June 26, 2011

COMPOSER’S VOICE

3rd Annual Guitar Concert

Program:

15-Minutes-of-Fame

Performers

Steve Bloom has been in NYC since 1984. He went to the Jazz Program at LIU and received a BFA in Jazz Studies, and studied with jazz greats: Bill Saxton, Benny Powell, Ronnie Matthews, Cecil Bridgewater, etc., and Reggie Workman. After university he studied with Marilyn Crispell, Dave Fiuczynski, Henry Martin, Pat Martino, Ben Monder, and Rachel Z. However, he always continued Classical studies that began at Tulane University (with Elias Barreiro) 1982-1984 and before that as a youngster in Connecticut. After LIU he studied with Virginia Luque and currently studies with Mark Delpriora of the Manhattan School of music. Steve is currently in the New York Guitar Trio and is a member of Vincent Chancey's Phat Chance Trio, featuring French Horn, Guitar and Drums.

Dennis Cinelli is active as a soloist and chamber musician on guitars, mandolins and lutes. He has performed with the American Symphony, The New York Collegium, The New York City Opera, The New York City Ballet, The Bach Aria Group, Artek, The American Virtuosi, Montclair State University Chamber Orchestra. His recorded selections can be heard on the tours Art & Music and Lutes, Mandolins and Citterns as well as the new Guitar Heroes exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An endorsee and performing artist of La Bella Strings, Mr. Cinelli has represented the company at national and international guitar and lute festivals. As a composer, he has written original works for large guitar ensemble, guitar duets and trios as well as guitar with flute.

Guitarist / singer-songwriter Tsuyoshi Furutsu arrived in New York after winning the Mazda Urban Jazz Contest, and performing at The Parthenon Tama Jazz Festival in Tokyo. Mr. Furutsu earned his master's degree at The City College of New York, studying with Peter Bernstein, Gene Bertoncini, Ron Carter and John Patitucci. He has performed at top notch venues such as The Four Seasons, The Museum of Natural History, Rubin Museum of Art and 55 Bar. Currently he is performing regularly at Alouette French Bistro and Jerry's Cafe in Manhattan with vocalist Alexandra Frederick. Mr. Furutsu has also been teaching guitar for more than 10 years for young children and adults.

Kenji Haba is a guitarist who is exclusively sensitive to timbres in appreciating and expressing the beauty of guitar. Haba believes that the guitar is the perfect instrument to express his musical ideas because of its beautiful tones and its countless timbres. Recently, he has been focusing on impressionistic music, especially that of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Toru Takemitsu. In 2006 Haba began studying classical guitar under renowned guitarist, Kevin R. Gallagher and Oren Fader. With his passion driving his learning ability, after one year of studying, he was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music in Master of Music, and there worked with Mark Delpriora.

Sylwia Kloc is a classical guitarist from Poland. She is an active soloist, chamber player, and teacher. Ms. Kloc received her Bachelor and Master Degrees from Mannes College, where she studied with Frederic Hand, and was awarded a merit scholarship for excellence in performance. Ms. Kloc plays Renaissance lute and Baroque guitar, having worked with the renowned early music player and scholar Dennis Cinelli. In 2007 Ms. Kloc premiered and recorded "Ancient Visions" a concerto for Renaissance lute and guitar ensemble by Terry Champlin. She was a scholar recipient for the 2006 "Music in Compostela Festival" in Spain where she studied with Jose Luiz Rodrigo. Ms. Kloc is a faculty member of Montclair State University, New Jersey, and the Music Education Center, Brooklyn, NY.

Cellist Suzanne Mueller is a graduate of both the Pre-College and College of The Juilliard School .She is a founding member of CROSS ISLAND, a cello/piano/clarinet ensemble , and of the guitar/cello duo Mueller & Russo. She has been Beech Tree Concerts Artist-in-Residence at Old Westbury Gardens on LI for 8 years, presenting a series of outdoor summer concerts. She enjoys collaborating with composers and her concerts generally feature new works written or arranged for her.A proponent of non-traditional cello performance styles and genres, Suzanne is a member of the New Directions Cello Association. This marks her second appearance on this series.For more information, to hear sound clips of her playing, and for a performance calendar, visit http://www.myspace.com/cambiatagn or on Facebook.

Jim O'Brien plays flute and piano and is a longtime musical collaborator of the composer. By profession he is a Physician specializing in Hematologic Oncology and is presently engaged full time in the development of molecularly targeted therapies for the treatment of advanced cancer.

After hearing friends playing in 1990, Kurt Toriello picked up his father's guitar and has been playing ever since. Largely selftaught, he began formal training in 2002 with Franco Platino and was accepted into the 7th annual Manuel Barrueco Masterclass at Peabody and the 2nd Annual New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes that summer. Mr. Toriello completed the BM degree from Mannes under Michael Newman and Fred Hand and MM degree from Manhattan School of Music under David Leisner. Mr. Toriello has performed at such venues as the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, St. Peter's Church, The Monkey, The American Jewish Historical Society and Carnegie Hall. He was featured in the September 2009 Classical Guitar Magazine's Letters from New York.

