Composers and Their Instruments July 27, 2008 Jan Hus Church 351 East 74th Street New York, New York 10021

Vox Novus joins with Remarkable Theater Brigade and Jan hus Church to present Composer's Voice, a monthly concert series championing the work of living composers.

Title Composer Performer Sagittarius Robert_Voisey Robert Voisey - voice and electronic playback Black Christian McLeer Christian McLeer - Nord Lead 3k Ursa Minor and Ursa Major Robert Voisey Robert Voisey - voice and electronic playback Wander... Christian McLeer Christian McLeer - Piano and electronic playback The Gentlest Chord Barbara Monk Feldman Beth Griffith - Voice Piece of Work David Claman David Claman - Laptop Canis Major and Canis Minor Robert Voisey Robert Voisey - voice and electronic playback Sehr Kleiner Drachen Wolfgang von Schweinitz Beth Griffith - Voice Blue Christian McLeer Christian McLeer - Nord Lead 3k Cancer Robert Voisey Robert Voisey - voice and electronic playback Experiences II John Cage Beth Griffith - Voice Boop Boop Beep, for Gameboy David Morneau David morneau - Gameboy Orion Robert Voisey Robert Voisey - voice and electronic playback Tough Guy Piano Music Christian McLeer Christian McLeer - piano

Performers Beth Griffith has appeared with Sequentia, Musikfabrik, Ensemble13, L'Art pour L'Art, Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Paris Nouvel Orchestra Philharmonique and has worked with composers John Cage, Morton Feldman, Mauricio Kagel and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Her one-hour, solo recording of Feldman's "Three Voices" was awarded the German Record Critics Prize. At 12 Beth Levin made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Soon after, she was selected as one of three students to study with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music. She has earned the acclaim of colleagues and critics as an exceptional talent. "A pianist with a bold interpretive personality and a powerful technique. She brought fire and originality to her program." -,Allan Kozinn, The New York Times Ms. Levin made her New York debut in 1982 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recitals at the Gardner Museum, Forum in North Carolina, the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, Harvard University, Randolph Macon College, New York University, Williams College, the Brooklyn Museum, Merkin Hall and Weill Recital Hall followed. She has toured Europe with Trio Borealis and performed the "Emperor" Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra of Quito, Ecuador. Her live radio broadcasts have aired on National Public Radio, WGBH in Boston, WFMT in Chicago and WNYC, WNYE and WQXR in New York.

Composers New York Times February 22, 1988 “FOR nearly a half century, John Cage has been picking away with his perceptive, gentle wit at the conventions of the serious music scene. It is a sign of how entrenched those conventions remain that Mr. Cage's music continues to surprise and humor listeners three and four decades after it was written. ...even if his answers have not always been satisfying, Mr. Cage continues to ask the right question.” David Claman holds degrees from Wesleyan University where he studied the music of South India, from the University of Colorado, and from Princeton where he completed his Ph.D. in composition in 2002. His principal teachers have been Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, Claudio Spies, John McDonald, Richard Toensing, and Luis Gonzalez. He is an adjunct professor at Lehman College in the Bronx. He received a fellowship from The American Institute of Indian Studies in 1998 and has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. He has received commissions from The American Composers Forum, the Cygnus Ensemble, Tara Helen O’Connor, Noa Even, Oren Fader, The New Millennium Ensemble, John McDonald and Tufts University. Recordings can be found on the Innova, Capstone, Bridge, and Vox Novus labels. Barbara Monk Feldman was born in Canada and studied composition with Bengt Hambraeus at McGill University in Montreal, and with Morton Feldman at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her works have been performed in Asia, Europe and North America. After living many years in Germany, she moved to Santa Fe, NM, where she founded the Time Shards Music Series at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in 2001 and has since served as its artistic director. David Morneau does not compose his music with a ‘poetic power’ that emphatically discharges from his work enchanting you in a hallucinogenic state of borderline exaltation. He does not intensely attempt to infuse symbolism into his work and shows no melodic motivation whatsoever. This is not David. So you ask, ‘Well, then what does this so-called proclaimed musical talent propose to do?’ David is a composer of an entirely undecided genre. He works in a variety of media and has an affinity for creative collaboration including: experimental music video, dance, video game, and much more. David recently completed 60x365, a year-long podcast project for which he composed a new one-minute piece every day. Do not think of him as yet another one of those ‘unique composers’ but rather a provider of exclusive unprecedented experiments. Christian McLeer is currently in his 5th season as Artistic Director of Remarkable Theater Brigade, which he cofounded with Monica Harte and Dan Jeselsohn. They are producing their 6th major production, Glory Denied, an opera by Tom Cipullo, at Jan Hus Church in New York City June 5th & 7th. Christian is the artist-in-residence for the National Chorale at PS70, IS71, Brooklyn Tech HS and Fort Hamilton HS where he teaches chorus. He is also in his second year as the musical director for Jan Hus Church. He is the sound engineer for the TV show Nova Rock, currently being filmed and has just completed the original score for the short independent film in between written and produced by Gail Bell. Christian was musical director for the Natchez Opera Festival’s educational outreach tour in April, which will performed his opera SHOT. Wolfgang von Schweinitz was born in 1953 in Hamburg, where he studied with Ligeti at the State Music Conservatory. He worked for a year at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, California, and was resident at the German Academy in Rome on a scholarship from 1978-79. Since September 2007 he is based in southern California, in the western tip of the Mojave Desert, 30 miles north of the California Institute of the Arts, where he was invited to assume the succession of James Tenney (Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition) Robert Voisey is a composer and impresario of electroacoustic and chamber music. Voisey embraces a variety of media for his compositions, and pioneers new venues to disseminate his music and reach audiences. Voisey's compositions have been performed at the A*Devantgarde festival, Electronic Music Midwest festival, the International Electroacoustic Festival at Brooklyn College, and the Spark Festival. Voisey is the founder of Vox Novus, vice-president of programs at the Living Music Foundation, artistic director of the 60x60 project, and co-director of the Composer’s Voice Concert Series. His mission is the promotion and dissemination of contemporary new music.

Piece of Work (2005) uses a Max/MSP patch designed for live improvisation using samples of toy piano notes. The Gentlest Chord by Barbara Monk Feldman 1991 Text: Rainer Maria Rilke Only he whose bright lyre has sounded in shadows may, looking inward, restore his infinite praise. Only he who has eaten poppies with the dead will not lose ever again the gentlest chord. Though the image upon the pool often grows dim: know [it] and be still. Inside the double world all voices become eternal [and] eternally mild. Sehr Kleiner Drachen by Wolfgang von Schweinitz 1992 Text: Sarah Kirsch Das Blatt einer purpur Weide aus meinem nahezu baumlosen Landstrich auf den Fluegeln des Winds haltbar erdachten von hier bis Osaka Experiences II by John Cage 1948 Text: e.e. cummings NOTE: The last two lines have been omitted. It is at moments after I have dreamed of the rare entertainment of your eyes, when (being fool to fancy) I have deemed With your peculiar mouth my heart made wise; At moments when the glassy darkness holds The genuine apparition of your smile (It was through tears always) and silence moulds Such strangeness as was mine a little while; Moments when my once more illustrious arms Are filled with fascination, when my breast Wears the intolerant brightness of your charms; One pierced moment whiter than the rest -Turning from the tremendous lie of sleep I watch the roses of the day grow deep. Boop Boop Beep exists at the nexus between the Credo of John Cage and the Legend of Zelda, between the sonic structures of Edgard Varese and the geometric structures of Tetris, between the electronic world of Kraftwerk and the mushroom-fueled world of Mario. It is the gateway to a dreamworld of two-dimensional perfection complete with power-ups, extra lives, and vicious turtles. It is the soundtrack for a left-to-right path toward enlightenment. It is Terry Riley vs. Donkey Kong. And it blasts at you in glorious 8-bit sound.

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