After receiving many submissions from around the globe, we are proud to announce the composers selected for Fifteen Minutes of Fame with Jacqueline Martelle.
The composers selected for Fifteen Minutes of Fame with Jacqueline Martelle include:
Silvan Abdilla,
Erol Bugra Balci,
Emanuela Ballio,
Jonathan Blumhofer,
Erik Branch,
Inna Buganina,
Fermino Gomes,
Tom Hamilton,
David Heinick,
Vladimir Karpenko,
Albert HC Manders,
Jennifer Merkowitz,
Troy Ramos,
Blair Whittington, and
Christopher Wicks
New music need not be innovative to be good. While every work is in a sense an experiment or study, novelty for its own sake can prove a tiresome gimmick when the exploitation is left unexhausted. Likewise, it is possible to look backwards to preexisting models in the classical tradition without denying the present or sounding derivative. It’s a fine line, and not a little subjective, but it has much to do with self-contained-ness and avoidance of parody. If composers treat their material in an appropriate aesthetic, but develop it well and fully, the piece cannot be said to have forfeited its sense of identity. Likewise, the flaw in many retrogressive works is not in their having a reference point, but in their simplification of it in replication; a failure to address the full complexity of the model and subsequent reduction of it to a few superficial-though-recognizable features.
The composers presented in the January 27th Composer’s Voice concert at Jan Hus Church largely succeeded, despite the traditionalism of their music, by creating tautly constructed miniatures, which remained committed to exploring a few effects or Affekts with brevity and parsimony. Writing a miniature is a challenging exercise in discipline, of discarding the superfluous, even if it is attractive, and of ingenuity, since, inhibited from sprawling unfoldings, development must sprout from the smallest germ seeds. Composers who can harness the qualities of the genre emerge with gems of precision, elegance, and restraint.
The Sunday afternoon concert began with four shorts written for the Douglas DaSilva documentary, My Dad’s Violin, which spins the history and mystery behind the eponymous family heirloom, while showing several violinists putting the instrument through its paces. Several of the musicians play new works commissioned for the film, these examples having been performed this day by with sharp incisiveness and unsentimentality by Lynn Bechtold. Each is rooted firmly in the harmonic language and technical demands of 20th Century tonal modernism, the dominant classical idiom at the time Mr. DaSilva’s father was studying at Peabody Conservatory.
Ken Paoli’s Cadenza recalls Hindemith, with empty, longing desolation hiding within those formal open harmonies.
Milica Paranosic’s uspavanka(lullabye) offers a simple melody almost as a found object, repeated in three variants, one on low strings, one, more impassioned, on high strings with double-stops, and the last in tender pizzicato.
Zelante(zealous), by Juan María Solare, is a frantic, off-balance tango, Piazzolla as misheard by Bartók.
The four-minute suite concluded with Steve Cohen’s Dear Old Dad, a seemingly lost dance from Soldier’s Tale. Each piece worked by keeping its scope and ambitions in check, and maintaining a narrow focus. None tried to say too much, and nothing was left unsaid.
Hypertext II links digressively to composer Can B. Bilir’s several musical personalities, referencing fragmented pointillism, following a detour to a microtonal folk song on a ney, before returning to the main page, only to get lost surfing bouncy Impressionism. Several complete miniatures tied together by a common conceit, they achieve a semblance of unity by connecting between one another and internally within themselves. It’s a musical concept that predates Windows, but one which could be further and more consciously exploited by means of common connecting material, which explains the relevance of each section to the other, and follows the narrative even less linearly. Flautist Linda Wetherill played musically and with attractive tone throughout, though clearer stylistic distinctions might have driven home the concept more effectively.
Nailah Nombeko imbued her violin/piano duo, Obscurity, with a brooding Debussy-esque Impressionism. It made no excuses for its straightforward ABA1 structure, song form an appropriate choice for so lyrical a work.
As a vignette, the appropriation of so specific a sound-world seemed more like an evocation of a bygone era than an attempt at facsimile or pastiche, and with its formal simplicity felt like a lovely palate cleanser. Stanichka Dimitrova’ stone was well suited to the aesthetic, her slightly guttural nasality and Romantic, long, arching phrasings not dissimilar from the violinists of the Golden Age of recordings. Noah Palmer, her partner, supported her with a broad palette of tone colors and a suave, almost bluesy legato.
Greg Caffrey’s Takemitsu’s Dream for solo guitar consisted of a series of brief prelude-like movements, each devoted to a single effect or gesture, starting with a pentatonic flamenco fantasy. The work as a whole was much more concrete than anything Toru Takemitsu himself wrote; this composition seemed the attempt a reconstruction of Takemitsu’s source material, as presented in a dream, before being obscured by the gauze of waking and being notated, half remembered, in a score. Diego Campagna’s playing was full-bodied, often muscular, and made excellent us of pace and silence.
The Parhelion Trio premiered its Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame program last summer. While the group, made up of Sarah Carrier on flute, Gloria Medina on clarinet, and Andrea Christie on piano, displayed good ensemble, vitality, and panache, the reverberant acoustics of the venue and a piano with a very dull, deadened tone did not lend themselves to a full appreciation of the 15 one-minute commissions. Jan Hus is no less mushy, but with a livelier, if too boomy and percussive, piano, Ms. Christie was able to exercise a new assertiveness, drive, and leadership over the proceedings. Ms. Carrier and Ms. Medina, meanwhile, lost nothing of their musical awareness and subtle timbral matching. Heard for a second time, the miniatures appeared as almost new works. Especially noteworthy this time were:
Flow – Cameo, by Peter Nickol, a pop/folk song that went astray before a satisfying wind-down.
In Selah, by Juan María Solare, the winds offer a witty, if furtive chatter above a plucked piano bass.
Michael Mikulka’s 22° Distant also relied on Ms. Christie playing inside the piano, the winds emerging from her figures and gestures, all things rising from one another.
Luca Vanneschi’s Parhelion depicted the solar phenomenon aptly: the piano accompanied with a cantus firmus atmospherically, eerily sotto voce winds, as their winding dissonances created expanding harmonics into the lingering delay of the church.
Bleep Blip City, by Denton McCabe, blew apart vernacular pretenses, a chamber music love child of OingoBoingo and Torture Garden.
Jean-Pierre Vial’s Haloing Fantasia was chromatic and languorous, redolent of a Poulenc mélodie. Its melodic Romanticism was slick, but enjoyable, concluding in a hilariously unresolved final chord.
Qualitatively, the pieces varied, but all were competently conceived and worked well within their minute limit, suggesting that necessity can be both the mother of invention, and of coherent concision.
Aspiring musicians who take up brass instruments in their formative years often fall victim to chronic ailments. The euphonium, the sudrophone, the flugelhorn, the sackbut – each will compromise the well-being of the player who approaches the instrument with anything less than due diligence. Even the common cornet when played recklessly can cause trumpetitis, a debilitating disorder whose pathology includes an annoying ringing in the ears, a compulsion to slaver, and grossly extruded lips. “They never warned us about this in band camp!” groused the now permanently pouting Doris Dinklaker.
- David Gunn - www.davidgunn.org
Composer’s Voice concert series will not pull punches for its debut performance at Dudley House in Harvard University. The concert will premiere Fifteen Minutes of Fame Re-Imagining Debussy with Stephen Porter.
Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame
Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: Re-Imagining Debussy is 15 one-minute pieces by 15 composers from around the world, writing specifically for Stephen Porter on the theme of Debussy in celebration of his 150th birthday. This international collection of composers include: Anna Aidinian, Erik Branch, Remigio Coco, Cindi Hsu,Giuseppe Lupis, Steven Markowitz, Serban Nichifor, James Soe Nyun, D. Peters; P. M. Reilich, Juan Maria Solare, Aurelio Scotto, Jose Jesus de Azevedo Souza, Anne-Marie Turcotte, and Darren Wirth.
For more information visit: http://www.voxnovus.com/15_Minutes_of_Fame/featuring/Stephen_Porter/
American pianist Stephen Porter was named artist-resident of the Cité Internationale Des Arts in Paris, and invited to give recitals of the music of Claude Debussy during the composer’s 150th birthday year. (BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER) "Stephen Porter has a thorough knowledge of and clear affinity for Claude Debussy’s Préludes...masterful" (BERKSHIRE REVIEW) Praises Porter’s performance of Schubert’s B Flat Sonata,”...the slow movement, broad, grave, and not without its despairing moments, was especially moving... his sense of timing in the coda was perfect, bringing the monumental sonata to a close appropriate to its scale, nobility, and emotional depth...a compelling and moving performance.”
Balancing the evening with longer works Composer’s Voice will present the chamber works of Jason Huffman, John Harbison, Marti Epstein, and Chris Coughlin.
John Harbison's music is distinguished by its exceptional resourcefulness and expressive range. He is considered to be "original, varied, and absorbing — relatively easy for audiences to grasp and yet formal and complex enough to hold our interest through repeated hearings — his style boasts both lucidity and logic" (Fanfare).
Having been hailed as “engaging,” “dramatic,” “epic,” and occasionally “truly odd,” Christopher Coughlin’s music is best characterized by an extreme attentiveness to melodic contour and emotional depth.
Composer's Voice Concert Series is an opportunity for contemporary composers to express their musical aesthetic and personal "voice" created in their compositions. Started in 2001, the “Composer’s Voice” concert series is presenting its 100th of concert scheduled in NYC for 2013. Composer’s Voice presents its first Boston, Massachusetts concert 8:00PM Friday, March 1, 2013. Information on the Composer's Voice can be found at the following link: http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/
Composer’s Voice concert
Friday, March 1st, 2013 8:00PM
Common Room in Lehman Hall (Dudley House)
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138
$10 Suggested Donation
The 60x60 (2012) Voice mix is the first 60x60 mix comprised of works which incorporate the human voice. Thomas Gerwin is the audio coordinator for the 60x60 (2012) Voice Mix.
This will be the U.S. premier of the 60x60 Voice Mix. The 60x60 Voice mix was specifically created for the International Sound Art Festival Berlin in October 2012 which focused on the voice. The human voice is not only an essential part of each and every communication, but also the oldest musical instrument. It expresses since ever most spontaneously, natural und precisely emotions, quite directly as well as artfully formed and modulated.
Composers in the 60x60 (2012) Voice Mix include:
Aaron Acosta,
Jose Mauricio Albuquerque,
Fabian Avila,
Kristian Derek Ball,
Jon Paul Bellona,
David Berlin,
James Bohn,
Benjamin Boone,
Sarah Boothroyd,
Arnold Brooks,
Greg Bryant,
Warren Burt,
Bernard Clarke,
Alison Conard,
Adam Cullen,
Leonardo Duerto,
Tilted Eardrum,
Mark Eden,
Kramer Elwell,
Soressa Gardner,
Richard Dee Hall,
Nathan Halverson,
Andrew Heathwaite,
Chih-Fang Huang,
Karl Heinz Jeron,
Allison Adah Johnson,
Brad Kemp,
Joan La Barbara,
Sebastien Lavoie,
Hoyong Lee,
Augustine Jan Seth Maranatha Bannatyne Leudar,
Moises Linares,
J Henry Hartman Lowengard,
Sylvi macCormac,
Liam Molloy,
Tomoko Momiyama,
Josua Moreno,
David Morneau,
David Moscovich,
KO. DO. NA,
Julia Norton,
Linda O Keeffe,
Lefteris Papadimitriou,
Robert James Pierson,
La Cosa Preziosa,
Holland Sangster,
Nigel Lorimer Simpson,
David Jason Snow,
Juan Maria Solare,
Eli Stine,
Nathan Tamborello,
Benjamin D Taylor,
Matilda Jane Thayer,
Dixie Treichel,
Ultra Violins,
Robert Voisey,
Lisa Whistlecroft,
Logos Women,
Sabrina Pena Young, and
Nena Zinovieff
Click here for the Concert Program of the 60x60 (2012) Voice Mix
Music Recital Hall
Texas State University in San Marcos
San Marcos, Texas
FREE ADMISSION
Sonic Art Research Unit
School of Arts
Oxford Brookes University
Headington, Oxford, OX3 0BP
The Sonic Art Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University are delighted to announce the 3rd annual Audiograft Festival of experimental music and sound art.
Taking place around Oxford from Monday 25th February to Sunday 3rd March. There are numerous installations and performances from Wednesday 27 to Saturday 2 March. Audiograft is co-promoted by OCM.
Over the last three years Audiograft has consistently presented challenging and exciting contemporary work by musicians and sound artists of international repute to the widest possible audiences in and around Oxford.
Highlights of this year’s festival:
• 2012 Sonic Art British Composer of the year Ray Lee’s latest work, Chorus.
• An exhibition of works at Modern Art Oxford by pioneering German sound artist Rolf Julius.
• 60x60, sixty one minute compositions from composers from around the world, present at Oxford Brookes on Wednesday 27th February.
• Daniel Teruggi will present his own compositions alongside a programme of classic works made at the GRM during its distinguished history. Virtuoso recorder player Susanna Borsch performs works for recorder and live electronics, including the British premiere of Sohrab Uduman's composition, Chants, Airs, Dances.
• A realisation of Samuel Beckett's radio play Cascando by John Tilbury; and the SET Ensemble performing James Tenney's Swell pieces; whilst Tim Parkinson performs Phill Niblock's bracing Pan Fried 27.5.
• Maverick minimalist composer Phill Niblock, will present his dense microtonal droneworks at the closing night of the festival, at Modern Art Oxford on Saturday 2 March.
• REF4mation: Paul Dibley will be performing with Tim Howle (university of Kent), Iain Harvie and Brett Gordon to present a performance incorporating piano and electronics.
Tickets from free - £5
www.audiograft.com
Composers in the 60x60 (2012) Presenters Mix include:
Liana Alexandra, Ricardo Arias, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, Rich Bitting, Benjamin Boone, Scott Brickman, George Brunner, Paul Clouvel, Zlatko Cosic, Douglas DaSilva, Brad Decker, Paul Dibley, Erin Dougherty, Leonardo Duerto, Chris Flores, Douglas Geers, Josh Goldman, Melissa Grey, David Gunn, Bruce Hamilton, Dorothy Hindman, Yoko Honda, Lynn Job, Aaron Krister Johnson, Tova Kardonne, Juraj Kojis, Patrick Liddell, Elainie Lillios, Moises Linares, John Link, Blake Martin, Charles Norman Mason, Mike McFerron, Jeff Morris, Serban Nichifor, Rich O'Donnel, Michael James Olson, David R Peoples, Kala Pierson, Christopher Preissing, William Price, Gene Pritsker, Robert Ratcliffe, Robert Sazdov, Jacky Schreiber, Nivedita ShivRaj, Alan Shockley, Juan Maria Solare, Adam Sovkoplas, Adam Stansbie, Allan Strange, Eldad Tsabary, Katerina Tzedaki, Jeremy Van Buskirk, Robert Voisey, Patricia Walsh, Andrew Walters, Rodney Waschka, Aaron Word, and Sabrina Pena Young
Click here for the Concert Program of the 60x60 (2012) Presenters Mix
60x60 Presenters Mix
Audiograft
Headington Hill Hall
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford OX3 0BT
Free Admission
Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: Occupy Cello with Craig Hultgren
Deadline March 1, 2013
Vox Novus is calling for one-minute pieces for cello solo composed for Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame with Craig Hultgren to be performed Sunday, May 19, 2013 for the Composer's Voice concert series at the Jan Hus Church in New York City. Another performance will also be presented in Birmingham, Alabama. The one-minute pieces are to be written specifically for this project, which will be performed by Craig Hultgren. The theme for this Fifteen Minutes of Fame is Occupy Cello - Upsetting the Musical Status Quo For acoustic solo cello Criteria for selection: Playable forward-looking concepts that challenge the traditional role of the instrument Resource for contemporary cello techniques