Guitarist Kai Watanabe started playing guitar when he was 10 years old. He is recently graduated from Manhattan School of Music where he studied classical guitar. In 2005, Kai had visited Cambodia as a reporter for "Medicins Sans Frontiers". Having spent time with children orphaned by that country's civil war, teaching them Japanese, English and guitar he wanted to expand his experience and "I started to think how I could share with the children I met there. I have been seeking the way within the sounds!" Kai is currently developing his Mandala Improvisation series of classical guitar improvisation "where every sound is unearthed by me as a Human Diver" Visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/jijitojijitojiji

Composers

Roger Blanc

Joe Gianono

Composers for Fifteen Minutes of Fame

• 15 one-minute selections for Kenji Haba

• 

  Number Station

  Jay Batzner

  Jay C. Batzner is a composer, sci-fi geek, home brewer, burgeoning seamster, and juggler on the faculty of Central Michigan University where he teaches music technology and electronic music courses. He has been many places and has done several things, some of which are rather impressive.

  "Number stations" are mysterious transmissions over short-wave radio frequencies. A typical transmission emerges from static, may include a recording of a folk tune, and then someone speaks a string of numbers. I've been listening to recordings of these a lot recently...

• 

  Spin

  Justin Breame

  Justin Breame is a composer and teacher from England, UK. Justin has scored for numerous documentaries and short films and has also released a CD of his own compositions entitled ?Level Crossing'. Works range from choral and orchestral to solo works. His ?Counting Time' was featured on the 60x60 2004 recording.

  For "Spin" I looked for a miniature version of what could be perceived as a life-cycle event. I found this in the short-lived journey of a spinning top. ?Spin' accompanies the top from the moment it is set spinning on it's journey until it finally slows and submits to gravity.

• 

  Istihlal

  Salim Dada

  Musician and composer of the national orchestra of Algeria, Salim Dada has particularly on atypical musical course, from its personality and its lived. Thus its work grows rich progressively, in the crossing of meetings and experiments bringing the spirit and the expression of the Arab and Eastern music to the thought and the technique of Western writing.

  Autodidact guitarist and then player of several string instruments and the percussions (oud, kwitra, mondole, double bass, douf, riq, etc.), the guitarist's approach of Salim Dada illustrates a technical and esthetic's syncretism of an instrument which considers very rich and finely expressive. "Istihlal", thus is a first impression of an Arab improvisation where the musician does nothing but cherish the cords of his instrument.

• 

  Baiao

  Douglas DaSilva

  Douglas DaSilva is a composer, guitarist, educator and Artistic Director of the Composer's Voice Concert Series and Premiere Salon Concerts in New York City. He composes in various styles including jazz, pop, children's music, chamber music and experimental. Much of his writing is influenced by Brazilian music and self-inflicted stress.

  "Baiao" is a culture from Brazil's North East. Its spirit is expressed in the way-of-life, the dress, the food and most significantly, the music. The Bai?o rhythm has infected most of my compositions whether experimental of pop. Bai?o almost demands to be played on the guitar.

• 

  Essence

  Joseph Eidson

  Joseph Eidson holds degrees in composition from the University of Kansas (DMA, BM) and University of Texas (MM). He particularly enjoys writing vocal music and works for winds, and is a self-proclaimed expert at Guitar Hero. For more information on Dr. Eidson's music, please visit www.josepheidson.com.

  "Essence " was conceived with the feel of a vigorous, driving texture and conjured the image of frenetic dancing, perhaps just within the boundaries of control. Formal development was a tricky but fun challenge within the confines of one minute; two themes are stated and developed, sandwiched between an intro/outro motive and transitional material that leads into and out of the brief formal sections.

• 

  New York Minute

  Thomas Flippin

  Thomas Flippin is a classical guitarist and composer living in the New York City area. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Music and his work is published by Clear Note Publications. He is also a winner of the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Composition Prize. www.thomasflippin.com

  Framed within the intensity of a "New York Minute," New York, New York depicts the chaos, claustrophobia, and ultimately relief that one feels upon arriving to and departing from Grand Central. More broadly, it conveys the unrelenting industrial drive and political force that could create and sustain such grandeur.

• 

  Sparks for guitar

  Dai Fujikura

  Dai Fujikura was born in Osaka and moved to the UK where he went on to study with Edwin Roxburgh, Daryl Runswick and George Benjamin. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Huddersfield Festival Young Composers Award, a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, Internationaler Wiener Composition Prize, the Paul Hindemith Prize, OTAKA and Akutagawa awards.

• 

  Shattered

  Iman Habibi

  Iman Habibi, MMUS (UBC 2010), is an award-winning composer and pianist, residing in Vancouver, BC. Hailed as a "giant in talent," his music has been programmed by organizations such as The Marilyn Horne Foundation (New York), The Canadian Opera Company (Toronto), Tapestry New Opera (Toronto). Read more at: http://www.imanhabibi.com/

  A perfect stream of dualities, now shattered in three, for the wise men feared to ponder long ago!

• 

  ICOSAbarDRON

  Stavros Hoplaros

  Stavros Hoplaros holds a Masters in Music Composition from California State University Long Beach, where he studied with a Fulbright Scholarship. He has composed in a wide variety of musical styles and ensembles and received performances by many distinguished artists.

  The pitch material of "ICOSAbarDRON" is mainly based on the Fibonacci numbers. The piece is consisted of 20 measures, as indicated in the title. The form of the piece satisfies the golden ratio. Therefore, the climax of the piece is found at roughly the phi point (at the middle of the twelfth bar). The piece is dedicated to Kenji Haba.

• 

  Sheng Sheng Man for solo guitar

  Chia-Yu Hsu

  Born in Banciao, Taiwan, Chia-Yu Hsu was the winner of the Sorel Organization's 2nd International Composition Competition, the 7th USA International Harp Composition Competition, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer's Awards, among others. Her work has been performed by various ensembles including the London Sinfonietta, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, Eighth Blackbird, and Prism Quartet.

  "Sheng Sheng Man" was inspired by a poem of the same title by Li Quingzhao (1084-1155). In this poem, Li evokes her loneliness and sadness while enduring sickness. In my setting, the guitarist expresses the full palette of emotion that is depicted in the poem by both playing and singing.

• 

  Ashen Morning

  Ashley John Long

  Ashley John Long (b.1986) is a prize winning composer and virtuoso double bassist. His works have been released on the prestigious Signum Classics label, as well as the Fourier Transform, Autopoesis, Arse Deco, EMI, HQ and Anti Static record labels. His scores are published by Staunch Music and Alto Publications.

  "Ashen Morning" was written for Kenji Haba as part of Vox Novus' "15-Minutes-of-Fame" project. The works takes its title from a poem by Horst Bienk. The main compositional technique employed in the piece is the constant transformation of a set of pitches and rhythmic values.

• 

  Pulse

  Oswaldo Torres Ortiz

  Oswaldo Torres Ortiz was born 1980 in Venezuela. In 1999 he enters at the National University of Arts to get a degree on Music Licentiate. In 2005 he received the Prize in the composition competition "II National Salon of Young Composers". His works have been played in Venezuela, Croatia, Argentina, Japan, China, Mexico and Chile.

  "In Pulse," for guitar (2011), I worked the idea of pulse as an audible and periodic movement of the music, not only in the rhythmic appearance but also in: harmony, melody, and even in the timbre. This music is born from the silence, and violent and subtle gestures are confronted throughout the whole piece.

• 

  Susurration

  Richard Pressley

  Richard Pressley teaches at Ball State University and has enjoyed performances in the U.S. and Europe. He attended Butler University, Cambridge, and the University of Minnesota, with post-doctoral study in Germany. His instructors include Wolfgang Rihm, Sandeep Bhagwati, Dominick Argento, Judith Zaimont, Alex Lubet, Daniel Chua, Michael Schelle.

  "Susurration" (whispering, murmuring, rustling) is a short work consisting of a single melody that unfolds from within and around a sustained tone -- like a song emerging from within a fountain or from the leaves in a breeze -- which gradually ascends to a peak only to quickly cascade, evanesce, and disappear.

• 

  Creatura Theoricus

  John Thompson

  John Thompson directs the Music Technology Program at Georgia Southern University where he is Assistant Professor of Music. He seeks to highlight and follow new paths in music. John is an advocate for music that explores otherness, contemplation and alternate paths toward beauty.

  "Creatura Theoricus" is pensive yet restless. Contemplative creatures are often so, fluidly tangled in a mesh of thoughtful churning. A complex harmonic field brings forth impossible spatial geometries. Creatura Theorica wanders along m?bius bands. arts into disparate areas.

• 

  Ediacaran Garden

  Chris Vaisvil

  Chris Vaisvil is a composer who works with various tunings and approaches. His works are realized through human and computer performance. Chris has earned an Associate degree in Music and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. His music is often a blend of science and art mediated by his Chicagoan Lithuanian - Polish heritage.

  "Ediacaran Garden" is a free form impressionistic study in harmonic guitar texture. The Ediacaran age was a time when multicellular creatures first developed. The most notable feature about this time in history is the absence of predators which suggests the inhabitants were living in a garden of Eden.

Program Notes

Support from the Puffin Foundation "...continuing the dialogue between art and the lives of ordinary people."

Vox Novus is a collective of composers, musicians, and music enthusiasts collaborating together to create, produce, promote, and enjoy the new music of today. Our members are from a variety of composers committed to the creation and dissemination of new music. Their music is of a variety of styles, aesthetics, and ideologies. Vox Novus produces and promotes new music. They are dedicated to contemporary music, the musicians who perform, and the composers that write the music of today. Their mission is to cultivate a music community and make their work available to the greater public.

Remarkable Theater Brigade founded by Christian McLeer, Dan Jeselsohn and Monica Harte, creates and produces new operas and musicals and takes children's versions out to special-needs and at-risk children free of charge.

Presenters:

Remarkable Theater Brigade

Jan Hus Church

Vox Novus

Funding by

Puffin Foundation