Composer's Voice Concert Guitars in Brooklyn May 21, 2003 A.R.T South Oxford Space 138 South Oxford Street Brooklyn, New York 11217

Concert featuring electro-acoustic and live electric guitar music of Marco Oppedisano with special guests:George Brunner, Noah Creshevsky, Oren Fader, Kevin R. Gallagher, Christine Perea, and Robert Voisey

Title Composers Performers frozen tears Marco Oppedisano electronic urban mosaic Marco Oppedisano Kevin Gallagher, electric guitar hoodlum priest Noah Creshevsky electronic primo volo Marco Oppedisano Oren Fader, classical guitar tainted tree Robert Voisey Marco Oppedisano, electric guitar and Robert Voisey, tenor eternal lovers Marco Oppedisano electronic trio Marco Oppedisano Christine Perea, bass flute George Brunner, cello Marco Oppedisano, electric guitar and electronics steel sky Marco Oppedisano electronic green revisited Marco Oppedisano Marco Oppedisano, electric guitar

Performer and Composers George Brunner is a composer and performer, researcher/writer, recording engineer/producer and teacher. His music has been performed throughout the United States, in Europe, Asia, and South America. Brunner has served as composer-in-residence three times at EMS (Electroacoustic Music Studios) in Stockholm, Sweden and in 2001 at Kungliga Musikhögskolan i Stockholm (Royal College of Music in Stockholm), Sweden. A recent recipient of a research grants from the American Scandinavian Foundation and the Svenska Institutet of Sweden, he is at present writing a book on Text Sound Composition and is considered an authority on the subject. In January/February 2003, Mr. Brunner was composer-in-residence at the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges (France) and composed Within/Without, an electroacoustic work commissioned by the IMEB. In May 2002, Mr. Brunner was Co-Director of the first Electroacoustic Music Festival in Istanbul, Turkey sponsored by Bilgi University. Bilgi University commissioned Brunner to write a new work for the festival. In 2002 Mr. Brunner received a commission to create an all electronic score for sixteen 45 minute radio programs on Sound Poetry for the Radio/Radio program, London England; Martin Spinelli, producer. Brunner currently holds a tenure track position and serves as the Director of the Music Technology Program for the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and is the founder of the Brooklyn College Electroacoustic Music Ensemble, which under his direction produces an annual CD. He also founded and coordinates the biannual International Electroacoustic Music Festival at Brooklyn College, New York City. Mr. Brunner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "Noah Creshevsky is as much a virtuoso of the sampler as anyone working in the field. But instead of using it for mere technical effects, he turns it into a tool of the imagination, creating impossible ensembles from some parallel universe. In place of notes, Creshevsky uses sampled gestures, noises, and radio snippets as his textural atoms, playing dodecaphonist with bits of our lives. His sampler is a means toward not only superhuman virtuosity, but a new universality."--Kyle Gann, music critic, Village Voice. Born in 1945 in Rochester, New York, Creshevsky began musical study at age five at the Eastman School of Music. He graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Fontainebleau. His master's degree is from the Juilliard School, where he was a pupil of Luciano Berio. Creshevsky's work has been supported by grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and ASCAP. It has been released on records and compact discs, and performed and broadcast internationally. Formerly director of the Center for Computer Music and professor of music at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, he has served on the faculties of the Juilliard School and Hunter College, and been a visiting professor at Princeton University. Oren Fader is active as a performer of classical guitar repertoire, both traditional and contemporary. Reviewing his solo New York recital, Guitar Review magazine stated: "His scholarship, technique, and intelligent musicianship are plainly evident and the beauty of his tone is consistently compelling." He has performed in London, Tokyo, Munich, Amsterdam, Montreal, Maui, Russia, Mexico, and throughout the United States. Concerto performances include the Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Other soloist appearances include the North Country Chamber Players, Queensboro Orchestra, Manchester Music Festival Chamber Symphony and the Riverside Symphony. Recent chamber and orchestral performances include Music from Japan, Da Camera Houston, Poetica Musica, Sequitur, American Composers' Orchestra, Music at the Anthology, Absolute Ensemble, New World Symphony, Speculum