2021 Twin Cities New Music Festival
program
Composer to Composer: Steven Takasugi
Das Fliegenpapier by Steven Kazuo Takasugi
Film premiere, performed by James DeVoll and Justin Anthony Spenner
film by Michael Duffy
Dr. Takasugi LIVE lecture and Q&A
July 2, 2021
12:00-1:30 pm
LIVE at the University of Minnesota Saint Paul Student Center Theater
2017 Buford Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55108
or register to join virtually HERE
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Parking: There are meters available on the street, as well as parking in the Gortner Ave Ramp behind the McGrath Library and in Lot 101.
Co-hosted by 113, the American Composers Forum, and the University of Minnesota. Co-sponsored by 113 and the University of Minnesota School of Music.
Dementia NOS, A Sound art Installation
by Benjamin J M Klein
Corny or sentimental greeting cards are a way to connect in the midst of separation. A period of isolation can fragment any sense of what to convey in these greetings. Disintegrating and spotty memory becomes tangled in the blare of info-media platforms competing for attention.
Nightly Viewings in the Park Square Theatre Lobby
Portrait Concert: Bethany Younge
Daily Screenings
Studio Z
275 Fourth Street East, Unit 200
Saint Paul, MN 55101
July 8 and 9, 2021 at 8:00 pm;
July 10, 2021 at 4:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
Program
YAPPY PACE by Bethany Younge
film by Bethany Younge
Bethany Younge, voice
Laura Cocks, voice
Waterswaterswaters by Bethany Younge
film by Benjamin J M Klein
Chartreuse String Trio:
Myra Hinrichs, violin
Carrie Frey, viola
Helen Newby, cello
HER DISAPPEARANCE by Bethany Younge
film by Tiffany M. Skidmore
Nina Dante, soprano
Justin Anthony Spenner, baritone
zero by Bethany Younge
film by Joey Crane
Myra Hinrichs, violin
Carrie Frey, violin
James DeVoll, bass flute
Laura Cocks, C flute
Scotty Horey, percussion
Mike Alexander, horn in F
Nina Dante, soprano
Concrete by Bethany Younge
film by Bethany Younge
Shannon Wettstein Sadler, piano
I’ll Bleed Your Lines by bethany younge*
film by Tiffany M. Skidmore
Myra Hinrichs, violin
Carrie Frey, viola
Helen Newby, cello
James DeVoll, flute
Pat O’Keefe, clarinet
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, saxophone
Shannon Wettstein Sadler, piano
Nina Dante, soprano
Adam Zahller, tenor
*World Premiere
Festival Film Screenings
Studio Z
275 Fourth Street East, Unit 200
Saint Paul, MN 55101
July 8 and 9, 2021
6:30 to 10:30 pm;
July 10, 2021
4:00 to 8:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
Program
Das Fliegenpapier by Steven Kazuo Takasugi
Film by Michael Duffy
fardanceCLOSE by Chaya Czernowin
When Waking by Anthony R. Green
Empty Force by Bethany Younge
Film by Tiffany M. Skidmore
Esplorazione VII by Marco Longo
Film by Nina Dante
(Washington, D.C.) Memory Space by Alvin Lucier
Film by Caden Vandervort
Chiaroscuro by Josh Musikantow
Vessel by Joe Horton
mutually exclusive by Tiffany M. Skidmore
Impressões- n.º1 by Helder Oliveira
Film by Nina Dante
soft. pink. by The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker
Confessions by Tiffany M. Skidmore
A Hill in Natchez by Joe Horton
ICD-10CM R55 by The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker
Film by Jeffery Kyle Hutchins
ANNA by Anat Spiegel
Film by Thomas Myrmel
L’enigme et son sommeil by Jean-Pascal Chaigne
Film by Nina Dante
Learning the Trick by Joey Crane
Chamber Music I
LIVE at the Park Square Theatre on the Andy Boss Thrust Stage
20 West Seventh Place
Saint Paul, MN 55102
July 8, 2021
7:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Festival Pass $50
WARNING: Contains nudity. Viewer discretion is advised. Children not permitted.
Purchase Tickets HERE
To access the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Stage, take the lobby elevators or staircase to the building's lower level (LL).
Program
Maulwerke, I by Dieter Schnebel*
Justin Anthony Spenner, voice
Adam Zahller, voice
Zwei Akte by Mauricio Kagel*
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, saxophone
Amy Nam, harp
Lizz Windnagel, actor
Adam Zahller, actor
Shelby Richardson, director
Maulwerke, II by Dieter Schnebel*
Justin Anthony Spenner, voice
Adam Zahller, voice
Dear Ape by Alfred Jimenez*
Lizz Windnagel, soprano
Adam Zahller, tenor
WARNING: Contains nudity. Viewer discretion is advised. Children not permitted.
*North American Premiere
Portrait Concert: Joe Horton
Patrick Pegg, co-producer, projection operator, and beat maker
LIVE at the Park Square Theatre on the Andy Boss Thrust Stage
20 West Seventh Place
Saint Paul, MN 55102
July 8, 2021
9:00 pm
(after-party to follow in the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Rehearsal Hall)
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
To access the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Stage, take the lobby elevators or staircase to the building's lower level (LL).
Program
Untitled*
The Dream Songs Project:
Alyssa Anderson, soprano
Joseph Spoelstra, guitar
Vessel*
Maya Bennardo, violin
Laura Harada, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
Joey Crane, cello
Michelle Kinney, cello
Irving Steinberg, double bass
Mike Alexander, horn in F
deVon Russell Gray, flute/bassoon
Benjamin J M Klein, tuba
Heather Barringer, percussion
*World Premiere
Chamber Music II
LIVE at the Park Square Theatre on the Andy Boss Thrust Stage
20 West Seventh Place
Saint Paul, MN 55102
July 9, 2021
7:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
To access the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Stage, take the lobby elevators or staircase to the building's lower level (LL).
Program
In Between by Yu Kuwabara**
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, saxophone
Shannon Wettstein Sadler, piano
Scotty Horey, percussion
Renka I by Toshio Hosokawa
The Dream Songs Project:
Alyssa Anderson, soprano
Joseph Spoelstra, guitar
Tharmas the Father/Enion the Mother by Tiffany M. Skidmore*
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, sopranino saxophone
Story of I-Not by Jessie Cox
TJ Borden, cello
pause
dove tutto è stato preso (Innerspace II) by Maurizio Azzan
Benjamin Downs, piano
33 Words by Andrew Greenwald
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, saxophone
Constructive Drama by Amer Ali
Benjamin Downs, piano
Limun by Clara Iannotta
andPlay Duo:
Maya Bennardo, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
*World Premiere
**North American Premiere
Portrait Concert: Anthony R. Green
LIVE in the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Rehearsal Hall
20 West Seventh Place
Saint Paul, MN 55102
July 9, 2021
9:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
To access the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Rehearsal Hall enter the historic Hamm Building on Saint Peter Street, between Sixth Street and Seventh Place, and take the lobby elevators or staircase to the building's lower level (LL).
Program
Connections*
(log into Instagram on your smartphone to participate in this premiere performance)
Alyssa Anderson, voice/jaw harp
Heather Barringer, percussion
Joey Crane, cello/voice
Michael Duffy, percussion/voice
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, baritone saxophone
Benjamin J M Klein, tuba
Ruth Marshall, cello
Patricia Ryan, cello
Tiffany M. Skidmore, voice
Walt Skidmore, guitar
pause
on/Zeker
Maya Bennardo, violin
P is for…
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, voice
Recovering
Patricia Ryan, cello
Collide-oscope IV
andPlay Duo:
Maya Bennardo, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola/voice
*World Premiere
Portrait Concert: Steven kazuo Takasugi
LIVE at the Park Square Theatre on the Andy Boss Thrust Stage
20 West Seventh Place
Saint Paul, MN 55102
July 10, 2021
7:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
To access the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Stage, take the lobby elevators or staircase to the building's lower level (LL).
Program
Strange Autumn
Justin Anthony Spenner, baritone
Scotty Horey, percussion
Die Klavierübung, Movement I
Benjamin Downs, piano
Jargon of Nothingness
Pat O’Keefe, clarinet
Stuart Breczinski, oboe
Das Fliegenpapier
James DeVoll, flute
Justin Anthony Spenner, vocalist/flute
pause
Diary of a Lung
Perry So, conductor
James DeVoll, flute
Pat O’Keefe, clarinet
Stuart Breczinski, oboe
Mike Alexander, horn in F
Amy Nam, harp
Benjamin Downs, piano
Marina Kifferstein, violin
Maya Bennardo, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
TJ Borden, cello
Irving Steinberg, double bass
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, baritone saxophone
Walt Skidmore, trumpet in C
Thomas Myrmel, trombone
Scotty Horey, percussion
Heather Barringer, percussion
Timothy Roy, Audio Engineer
FIX agency, lighting design
Steven takasugi’s sideshow
LIVE at the Park Square Theatre on the Andy Boss Thrust Stage
20 West Seventh Place
Saint Paul, MN 55102
July 10, 2021
9:00 pm
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $5
Children FREE
Festival Pass $50
Purchase Tickets HERE
To access the Park Square Theatre Andy Boss Thrust Stage, take the lobby elevators or staircase to the building's lower level (LL).
Program
Sideshow
James DeVoll, flute
Pat O’Keefe, clarinet
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, saxophone
Marina Kifferstein, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
TJ Borden, cello
Benjamin Downs, piano
Adam Zahller, guitar
Timothy Roy, audio engineer
FIX Agency, lighting design
Special Thanks to Alyssa Anderson, Heather Barringer, Rachel Brees, Josh Clausen, Michael Duffy, Joe Horton, Jeffery Kyle Hutchins, Benjamin J M Klein, Scott Miller, Thomas Myrmel, Patrick Pegg, Dave Peterson, Timothy Roy, Walt Skidmore, Caden Vandervort, Jonathan Hickox-Young, and Six Yu. Your willingness to sacrifice, dedication, and expertise have made this event possible.
Attended the festival and have thoughts to share?
Take our audience feedback survey here, or scan the QR code below. Your feedback helps us plan for future events and provides useful analytics to grant committees and donors!
This activity is supported, in part, by the City of Saint Paul Cultural Sales Tax Revitalization Program and is also made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
andPlay
Described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration” and performing “with a welcoming and dynamic spirit,” andPlay is committed to expanding the existing violin/viola duo repertoire by commissioning new works and actively collaborating with living artists. The “genre-busting” (Midwest Records) New York City-based duo of Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola, first played to an eager crowd on Fire Island in the summer of 2012 and has since commissioned over forty works. andPlay’s performances have been described as “sheer virtuosity” (Cinemusical), “otherworldly” (New York Music Daily) and “an awful lot of fun for people who gravitate towards stark, edgy harmonies and textures” (Lucid Culture).
andPlay has collaborated closely with numerous composers, including Robert Honstein, Scott Wollschleger, Clara Iannotta, David Bird, Bethany Younge and Sky Macklay, and consider those relationships to be an integral part of their artistic process. Honstein praises the duo for their "consummate professionalism, fierce musicality and an unflappable good spirit." Their current season has been adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic to include virtual residencies at Tufts University, Haverford College, and San Jose State University, as well as video premieres of new works by Victoria Cheah and Shawn Jaeger.
andPlay was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Concert Artists Guild Victor Emaleh Competition and was the recipient of a 2016 CMA Classical Commissioning grant with composer Ravi Kittappa, made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.
Recent highlights include a five-city tour in Sweden performing their Translucent Harmonies program, appearances on the Oh My Ears Festival (Phoenix) and Re:Sound Festival (Cleveland), and a recording residency at EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy, NY). The duo has also performed at venues including the Center for New Music (San Francisco), Scandinavia House (New York), Roulette (New York), Monk Space (Los Angeles), Short North Stage (Columbus), and Aftershock Theater (Pittsburgh).
Beyond the concert stage, Maya and Hannah are passionate educators offering workshops in contemporary string techniques, chamber music coaching and composition notation for strings. They have given performances and masterclasses at Arizona State University, UC Santa Cruz, Western Connecticut State University, Bowling Green State University and are Artists-in-Residence at the Snow Pond Composers Workshop (Sidney, ME). Their audience engagement series, andPlay (in) Conversation, includes events like graphic score workshops for children, and opportunities to look inside the collaborative process as composers write new works for andPlay.
Maya and Hannah met while studying at Oberlin Conservatory and continued their educations at New York University and the Manhattan School of Music. Despite living on opposite sides of the city, the members of andPlay enjoy taking the subway to meet for rehearsals and delicious baked goods.
Mike Alexander
An accomplished solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, Mike Alexander holds a master’s degree in horn performance from the New England Conservatory, and a bachelor’s in horn performance with Artist Diploma from the Eastman School of Music. In addition to teaching at MacPhail, Mike is currently the horn instructor at the University of Wisconsin River Falls.
Mike has appeared as a soloist with the New England Conservatory’s Philharmonia Orchestra, The Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, The Duluth Symphonic Winds, and the Itasca Symphony Orchestra, and was the Eastman School’s representative in the Conservatory Project Chamber Orchestra with a weeklong residency at the Kennedy Center under the direction of composer John Adams. Mike is also a frequent performer in MacPhail’s top tier performances, including performing Benjamin Britten’s “Still Falls the Rain” as a part of MacPhail’s Faculty Recital Series this December.
As a professional musician, Mike has performed in the horn sections of orchestras throughout the United States, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic (NY), the Syracuse Symphony, and as a member of the Minnesota Opera Orchestra.
Through his teaching, Mike hopes to foster in his students a lifelong appreciation of and enthusiasm for classical music and the horn.
Amer Ali
Amer Ali (b. 1990) is a Syrian Kurdish composer whose music focuses on extremes of density and displays the potential energy of the performers by considering physiological anatomy as an essential element in the composition process.
His music is characterized by pressure, stuttering, helplessness and energy
Alyssa Anderson
Dr. Alyssa Anderson (mezzo-soprano) is an active performer and arts administrator based in Minneapolis. She received her B.M. in performance from the State University of New York, College at Fredonia, and her M.M. and D.M.A. from the University of Minnesota.
As Artistic Director and vocalist of The Dream Songs Project, a classical voice and guitar duo based in Minneapolis, Alyssa has commissioned twelve major works for the ensemble and premiered numerous pieces by local and national composers in concerts across the US. She is a founding member and current Artistic Director of the experimental chamber group, RenegadeEnsemble, and also performs as The Poem Is Done with saxophonist Dr. Jeffery Kyle Hutchins.
