Composer's Voice, in their objective to express diverse viewpoints, designates a guest curator each week. Suzanne Mueller, a seasoned cellist, acted as April 27th's visionary, assembling a collection of gratifying musical selections, which prized sensitivity and introspection.
This concert’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame asked composers to draw inspiration from Raisy Derzie’s dreamy painting, Giverny Revisited. Cellist Suzanne Mueller and clarinetist Thomas Piercy brought the fifteen compositions to fruition with elegance and perception. The brightness of the clarinet and the mellifluence of the cello conjured up images of an aromatic Shangri-La, revisited often in memory.
Joel R. Hobbes' Waltz of the Dragonflies wafts fetchingly as if a brightly colored dragonfly stretched its wings and caught a frisky breeze. Prelude, composed by Douglas Townsend, presents a cavorting melody, which spotlights the dexterity of Piercy and Mueller. Dissonance rumbles, but its acrimony is overcome by a free form sweetness, and the piece resolves radiantly. Masatoya Goya proffers Ripples in the Pond, a delicate meditation. Punctuated with moments of repose, this composition oscillates gently before incrementally gaining momentum, a myriad of wrinkles disturbing the pond’s placid surface. Steve Cohen skips the delicate hues and pleasant fragrances of Monet's garden in YouSay Giverny, I Say Gevalt. Notes punch and strike in an aggressive duel between the clarinet and the cello. After an insistentsonic flickering, the piece gallops to a spirited finale.
Oliver Cameron, Rain Worthington, Greg Bartholomew, Dagmar Feyen, Jim Fox, James SoeNyun, Sean O’Boyle, Daniel J. Thompson, Brian Schober, and Bob Siebert furnish discerning one-minute compositions that aurally acccentuate the beauty of Raisy Derzie’s painting.
The longer pieces on Mueller’s program sustain this vibe of internal contemplation.
Prelude 12, composed by Lera Auerbach, showcases brother and sister duo Christopher James and Lynelle James on the cello and piano respectively. Fine-grained and gracefully nuanced, this composition stipples subtle moods across a silken tonality. Its elegant restraint renders Auerbach's composition into a musical pen and ink drawing.
Flutist and composer Pamela Sklar spotlights her talents inNative Dream. Evoking a time before oil slicks damaged natural beauty, the piece flutters and beats like a bird's wing. Recalling the tonality of ancient tribes who lived off the land, Native Dream reminds us of the pleasures inherent in an environment lightly touched by modern concerns.
The closing piece, Time and Tide, crafted by regular Composer’s Voice contributor David Wolfson, features a quartet of talented cellists: Christopher James, Barry Kornhauser, Susan Mitchell, and Suzanne Mueller. It entrances from its first intonation: Shimmering, aural palisades highlight molten melodies and potent pauses. Subtle shifts of dynamics mass to an evanescent ending, which—even as we try to hold it close—drifts away.
At the completion of the concert, heartfelt a woman calls out "beautiful." She’s right.Tempered by emotional deliberation, Mueller curates a concert that allow for the music to resonate in deep and personal ways for each audience member.
Three longer works round out Mueller’s concert. Steve Holtje offers excerpts from his poignant Japanese Dedications. Paul Joseph provides a selection, The Garden from his lushly vivid multi media work, The King of the Mask. NeblinaPasajera, composed and performed by Barry Kornhauser and Tomas Rodriguez is gently pensive, a balm for an agitated spirit.
There is a note that all viola players are taught to avoid. It’s called the X Note. It isn’t the highest note in the instrument’s repertoire, though it is nearby. Violins and altered ocarinas can play the note with no ill effect, but not the viola. Composers who write X Notes into their works are chastised by violists who know what will happen if it’s played. Musicologists call it “harmonic disintegration,” and shudder when they say it. Officer Dinklaker here points to the tragic result of a novice violist who played the note. “He’d been warned,” Dinklaker says, “but he went ahead and played it anyway.”
Composer’s Voice Presents
Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame with Jackie Martelle.
15 Compositions by 15 composers:
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; Christopher Wicks
Also music and performances by
Julius Bucsis Louis Castillo EMR
Tcheser Feaster Diana Golden Christian McLeer
David Morneau Jenny Ribeiro Robert Voisey
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 has presented over 100 concerts throughout the world.
Information on the Composer's Voice, and more projects of Vox Novus, access: http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice
Electronic Music Midwest is dedicated to programming of a wide variety of electroacoustic music and providing the highest quality performance of electronic media. This annual festival consists of approximately nine short concerts (about 1 hour in length) over the course of a weekend in Autumn. Our goal is to bring together vibrant and interesting artists of all forms, give them a vehicle for their expressions, and a place for them to share ideas with others.
Since its beginning, EMM has programmed over 500 new electroacoustic compositions. Composers have traveled from around the world to graciously share their music with audiences in the Midwest. However, EMM is about more than just playing new music. We strive to create an environment conducive to building community interaction. Most concerts are approximately one hour long, and composers have plenty of time to "talk shop" with each other as well as interact socially with students and audience member
"…Johnson played beautifully, displaying a firm musicality and a flair for drama." - Kansas City Star
"…her sensitivities rather extraordinary, baroque while futuristic." - www.acousticmusic.com
Kari Johnson is a pianist who specializes in new music and electronic music performance. Praised by critics for her "amazing musicality" and "flair for drama," Ms. Johnson works to create a dynamic, captivating experience for her audience. Like most pianists, Johnson began her training in traditional classical repertoire. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate studies, she developed an interest in playing rarely performed and highly stylized works, particularly music of the early baroque and late twentieth century.
Call for Submissions
Kansas City Kansas Community College and Lewis University are pleased to announce an international call for submissions for the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, to be held October 24-26, 2013 at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
Each concert will feature an 8.1 speaker diffusion system. Acclaimed pianist Kari Johnson will be the featured performer and composers are encouraged to submit works for her consideration. Any composer regardless of region, age or nationality may submit one work.
EMM accepts all electroacoustic works, but we especially seek music that falls within one of the following categories:
1) Composition for piano and fixed media and/or live electronics
2) Two channel works for fixed media
3) Up to eight channel works for fixed media
4) Instrument(s)/Voice(s) and fixed media or live electronics (composer to provide performers)
5) Works for video
6) Sound Installations and Interactive Media (composer to provide all non-standard equipment)
7) Live Laptop works
8) Live Interactive works
Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: Crawford-Ashe Titania (Queen of the Fairies)
Deadline May 24, 2013
Vox Novus is calling for one-minute pieces composed for 15-Minutes-of-Fame: Titania, Queen of the Fairies with Katherine Crawford & Rebecca Ashe (mezzo-soprano and flute) to be performed at the September 15, 2013 Composer's Voice concert in New York City. This call is open to all composers. The one-minute voice and flute pieces will be performed by Katherine Crawford (mezzo-soprano) and Rebecca Ashe (flute). All works must be 60 seconds or less.
All compositions must be based solely on lines spoken by the character Titania (Queen of the Fairies) in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The composer is free to use any combination of these lines as he wants. The full text of A Midsummer Night's Dream is freely available here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws1710h.htm
Preference will be given to compositions that capture the drama and spirit of Shakespeare's play.
Katherine Crawford, a warm and versatile mezzo-soprano, holds a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from St. Olaf College. She enjoys performing in the styles of opera, operetta, and musical theater, and is especially interested in contemporary and experimental works.
Flutist Rebecca Ashe is a freelance musician and appears across the country as a performer, lecturer, and masterclass clinician. A new music performer and collaborator, she has partnered with several composers and has performed at several festivals, including Electronic Music Midwest (Resident Artist for 2010 Festival), Society of Composers, Inc., Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA), the New York City-based Composers Voice Series, SPARK, SEAMUS, and the Electroacoustic Juke Joint. She can be heard on Plastic Time, an album of music by composer Jorge Sosa.
Calling for works (3-5 minutes) composed for electric-jazz guitar and piano
Deadline September 9, 2013
Vox Novus is calling for short pieces (3-5 minutes) minute pieces composed for electric-jazz guitar and piano to be premiered by Rodrigo Baggio, guitar and Lis de Carvalho,piano)at the EMESP College of Music in collaboration with Composer’s Voice concert Series October 20, 2013 in São Paolo, Brazil
Rodrigo Baggio has excelled internationally in 2012, playing concerts and having his music played in various countries around the globe. He was the guest guitarist of Université Laval (Quebec) in their 2012 winter semester, premiering four compositions (“Serra Verde” – for guitar, “Suíte Américas” – for guitar and trombone, “Lâmpada do Operário” – for tenor, guitar and trombone and “Ciclo de Improvisações Sobre Memórias Regionais” – for guitar and tenor saxophone) commissioned by the great trombone player Dr. James C. Lebens for that special occasion. Alongside the concerts, Mr. Baggio has composed music for different ensembles and projects such as “Fantasia Brasileira I” (for guitar) specially written for Prof. Brian Katz (University Of Toronto). His piece “Three Insights Of The Brazilian Landscape” (for Percussion) was one of the winner pieces of “Carl von Ossietzky Composition Prize” at Oldenburg University (Germany). A former pupil of Jaime Barbosa (Composition/University of Ribeirão Preto), Dr. Marcos Cavalcante (Improvisation/University of Campinas) and Arrigo Barnabé (Composition/ULM), Baggio is currently developing his own project called "Guitar Solo" in which Composition and Improvisation are combined on a particular way of instrumental performance.
Pianist, arranger and composer Lis de Carvalho started her Music education with her mother, Dinéa de Carvalho Ferrete when she was 6 years old and later studied with piano jazz with Hilton Jorge Valente (Gogô); composition with Prof. H. J. Koellroeuter; harmony, arrangement and Orquestration with Prof. Cláudio Leal Ferreira; Electronic Music and Synthesizer Programming at Escola Síntesis; Advanced Piano with Prof. Maria José Carrasqueira. Lis obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy -at FFCHL ( Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências Humanas e Letras) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Piano at FASM (Faculdade Santa Marcelina). Lis de Carvalho teaches piano and harmony, as well as the coordinator of the Jazz Piano Program at Tom Jobim EMESP - ( Estado de São Paulo Music School). She has performed with the following musicians: Paulo Moura, Raul de Souza, Lula Galvão, Roberto Sion, Altamiro Carrilho, Edu Lobo e Orquestra Jazz Sinfônica, Quarteto em Cy, Vânia Bastos, Tetê Spindola, Eliete Negreiros, Zezé Mota, Paula Lima, Margareth Menezes, Walter Franco, among others. Lis de Carvalho has recorded a Bossa Nova piano solo CD, for the MPBaby Series, MCD record. She has launched a digital video class by HMP Publishing Company and recorded many of her compositions in several CDs and DVDs with Celso Pixinga and other mainstream musicians of vocal and instrumental music. Lis has recently (2012) released her own CD Caminho de Dentro at the live TV Program Ses.