Musicae, New Amsterdam Singers, Glimmerglass Opera, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Met Chamber Ensemble, New York City Ballet, and the New York Festival of Song. Festival performances include Aspen, Tanglewood, and Morelia (Mexico). Mr. Fader has recently been touring with the Mark Morris Dance Group, performing Lou Harrison's Serenade for Guitar as accompaniment for a new solo dance work choreographed and danced by Mark Morris. Mr. Fader is well known for his performance of contemporary music. In a performance of Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms #10 for guitar and electronic tape, The New York Times wrote: "Oren Fader gave the guitar part a polished, energetic performance that was precisely matched to the tape sounds". And at a recent performance The New York Times called Mr. Fader's playing "Electrifying". As a member of the Award winning new music ensembles Cygnus, Fireworks, and Parnassus, he has premiered over 30 solo and chamber works with guitar, including compositions by Babbitt, Wuorinen, Machover, Biscardi, Currier, Naito, Pollock, and others. CRI recently released the Cygnus ensemble's first disc, featuring works written for the group. Mr. Fader can be heard on over 20 recordings, in repertoire ranging from the 19th Century (Sor) to late 20th (Carter). Recently completed recording projects include a new recording of an arrangement of "The Rite of Spring" performed by the Fireworks ensemble, and a guitar quartet by Meyer Kupferman. Mr. Fader's solo CD will be available in the Spring of 2003. Mr. Fader received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Purchase and his Master of Music (Performance) degree from Florida State University. His major teachers include David Starobin and Bruce Holzman. Since 1994 Mr. Fader has been on the guitar faculty and directed the Guitar Chamber Music program at the Manhattan School of Music Kevin R. Gallagher (b 1969) began playing rock guitar in his formative years but musical appetite quickly led him to study jazz and ultimately, classical guitar. His talent for the classical guitar won him numerous scholarships and awards while studying with Benjamin Verdery at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and at the Julliard School under the tutelage of Sharon Isbin. He was the first-prize winner in the 1993 Guitar Foundation of America, the 1994 ASTA, and the 1993 Artists International Competitions. He also has the distinct honor of being the only American classical guitarist ever to win first prize in the prestigious Francisco Tárrega Guitar Competition in Spain (1997). After his studies at Julliard, Mr. Gallagher gave many classical guitar performances and masterclasses throughout the world, including countries such as Spain, Germany, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, Brazil, England, and the United States. He also recorded four classical guitar albums, the ultimate being an album for Naxos Records which was hailed as "one of the very best NAXOS guitar recordings" by Classical Guitar Magazine in May of 2000. In the summer of 2001, Kevin returned to his first love, the electric guitar. Since then, his goal has been to bridge the "contemporary" music concert and the "popular" music concert. Kevin encourages composers to write new music for the instruments of today - such as the electric guitar, turntables, synthesizers etc. This unique mix of traditions is widening the audience and interest for new music as well as educating composers who never have the chance to study these modern instruments in a typical conservatory education. Mr. Gallagher has already arranged numerous works for the solo electric guitar, including pieces by Jacob Ter Veldhuis, Steve Reich, Leo Brouwer, and Arvo Pärt among others. Urban Mosaic is written for and dedicated to him by Marco Oppedisano. Marco Oppedisano (b. 1971) was born in Brooklyn, New York. He began playing guitar at the age of 12 and entered undergraduate studies as a classical guitar performance major, studying with Michael Cedric Smith. He holds a B.A in Music Composition from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, an M.A in Music Composition from the Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music and has studied composition with Noah Creshevsky, Charles Dodge, Tania Leon, Thea Musgrave and Henry Weinberg. From 1999-2003, as a guest of the Brooklyn College/ CUNY Electro-Acoustic Composers yearly compact disc, Oppedisano has composed a series of multi-track electric guitar pieces inspired by The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Recently completed projects include the solo electric work Urban Mosaic for Kevin R. Gallagher, a solo classical guitar work Primo Volo for Oren Fader, Steel Sky for multitrack electric guitars, Trio for three live instruments and tape, an