in computers has led him to become
an expert in musical engraving using a computer.
Erika Pipkin
is from a musical family and has played the piano since the age of six. She is
the winner of the Alys Stephens Music Scholarship for Piano at
Birmingham-Southern College and the 3rd place winner of the 2005 ACS
Student Composition Contest. Erika is a senior composition major.
Pianist Lynn
Raley
joined the Millsaps College Performing Arts faculty in 2002. Raley has given
solo recitals of new music in Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati, and New York, and
has performed in other cities in the United States, the Netherlands, and
Canada, where he appeared at the Jeunesses Musicales International Music of the Americas Festival in
1985. He has given lecture recitals on contemporary piano music at Rice
University, Westminster Choir College, and The Juilliard School. In 1999 he
performed music for piano and computer-generated sounds at the Santa Fe
International Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music and the Florida International
Electroacoustic Music Festival.
James Romig studied at the University of Iowa and Rutgers University,
where he earned a Ph.D. under the tutelage of Charles Wuorinen and Milton
Babbitt. His workscommissioned by soloists, ensembles, and arts
organizationshave been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and
Asia. He has previously held teaching positions at Rutgers University and
Bucknell University, has given recent masterclasses at Northwestern,
Interlochen, and Juilliard, and is currently on faculty at Western Illinois
University. His works are available from Parallax Music Press, Curving
Walkway Publications, and www.jamesromig.com. As a conductor, Romig works with
The Society for Chromatic Art (New York), Luna Nova (Associated Colleges of the
South), and Frankensteins Monster (Western Illinois University).
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), born in Russia, is acknowledged as one of the
great composers of the twentieth century. His work encompassed styles as
diverse as Romanticism, Neoclassicism and Serialism. His ballets for
Diaghilev's Ballets Russes included The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of
Spring, and Apollo. His music has been used in over thirty ballets originating
with New York City Ballet from 1948 through 1987, including Danses
Concertantes, Orpheus, The Cage, Agon, Monumentum pro Gesualdo, Rubies,
Symphony in Three Movements, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Concerto for Two Solo
Pianos, Suite from L'Histoire du Soldat, Concertino, and Jeu de Cartes.
Jennifer Stasack, Associate
Professor of Music at Davidson College, combines creative and
ethnomusicological interests by drawing on aesthetics and formal designs
indigenous to non-western musical systems in her compositional work. Awards
include individual artist's fellowships from the NEA and the North Carolina
Arts Council, grants from Meet the Composer, Arts International, and the Korean
Performing Arts Institute, and annual ASCAP Standard Awards. Residencies
include the MacDowell Colony, the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Center,
Akademi Seni Karawitan (Java), and fieldwork in India and Japan. Stasack's
works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Brazil, Argentina, South
Africa and Korea.
An Artist Associate in Voice in the
Department of Music at Davidson College, contralto Diane Thornton
has distinguished herself as a concert artist, opera singer and recitalist
across the country. Concert engagements include appearances with the Bach
Aria Group, the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall; the National
Chorale at Lincoln Center; and the Charlotte, Kansas City, Winston-Salem,
Roanoke, and North Carolina symphony orchestras. Operatic engagements
include roles with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Carolina, Gold
Coast Opera, Piedmont Opera Theater, Minikin Opera and Pennsylvania Opera
Theater. She has premiered American operas through the Billings Institute
of American Music and the Contemporary Opera Company of America; and has
premiered works by American composers in recital through venues such as the
Shakespeare Concerts in Boston, the Davidson College Concert Series, The Penn
Composers Guild, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, the College Music
Society and the Weymouth Center Artist Series. Awards include 2nd place
in the New York Center for Contemporary Opera International Opera Singers
Competition. This is Ms. Thornton's fourth season performing in the ACS
New Music Festival.
Edgard Varse (18831965 was a French-American composer. In Paris he first
studied mathematics and science but became more interested in music. He then
studied composition with Roussel and D'Indy at the Schola Cantorum and with
Widor at the Conservatory. After composing in Paris and Berlin, he went (1915)
to the United States, where he founded (1921) the International Composers'
Guild for the advancement of experimental music. A bold innovator whose early
works aroused angry protests, Varse explored entirely new rhythms and sounds
in such compositions as Hyperprism (1923); Intgrales (1925), both for wind instruments and percussion; Ionisation (1931), a sonata for percussion
instruments and sirens; and Pome Electronique (1958), which was performed at the Brussels Exposition.
Varse achieved highly dissonant effects by using the extreme registers of
orchestral instruments in combination with electronically produced sounds. In
his later years he completely rejected traditional rhythms, sonorities, and
instruments and became a leading proponent of modern electronic music.
New Orleans born composer, Terry Vosbein has received numerous commissions
from such organizations as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of
Art, Washington and Lee University and the University of Oregon. He has
composed works for orchestra, wind ensemble, various chamber ensembles and
choir. And his compositions have been performed all over the world. He has been
awarded four summer residencies at La Cit Internationale des Arts in Paris. In
the fall of 2001 he was awarded a fellowship at University College in Oxford,
where he composed Masque for Cello and Orchestra. And his composition "A
Prayer for Peace," a reaction to the events of September 11th, has
received performances worldwide. Currently he is fulfilling a commission from
James Bunte and David Riley, a sonata for alto sax and piano for their 2006
Carnegie Hall recital. Since 1996 Vosbein has been teaching music composition
at Washington and Lee University. He received his Masters in Composition from
James Madison University under the tutelage of John Hilliard, and his Doctorate
in Composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he was a student of
Donald Erb. His music can be found at www.vosbein.com
Charles Wuorinen has been composing since
he was five and he has been a forceful presence on the American musical scene
for more than four decades. In 1970, Wuorinen became the youngest
composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music, the specific work being Time's
Encomium,
an electronic composition written on commission from Nonesuch Records.
The Pulitzer and the MacArthur Fellowship are just two among many awards,
fellowships and other honors to have come his way. Wuorinen has written more than 200 compositions to date.
His newest works include Cyclops for Oliver Knussen and the London Sinfonietta, Symphony Seven, vocal
settings of poems by John Ashbery, Les Murray, Derek Walcott, and W.H. Auden, as well as three works for the Brentano Quartet:
Fourth String Quartet, Alap, and Josquiniana.
His opera, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, based on a novel
by Salman Rushdie with a libretto by poet James Fenton, will be
premiered by the New York City Opera in fall 2004 directed by Mark Lamos.
LUNA NOVA
New Music Ensemble of
the
Associated Colleges of
the South
Luna Nova, a group of seven musicians devoted to
contemporary music, was formed in 2003 to perform at the Associated Colleges of
the South New Music Festival. This flexible ensemble performs works ranging
from classic twentieth-century repertoire to new works by emerging composers,
and is especially interested in the education of young composers. During 2005
Luna Nova has performed at Washington and Lee University, Davidson College,
Rhodes College, the Dixon Gallery and Gardens (Memphis), and the Alabama School
for the Fine Arts (Birmingham). At the 2005 New Music Festival in Birmingham
they will perform the following new works written for them by members of the
ACS Composers forum and by winners of the 2005 ACS Student Composition Contest:
Faculty Works
Butterfly in
Reverse by Brandon Goff
Crossing
Rivers IV by Jennifer Stasack
Ferocious
Alphabets by James Romig
Paris Quintet by Terry
Vosbein
Vanishing
Perspectives by Timothy Kramer
Student Works
1st
Place - Providence by Andrew Drannon (Rhodes College)
2nd
Place - Rhuma Sulfa by David Kottwitz (Rhodes College)
3rd
Place The Labyrinth by Erika Pipkin (Birmingham-Southern)
The ACS New Music Festival is funded
in part by a grant to the ACS Technology Center from The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. For
further information about the ACS collaborative music project contact Patricia
Gray, Instructional Technology Specialist at gray@colleges.org or visit the
Orpheus Alliance website at: www.colleges.org/~music