A core member of The Rose Ensemble since 2015, Alyssa has also performed as a soloist with numerous other ensembles and presenting organizations in the Twin Cities, such as Zeitgeist, Mirandola Ensemble, LOFTRecital, 113 Composer Collective, Metamorphosis Opera Theater, Consortium Carissimi, Minnesota Bach Ensemble, Oratorio Society of Minnesota, Kenwood Symphony Orchestra, Twin Cities Lyric Theater, and Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. More information can be found at http://alyssaanderson.org
Maurizio Azzan
Maurizio Azzan is an Italian composer and sound artist. He studied composition at Conservatory of Milan (with A. Solbiati), at CNSM of Paris (with F. Durieux, Y. Maresz), at IRCAM and with Salvatore Sciarrino. He has received a bachelor’s and a master’s in Philology and Ancient Literature from the University of Turin. His interest in visual and performing arts, as well as in ancient and contemporary literature, has deeply influenced his concept of music as a dynamic space-time network, in which instability is the pivoting existential condition.
His music has been performed in festivals and venues such as Biennale Musica di Venezia, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Wien Moderne, Teatro la Fenice di Venezia, MITO SettembreMusica, Mozarteum Salzburg, Milano Musica, ManiFeste, IRCAM Concert Season, MATA New York, Budapest Music Center, Romaeuropa Festival, Tempo Reale, Festival Aperto, Dampfzentrale Bern, Impuls Graz, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Time of Music Viitasaari, Gare du Nord Basel, Biennial Festival of the European Recorder Players Society, and Open Recorder Days Amsterdam. Ensembles and soloists who have performed his works include Ensemble Intercontemporain, Divertimento Ensemble, Orchestra del Teatro la Fenice di Venezia, Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam, Mdi Ensemble, Schallfeld Ensemble, Proton Bern, Ensemble Fractales, Ex Novo, IEMA, Ensemble L’arsenale, Platypus Ensemble, Ensemble Reconsil, Sentieri Selvaggi, Anna D'Errico, Antonio Politano, Ruben Mattia Santorsa, Jordan Dodson, Susanne Fröhlich, Marie Ythier, Cameron Crozman, and many others. Winner of the National Prize of Arts from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, Maurizio Azzan has been artist in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts de Paris and composer in residence in the framework of the residence-program offered by the Austrian Federal Chancellery in cooperation with KulturKontakt Austria.
His works are published by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni-Sugarmusic S.p.A., Milan
The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker
Celebrated for her “terrifying dynamic range,” cleanliness of sound, as well as unique sensitivity and ability to sculpt her performance for the acoustics of a space, The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker is a dramatic performer with an honest, near psychic connection to music, which resounds with audiences of all ages and musical backgrounds. As a creator, her understanding of sonic space from organic intuition and studies in music production, pair with a unique eclectic voice, making for a spatial and auditory experience of music. Eschewing the collection of traditional titles that describe single elements of her body of work, Elizabeth refers to herself as a “New Renaissance Artist” that embraces a constant stream of change and rebirth in practice, which expands into a variety of media, chiefly an exploration of how sonic and spatial worlds can be manipulated to personify a variety of philosophies and principles both tangible as well as intangible.
Elizabeth has received considerable recognition from press as well as scholars, for her innovative conceptual compositions and commitment to inclusive programming. In addition to studies of her work, Elizabeth has been awarded several fellowships, grants, and residencies to further her artistic endeavours. An active advocate for the arts, she founded The New Music Conflagration, Inc., a Florida-based nonprofit dedicated to furthering the work of contemporary musicians and composers; in addition in 2016 she established the Florida International Toy Piano Festival, to create a platform for serious toy piano concert works. As a solo artist, Elizabeth is represented by Aerocade Music, her first solo album on the California-based label Quadrivium released worldwide in May 2018 to rave reviews. She is the author of the world’s first comprehensive toy piano method book as well as a mixed media book about the experiences of being a young artist in the modern world. Elizabeth is an official Schoenhut Toy Piano Artist, and endorsed by Source Audio LLC due to her extensive work with interactive electronics that mould movement works into sonic compositions. As an experimental filmmaker, her work has been shown at festivals including Women of the Lens (United Kingdom), and the African Smartphone International Film Festival (Nigeria). In March 2018, Elizabeth retired from nonprofit arts administration to focus on her international solo career, though she remains committed to the community through workshops and public speaking engagements. Elizabeth is a recipient of a 2019-2020 Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida as well as a commission for The Great Black Music Ensemble through the American Composers Forum (ACF) Connect programme in partnership with The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM Chicago).
Heather Barringer
Percussionist Heather Barringer joined Zeitgeist in 1990. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin, River Falls with a bachelor’s in Music Education in 1987 and studied at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory, studying with Allen Otte from 1988-90. In addition to performing and recording with Zeitgeist, she is a member of Mary Ellen Childs' ensemble, Crash, and has worked with many Twin Cities organizations, including Nautilus Music-Theater, Ten Thousand Things Theater, Minnesota Dance Theater, and Aby Wolf.
Maya Bennardo
Violinist Maya Bennardo is an active performer living in Brooklyn, NY. Maya is passionate about opening the dialogue between composers and performers, and is devoted to performing music of the present. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” She is a core member of Mivos Quartet, Nouveau Classical Project and Hotel Elefant, and has performed with ensemble mise-en, Contemporaneous, Mimesis Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, and [Switch~ Ensemble]. Maya also performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist, Karl Larson, in their duo, Bennardo/Larson.
Recent highlights include recording residencies at Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY and at the Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm, Sweden with andPlay, performances in Walt Disney Hall on Noon to Midnight (Los Angeles, CA), Lucerne Festival Academy with Saul Williams (Lucerne, CH), North Sea Jazz Festival with Ambrose Akinmusire (Rotterdam, NE), June in Buffalo (Buffalo, NY), Lincoln Center Festival (NYC), and the premiere of a new work for solo speaking violinist by Jesse Diener-Bennett. Maya was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at Mass MoCa 2014/15, a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra in 2014, and a participant in the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik 2016.
Maya also enjoys a rich teaching life, and teaches in her private studio. She graduated from NYU with a Master of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music. She studied with Gregory Fulkerson at both institutions.
TJ Borden
Tyler J. Borden is a musician working in and around the cello in a variety of capacities. Originally from Western New York, he currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where he maintains a sprawling practice that encompasses free improvisation, just intonation application, and the interpretation of complex scores. He is currently the cellist of the Mivos Quartet, a string quartet which specializes in the performance of contemporary music, as well as the [Switch~ Ensemble], a group which concentrates on performing works that integrate technology and multimedia.
Stuart Breczinski
Stuart Breczinski is a New York-based oboist, composer, audio engineer, and educator whose early interest in making unusual sounds on the oboe has developed into a passion for creating and sharing innovative audio with audiences of all backgrounds. A proponent of chamber music and the music of our day, Breczinski is a member of the City of Tomorrow, a woodwind quintet dedicated to the promotion and performance of contemporary works, and of Ensemble Mélange, a virtuosic sextet whose repertoire spans a myriad of genres. He performs regularly as a chamber musician with NOVUS NY, the Talea Ensemble, and Contemporaneous, and he has also performed with Bang on a Can, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the New York New Music Ensemble, and Signal.
Breczinski was the winner of the 2018 Matthew Ruggiero International Woodwind Competition, and he received an honorable mention at the 2015 IDRS Gillet-Fox International Competition. He is an affiliate artist instructor of oboe at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. From 2012-2014 he was the oboist with Ensemble ACJW (now Ensemble Connect), a program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education.
Jean-Pascal Chaigne
Jean-Pascal Chaigne (1977) studied composition with Allain Gaussin then Emmanuel Nunes and Stefano Gervasoni at the Paris Conservatory where he obtained first prizes in composition, orchestration, analysis, harmony, counterpoint and 20th century music writing. His works are performed by ensembles such as Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Musicatreize, L’Itinéraire, Ensemble Aleph, L'Instant Donné, Atmusica, Sound Initiative, Quatuor Béla, Quatuor Leonis and Quatuor Habanera.
Jean-Pascal Chaigne's music illustrates his particular interest for poetry: first, his will to include his works within rigorously developed cycles – Le travail du silence, Mezza Voce, Objets, Hymnes à la nuit, Les chiffres du corps and his Triptych after Kafka – echoes the requirements of Mallarmé in Livre; also, his music is almost always inspired by the work of poets such as Anne-Marie Albiach, Claude Royet-Journoud and Danielle Collobert.
Holding a PhD in musicology and author of several analytical articles, Jean-Pascal Chaigne also conducts research activity, thus nourishing his reflexion on musical creation. After teaching in the Universities of Nice and Saint-Etienne, then in the Conservatory of Annecy, he is now professor and researcher at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève.
Chartreuse String Trio
Chartreuse string trio is violinist Myra Hinrichs, violist Carrie Frey, and cellist Helen Newby. Uniquely committed to repeat performances and developing the string trio repertoire through adventurous commissions, Chartreuse has premiered works by dozens of composers and toured extensively in the U.S. Northeast, Midwest, and California, as well as in Norway. Cleveland Classical described the trio in concert as “a maelstrom almost tactile in its grittiness” and “as much fun to watch as to listen to.”
Equally devoted to education, Chartreuse has given performances and workshops for students of all ages at institutions including SUNY Fredonia, Oberlin College's Winter Term Chamber Music Intensive, the Norges Musikkhøgskole in Oslo, Toneheim Folkehøgskole, Tromsø University, middle schools in Philadelphia and Cleveland, and Kendal at Oberlin. This season, the trio offered virtual class visits at Depauw University and Valparaiso University, recorded a concert for the Johnstone Fund for New Music from a lobster shed, premiered works by Temple University composition students on YouTube, and will appear on the Twin Cities New Music Festival.
Chartreuse was part of the inaugural cohort of the Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant in 2020-2021, made possible with generous support from the New York Community Trust.
Joshua Clausen
Described by Public Radio International as “powerful” and “poignant,” Joshua Clausen’s works frequently fuse strong rhythmic textures and intricate patterning with narratives from history, mass culture and current events.
Clausen is a 2018-2019 McKnight Composer Fellow, currently collaborating with ARENA DANCES and artist Kim Heidkamp on THERMAL, an interdisciplinary installation and evening-length performance at the American Swedish Institute, the chamber ensemble 10th Wave, and ceramic artist Anna Metcalfe. Other recent collaborations include Hold My Hand with ARENA DANCES (Fitzgerald Theater), Crossfire with HUB New Music (Boston), a mass choir performance of Requiem at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and the film VESSEL with members of the FIX collective, directed by Joe Horton (Minneapolis Institute of Art).
Previous honors include awards from the Jerome Foundation Fellowship, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the American Composers Forum and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Performances include the 2018 Tribeca New Music Festival, Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, Ensemble Mise-En, ShoutHouse, Verdant Vibes in Providence RI, and the American Composers Forum showcase. Clausen’s music has been featured on PRI’s The World with Marco Werman and Classical Minnesota Public Radio.
Clausen is a member of the Spitting Image Collective, a trio of Twin-Cities composers who create projects based on community outreach and education, and a board member of the 113 Composers Collective, a Twin-Cities group dedicated to composer-curated programming.
Laura Cocks
Laura Cocks is a New York-based flutist who works in a wide array of creative environments as a performer and promoter of contemporary music. Laura is the flutist and executive director of TAK ensemble, a member of the Nouveau Classical Project and the Association of Dominican Classical Artists, and is a frequent guest with ensembles such as Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, and many others. Cocks can be heard with TAK, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, and others on labels such as Carrier Records, ECM, Centaur Records, New Focus Recordings, Sound American, Denovali Records, Orange Mountain Music, Chambray Records, Amplify, TAK editions, Double Whammy Whammy, Winspear, Supertrain, and Gold Bolus with upcoming records out on TAK editions and Triptick Tapes. Cocks holds a doctorate from the Graduate Center, CUNY, and continues her writing and research in methods of corporeal analysis and bodily theories of art-making.
Jessie Cox
Jessie Cox is a critical theorist, composer, drummer and educator currently in pursuit of his Doctorate Degree at Columbia University. Growing up in Switzerland, and also having roots in Trinidad and Tobago, he is currently residing in NYC. He has written over 100 works for various musical ensembles including electroacoustic works, solo works, chamber- and orchestral works, works for jazz ensembles and choirs; including commissions and performances by LA Phil, Orchestra of St. Lukes, Ensemble Modern, Long Beach Opera, Wavefield Ensemble, Heidi Duckler Dance, JACK Quartet, Steve Schick, Claire Chase, String Noise Duo, ICE Ensemble, Gregory Oakes, Rebekah Heller, Vasko Dukovski, Either/Or, Fonema Consort, Cory Smythe, Kyle Motl, Clara Warnaar, Ryan Muncy, Katinka Kleijn, Promenade Sauvage, Janet Underhill, Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, Pink Noise Ensemble, etc.
As a performer he has played in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the USA; with musicians from all over the world including Benny Rietveld, Roman Filiu, John King, Claire Day, Steve Cardenas, Ras Moshe, William Roper, Josh Sinton, Ben Stapp, Sandy Ewen, Lisanne Tremblay, James Ilgenfritz, Julian Shore, Mark Wade, Maher Beauroy, Eric Wubbels, Miyama McQueens-Tokita, Marc Hannaford, Brian Krock, Weston Olencki, Lester St Louis, Sam Yulsman, Barbara LaFitte, Lucy Clifford, Tomas Sauter, Cehryl, etc.
He has been studying composition with George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, Richard Carrick, Annie Gosfield, Seth Cluett, Derek Hurst, Marti Epstein, Alfred Schweizer and Drums with Neal Smith, Tony “Thunder” Smith. Jessie has participated in the Accra Jazz Festival, the Martinique Jazz Festival, Langnau Jazz Festival, The Stone Series (NYC), La Phil’s Noon to Midnight Festival (Walt Disney Hall), New World Symphony’s Inside the Music (New World Center), Philharmonie Essen Festival NOW!, NUNC3 and NUNC4 at Northwestern University, New Music Gathering, Opera Omaha’s One Festival, Bang on a Can Music Series (Noguchi Museum), Italian Academy’s Summer Festival, National Sawdust Digital Discovery Festival, Roulette Interpretation Series, OpenICE Library Festival at Lincoln Center, Composers Now Festival, Issue Project Room, Frequency Series at Constellation (Chicago), Mis-En-Place Bushwick Curator Series, String Noise Sounds Series in NYC (Co-Curator), Polyfold, Rhythm and Thought Festival, and won the Leroy Southers Award (2015), Bill Maloof Award (2017). He has been aired on NPR, WBGO, WDR 3, HR2, SWR 2, Martinique 1, Visasat 1, TSF Jazz, WFMU, Fip Radio, ViaATV, France Ô, etc.
Jessie’s music can be heard on Aztec Music’s Declic Jazz Label, Gold Bolus Recordings and Infrequent Seams, as well as others.
He and projects where Jessie has been a part of have received grants and sponsoring from: the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, Alliance Francaise, Levedo Stiftung, Lyra Stiftung, Fritz-Gerber Stiftung, Berklee College of Music, Columbia University, Zeta Violins, etc.
Jessie Cox graduated summa cum laude from the Berklee College of Music on scholarship in 2017, with a degree in composition.
Joey Crane
Joey Crane is a composer, improviser, and performer based in Minneapolis, MN. He holds degrees in music composition from University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Louisville, and University of Minnesota where his primary instructors were James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, Steve Rouse, Kryzysztof Wolek, and James Dillon. He is Co-Founder and Executive Director of 113 Composers Collective. His works have been performed by ensembles throughout the US and Europe such as Duo Gelland, Ensemble Dal Niente, Fonema Consort, Acute Trio, the New Music Ensemble at Virginia Tech, and Tak Ensemble.
Chaya Czernowin
Chaya Czernowin was born and brought up in Israel. After her studies in Israel, at the age of 25, she continued studying in Germany (DAAD grant), the US, and then was invited to live in Japan (Asahi Shimbun Fellowship and American NEA grant) Tokyo, in Germany (a fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude) and in Vienna. Her music has been performed throughout the world, by some of the best orchestras and performers of new music, and she has held a professorship at UCSD, and was the first woman to be appointed as a composition professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria (2006–2009), and at Harvard University, USA (2009 and on) where she has been the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music. Together with Jean-Baptiste Jolly, the director of Akademie Schloss Solitude near Stuttgart and with composer Steven Kazuo Takasugi, she has founded the summer Academy at Schloss Solitude, a biannual course for composers, 2003- 2019. Takasugi and Czernowin also taught at Tzlil Meudcan, an international course based in Israel founded by Yaron Deutsch of Ensemble Nikel. Czernowin is an Israeli/ American Citizen.
Czernowin’s output includes chamber and orchestral music, with and without electronics. Her works were played in most of the significant new music festival in Europe and also in Japan Korea, Australia, US and Canada. She composed 4 large scale works for the stage: Pnima...ins Innere (2000, Munich Biennale) chosen to be the best premiere of the year by Opernwelt yearly critic survey, Adama (2004/5) with Mozart's Zaide (Salzburg Festival 2006) Adama has a second version written with Ludger Engles, with an added choir which was presented in Freiburg Stadttheater (2017). The opera Infinite Now was written in 2017 a commission of Vlaamse Opera Belgium, IRCAM paris and Mannheim Stadtheater. The piece, combines/ superimposes materials of the first world war (Luk Perceval theater piece "FRONT") with the short story Homecoming by Can Xue. Also this opera was chosen as the premier of the year in the international critics survey of Opernwelt. In 2020 Czernowin Wrote the text and music to Heart Chamber which was premiered and commissioned by the Deutsche Opere Berlin, in the direction of Claus Guth to a strong critical and public acclaim. Czernowin was appointed Artist in residence at the Salzburg Festival in 2005/6 and at the Lucern Festival, Switzerland in 2013, and at Huddersfield Festival 2021. During the Lockdown of the 2020 Pandemic Czernowin started studying electronic music with Hans Tutschku.
Characteristic of her work are working with metaphor as a means of reaching a sound world which is unfamiliar; the use of noise and physical parameters as weight, textural surface (as in smoothness or roughness etc), problematization of time and unfolding and shifting of scale in order to create a vital, visceral and direct sonic experience. all this with the aim of reaching a music of the subconscious which goes beyond style conventions or rationality.
In addition to numerous other prizes, Czernowin represented Israel at Uncesco composer's Rostrum 1980; was awarded the DAAD scholarship ('83–85); Stipendiumpreis ('88) and Kranichsteiner Musikpreis ('92), at Darmstadt Fereinkurse; IRCAM (Paris) reading panel commission ('98); scholarships of SWR experimental Studio Freiburg ('98, '00, '01 etc); The composer’s prize of Siemens Foundation ('03); the Rockefeller Foundation, ('04); a nomination as a fellow to the Wissenschaftkolleg Berlin ('08); Fromm Foundation Award ('09); and Guggenheim Foundation fellowship ('11); Heidelberger Kunstlerinen Preis ('16); The WERGO portrait CD The Quiet (5 orchestral pieces) has been awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics’ Award ('16 ). She was chosen as a member of the Akademie der Kuenste in Berlin in 2017.
Czernowin's work is published by Schott. Her music is recorded on Mode records NY, Wergo, Col Legno, Deutsche Gramophone, Kairos, Neos, Ethos, Telos Naxos and Einstein Records. She lives near Boston with composer Steven Kazuo Takasugi.
Nina Dante
Soprano/vocalist Nina Dante is a soloist, chamber musician, improviser, composer, and writer. Musical experimentation and the continual discovery of the voice’s emotive power and technical ability are the inspiring forces behind her work. Her current work and artistic practices are rooted in the lush, animate landscape of the Pacific Northwest, and are dedicated to deepening communication with, exchange with, knowing of, and personal relationship with the local wilderness.
Hailed for her “amazing performance of vocal versatility by a uniquely gifted young artist” (Chicago Classical Review), Dante has performed for the Long Beach Opera, Resonant Bodies Festival, BAM, Lampo, Issue Project Room, Roulette, the Kitchen, National Sawdust, the University of Chicago’s Contempo, the Mexican Cultural Institute, Performa, Indexical, Visiones Sonoras, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, the Experimental Sound Studio, the 113 New Music Festival, New Music Miami, the Latino Music Festival, the Frequency Festival, Festival Interfaz, the Poetry Foundation, and the Renaissance Society, among others.
Dante is co-founder, co-director and soprano of the avant garde chamber ensemble Fonema Consort, which has a special focus on presenting innovative new works for the voice in a chamber setting, and on presenting the works of Latin American composers. Her recordings with Fonema can be found on New Focus Recordings and Parlour Tapes+.
With Fonema and as a soloist, Dante has been in residence and given performances at Oberlin Conservatory, Columbia University, Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Scripps College, UNAM, the 113 Composers Collective, and New England Conservatory, among others.
Dante’s recent compositions have been featured on the Resonant Bodies Festival, the ESS Quarantine Concerts, Sō Percussion’s Brooklyn Bound, Indexical, the Center for New Music, the 113 Twin Cities New Music Festival and the Essential Indexical recent release Early MMXVIII.
James DeVoll
Flutist James DeVoll has appeared on concerts and recitals throughout the United States and Europe. Based in the Twin Cities, he maintains a busy freelance schedule performing in a variety of settings. He enjoys working with composers above all and has been involved with the premieres of over 60 new works with groups in the Twin Cities including 113 Composers Collective, the Strains New Music Group, and the American Composers Forum. In Europe, he spent two summers working with composers at the Centre Acanthes festival for contemporary music in France. Other performances have included venues in England, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and throughout France. He has also performed at the National Flute Association Conventions in New York City, Miami, Minneapolis, and in Kansas City, where he was a winner of the 2008 Convention Performers Competition. James earned music degrees from the University of Cincinnati College—Conservatory of Music (CCM), Yale, and the University of Minnesota. Additional studies were in France, where he obtained a diplôme from the Conservatoire Internationale d’Été, in Nice.
Benjamin Downs
Benjamin Downs is a pianist, scholar, and teacher based in Minneapolis, MN, United States. As a performer, he has been a prize winner in numerous national and international piano competitions including the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artist Competition, the Chautauqua International Piano Competition, the Northwestern Piano Competition, and the Cincinnati Chamber Music Competition. He has performed throughout the United States, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland as both a soloist, and with his wife, cellist Rebeccah Parker Downs. They have been featured performers at many venues including New York City’s WMP Concert Hall, the Bowdoin Music Festival, Brevard Music Festival, Chautauqua Music Festival, and the Linton Chamber Music Series. He has also collaborated with members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Windsor Symphony Orchestra. He completed his DMA in piano performance at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where his primary teacher was James Tocco. He also studied with Eugene and Elisabeth Pridinoff and Michael Chertock.
Benjamin is also an active musicologist and music theorist. He earned a PhD in the History and Theory of Music from Stony Brook University in 2018, specializing in philosophies of listening and European avant-garde music since 1968. He has received many awards for his scholarship, including a Fulbright Fellowship, a Paul Sacher Stiftung Research Scholarship, and two DAAD Fellowships. His work has been published in the Journal for Music Theory, Paul Sacher Stiftung’s Mitteilungen, and Music Research Forum.
He now lives in the Twin Cities with his wife, where he performs, teaches piano and music theory, and is the Director of the Shattuck-St. Mary’s Pre-Conservatory Program.
Michael Duffy
Michael Duffy (b. 1976), is a composer/improviser/sound artist/performer who cut his teeth in DIY hardcore punk. His work has been performed by Dal Niente, Irvine Arditti, Noriko Kawai, Duo Gelland, JACK, ICE, Second Instrumental Unit, and Zeitgeist. He is a member of the 113 Composers Collective and performs in the electro-acoustic duo Shield Your Eyes. Co-founder of the Contemporary Music Workshop at the University of Minnesota, he studied composition with James Dillon and currently works as the Music Technology, Media Lab and Studios Specialist.
Prior to moving to Minneapolis in 2006, he attended the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY studying composition with Jeff Nichols and Bruce Saylor, computer music with Hubert Howe, and percussion with Michael Lipsey.
Carrie Frey
Carrie Frey (viola) focuses on exploring sound with inquisitive musicians and composers and encouraging creativity in her students. A founding member of string trio Chartreuse and recent addition to the Rhythm Method String Quartet, she coordinates the chamber music program at Bloomingdale School of Music. In New York City, Carrie can be heard with ensembles including Desdemona, Wavefield, Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Echappé, Wet Ink Large Ensemble, Cantata Profana, Heartbeat Opera, toy piano/toy viola duo Wind-Up Elephant, and Quartet Metadata. Her debut sonata album, The Grey Light of Day, with pianist Robert Fleitz, was released by Wild Iris Productions in 2016. Carrie is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory (BM) and the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Performance Program (MM), and is currently pursuing a DMA at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
deVon Russell Gray
deVon R. Gray may be the world’s last cultural enigma. The multi-instrumentalist, classically trained composer is as comfortable writing orchestral and operatic works as he is churning out jazz riffs and hip-hop bravado. His breadth of knowledge saturates various instruments, multiple genres, and limitless styles. And he does it all so effortlessly even he is unaware that he’s working. While many creators spend hours perfecting their craft & skills, dVRG, as he is known, envisions the pen and watches the music write itself.
In addition to performing, Gray collaborates with artists (mostly musicians) to produce impactful journeys of socially conscious sound and art. Lending his expertise to several different local, regional, and international performing ensembles he’s fortunate to have shared stages and screens with folks including: Heiruspecs, Brother Ali, Chastity Brown, Waayaha Cusub, and many more.
A 2015 recipient of a Cedar Cultural Center commission, dVRG penned a new opus entitled Fractious Child (string 4tet); a work which attempts to juxtapose the insecurity and the beauty of life for black people in America. Redefining versatility, dVRG draws inspiration from an enviable record collection, from Claudio Monteverdi to Shuggie Otis, and communicates through nuanced sounds; a musical polyglot disguised as a lone star…ready to super nova.
Anthony R. Green
Anthony R. Green (b. 1984) is a composer, performer, and social justice artist. His practice of continuous questioning is centered on situational hyperbole, the embodiment of injustice, and the metaphysics of the oppressed. His work has been presented at Tivoli Vredenburg (Utrecht), studio ilka theurich (Hannover), Cité de la musique et de la danse (Strasbourg), Symphony Space (New York), Spectrum (New York), LiteraturHaus (Copenhagen), The Shoe Factory (Nicosia), and The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha), among others; and by such soloists and ensembles as Julian Otis (voice), Ashleigh Gordon and Wendy Reichman (viola), Ifetayo Ali-Landing (cello), Dr. Eunmi Ko, Jason Hardink, Stephen Drury, and Hayk Melikyan (piano), counter)induction, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ossia New Music Ensemble, and the American Composers Orchestra, among others. Green is co-founder, associate director, and composer-in-residence of Castle of our Skins: Celebrating Black Artistry through Music.
www.anthonyrgreen.com | https://foundwork.art/artists/anthonyrgreen | www.castleskins.org
Andrew Greenwald
Andrew Greenwald (born Queens N.Y) is an American composer whose current work probes questions of coherence in musical form. His works have been commissioned, recorded, and independently programmed by Ensemble Pamplemousse, the Arditti Quartet, JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Ensemble Adapter, Ensemble Dal Niente, Line Upon Line Percussion, Wild Up, Gnarwhallaby, and Distractfold as well as soloists Seth Josel, Ryan Muncy, Yuki Numata Resnick, Weston Olencki, Matt Barbier, Josh Modney, Austin Wulliman, Séverine Ballon, and Marco Fusi at festivals and venues throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Recent commissions have been heard at Walt Disney Hall on the L.A Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, The Borealis Festival in Bergen Norway, Philharmonie Luxembourg Series, Festival Musica in Strasbourg, France, and the Darmstadt Ferienkurse in Germany.
Andrew has been an active member of Ensemble Pamplemousse (recently named a member of the inaugural New Music USA Impact Fund) since 2002. He was the recipient of the 2014 Mivos/Kantor Prize. His compositions have received support from the Hepner Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund, Argosy Foundation, the American Music Center Composer Assistance Program, NYSCA, A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund, Meet the Composer, and New Music USA. Andrew pursued graduate studies in composition/experimental music at Wesleyan University under the supervision of advisor Alvin Lucier, and was the David R. Coelho graduate fellow at Stanford University, where he received a doctorate in composition under the advisement of Jonathan Berger and Brian Ferneyhough. Currently he is a Visiting Professor of Music Composition and Technology at Connecticut College, and teaches in the Masters in Composition/Experimental Music program at Wesleyan University.
Andrew's scores are published by Edition Gravis, and recordings can be heard on New Focus Recordings, Carrier Records, Navona, Innova, Parlour Tapes+, TAK Editions, and Creative Sources.
Laura Harada
Violinist Laura Harada enjoys a diverse musical life, with experience spanning western classical to eastern microtonal music, free jazz, Brazilian forro and choro, and much more of the not-so-easily categorizable. Originally trained in western classical music, Laura has spent the last 30 years playing music from many parts of the world with a special focus on Arabic music. A member of the National Arab Orchestra in Detroit, she appears locally with classical Arabic ensemble Amwaaj, Samba Meu, new world trio Ottie the Mink, Solar Sistren (a free improv collective with Mankwe Ndosi, Faye Washington, and Michelle Kinney), and Aby Wolf’s Champagne Confetti. As a member of improvising composers group Cherry Spoon Collective, Modern Spark Trio, and Michelle Kinney’s What We Have Here, she has enjoyed exploring and performing new works of local composers, including Joe Horton’s powerful A Hill in Natchez.
Myra Hinrichs
After graduating from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where she studied with Gregory Fulkerson as a violin performance major in addition to receiving a Mathematics degree, Myra made the great migration to Chicago, where in addition to performing in the Madison Symphony and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, she teaches at several community music schools in the greater Chicago area. Myra has appeared with fixtures of the Chicago new music scene, including the Morton Feldman Chamber Players, Dal Niente, a.periodic, Mocrep, and NON:op, and is a founding member of string trio Chartreuse and the Houndstooth Quartet. Myra began playing the violin at age 6 with Jung-Kyu Min in Saint Paul, MN. She has attended the Aspen Music Festival and School, National Orchestral Institute, Mimir Chamber Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra, and Spoleto Festival USA.
Scotty Horey
Scotty Horey (B.A., M.M.A., D.M.A.) (USA) is a passionate and versatile percussionist, drummer, and teacher formerly based in Minneapolis, MN, USA, and currently residing in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico where he holds the positions of full professor of percussion at the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, and Adjunct Professor through distance learning at Southwest Minnesota State University. He performs locally, nationally and internationally as a solo percussion artist, a guest artist/clinician, and a percussionist/drummer for hire. His strongest passions in music and teaching include classical music, contemporary-classical music, progressive rock and jazz fusion, mind/body "holistic" awareness, and cross cultural understanding, typically performing on solo marimba or as a drummer. Former appointments include Adjunct Professor of Percussion at the University of Minnesota-Morris, and Principal Percussionist of the Mankato Symphony Orchestra, two position he held for 8 years. His passionate performing and teaching work has brought him through the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Greece, Mexico, and Colombia and has earned him a finalist position in the prestigious McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians in 2017. Scotty was called “the Twin Cities’ hungriest young percussionist” by New Music Box, and “a performer of intelligence, raw artistry, and the utmost concentration and energy” by international icon composer James Dillon. His teachers have included some of the best and most accomplished in the world: Fernando Meza, Stuart Marrs, Katarzyna Mycka, and James Dillon. Scotty Horey is an endorsing artist for MAPEX drums, VIC FIRTH sticks, SABIAN cymbals, and MAJESTIC percussion.
Joe Horton
Joe Horton is an emcee, director, and co-founder of FIX music collective. As an emcee, Horton is best known for his work with experimental rap groups No Bird Sing and Mixed Blood Majority. Horton's directorial catalogue includes video, theater, concert, and art installation - all employing a signature style that marries ancient thought and forward thinking aesthetic.
Horton has been awarded for both his music and visual work by the Minnesota State Arts Board and Jerome Foundation, and was recently named 2019 Artist in Residence for the Minneapolis Institute of Art. He is currently working on a new album produced by Anatomy of Kill the Vultures as well as a large-scale video production called VESSEL.
Written by Joe Horton and Josh Clausen as a companion piece to a short film of the same name, VESSEL employs an ensemble of acoustic and digital technologies to evoke a mystical future where the human imagination becomes untethered from its biological roots and coalesces into new modes of being.
Toshio Hosokawa
Born in Hiroshima in 1955, Toshio Hosokawa is Japan’s pre-eminent living composer who studied composition with Isang Yun, Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber in Germany. He creates his distinctive musical language from the fascinating relationship between western avant-garde art and traditional Japanese culture. Performances of his works span the east and west, and his orchestral works include Circulating Ocean (Vienna Philharmonic, Salzburg Festival, 2005), Woven Dreams (Cleveland Orchestra, Lucerne Festival, 2010), horn concerto Moment of Blossoming (Berlin Philharmonic, 2011), Klage (NHK Symphony Orchestra / Dutoit, 2013), Nach dem Sturm (for Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony’s 50th anniversary, 2015).
Many of his music theatre works have become part of the repertoire of large opera houses including Vision of Lear (Munich Biennale, 1998), Hanjo (with Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker at La Monnaie Brussels and Festival Aix-en-Provence, 2004), Matsukaze (with Sasha Waltz at La Monnaie and Staatsoper Berlin, 2011), Stilles Meer (Staatsoper Hamburg, 2016), and Erdbeben. Träume (Staatsoper Stuttgart, 2018).
Toshio Hosokawa has been a member of the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin since 2001 and a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin since 2006. He is currently Artistic Director of the Takefu International Music Festival and Suntory Hall International Program for Music Composition.
Jeffery Kyle Hutchins
Kyle Hutchins is an internationally acclaimed performing artist, chamber musician, improviser, and educator, hailed as “epic” (Jazz Times), "formidable" (The Saxophone Symposium), "an impressive achievement" (VitaMN), "skilled improviser, no doubt about it" (I Care If You Listen), and "transcendental... original and inspiring" (Avant Scena). He has performed and been broadcast across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America at Carnegie Hall (NYC), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (Germany), Shanghai Conservatory of Music 上海音乐学院 (China), Muzička akademija u Zagrebu (Croatia), Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen (Belgium), Janáčkova konzervatoř a Gymnázium v Ostravě (Czech Republic), St. Leonard's Chapel (Scotland), NOVA RTE Lyric.fm (Ireland), ISSTA Sonic Practice Now (Ireland), Seensound: Visual Music Series (Australia), University of British Columbia (Canada), New York City Electronic Music Festival, National Sawdust (Brooklyn), Art Share (Los Angeles), Center for New Music (San Francisco), NUNC! (Chicago), Punk Ass Classical (Minneapolis), Twin Cities New Music Festival (St. Paul), New Music Gathering (Boston), Holocene (Portland), International Jazz Conspiracy (Minneapolis), among others. He has recorded over a dozen albums for labels Carrier, Noise Pelican, Klavier, GIA, farpoint, Avid Sound, and Emeritus, and has participated in the creation of more than 175 new works. His work has been recognized by awards and grants from DOWNBEAT, New Music USA, American Protégé International Competition, Music Teachers National Association, Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, and others.
Kyle is a member of 113 (One Thirteen), a collective of composers and performers of experimental new music who curate concerts, educational programs, festivals, seminars, and masterclasses around the world. He is one half of Binary Canary, a woodwind-laptop improvisation duo alongside electronicist Ted Moore. As a chamber musician, Kyle performs with ACUTE Trio, AVIDduo, The Broken Consort, Hutchins/Qiang Duo, The Poem Is Done, and Strains New Music Ensemble.
As an educator, Kyle has presented masterclasses and lectures at major institutions throughout the United States and abroad, and has been invited to present pedagogical clinics and workshops at The Midwest Clinic, ATMI, NACWPI, and numerous Music Educator Association Conferences around the country. Kyle is Artist/Teacher of Saxophone at Virginia Tech where he teaches classical and jazz saxophone, directs the Jazz Lab Band and New Music Ensemble, and is the Artistic Director of the Spatial Music Workshop at the Institute of Creativity, Arts, and Technology.
Kyle has a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, and Bachelors of Music in performance and Bachelors of Music Education degrees from the University of North Texas. His teachers include Eugene Rousseau, Eric Nestler, Marcus Weiss, and James Dillon.
Kyle is a Yamaha, Légère, and Rousseau Music Product Performing Artist.
Visit https://jefferykylehutchins.com for more information.
Clara Iannotta
Clara Iannotta is an Italian composer and curator based in Berlin. Her music is commissioned and performed by renowned ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including Quatuor Diotima, Ensemble Intercontemporain, JACK, Klangforum Wien, Neue Vocalsolisten, Münchener Kammerorchester, Nikel, and WDR Orchestra.
Iannotta has been a fellow of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD in 2013, Villa Médicis (Académie de France à Rome) in 2018–19, and the recipient of several prizes including the Ernst von Siemens Composers’ Prize and Hindemith-Preis 2018, Una Vita nella Musica Giovani 2019, Bestenliste 2/2016 and 4/2020 der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics’ Award) for her portrait albums A Failed Entertainment, and Earthing.
Since 2014, Iannotta has been the artistic director of the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, and from 2022 will be the co-artistic director of the festival Klangspuren Schwaz. Her music is published by Edition Peters.
Alfred Jimenez
Alfred was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, with a Ukrainian mother and a Cuban father. The family moved to Sweden when he was 4 years old, where he started his musical journey by playing the trombone. After two years of bachelor studies with the trombone as his primary subject, he was admitted to study composition with Prof. Jan Sandström at Piteå Academy of Music. After accomplishing his bachelor's exam in composition, Alfred continued with master studies at Malmö Academy of Music with Prof. Luca Francesconi. Alfred received his master's degree in spring 2015 after graduating with his second chamber opera "Clownen Jac". He then continued with a soloist diploma and finished his last years of studies at Universität fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna with Prof. Detlev Müller-Siemens. Following his studies, Alfred has continued to work actively as a freelance composer. Alfred has been admitted a Ph.D. position at the University of California Berkeley, where he will be researching extra-physical aspects of sound creation.
Alfred's music has been performed in various venues in Europe, Asia, and America in collaboration with various ensembles and orchestras. Some to mention are Antwerpen Symphony Orchestra (BE), Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (RU), Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (SE), Auditivvokal Dresden (GER), the Riot Ensemble (UK), Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra (SE), Fontana Mix Ensemble (IT), Kreutzer Quartet (UK), Ensemble Nordlys (DK) and Norrbotten Neo (SE).
Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008) was an Argentine-German composer. He studied philosophy and literature at the University of Buenos Aries. His musical studies from private teachers included theory, piano, cello, organ, voice, and conducting, though he was self-taught as a composer. He served as a conductor for the Rhineland Chamber Orchestra in the late 1950s, conducting primarily concerts of new music. He began serving as a guest lecturer at Darmstadt before taking over as the director of the Institute of New Music at the Rheinische Musikschule after Karlheinz Stockhausen. Having worked as an editor of cinema and photography for the journal Nueva Visión after college, his interest in film continued to influence his work.
Michelle Kinney
Cellist and Composer Michelle Kinney is inspired by cross-genre and cross-cultural collaborations, and non-traditional contexts for the cello. Michelle leads her own band What We Have Here, performing her original compositions. Other current projects include Maithree – The Music of Friendship, led by South Indian Veena virtuoso Nirmala Rajasekar. Her day job is with the Dance Program at the U of MN, teaching dancers about music and accompanying daily classes, experimenting with looping and effects.
Twin Cities music artists calling on Michelle’s cello contributions include Douglas Ewart, Joe Horton, Aby Wolf, Mankwe N’dosi, Chastity Brown, George Cartwright, Noah Ophoven Baldwin, Adam Zhaller, JC Sanford, Cody McKinney, among many others. She also composes and performs regularly for theater (Kevin Kling) and dance (Laurie Van Weiren).
Michelle’s work has been recognized and supported by The McKnight Foundation, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, The Bush Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, MN State Arts Board, NEA/Rockefeller, Harvestworks/Studio Pass, and the American Composers Forum.
While living in NYC for 13 years, Michelle was lucky enough to work with some of the most respected innovators in new music, including the unforgettable Butch Morris, Henry Threadgill, Jason Hwang, Brandon Ross, Stomu Takeishi and Myra Melford. She recorded and toured with some great pop icons, including Natalie Merchant and Sheryl Crow.
Marina Kifferstein
MARINA KIFFERSTEIN is a violinist and composer based in NYC. Equally at home in major international venues and DIY performance spaces, she enjoys a diverse career that encompasses contemporary chamber music, experimental improvisation, classical performance, and more. She is a founding member of TAK ensemble and The Rhythm Method string quartet, and is a regular guest with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Wet Ink, and Talea. She has performed at festivals including the Lincoln Center Festival (NYC), the Musiques Démesurées festival (Clermont-Ferrand, France), and the Time of Music Festival (Finland), and toured across much of Europe, Asia, and North America. A frequent guest artist at the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), she has toured with affiliated projects spanning traditional chamber music, experimental music-theater for young audiences, and concertmaster positions with the orchestra of Lucerne Festival Alumni, performing under Sir Simon Rattle and the late Pierre Boulez. A dedicated performer of contemporary repertoire, Marina has collaborated closely with hundreds of composers ranging from students and emerging artists to established masters. She has conducted residencies at dozens of music programs across the country and in Europe, including Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, the Delian Academy in Greece, and the Zürich Hochschule der Künste, working with performers, composition students, and non-music majors alike.
Marina is currently pursuing a doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds an MM in Contemporary Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a BM in Violin from Oberlin Conservatory, and a BA in English from Oberlin College. She serves on the violin faculty of the United Nations International School and the Composers Conference. Major teachers include Mark Steinberg, Laurie Smukler, Curtis Macomber, and Milan Vitek.
For more information, visit http://marinakifferstein.com.
Benjamin J M Klein
Benjamin J M Klein is a composer, tubaist, improvisor, and installation artist who focuses on innovating presentation and form by exploring experimental aesthetic concepts. Benjamin’s work is frequently heard at conferences, festivals, and concerts in the USA and abroad including the VU Symposium of Experimental Music, the Society of Electro Acoustic Music of the United States Annual Conference, the Hartford New Music Festival, the Cincinnati New Music Festival, the International Society of Improvised Music Annual Conference, and the NOWnow Festival of Improvised Music. Over the course of his career he has had the privilege to work with and learn from artists: Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, James Dillon, Ron Kuivila, Diane Willow, Han Bennink, Katie Duck, Milo Fine, Matt Turner, Joanne Metcalf, and Zulu Tsuruyama. Benjamin has received degrees in music from the University of Minnesota (PhD), Wesleyan University (MA), and Lawrence University (BMus). Benjamin is a member of the 113 Collective. He currently resides in Minneapolis.
Yu Kuwabara
Tokyo-based Japanese composer Yu Kuwabara (b. 1984) makes music to ask herself who she is. She has been researching and studying traditional Japanese arts and music to go as far back as possible to her origins and confirm her own sense of being. She has collaborated with numerous artists who use traditional Japanese art forms, including Noh performers, a Rakugo performer, a Japanese Buddhist chant group, and performers of traditional Japanese instruments.
She has been commissioned by important festivals, foundations, and ensembles such as Festival 20/21 Transit, International Ensemble Modern Academy, I&I Foundation, National Theatre of Japan, Kanagawa Kenritsu Ongakudo, Concert Hall Shizuoka AOI, among others. Her works have been performed at numerous international festivals (Darmstädter Ferienkurse, CRESC... Biennale für Aktuelle Musik, Ultraschall Berlin, Mostra Sonora Sueca, EXPO Milano 2015, Music From Japan Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival, Takefu International Music Festival, and others) and in many other concerts around the world.
She completed her master’s degree at the Tokyo University of the Arts and has taken part in prestigious academies, including Lucerne Festival Academy Composer Seminar, Academy Voix Nouvelles Foundation Royaumont, Akademie Schloss Solitude, among others.
Her scores are published from Edition Gravis and Edition Wunn. She is one of the members of Awai-Za, a chamber ensemble that mixes new music and Japanese Edo culture.
Hannah Levinson
Violist Hannah Levinson is an active performer of contemporary and classical music in New York City. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” She is also a member of Talea Ensemble, the Fair Trade Trio, the Albany Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Opera. She has performed with contemporary ensembles including counter)induction, ACME, Cantata Profana, ensemble mise-en, and The Rhythm Method Quartet. Equally passionate about education, Hannah previously taught at Western Connecticut State University for six years. She completed her MM in contemporary performance at the Manhattan School of Music, and graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory with degrees in both Russian and East European studies and viola performance. Hannah is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in performance at NYU Steinhardt studying with Artist Faculty member Karen Ritscher. Her research explores how interactions between composers and political structures affect the creation of new music. She previously studied with Martha Strongin Katz and Nadia Sirota.
Marco Longo
Marco Longo (1979) is an Italian pianist and composer. His works have been played in several festivals and venues in Europe, USA and China, such as Festival Pontino (Latina), Festival Rondo (Milano), New Music Miami, Festival Mixtur (Barcelona), Mise-en Festival (New York), Mostra Sonora (Sueca-Valencia), Parco della Musica (Roma), Festival Nuova Musica (Treviso), GAMO (Firenze), Chengdu Conservatory (China), Noisy Nights (St. Andrews), Festival 5Giornate (Roma), Festival Il Suono, ISCM 2018 World New Music Days (Beijing), NOSPR (Katowice), Echoes of Time (Miami), International Review of Composers (Belgrade), Encuentros Sonoros (Sevilla), and more.
Ensembles and soloists who have performed his works include Divertimento Ensemble, Dedalo Ensemble, SurPlus, AlterEgo, dissonArt, L'arsenale, PMCE, Vertixe Sonora, mise-en ensemble, Nodus, Red Note ensemble, NewMade ensemble, Ensemble Suonogiallo, Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej, Imago Sonora, Alda Caiello, Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Francesco Gesualdi, Dario Savron, Marco Fusi, and others.
He has won prizes and honorable mentions at several composition competitions: National Prize of Arts, "Premio Bucchi" (Roma), "A Manoni" competition, G.A.M.'s Composition Competition (Milano), Jeunesse Musical Competition (Bucarest), MeA Competition (Roma), AFAM Competition (Milano), Sun River Prize (China), "I, Nono" (Torino), Wroclaw International Competition (Poland), Premio Evangelisti (Roma), Irino Prize (Tokyo). His music has been broadcasted by Rai RadioTre and RadioClassica.
He is a co-founder and pianist of MotoContrario, a musical ensemble and a collective of composers and performers based in Trento, his hometown.
He studied composition at Conservatory of Trento and at Accademia Nazionale di S Cecilia in Rome, with I. Fedele. He followed with composition courses at Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Fondazione Romanini in Brescia and Accademai Filarmonica in Bologna. He took part in several seminars and masterclasses (A. Solbiati, S. Gervasoni, N. Vassena) and he was admitted at the Schloss Solitude Summer Academy in Stuttgart (Chaya Czernowin, Steven Takasugi and Amnon Wolman).
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier is an American avant grade composer and sound installation artist. He studied at Yale, Brandeis University, and spent two years in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. He has also taught at Brandeis University and Wesleyan University. His works often explore the physical properties of sound including psychoacoustic phenomena. Lucier has contributed many key pieces to the experimental music repertoire, including Music for Solo Performer (1965), which utilizes the performer’s brain waves to excite percussion instruments, and perhaps his most well known piece, I Am Sitting in a Room (1970). In 2021, Alvin Lucier and the experimental music community are celebrating his 90th birthday. The celebration has including performances of his works by artists all over the world, including a nearly 30 hour long presentation of I Am Sitting in a Room featuring 90 performers.
Ruth Marshall
Cellist Ruth Marshall enjoys a varied freelance career as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, soloist, and educator. She is the cellist of the Mill City String Quartet, which is currently in residence with Minnesota Public Radio, and Artu Duo which is currently in residence at the Apollo Music Festival. Since 2019, she has been principal cello of the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, and was the principal cello of Illinois Symphony Orchestra from 2013 to 2020. She is currently on the faculty of Hamline University, and the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music, and has been on the faculties of DePaul University, Illinois State University, and Eastern Illinois University. She holds undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington in Comparative History of Ideas and Music Theory, and graduate degrees in cello performance from DePaul University.
Scott Miller
His music is characterized by collaborative approaches to composition, the use of electronics, and improvisation. He is fascinated by the inner-workings of sound and draws inspiration from the exquisite, the microscopic, and the immersive that we find in the natural and mechanical worlds. His ecosystemic works model the behavior of objects in the natural world in electronic sound, creating interactive sonic ecosystems that encourage, rather than dictate, a particular performance.
All these interests have produced a diverse body of work, the product of a lot of hands-on experimentation and collaboration with classically-trained new music performers, early music specialists, jazzers, members of famous rock n roll bands, and even a band of robots.
Josh Musikantow
Joshua Musikantow (b. 1981) is a composer, author, and percussionist specializing in nontraditional tuning systems. A Chicago native, he has resided in the Twin Cities since 2007. Much of his work contains both original text and music. His work has been performed in England, France, Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, and across the United States. He has been the recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship (2013), the JFund award (2012), a Foundation for Contemporary Art emergency grant (2017), and other honors.
He earned his BM in Music Composition at Lawrence University, his BA in English at Lawrence University, his MA in Music Composition at the University at Buffalo, and his PhD in Music Composition at the University of Minnesota. His dissertation advisor was the acclaimed Scottish New Complexity composer, James Dillon.
He currently chairs the development committee for the new music nonprofit, 113
Thomas Myrmel
Thomas Myrmel (1982, USA) is a composer, performer and multifaceted artist, weaving the notions of social change, craftsmanship and creative expression into every aspect of his practice. He uses the techniques he acquired while studying composition at Conservatories in Rennes (FR) Chicago (USA) and Amsterdam (NL) to create music theater productions and performance art as well autonomous music in festivals throughout Europe, the middle east, the USA and Japan. His focus on collaboration has lead him to work with a wide range of artists such as composers Wilbert Bulsink, Anat Spiegel, Bart de Vrees, visual artists Keren Cytter, Noa Giniger, Zhana Ivanova, choreographers Valentina Campora, Inari Salmivaara, Hilary Blake-Firestone, and directors Nicola Nord, Sjaron Minailo, Matthias Mooij and Karin Netten.
Complimenting these performative collaborations, Thomas has also co-founded the art collective The Living Room(s) creating socially engaged exhibitions, performances and events, as well at Music for Music foundation, which facilitated musical exchange between European conservatories and refugee camps in the middle east. He is also co-founder of composer collective Monotak and the musicians organization Splendor.
Amy Nam
Twin Cities-based composer and harpist Amy Nam writes and performs music characterized by her sense of optimism and interest in unconventional timbres and structures. In 2018 Nam received a BMI Student Composer Award for her work Somewhere to Elsewhere, for harp and ensemble. In 2020, she won the Lyra Society’s 7th Annual Costello Competition for Composition. Nam received the Eastman School of Music’s Belle S. Gitelman Award for her work Pseudosphere for two pianos and two percussionists, as well as the Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize for her work Unfamiliar Spaces. Most recently, Nam received funding through Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning program to write and perform a work for herself and the Rochester, NY-based ensemble fivebyfive.
As a harpist, Nam has appeared as a soloist with the Vanderbilt University Orchestra and the McGill Contemporary Ensemble. Enthusiastic about expanding the harp repertoire, Nam regularly engages with composers to collaborate on new works.
Nam holds degrees from Vanderbilt University, where she graduated with first honors as the Blair School of Music’s Founder’s Medalist, McGill University, where she studied harp with Jennifer Swartz and composition with John Rea, and the Eastman School of Music, where she studied composition with David Liptak, Robert Morris, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.
Helen Newby
Helen Newby continually seeks ways to expand the technical and expressive boundaries of her instrument through close collaboration with other innovative performers, composers and artists. She is widely recognized for her “warm tone” and “intimate balanced sound” (The Washington Post), and as a “superb” and “committed champion” of new music (Cleveland Classical). Her premiere solo album, Dialogue, featuring commissions by David Bird, Danny Clay, Adam Hirsch, Kurt Isaacson and Haley Shaw, was released in early 2017 on Ephemeral Stream Recordings. Helen is a founding member of Amaranth Quartet and Chartreuse, and has performed with and alongside ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Eco Ensemble, One Found Sound, and Contemporaneous, among others. In addition to an active career as a performer, Helen is equally dedicated to education and working with emerging composers, performers, and communities of listeners. She has given concerts and workshops for undergraduate and graduate students at institutions including Oberlin College, Brown University, and DePauw University, among others. Helen studied at Oberlin College with Darrett Adkins (B.M.) before continuing her education at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Jennifer Culp (M.M).
Pat O’Keefe
Pat O'Keefe is a multifaceted performer who is active and in demand in a wide variety of musical genres. He has performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras and wind ensembles, wailed away for belly dancers, and rocked samba in the streets. He draws upon this multiplicity of experiences and interests in his performances, which employ a "superb control of extended techniques," and have been described as "passionate," "explosive," and "breath-stoppingly exquisite." He is currently the woodwind player for the contemporary music ensemble Zeitgeist, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. With Zeitgeist he has premiered over two hundred new works, and has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Pat has also performed and recorded with other noted new music groups around the country, including ETHEL, California E.A.R. Unit, and Cleveland New Music Associates, and has appeared as a soloist at the ClarinetFest, SEAMUS, Spark!, and the Third Practice festivals. Pat began his career as an orchestral clarinetist, serving as the principal clarinetist for five seasons with the Augusta Symphony in Augusta, Georgia.
Active in the improvised music and world music communities as well, Pat is a founder and co-director of the large improvising ensemble Cherry Spoon Collective, and the electro-acoustic duo Willful Devices (with composer and computer musician Scott Miller). Pat’s music making is heavily influenced by the music of other cultures, having studied Turkish music with Turkish Rom clarinetist Selim Sesler, and Brazilian music with master drummer Jorge Alabé. In 2016 he spent time at the National Gugak Center in Seoul studying Korean traditional music, and he also performed at the International Sori Festival in Jeonju, South Korea. He is one of the founding directors of the Brazilian percussion group Batucada do Norte, and appears regularly with the groups Choro Borealis, 113 Composers Collective, and The Maithree Ensemble in the Twin Cities.
Pat holds a BM (with Performer’s Certificate) from Indiana University, an MM (with Academic Honors and Distinction in Performance) from the New England Conservatory, and a DMA from the University of California, San Diego. He has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and in 2015 he was awarded a Performing Musician Fellowship from the McKnight Foundation. He currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls.
Helder Oliveira
Helder Oliveira received his Licentiate degree in Music and his Vocational degree in Piano Performance from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. He was adjunct instructor of Music Analysis and Ear Training at the same institution, adjunct instructor of Ear Training at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and professor of Music History at Brazilian Conservatory of Music. Helder received his Master Degree in Music (Composition) from the Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil. Furthermore, he also studied composition with Danilo Guanais, Manoel Nascimento, Rodrigo Cicchelli, Liduino Pitombeira and Dinos Constantinides. Moreover, Helder studied Music Theory with professor Robert Peck (Louisiana State University-LSU, USA) and Liduino Pitombeira (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro-UFRJ, Brazil). Helder was a 2019–20 Fulbright Visiting Researcher at LSU, under the supervision of professor Jeffrey Perry, and received his PhD in Composition from the UFRJ, under the guidance of professor Liduino Pitombeira. Finally, his works have been awarded and performed in Brazil, USA, Canada, Portugal and Germany.
Patrick Pegg
Patrick Pegg is a musician and creative technologist working in sound, light, and film. He is a partner in F I X, a collective of award-winning artists, musicians, designers, and audio/visual experts offering distinctive event production and creative services. His work has been featured on Complex, Reviler and Hotel Elefant.
The Dream Songs Project
The Dream Songs Project believes in making connections through music between composers and performers and audience members. Formed in 2010, TDSP has engaged audiences across the U.S. through performances of a wide range of repertoire spanning from Renaissance lute songs to Romantic arias, 20th century masterpieces, and newly commissioned music and interactive educational programs focused on new music for voice and guitar.
Based in Minneapolis, MN, TDSP has self-produced numerous chamber music concerts throughout the U.S., and has been invited to perform for the Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, Ear Taxi Chicago, Minnesota Public Radio Class Notes, Minnesota Guitar Society Local Artist Series, Farley's House of Pianos Concert Series, Thursday Musical Artist Series, Friday Noon Musicale, Macalester College Noon Concert Series, the Schubert Club Courtroom Concert Series, and Zeitgeist's New Music Cabaret. In 2016, TDSP was selected by the American Composers Forum to be the featured ensemble for their Artist Showcase national call-for-scores program.
To date, TDSP has commissioned over 15 works for voice and guitar and premiered many others. In 2020, the duo was awarded major funding from Chamber Music America to commission Dale Trumbore for a new work for the ensemble, to be premiered in 2022.
In 2011, TDSP released its first recording, Mauro Giuliani: Songs for Voice and Guitar, which includes the classical composer's well-known op. 89 Sechs Lieder, the operatic op. 95 Sei Ariette, and his rarely heard op. 13 Trois Romances. This recording has been featured on Minnesota Public Radio and several public radio broadcasts in Wisconsin, and was described by MPR host Steve Staruch as "superb" and "clean and colorful." They can also be heard on the 2018 Centaur Records release of works by Justin Rubin, Variations on Life & Loss.
Shelby Richardson
Shelby is a trans/non-binary actor, performance artist, astrologer, and director who lives and works in the Twin Cities. They have been privileged to work at myriad theater and art institutions locally including the playwright’s center, the jungle theater, park square theater, heart of the beast, and open eye figure theater. If you are curious about Shelby’s astrology and magic practice please visit them at shelbyroserichardson.com.
Timothy Roy
TIMOTHY ROY composes music steeped in imagery and allusion, which often seeks to conjure a sense of time, place, and feeling.
His music has been presented at such venues and events as the National Theater of Taipei, Music Biennale Zagreb, Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre, Bowling Green New Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, Sweet Thunder Music Festival, International Computer Music Festival, Center of Cypriot Composers, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States National Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Chile, “Ai-maako.”
Tim was a visiting faculty member at Western Michigan University during the 2018–2019 academic year, where he taught private composition lessons, undergraduate theory, and graduate seminars in musical form and the aesthetics of electroacoustic music.
Tim and his wife currently reside in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he is choirmaster and organist at the Church of Saint Peter in North Saint Paul. He is completing a doctorate at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.
Patricia Ryan
Patricia Ryan is the cellist of the Artaria String Quartet based in St. Paul, Minnesota and faculty of the Artaria Chamber Music School and Stringwood Summer Music Camp. She is also a core member of the Houston-based conductorless ensemble KINETIC, a member of new music ensemble 10th Wave Chamber Music Collective and a member of Delphia Cello Quartet based in the Twin Cities. She has performed with some of the world's leading chamber musicians including pianist Emanuel Ax, the Pacifica String Quartet, violinist Geoff Nuttall, violist John Largess, Steven Dann and Max Mandel, cellist Norman Fischer and Jean-Michel Fonteneau, and esteemed faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Ms. Ryan has completed a second Masters of Music at Rice University Shepherd School of Music on full tuition scholarship under the tutelage of Norman Fischer, an Artist Certificate in Chamber Music and a Masters of Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Jean-Michel Fonteneau, and a Bachelors of Music at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music with Tchaikovsky Competition laureate Nathaniel Rosen and Alexander Sulieman on full scholarship. Ms. Ryan is the host of the podcast Haydn Behind the Music Stand, where she interviews classical musicians on their careers and inspirations outside the field.
Ms. Ryan performs on a 1976 Gio Batta Morassi cello and a 1988 Roger Zabinski bow.
Shannon Wettstein Sadler
Pianist Shannon Wettstein invites audiences to hear music in new ways through performances that combine daring new music with historical masterworks. With over 400 premieres as soloist and chamber musician, she has collaborated with composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Chinary Ung, Martin Bresnick, and Frederick Rzewski. When asked about why she makes music, she says, “For me it’s all about taking risks with new experiences. Audiences who take those risks along with me now might be the first to hear the masterworks of the future.”
In the US, Shannon has performed solo and chamber concerts at Lincoln Center, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Ft. Worth Modern Art Museum. Steve Smith of the New York Times wrote that her performance at The Stone was “full of subtleties no recording could catch...a reminder of why we attend concerts.” She has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, and Chamber Music America.
Shannon's touring programs are themed around topics as diverse as insomnia, meteorology, outerspace, and birds and bugs. Recent U.S. Artists International-sponsored tours include performances at the Monteverde Institute in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, Hong Kong’s City Hall and the Janáček Conservatory.
Shannon’s current projects explore human relationships in her monthly Facebook Live mini-concerts. These short, casual livestream events feature seldom-heard pieces by Florence Price and Boulez and new works by Jimmy Lopez and Kaija Saariaho. Audiences comment on how the experience feels both personal and riveting. One listener said, it “made me think that we were eavesdropping into the primordial creative mind…” In the two months since launching the series there have been over 1000 views from at least 16 states and 4 continents.
Shannon is a professor of piano at St. Cloud State University and regularly performs contemporary chamber music as half of the Calliope flute and piano duo.
Learn more about Shannon’s Grammy-nominated recordings of works by Xenakis, Anthony Davis, Chopin, and others at www.shannonwettstein.com.
Dieter Schnebel
Dieter Schnebel (1930-2018) was a German composer and theologian. He studied theology at the University of Tübingen and later taught religious studies and music in Munich, Germany. From 1976 to 1995 he served as professor of experimental music at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Throughout his career, he wrote music for orchestras, chamber ensembles, vocalists, and staged productions. Perhaps some of his most famous compositions are his cycles, which he often wrote over long periods of time. His works were often influenced by his peers from the Darmstadt School, including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, and later John Cage.
Tiffany M. Skidmore
Tiffany M. Skidmore (b. 1980) is an American composer and performer based in Minneapolis. Her chamber, choral, and orchestral work has been interpreted by acclaimed experimental music specialists throughout the United States and Europe. She is a Schubert Club Award Winner, a 2018 McKnight Composer Fellow, and the 2018-19 Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble Composer-in-Residence. She is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Twin Cities-based 113 Composers Collective, an organization that produces concerts, festivals, and guest artist residencies throughout the world.
Soprano Nina Dante writes that “Tiffany Skidmore’s music brings to mind Sciarrino’s description of his own music: hearing it is like watching a volcano erupt from afar. While Skidmore’s music burns it’s own path outside of Sciarrino’s aesthetic, the description holds true. Her music often features slow moving textures dotted with energetic events (imagine a constellation moving across the sky over the course of the year, and interjecting shooting stars), a starry sound world, coldly emotional content, and a mix of musical abstraction with direct theatrical/conceptual content. For these reasons, like reading a myth of ancient times, we experience the drama of her works from a distance.”
As a performer, Skidmore has sung professionally with the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Opera companies, Spokane Symphony Chorale, the Minnesota Chorale, the Contemporary Music Workshop, Hymnos Vocal Ensemble, the Gregorian Singers, the 113 Composers Collective, and as a free-lance soloist throughout Washington and Minnesota, primarily performing early and experimental music. She holds degrees in Music Composition and Vocal Performance from Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University, and the University of Minnesota.
Walt Skidmore
Walt Skidmore works as a software developer and makes music whenever he can. Though primarily a trumpet player, he also plays guitar, bass, piano, and many other instruments. He performed Laborintus II (Berio) with the Contemporary Music Workshop, Consolation II (Lachenmann) for the 2018 Twin Cities New Music Festival, Six for New Time (Oliveros) and Sound Patterns and Tropes (Oliveros) for the Zeitgeist Early Music Festival, and contributed sound material to Vessel (Horton). He also performs regularly with the Minnesota State Band and St. Croix Brass. When not working or making music, he spends time with his wife, Tiffany, children, and menagerie of pets. He's happy to be performing as part of Diary of a Lung (Takasugi).
Perry So
Perry So was born in Hong Kong in 1982 and received his early musical training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition there. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in literature with a focus on the interaction of literature and music in Central Europe in the modernist era, and as a student at Yale he founded an orchestra and led the undergraduate opera company. He received his formal training as a conductor under Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. In 2008 he received First and Special Prizes at the Fifth International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg, Russia. He has subsequently held posts as Assistant, then Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Artistic Collaborator of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain and is a member of the conducting faculty at the Manhattan School of Music.
A presence in concert halls on five continents, Perry So recently made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, his European operatic debut at the Royal Danish Opera in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and his North American operatic debut at Yale Opera in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Recent highlights include a tour to Milan with the Nuremberg Symphony and a seven-week tour of South Africa with three orchestras including Verdi’s Requiem in Cape Town, broadcast in July 2020 as the centrepiece of the South African National Arts Festival. In the coming season he will return to the San Francisco Symphony for his debut on the subscription series.
He has enjoyed a long association with the Royal Danish Theatre and the Royal Danish Orchestra both on the concert stage and in the pit for opera and ballet. He has been a frequent guest at Walt Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and in 2013 toured the Balkan Peninsula at the helm of the Zagreb Philharmonic in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Other debuts in recent years include appearances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Navarre, Málaga, Tenerife, Nuremberg, Israel, New Zealand, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Shanghai, the London, Szezcin, Seoul and China Philharmonics, the Residentie Orkest in the Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz.
His work in the recording studio encompasses a broad sampling of twentieth century British, French and Russian music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and his album of Barber and Korngold's Violin Concertos with soloist Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra was awarded the Diapason d’Or in January 2012.
His wide-ranging musical interests encompass numerous world premieres on four continents as well as the reintroduction of Renaissance and Baroque repertory into symphonic programs, most notably championing the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau. His work with young musicians has taken him to the Australian Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Round Top Festival, the Manhattan School of Music, the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts and the Yale School of Music.
Perry, his wife Anna and daughter Caroline divide their time between Boston and Saint Paul, Minnesota, where Anna is professor of History of Science at the University of Minnesota.
Anat Spiegel
Anat Spiegel (IL/NL/ USA) is a composer and vocalist specializing in cross-platform performance. Her work stems from a vocal perspective and focuses on the endless expressions of the human voice. In the juxtaposition of jazz, theater, and contemporary classical music, Spiegel's compositions consider the cultural gravity of songs and the connection between written language and it’s sounding expression. Spiegel is a member of the composer's collective Monotak and the spoken word duo Noon and Ain. Her recent works includes the opera Medulla (La Monnaie), the electronic opera Before Present (National Dutch Opera and ADE), the online opera The Transmigration of Morton F (Holland Festival) and the chamber quartet My Four Mothers (Cedar Commissions.)
Justin Anthony Spenner
Praised as a “Standout” with “boisterous comic energy” by the Star Tribune, Baritone Justin Anthony Spenner (he/him) is known throughout the Twin Cities for his artistic honesty and engaging versatility. As at home with Schubert as he is with Stockhausen, Justin’s appearances run the gamut from recital and oratorio staples with regional organizations to world premieres of experimental music. Pandemic credits include Das Fliegenpapier (113), The Sky Where You Are (An Opera Theatre), Like Sun Through Eyelids (Recital), La Bohéme (Schaunard, Theatre Latte Da). In addition to performing, Justin advocates for the exploration and expression of emotion through music with his podcast Is This Music?!? (hosted by 113), and by creating immersive opera/music education programming.
Joseph Spoelstra
Joseph Spoelstra is a guitarist based in Chicago, IL. Collaborating frequently with other musicians and composers, Spoelstra has given premieres of numerous new works throughout the US. In addition to championing new works for guitar, he performs solo and chamber works from the guitar's long history. With mezzo soprano Alyssa Anderson, he formed The Dream Songs Project in 2010, a group dedicated to enriching and expanding the repertoire for voice and guitar through commissions, recording, performance, and educational outreach.
Irving Steinberg
Born in Willingboro, New Jersey, Irving Steinberg grew up in San Francisco, California and started studying the double bass at age 10. He received his bachelor's degree in music from the University of California at Berkeley and his master of music degree in String Performance from Boston University. His teachers include Charles Siani, Brian Marcus, Edwin Barker, George Neikrug, Todd Seeber, and Jim Orleans. He has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Virginia Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Springfield (MA) Symphony, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Ballet, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Portland (ME) Symphony, and Albany Symphony. Twice a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Irving has also participated in the 11th New Music Festival Sound Ways in St. Petersburg, Russia, New Hampshire Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Festival Dei Due Mondi, Spoleto, Italy.
Steven Kazuo Takasugi
Steven Kazuo Takasugi, born 1960 in Los Angeles, is a composer of electro-acoustic, mixed-media composition applied to a concept of music theater performed specifically by musicians. This first involves the collecting and archiving of recorded, acoustic sound samples into large databases, each classifying tens of thousands of individual, human-performed instances collected over decades of experimentation and research, mostly conducted in his private sound laboratory. These are then subjecting to computer-assisted, algorithmic composition, revised and adjusted until the resulting emergent sonic composite phenomena, energies, and relationships reveal hidden meanings and contexts. This formulates the cantus firmus electronic playback, a ground foundational layer that is then transcribed, using various digital and data analysis tools, into music notation and then interpreted as amplified and often exaggerated staged gestures, theatrically expressive, choreographed for classically trained musicians, with movements inherent to musical performance and musical ontology: page turns, cueing, foot tapping, etc.
This transcription-translation is always historically referential and is described as an accompanying project: "When people return," that is, when live musicians interact with digital technology after a long absence, thus demanding an alternative, more equal relationship with digitally recorded audio samples. This relationship often creates a "strange doubling" playing off the "who is doing what?" inherent with simultaneous live and recorded media: a ventriloquism effect of sorts. This is exacerbated by integrated and strategic lip-syncing, false spatialization, and purposeful perceptual misguidance, all in order to achieve a “house of mirrors,” where live and recorded, real and virtual, truth and falsity become confused, one for the other, and where likewise performer becomes observer and audience the observed. The music is programmatic, representational, narrative, provocative, confrontational, humorous, then not at all humorous, all to accommodate a social and political message current with our contemporary technological culture and humanity in a time of mass consumption, crisis, and transition.
Takasugi received his doctoral in music composition at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently an Associate of the Harvard Music Department. He is the 2016 Riemen and Bakatel Fellow for Music at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and is the recipient of awards including a 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, three Ernst von Siemens Foundation Commissions, and residency fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, Civitella Ranieri in Perugia, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and the Japan Foundation in Tokyo. His work has been performed extensively by numerous soloists, ensembles, and orchestras worldwide including Ensembles Talea, No Hay Banda, Distractfold, Rubiks, 113, MusikFabrik, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, ICE, Tzara, wasteLAnd, Klangforum Wien, Handwerk, Mozaik, Sound Initiative, Musica Nova, Slowind, Vortex, Contrechamps, Pamplemousse, Tsilumos, Mocrep, Dal Niente, Forma Leipzig, Neue Vokalsolisten, SurPlus, Nonsense Company, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Takasugi is also a renowned teacher of composition associated with masterclasses in New York City, Singapore, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv, Darmstadt, Dublin, Bludenz, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has taught at the University of California, San Diego, Harvard University, California Institute for the Arts, and the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. Takasugi is also an extensive essayist on music and was one of the founding editors of Search Journal for New Music and Culture. He has organized numerous discussion panels and fora on New Music including colloquia and conferences at Harvard Music, the Goethe-Institut Boston, and the Darmstadt Forum.
Caden Vandervort
Caden Vandervort (1998) is currently an undergraduate at Virginia Tech where he studies music technology with Michael Dunston and horn with Wallace Easter. He regularly performs with NME at Virginia Tech under the direction of Kyle Hutchins and L2Ork, a laptop orchestra under the direction of Ico Bukvic. Caden has participated in the premier of over 30 new works with NME by student and professional composers. His works have been performed by NME and secretsociety experimental orchestra, the latter of which he is a founding member.
Lizz Windnagel
Lizz Windnagel (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist who engages with art in various forms that leans toward the uncanny, the mythical, and queer-bodied performance. They recently moved back to Minneapolis after pursuing an MFA in theater directing with a focus on devised work, clown, mask, and puppetry in Calgary, Canada. Lizz’s connection with the New Music world has involved performing, singing, and building theatrical experiences. In 2018 they built and performed a shadow puppet performance to accompany Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire for Ensemble dal Niente’s Party, produced by Carrie Shaw. As a singer, Lizz has performed with several professional ensembles and small opera companies in the US and Canada. In 2014 they founded Minneapolis based experimental treble ensemble, Artemis, who have performed several times with 113 collective, as well as at the Walker, the Guthrie Dowling studio, and more. Additionally they have sung and toured with Minnesota-based choral groups, The Rose Ensemble and Border CrosSing. They are a company member with Mixed Precipitation and performed and collaborated on several of their summer operas in community gardens with roles in Don Giovanni (2016), Alcina (2015), King Arthur (2015). Lizz has performed and shown work with several theaters in Minneapolis and Calgary including Open Eye Figure Theatre, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, and the Old Trout Puppet Workshop. They are thrilled to show this newly devised interpretation of Zwei Akte, conceived with collaborators Adam Zahller and Shelby Richardson that challenges the visual performance of the body.
Bethany Younge
Bethany Younge’s acoustic and electronic music explores the manifold kinesthetic properties of musical performance. For her, the act of music-making cannot be divorced from the physical presence of the human instigator. Her works often incorporate instrumental deconstruction, exaggerated movement, motion tracking, sounding costumes, and/or other aesthetic devices to sonically heighten corporeal expressivity.
Younge is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Columbia University in New York. She has received a Master’s degree in Music Composition from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, The Netherlands and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has studied composition closely with George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, Zosha Di Castri, Richard Barrett, Martijn Padding, Yannis Kyriakides, Peter Adriaansz, Lewis Nielson, and Seung-Ah Oh.
Younge’s works have been featured in the 2016 and 2018 International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, MATA Festival, Resonant Bodies Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, The 16th International Young Composers Meeting, and many other festivals. She has worked with many ensembles including JACK Quartet, Distractfold, ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, TAK Ensemble, Dal Niente, TILT Brass, Sputter Box, KLANG, Ereprijs Orkestra, Fonema Consort, AndPlay, Chartreuse, Gyre Ensemble, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, Inversion Ensemble, Mocrep, and others throughout Europe and the USA. In 2016, she was awarded the Stipend Prize at the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt. She was also awarded a commission prize by National Sawdust in New York City and the 10th Mivos/Kanter prize.
Adam Zahller
Adam Zahller (b. 1988) is a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from the Midwestern United States. He specializes in contemporary music and improvisation.
Her Disappearance
she demanded silence
so I gave her none
when she tried to speak
I robbed her of her voice
once I ran out of breath
she soon disappeared
I’ll Bleed Your Lines
One’s musical limits, corporeal limits, and limits of intimacy are involved in an ever-evolving and unstable dialogue. Two vocalists occupy two agendas, where one is self-determined, not wanting to compromise a clear identity, and the other decidedly unpredictable and self-expansive, craving the ether. Undergirded and occupied by their instrumental counterparts, (being the contents of their sounds), both vocalists gradually separate from their instruments and evaporate. Guillaume de Machaut’s “Sanctus” from Messe de Notre Dame, an intimate relic of the past, remains as the most indispensable element, a dusting of love.
Special thanks to my husband, Pablo Chin, for the music box and his tireless inscription of “Sanctus.”
Yappy Pace
Yappy Pace is a child's playground. Consisting mostly of homemade and toy instruments, the performers scoot about in a diagonal formation for the sake of “musical performance." And while the objects themselves hardly yield polished sounds, they do have a way of collectively contributing to a very specific kind of artistic production. Synonymously, clichéd linguistic phrases randomly selected and decontextualized from everyday speech are dissected and dismantled to reveal not only the oddities, but also absurdities of language. Without irony, Yappy Pace seeks to assert the hegemony of the means over the materials.
33 Words
[33 WORDS]
- Camera as storage
(It will let me see later)
- Camera as prosthetics
(It lets me see what I can't)
- Camera as simulation
(It will let me remember later what I can't see now)
- V. Acconci
dove tutto è stato preso (Innerspace II)
for piano (2016)
To dwell where everything was taken from might not help dividing the existing, showing its outline, its convergences; dimensions where light could illuminate (and scatter) what we [or it] can see. To convince oneself to expose its own ego, to compose it, bring it into focus - and thus burn it - often means nourishing its incompleteness: the “true lento” of the poem is therefore transformed into an acoustic dilatation, sign and proximity to isolation.
(D. Bellomi, Notes of Poetics to “ Ripartizione della volta”)
Each musical instrument is a museum of its past and present uses, the latent memory of the hands that have touched it throughout its surfaces and edges. To make an instrument resonate means to bring these reminiscences back to life, together with all the different meanings they carry along with them - a quote of a quote of a quote and so on… If music and literature somehow share a common linguistic dimension, perhaps the one that is the most evident of all is, in my opinion, that they are the squared palimpsest of themselves, the fact that they generate meanings through short-circuits and the exasperated consumption of its different meanings that build up in time as part of the sound itself.
The piano, because of its multi-faceted geography, overpopulated by memories, represents a perfect example of a land which is no longer virgin, a space where each key, string, metal bar or wood part inevitably recalls the innumerable pencils that have already and variously trapped that sound on a piece of paper. Each movement reminisces similar past ones, dissolved in time along with the dying resonance of the strings. But what would happen if such resonance was abruptly enlarged to the point where it reveals the hidden turns through which we can catch a glimpse of its possible becomings? Time, as a non-existing entity, although always clearly perceivable, becomes fluid and its passing uncertain, discontinuous. The almost surreal acoustic dilatation and the sudden temporal jumps lead us to rediscover relationships between spaces and sounds we wouldn't have known how to name. Sound transforms itself, dissolves and thickens, takes shape until new shreds of memory emerge, and it is only at this point that all of a sudden we realize that that very same keyboard from which everything started is still there, even though it is lost in the void of its endless resonance of resonances.
This work was commissioned by Yvar Mikashoff Trust for New Music of Buffalo (NY) and is dedicated to Anna D’Errico.
When Waking
"when waking" (2014) at its surface speaks about the confusion one feels when desires usually extracted from one source are found in another. On a deeper level, the confusion that is felt is compared to the barren quality expressed in those moments of winter that portray beauty in cold, bare landscapes, which are rich with the foreshadowing of the coming spring. The video was filmed in Maastricht, the Netherlands, with no image modulation. The text was written in Amherst, VA, USA, during an artist residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Poem Text
when waking in the midst of these … all of these …
it’s the incessant, incandescent pallor of that wide celestial plane
wanting to … wanting to … every day for at least forty minutes …
noise in the air working its way down to the toes
for those interested it’s not that it’s a bad thing
but the tingling gets old and he gets old and I’m in need … I’m not broken
these things are broken in certain seasons though
that’s just the simple nature of nature … one can’t help but see the silence
one can’t imagine hearing the sharing of temples
in that moment when something young and new can apply a fix …
guilt … joy … guilt … joy … passion … guilt … joy … passion … staring into the eyes …
that newness … that newness … that joy …
that perhaps guilt then the justification of the action then the guilt from the justification
and also the guilt from waking and seeing joy in eyes unfamiliar … a warmth so familiar
warmth … eyes … hair … teeth … nose … the familiar feeling … the unfamiliar source
it’s like a bending … a spiraling … a warping … a grey that bears color
a washing out of the old
the return to the old
the desperate attempt of making it new again
the failure … the acceptance … the searching for joy in the grey
the warmth … the speckle of color … the tingling … for the worse
… I do want to hear your voice again …
Impressões – n.º 1
Impressões – n.º 1 is a musical work for soprano solo and the first one of a series for solo instruments inspired in the "Sequenze" by Luciano Berio. Impressões – n.º 1 is experimental and utilizes several expanded techniques of the voice.
L’énigme et son sommeil
L’énigme et son sommeil, for solo soprano, takes its words from the book of Claude Royet-Journoud, Kardia. The title of this book - "Heart" in English - reflects one of the "obsessions" of the poet who always questions the very act of writing, the physical dimension of this experience. L’énigme et son sommeil thus continues this exploration of the body, musically this time, through a vocal writing that goes from an extreme sensuality to a profound austerity, as well as through the theatricality of this voice on the stage, alone in front of the audience, as flaunted. What finally gives to see L’énigme et son sommeil is the theater of a body.
Esplorazione VII
In the beginning of Esplorazione VII, the voice does not find a way to release itself and to articulate any stable sound or extended line. It is initially forced into the throat and the oral cavity, so occluded that it is not even able to let the air flow through.
From this impossibility for the voice to “become itself”, to find a way out and an opening towards the outside, starts an exploration of its efforts, which passes through the removal of the blocks of the flow (caused by the larynx first, then by the tongue), to achieve the liberation of the breath and then outlining a singing profile. The chant first appears very unstable, fragmented and fluctuating in the low register, then gradually takes shape, conquering the mid-high region.
In the last part of the piece the chant falls apart, sometimes becomes a spoken line, or moves toward indeterminate ranges of pitches; hence the voice insists and “freeze” on some few, long sounds.
All over the piece, although having removed all "physiological" restrictions, the voice will never manage to articulate words or phrases with a whole meaning, limiting itself to single phonemes or mono-syllabic units. In this way we want to represent a frustrated communication effort, which results from the impossibility of the construction of meanings at the phono-syntactic and linguistic level
Sideshow
Based on the dark sideshows of Coney Island's amusement parks in the early part of the 20th century, Sideshow is a meditation on virtuosity, freak shows, entertainment, spectacle, business, and the sacrifices one makes to survive in the world. A cycle of six aphorisms by the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus (1874-1936) is embedded as a subtext running through the work. They are as follows:
1. "Ein Gourmet sagte mir: was die Crême der Gesellschaft anlange, so sei ihm der Abschaum der Menschheit lieber."
(A gourmet once told me: he preferred the scum of the earth to the cream of society.)
2. "Wenn Tiere gähnen, haben sie ein menschliches Gesicht."
(When animals yawn, they have a human face.)
3. "Der Fortschritt macht Portemonnaies aus Menschenhaut."
(Progress makes wallets from human skin.)
4. "In einen hohlen Kopf geht viel Wissen."
(Much knowledge fits in a hollow head.)
5. "Die Technik ist ein Dienstbote, der nebenan so geräuschvoll Ordnung macht, daß die Herrschaft nicht Musik machen kann.
(Technology is a servant who makes such noisy order in the next room that his master cannot make music.)
6. "Wien hat eine schöne Umgebung, in die Beethoven öfter geflüchtet ist."
(Vienna has beautiful surroundings, to which Beethoven often escaped.)
Part I: "The Destinies of Hallucinations"
Movement I: "The Man Who Couldn't Stop Laughing"
A. Lead-in 0:00
B. "The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Laughing" 0:08
C. Kraus Aphorism I: "A Gourmet Once Told Me…" 1:32
D. "The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Laughing, Part II" 3:21
E. Interlude I: "A Queasy Ascent" 6:03
F. Kraus Aphorism II: "When Animals Yawn…" 7:15.5
G. Kraus Aphorism III: "Progress…" 8:29
Movement II: "Sodom by the Sea" or "Mildew of an Inner Room of the Eternal Return of the Same"
H. Interlude II: "Premonition: Morning after the Inferno (with View of Sea)" 9:52
I. "The Contortionist" 14:52
J. Kraus Aphorism IV: "In a Hollow Head…" 16:08
K. "The Sideshow Giant" or "The Obese Genius" 16:29
L. Interlude III: "Night’s Glimmering City" 17:19
Part II: "Hard Times and a Happy Ending" or "A Laboratory for Self-Destruction"
Movement III: "Electrocuting an Elephant"
M. Interlude IV: "A Helix of Breath" 18:35
N. "The Circumstances Surrounding the Event" 20:20
O. Kraus Aphorism V: "Technology is a Servant…" 21:47.5
P. "Frenetico" 23:29
Q. "Stomp" 24:14
R. "AC or DC?" 24:39
S. Solo: "Innocent Animal" 25:11
T. "Behind a Curtain" 25:49
U. "March to the Scaffold" 27:36
V. "AC or DC?: Evidence for Edison" 29:10
W. Solo: "Last Parade" 29:56
X. "A Mouse among the Spectators" 31:.02
Y. "Electrocuting an Elephant" 32:03
Z. "Glimpse into the Abyss" 33:05
AA. Interlude V: "A Second Helix Followed by a Coordinate Geometry of Breath" 33:46.5
Movement IV. "A Surgical Procedure: The Human Fish"
BB. "The Financial Worries of a Sideshow Proprietor" 35:38
CC. "Brutal Competition and the Insufferable Uncertainty of Hard Times" 37:28
DD. "A Spark of Hope: An Idea for the Greatest Show on Earth" 38:33.5
EE. "One Night, a Strange Dream (Freud in Dreamland)" 39:54
FF. "The Man Who Couldn't Stop Laughing, Pt. III: The Myriad Rooms and Doors of a Major Clinic" 40:36
GG. "Too Many Teeth" 42:04
HH. Aria: "A Surgical Procedure" 43:18
II. "Fish Boy" or "The Human Fish" 44:38
JJ. "The Blowoff" 45.25
Movement V: "Mourning Glory" and "Parade Clothes"
KK. Adagietto: "Loyal Sideshow Guard Dogs Escort Mahler to Heaven" 45.34
B1. ("Still of This World, for This World") 45:34
B2. ("The Onset of Dilation and Inflation") 46:33
B3. ("Ascent (into the Ether)") 47:19
LL. "Von Dunkel Zu Dunkel" ("From Darkness to Darkness") 49.22
LL1. ("The Advent of Darkness") 49:28
LL2. ("The Horizon and Approach of Darkness") 50:20
LL3. ("The Darkness Beneath") 51:08
LL4. ("The Residence of Breath") 51:54
LL5. ("Darkness behind Darkness") 52:47
MM. "Grand Parade: The Clothes, We Have" 53.42
MM1. ("First Attempt at Marching") 53:42
MM2. Kraus Aphorism VI: "Vienna Has Beautiful Surroundings …" ("Second Attempt at Marching") 54:56.5
NN. "Parade Heard from Inside the Tent" 55.38
OO. "Gaze with Burning Defiance at the Audience…at Your Executioners" 56.12 (End: 56.50)
Das Fliegenpapier
Steven Kazuo Takasugi's Das Fliegenpapier / The Flypaper is a meditation on the short prose piece with the same name (Das Fliegenpapier) by the Austrian writer Robert Musil. The text, both in English and the original German, are recordings of the recitations by the composer/poet Wieland Hoban, the two languages fragmented and inter-braided. Other sound samples are employed including the recording of a fly realized in the composer's studio. The piece understands that the objective gaze of the scientist, almost sadistic in his observation of a fly dying on poisoned glue, can easily be turned toward himself as he observes his own extermination with the same scientific objectivity and focussed attention to factual occurrence and details.
The fixed-media piece was composed in 2005, while the live version for flute, vocalist (with flute), and electronic amplification and playback was realized in 2012.
Jargon of Nothingness
I. L’architecture
A. Crustacé I
B. Crustacé II
C. Crustacé III
D. Sonnenlicht im Wald
E. Crustacé IV
F. The Machine I
G. Le Vide I
H. Zoo: Trapped Animals
I. Deconstructive Inventory
J. Zoo: Trapped Animals II
K. Crustacé V: Barrage
L. Le Vide II
II. L’intérieur du vide
M. Deconstructive Inventory II: Water Striders (Gerris remigis)
N. The Machine II
O. Le Vide III
P. Le Vide des Nihilistes
Q. The Last Void
Jargon of Nothingness was influenced by a number of events and subsequent meditations circa the end of 2001: 1) the idea of a collapsing architecture, 2) Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin as a deconstructivist architecture with its contradictory spaces, passages, and voids, 3) a critical article by Ian Pepper entitled “Jargon des Nichts” which appears in the book Mythos Cage confirming much of my understanding of the lineage and reception/misrepresentation of Zen in the West, and last but not least, 4) the death of a close friend, who had heard the first half of the piece, but not the last.
Architectural paradox plays an important metaphor in this work: in 2002, I described it conceptually in the following description:
An ideal architecture might not be a ruin after all. An ideal architecture might be [a live] organic being—one in the midst of grasping an awareness—an
incongruence between mind and estranged body. This dissociation is brought about by an interchange of the body’s interior and exterior surfaces: an
endoskeletal creature turned ectoskeletal or in short, a being pulled inside out. The initial adjustments of the body in a failed attempt to find correspondence
with the mind, would create the cavities in which we could briefly dwell…Somehow we know that this architectural crustacean is actually ourselves. We
attempt to dwell in ourselves…
The work is dedicated to Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf who introduced me to Libeskind’s work. Audio samples in the playback portion of the piece were provided by Peter Veale, Seth Josel, and myself. Much gratitude for the realization of the live version is due Peter Veale, Carl Rosman and Yaron Deutsch.
Strange Autumn
Wieland Hoban’s bilingual poems are infested with paradox. They evade the space of one language or the other or both. Where are they then? Imagine a bilingual edition of a volume of poems. Imagine the original poem (conventionally on the verso page-side) and its translation (on the recto side) both sliding into the seam between the pages—or a poem resulting when both verso and recto meet, original and translation pressed against each other. Such reflects the structure of the poetic space, but in either case, the possibility of reading is no longer available. Likewise, with Hoban’s poetry, any attempt to disentangle one language from the other in order to circumvent the semantic cancellation of the two languages, presents only another implacable uncertainty in its place. Despite these perplexities, the poetry manages to penetrate into the interior of the conundrum we call existence, and like a house of mirrors, acquires its illusory dimensions and volume from the accumulation rendered by a multitude of false reflections. One might then begin to understand my interpretation of the poetic space at hand. To translate this into a piece for reciter, percussionist, and electronics was the task of Strange Autumn. It was begun in 2003 and written during the first year of the occupation of Iraq by US-led coalition forces. It is dedicated to the poet.
Die Klavierübung
Die Klavierübung, in its original version, is a 40-minute, four movement work to be heard on headphones, created solely from samples of various pianos and other hammered, plucked, or bowed string instruments. The initial concept for the work was an image: a pianist sitting on his bench, at the keyboard, curiosity compelling him to unseat himself and lean forward to investigate the strings inside the instrument, and therewith falling into an abyss under the lid. This would be suggested all through sound. Although the title suggests practicing, there is no performer involved, other than the person performing the original recorded samples in the studio. Thus the idea of finding some notion of aesthetic truth on a false, virtual foundation was a key component from the beginning of the work's conception.
In a subsequent concert version for loudspeakers, there happened to be a piano on stage as is common when pianos cannot be rolled and concealed offstage. In still a subsequent version, a similar piano on stage was opened full-stick, and false cables were led from the loudspeakers to the inside of the piano, suggesting to the audience that sounds were emanating from the piano itself, which was of course a false assumption. Finally, in the last version, the piano was set up in a similar fashion, with false cables and loudspeakers, a dim light was directed into the piano under the lid, the stage and hall lights were blacked out, and a person was then asked to come sit on the bench, but not play a single note, to create a human presence on stage again. This radically altered the audience's attitude towards a concert with only loudspeaker music.
Now, in tonight's version, Mr. Downs will perform his interpretation of a score derived from a filtered and reordered mapping derived by spectral analysis of the original version of the first movement which will also accompany the original version's soundfile through loudspeakers. Both complicit and resistant to the fixed media, he is confronted with what to do with the task of strict doubling. Thus, this final version completes the full cycle: from the absence of people on stage (and the absence of the stage itself through headphones) to the presence of a live person performing on stage. The only subsequent version, conceptually and logically speaking (what you will not hear), would be a pure piano solo interpretation without any loudspeakers whatsoever. That version would be based on only the live part of what you hear tonight. The original version was commissioned by TRANSIT, Festival van Vlaanderen, Vlaams-Brabant and premiered in Leuven, Belgium in 2009.
Diary of a Lung
The Folktale, “Urashima Taro,” as Subtext:
To begin, Diary of a Lunghas an extensive subtext centered about the Japanese folktale, Urashima Taro. Most Japanese know the story from childhood, and in fact it is the children’s tale that is here referenced. There are numerous versions, nonetheless, including those appearing in such eighth century collections as the Nihon-shokiand the Manyoshu. The following is a synopsis based on recurrent narrative constantsthroughout the many popular versions of the folktale:
Story’s beginning: UrashimaTaro, a young fisherman, rescues a sea turtle out of kindness, in some versions, from the cruelty of boys. As repayment, the turtle rewards Taro by taking him to the Ryugu-jo, the Dragon Palace, under the sea, the residence of Princess Otohime. Taro climbs on the turtle’s back and descends beneath the waves(see illustration below). (In some versions, the sea turtle is first permitted to escape and then only later returns to reward the fisherman. Often, it is the princess who sends the sea turtle to retrieve the fisherman in order that she may thank him. In some versions, the sea turtle returns later in the evening, but is much older than it was when the fisherman rescued it.)In Diary of a Lung, there is no turtle to descend into the deep, rather the task is accomplished through a near drowning.
Story’s middle: At the Dragon Palace made of red coral, Tarois hosted by the Princess Otohimewith great generosity, kindness, and in sumptuous style and lives threedays in complete happiness. But intime, he experiences homesickness. Otohime allows him to return home and before he leaves, gives him a precious box, but tells him neverto open it.(In certain versions, her generosity is expressed through lavish banquets with delicacies the fisherman cannot begin to identify. Often, the banquet includes musical entertainment performed by a myriad of sea creatures on instruments consisting of their own bodies, body parts, or other underwater articles. Dance is also apart of the festivities and reflects the elegant movement associated with the undulation of undersea currents. Otohime is often deeply saddened at first by the fisherman’s request to return, but despite this, she has no intention of imprisoning him in her palace. She is generally a benevolent deity. The box is often jewel-encrusted lacquerware, a token of the riches of the undersea palace. In a woodblock print of Taro’s return by the artist Yoshitoshi, an entourage that includes a palace guard and a lady-in-waiting accompanies the princess.In Diary of a Lung, the guard is represented by a large lobster, musicians by crabs.)
Story’s end: Taro returns to land, but it is not the same as whenhe left it. No one recognizes him. He is a complete stranger in his own village. Nor does anyone know of his friends and family. He discovers that a great many years have passedand that those close to him, for whom he has been searching, have long been dead. Distraught, he opens the box forgetting the words of the princess. A white cloud or a curl of smoke is released from the box causing him to grow old and die, thus revealing that the content of the box was the actual years he had spent under the sea: not the three days he had thought, but three hundred years. (Some versions are descriptive about his death: his hair becomes snow white, his body shrivels, dries, flakes, and turns to a cloud of dust becoming one with the smoke of the box.)
Table of Contents:
Part I: The Drowning Man
A. 00:00 Lead-in
B. 00:08 One Day, A Strange Case of Bronchitis
C. 01:44 Resting, Recovering, Observing
D. 02:12 A Brief Glimpse of an Undersea Palace
E. 02:36 The Strange, Resonant Hallways of the Sofiensaal
F. 03:24 Cicadas Speak of Summer
G. 03:56 The Flooding Begins
H. 04:40 The Drowning
I. 05:28 The Sinking Man
Part II: Three Daysin a Lung
J. 06:16 An Underwater Cavern or A Survivor
K. 06:48 The Dragon Palace of Red and White Coral
L. 07:56 A Reclusive Paradise
M. 09:00 The Great Pipe Drains Under the Seabed
N. 10:16 Das Wasser (The Water)
O. 11:12 Escorts of Flying Fish
P. 11:44 The Princess Otohime
Q. 13:00 Court Dances of Crustaceans
Part III: The Fisherman’s Return
R. 14:52 Letters from Prison
S. 16:00 Homesick or A Relapse of Bronchitis
T. 17:00 Eyes in Their Last Extremity
U. 17:36 Alone Again, but for the Company of Crabs or The Box Gift
V. 18:12 The Fisherman Returns Home a Stranger
W. 19:32 The Shore, Only Vaguely Familiar
X. 20:08 On Opening the Box: Not Three Days, but Three Hundred Years
Y. 20:32 Lead-out
Connections
When a fully functioning body loses one of its senses (the ability to see, for example), the brain readjusts its connectivity to strengthen the other senses. In essence, it makes new connections in different ways. If we view humanity as a body, then 2020 was a year when the body of humanity lost a major sense: its main mode of connection - physical contact. Yet the collective brain reconfigured itself, and humanity made connections in different ways. Zoom usage increased. Safe hugging devices were created. Creative masks were developed. Social media platforms were utilized in new and creative ways, and also in unique combinations. Humanity collectively released a silent message: connections are important and necessary for existence. This new piece, Connections, is an acknowledgement of this collective statement from humanity.
Anna
ANNA is an operetta film which explores the lyrical universe of Yiddish poet Anna Margolin. Through the captivating voice of composer Anat Spiegel, these contemporary texts blend into an abstract narrative thick with emotion and ceremony, highlighting the ever present inquiry of historical, geographical and gender spectrums which define Margolin's work.
Margolin's reverent and astonishingly modern poems are one of early 20th century's hidden treasures, her utterly unique voice known mostly in Yiddish speaking circles. Composer Anat Spiegel discovered Margolin's poetry in the summer of 2020 during her Yiddish studies at YIVO institute for Jewish Research. 'Lider' (1929), Margolin's first and only publication, is laden with contemporary themes and imagery which captured Spiegel's imagination.
In the 12 supremely written lines of “Ikh bin geven a mol a yingling” ('Once I was a boy',) Queerness is examined through historical, geographical and gender leaps. “Di Yorn” ('The years') offers a melancholic visual account of time's passage remnants. The composition ANNA for voice, violin, cello and electronics is following in the footsteps of Spiegel's latest piece: "My Four Mothers", continuing the composer's inquiry into the narratives of Jewish history through the female/ non- binary perspective.
Once I was a Boy (translated by Kathryn Hellerstein) Years (translated by Shirley Cumove)
I once was a boy, a stripling Like women well loved yet still not sated,
Listening in Socrate’s portico going through life with laughter and rage
my bosom- buddy, my sweet darling, eyes gleaming with fire and agate-
Had Athens' most beautiful torso. That's how the years were.
Was Caesar. And from marble constructed They were also like actors, insipidly
A glistening world, I the last there playing Hamlet in the square
And for my own wife selected like grand seigneurs in a proud land
My stately sister. Who grab rebellion by the throat.
Rose- garlanded nursing wine all night See how submissive they are now, my God,
In high spirits, hear tell the news struck dumb as a shattered piano,
About the weakling from Nazareth taking each blow and taunt like a caress,
And wild tales about Jews. seeking You, yet not believing in You.
Anna was Commissioned by RIMON: The Minnesota Jewish arts council with support of the BrinIngber Salon Commission.
Text by Anna Margolin
Music by Anat Spiegel
Film by Thomas Myrmel
Performers: Anat Spiegel (voice) Mikaela Marget (cello, chorus) Isabel Dammann (violin, chorus)
Tom Myrmel (electronics)
Constructive Drama
The opposites ( perfection and imperfection, movement and steadiness, intersection and paralleling, and the tight and wide spaces...) are allegories that exist and emerge through the compositional process, and in the light of the earlier perceptions the concentration was how to tie and combine all of these allegories together and invent a small, thick and complicated architecture.
Vessel
Written by Joe Horton and Josh Clausen as a companion piece to a short film of the same name, VESSEL employs an ensemble of acoustic and digital technologies to evoke a mystical future where the human imagination becomes untethered from its biological roots and coalesces into new modes of being.
In Between
I have always been trying to find an answer which intermediates in-between some things or some contexts; sometimes in-between the past and the present, in-between Japan and the rest of the world, or in-between language, sound, and music.
This piece is like listening to two kinds of music while we are changing between two channels. I tried to find a way to create one form to deal with those two kinds of music, each of which has its own different character and tempo, and each of them keeps going on in a circle individually. In other words, I tried to integrate two various time fields.
In the first music, the same gesture, which consists of glissandi played by three performers in their own ways (I am always thinking about how I can bend the sound of every instrument), is repeated while continuously being subtly changed. On the other side, the second music, which mainly consists of dots and goes on one beat, is being developed little by little. We start by listening to the first music, but it is interrupted by inserts or breaks of the second music. The interruptions appear more and more often, and they get longer and longer. Then, finally, the second music gets the upper hand over the first music.
In Between was written for a world premiere in the Delian Academy for New Music, performed by Trio Accanto.
(Washington, D.C.) Memory Space
Using audio and video field recordings taken in the streets and parks of Washington, D.C. throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, (Washington, D.C.) Memory Space expands on Alvin Lucier’s (Amsterdam) Memory Space from 1970 to investigate the dissonances between the concrete world, our relative memories, and artificial information. The field recordings, accompanied by Caden Vandervort on horn, deteriorate with both purposeful and randomized processing, while the distorted visuals are interwoven with computer generated imagery from an artificial intelligence tasked with recreating specific locations within D.C. and visual themes familiar to the District.
This year, Alvin Lucier and the New Music community celebrate his 90th birthday.
Renka I – Toshio Hosokawa
Like the morning mist
Clouding the autumn fields,
Where will it stop,
My helpless wandering love?
- Iwanohime-no-Ookisaki
from the second volume of “Manyoshu”
O to gather up and fold,
To burn with heavenly fire
That road
You must travel away from me.
- Sano-no-Otogami-no-Otome
from the fifteenth volume of “Manyoshu”
Its oars lost,
Hopelessly adrift
On Yura Bay,
The boatman’s craft
Is like my love which
Knows no path to follow.
- Sone-no-Yoshitada
from “Shinkokinshu”
English translations by Dr. Glenn Glasow.