a cappella piece for 3 sopranos based on the Creation Canto from The Divine Comedy, and a classical or electric guitar quartet, The Good News commissioned by the Zyryab Guitar Quartet in Portugal. Oppedisano is also a performer in an "electronic duet" with the voice of Thomas Buckner in a new composition by Noah Creshevsky. The piece is entitled Hoodlum Priest and will be included on a compact disc release in 2003 on Mutable Records of Creshevsky's music. Projects for later this year include a large electronic work called Snapshots (for Noah Creshevsky) consisting of hundreds of short electric guitar samples and a work for electric guitar and percussion. Oppedisano is also an instructor of guitar and music theory and has extensive studio and performance experience in music ranging from rock/pop, hip-hop, blues, jazz, musical theater, electro-acoustic music, free improvisation and contemporary concert music. He also is a member of an electric guitar quartet with Oren Fader and Kevin Gallagher that will be performing later this year. Oppedisano has also conducted the premieres of his a cappella vocal works; The Emperor of Ice Cream (1998) and The Creation (2002). In May 2002, his multitrack electric guitar work, Frozen Tears was heard in an electro-acoustic music festival at Bilgi University in Istanbul, Turkey. Oppedisano has had other electronic works heard around the world. In 1996 he received a grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. for a his work Three Short Pieces for flute, clarinet, trombone and electric guitar (1995). His works are registered with ASCAP. Christine Perea flute, has performed as a soloist throughout the NYC area, as well as with the Vox Novus Ensemble, Brooklyn Heights Philharmonic, New York University New Music and Dance Ensemble, and Forecast. She specializes in New Music, particularly electro-acoustic repertoire, and her performances on the piccolo, alto, bass, and concert flutes have taken her to Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Washington D.C., and Pisa, Italy. Ms. Perea is the former music director for the Vox Novus Ensemble, and is a member of the adjunct faculty at NYU, where she is also a Ph.D. candidate. Christine holds a Masters degree in Flute Performance from New York University and a Bachelor's from DePaul University in Chicago. While in Chicago, Ms. Perea also served as principal flutist and piccolo player for two years with the Chicago Classical Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Joseph Glymph. Christine's teachers have included Robert Dick, Keith Underwood, Linda Chesis, Mary Stolper, Clem Barone, and Shaul Ben-Meir. She is a member of the National Flute Association and has performed as a soloist at both the 2001 and 2002 conventions. Her research goals include writing a dissertation pertaining to the history of electro-acoustic music for the flute with emphasis on the use of timbre in this repertoire and a pedagogical guide to playing the alto and bass flutes, of which she is an avid performer. An active supporter of new music, she has performed New York premieres of works by Rodrigo Sigal, Lawrence Moss, Rene Mogensen, Will Redmond , Jin Hi Kim, and Robert Voisey. "Robert Voisey composes music as a natural part of his life. Substantial compositions can take months to complete, or they can appear in one or two days, full blown in both concept and in detail. Voisey has developed an original and versatile system of interlocking, modulating modes that blend elements of eastern and western musical processes. The resulting compositions reflect a wonderful merging of spontaneous energy and disciplined technique. Voisey's music offers a multitude of pleasures to performers and audiences alike. This is music worth hearing again and again." - Noah Creshevsky Voisey values himself as a renaissance man. His disciplines include music, computer science, math, art, and poetry. In the midst of accomplishing his Bachelor of Arts at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he traveled to Israel to study with the composers Oded Zehavi and Aiten Schteinberg. Voisey returned to New York two years later to resume his studies with Noah Creshevsky and George Brunner at the City University of New York at Brooklyn College. After a long hiatus, he returned to his background of computer science creating music with electronic media rather than limiting himself to conventional instruments. In Israel, Voisey debuted several compositions at Tel Hai, Bar-Ilan, and Jerusalem. He also enjoyed performances broadcasted on Kol Muscia (the voice of music) Israeli National Radio. Currently composing in Harlem, New York he has several compositions debut in venues in New York City as well as abroad. Recently his compositions have debuted in Buenos Aires, Argentina with La Scala de San Telmo.

Program Notes: frozen tears (2001) - marco oppedisano As part of my series of multitrack electric guitar works based On Dante, this piece portrays Canto XXXIII, lines 91-103 of The Inferno. It is here the sinners lie frozen on their backs, suffering as their tears freeze up in their eyes not allowing them to weep. All sounds were performed live in the studio using extended guitar techniques, various electronic devices and accessories, prepared electric guitar and bass, alternate tunings, and minimal processing. urban mosaic (2002) - marco oppedisano This four movement solo electric guitar work was written for Kevin R. Gallagher. "The piece is in 4 movements and pays homage to the urban area of New York/New Jersey where both he and I grew up. It explores a wide variety of electric guitar techniques, i.e. plectrum, e-bow, pedal volume swells, feedback and right hand fingerstyle technique." Kevin R. Gallagher hoodlum priest (2002) - noah creshevsky "Although Hoodlum Priest was composed for electric guitar and voice, it was not designed for live performance. Hoodlum Priest is an electroacoustic work intended to be heard through speakers, either at home or in a concert setting. The procedure of composing for traditional Instruments on tape combines the warmth of "natural" sound sources with the particular kinds of musical complexities that are most easily achieved through computer composition. Hoodlum Priest is not for ANY electric guitar and voice. It is specifically for Marco Oppedisano's electric guitar samples and Thomas Buckner's baritone voice samples. Both of these extraordinary musicians recorded musical fragments specifically for my use in this composition, and for other works. Whatever the title may mean, it is in no sense a reference to current events, or to anything relating to the characters of the soloists. " Noah Creshevsky. primo volo (2003) - marco oppedisano primo volo ("first flight") is a one movement work for solo classical guitar written for Oren Fader. tainted tree (2003) - robert voisey This composition is a “tainted” rendition of the Handel aria which is all about a love for a tree. The “taint” series is all about taking a naïve or simple melodic concept and transforming it into the rules and “accepted” traditions which govern composers to what “high art” is supposed to be. Even Handel was subjected to these criticisms and guidelines. Being an English composer he was coerced to write in Italian because only opera in Italian was considered the “true” form of that genre. All other works in other languages were considered inferior. In this version the recitative is sung as an modern day aria with all the influences that relate to us in the now and slowly transforms later into the aria we all know and love. eternal lovers (1999) - marco oppedisano This multi-track electric guitar work is part of a largerwork called Scenes from Dante's Inferno. It is a portrayal of Dante's meeting with the doomed lovers, Paolo and Fransesca in Canto V of The Inferno. Three distinct guitar voices portray each of the characters in the story. Two intertwined guitars performing the same melody slightly offset represent the lovers and one steady guitar portrays the voice of Dante. trio (2003) - marco oppedisano The "tape" or purely electronic portion of this piece consists of electric guitar sounds with effects processing. The amplified live instrument's parts are improvised and various cues and instructions in relation to the “tape” are given to the performers by means of a graphic score. The piece functions primarily as a dialogue between performers and tape, with the “tape” always constant and improvisation changing with each performance. steel sky (2003) - marco oppedisano This multitrack electric guitar and bass work focuses primarily on the sounds created by loud distorted electric guitar feedback and e-bow. Various pitches were created by manipulation of feedback in performance. At various points there are up to 14 guitars sounding simultaneously and none of the sounds contain effects processing. steel sky is dedicated to George Brunner. green revisited (2003) - marco oppedisano First performed as green on a Vox Novus concert earlier this year, this is a variation on the semi-improvised electric guitar solo. In relentlessly developing Vox Novus, first and foremost the reason for Vox Novus’ existence is for the promotion of contemporary composers, their works and the musicians and or entities, which perform and produce contemporary music. To accomplish this, Vox Novus sponsors concerts and a core of musicians and encourages them to perform new music. Through its prominent website, Vox Novus provides resources to the contemporary composer, public access to the new music of its members and an effective means for the distribution of their work.

Brought to you by

Funding by Funding also provided by the Puffin Foundation, "...continuing the dialogue between art and lives of ordinary people." Funding from Meet The Composer, Inc. is provided with the support of NY State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, ASCAP, Virgil Thomson Foundation, Jerome Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, The Greenwall Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts.

Home Calendar History Opportunities Vox Novus Site Map Contact Hosted by Malted/Media and Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar