Clarinetist Jean Kopperud pushes musical boundaries with a full schedule of tours, recordings, and commissions.

UB Clarinetist Jean Kopperud has just finished a lengthy recording session for her next CD release, Rated X II, an album featuring recent works she commissioned from some of the top composers in the new music scene. Jean, a Juilliard School graduate whose performances have been called “absolutely smashing” by the The New York Post, has already started premiering the commissions in venues around the country in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Jean Kopperud

As a relentless explorer of the new and unknown, Jean chose five of the most innovative composers alive today to commission for the project. The album’s five new works are:  Louis Karchin’s Evocations, John Aylward’s Twin Suspension, Mathew Rosenblum’s Throat, Jeff Stadelman’s wills & wonts, and Yiorgos Vassilandonakis' X-asti. Jean explains some of her motivations for seeking out and commissioning music that breaks new ground, “I keep trying to get wilder in this conservative time. As a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s, I was influenced by a lot of the experimental and theatrical music going on at the time – I like to keep that sense of boundary-pushing alive.” Famed UB percussionist Tom Kolor joins Jean on the album, which will be released next Fall on Albany Records.

Several other projects are on Jean’s plate at the moment as well. She frequently performs and tours with The New York New Music Ensemble, an ensemble dedicated to finding new audiences for contemporary music that has commissioned over 120 new works from living composers and released over 20 recordings, and has been described by The New York Times as, "admirable for continuing to champion the more rigorous end of the contemporary repertory." Since 1976, they have traveled to Europe, Asia, and South America to perform, teach and record, and throughout their existence have branched out into theatre music, adventuresome electronic music, and readily embraced interactive new technologies. The New York New Music Ensemble has a plethora of exciting concert premieres coming up in April and May at the University of Pennsylvania, the College of Charleston, and Merkin Hall in New York City, which will include world premieres of Eric Chasalow’s On that Swirl of Ending Dust and Zhou Long’s Cloud Earth, as well as some slightly older favorites like Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum and Franco Donatoni’s Ave (visit NYNME’s website for the complete Spring schedule).  

The New York New Music Ensemble

The New York New Music Ensemble is also a veteran of the June in Buffalo Festival and will be returning this year to perform works by participating students and faculty composers: Robert Beaser, Jacob Druckman, Fred Lerdahl, Stephen Stucky, and David Felder. Details about this year’s June in Buffalo festival can be found at the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21^st Century Music’s website. NYNME has developed a reputation through the years for working closely with young composers at the festival and being willing to take on daring and experimental projects. After the festival, the ensemble will begin preparing for their tour to Cambodia for a 70^th birthday celebration of the music of Grawemeyer Award-winning Cambodian composer Chinary Ung.

Below is a small excerpt of Jean performing David Felder’s Colleccion Nocturna with UB pianist Eric Huebner in Orlando, Florida, as part of the Timucua Arts Foundation White House Concert Series:

UB Professor Jon Nelson receives inaugural Humanities Fellowship award, tours with the Genkin Philharmonic, and rearranges the 20th century...

Jon Nelson

University at Buffalo Professor and Trumpeter Jon Nelson has been awarded a prestigious Humanities Fellowship this year for his project, “Switching on the Lights: The Early 20^th Century Musical Avant-Garde Goes Electric,” a deeply scholastic and hermeneutic compositional undertaking whereby Jon interprets, orchestrates, and adapts a diverse collection of works by avant-garde composers from the early 20^th century and arranges them for Buffalo’s favorite style-scaping, electroacoustic ensemble, The Genkin Philharmonic. Jon, a seasoned musical veteran with performance and improvisational skills in nearly every genre of music, is currently pouring through the scores of Bartok, Stravinsky, Ravel, Schoenberg, Debussy, Ives, Satie, and Webern, and brewing up creative interpretations for the 10-piece group of musicians trained in everything from Classical, Rock, and Jazz, to the most demanding and complex contemporary music. One of his recent endeavors with the project is the arrangement of several of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, piano pieces that exhibit a strong influence from Eastern European Folk Music. The Genkin arrangement will showcase this Folk aspect of the music by temporarily turning the ensemble into an early 1900s Hungarian wedding band – Jon often talks about how during the 20^th century Folk Music was brought to academia by scholars and musicians and absorbed into academic musical styles. His arrangements return these Folk influences to their origins in what was once called 'lowbrow' music, by adding the energy and dynamism of a large ensemble and incorporating electric guitars and basses, synthesizers, and a dizzying array of miscellaneous electronic and percussion equipment.

The UB Humanities Fellowship supporting this project is particularly special this year, as it is one of only two inaugural fellowships promoted and co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research. The additional support will help Jon and the Genkin keep up a lively schedule of recording and performing into next Fall. The Genkin’s next performance will be free to the public on Monday, February 27th at 4:00 p.m. in Baird Recital Hall and will be the premiere for many of these recent arrangements. Shortly after, the Genkin will kick off a series of 2012 concerts by performing at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, on March 2nd. Much of Jon and the Genkin's recent work will bear additional fruit this summer, when the record label 8bells will release an album of the Genkin Philharmonic’s recordings of Jon’s arrangements composed with the support of the Humanities Fellowship.

The June in Buffalo 2012 Festival is proud to have the Genkin taking part this year as one of the resident ensembles, and is excited to offer student and faculty composers the opportunity to have their work performed and recorded by the Genkin. The festival, which begins June 4^th and lasts until June 10^th, will also include performances and workshops by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, SIGNAL, the New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Interface, Slee Sinfonietta, and the UB Percussion Ensemble. One of the highlights of the festival will be the Genkin’s faculty concert at the Birchfield Penney on Friday, June 8^th (details of the concert to come on the June in Buffalo 2012 website).

In addition to his arrangements of early 20th century works, Jon Nelson has garnered substantial fame through his many arrangements of pieces by Frank Zappa. Below is a lively performance of the Genkin Philharmonic performing Jon's arrangement of Zappa's Eat That Question/Echidna's Arf at the legendary music venue Nietzsche's, in Buffalo, NY.

World-renowned Mozart scholar Robert Levin performs and lectures at UB next week

Harvard Professor Robert Levin, a pianist and musicologist famous for his contributions to Mozart scholarship, comes to the University at Buffalo next week to lecture on his experiences as a concerto soloist who has performed with orchestras in Berlin, Los Angeles, Vienna, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Melbourne, Montreal, St. Louis, Cleveland and Freiburg. Throughout his career he has developed a reputation for improvising cadenzas and embellishments of Mozart and Beethoven afresh at each concert.

Robert Levin in concert

Author Aryeh Oron describes Levin’s accomplishments, “He has written cadenzas to many of [Mozart's] recordings (including the piano, violin, and horn concertos), published embellishments of Mozart solo parts, and written several reconstructions or completions of Mozart works. His completion of Mozart's Requiem won wide critical acclaim after its premiere by Helmuth Rilling at the European Music Festival in Stuttgart in August 1991. His reconstruction of the K. 297b Sinfonia concertante for four winds and orchestra is now frequently performed. He has published numerous scholarly studies in musical issues, usually concerning performing practice and authenticity, including a world-renowned publication of completions of fragmentary Mozart works. He has recorded on several labels, notably on Sony Classics' Vivarte series.”

Last time Robert Levin visited the music department at UB he lectured to a packed audience in Baird Hall, and artfully wove together lessons in music history with examples he performed on the piano. Professor Levin walked the audience through the ins and outs of improvising in the style of Mozart in clear language that was equally appealing to musicians, academics, guests, and laymen alike. Join us next Wednesday, February 8^th, at 3:00 p.m., in Baird Hall, to listen to this brilliant musician lecture and perform. This time he will be joined by famous violist Kim Kashkashian for a fresh and dynamic tapestry of thoughtful lecture and Classical music performance. 

Below is a beautiful video of Robert Levin performing, on a historically accurate fortepiano, the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 15 (K. 450), under the baton of Christopher Hogwood:

June in Buffalo 2012 call for scores announced!

Presented by the Department of Music and The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, June in Buffalo, a festival and conference dedicated to composers, will take place from June 4 -10, 2012 at the University at Buffalo. June in Buffalo offers an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, workshops, professional presentations, participant forums and open rehearsals as well as afternoon and evening concerts open to the general public and critics. Each of the invited composers will have one of his/her pieces performed during the festival. Evening performances feature faculty composers, resident ensembles and soloists renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music.

Senior Faculty

Louis Andriessen
Robert Beaser
David Felder
Fred Lerdahl
Steven Stucky

Resident Ensembles

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Ensemble Interface
Genkin Philharmonic
New York New Music Ensemble
SIGNAL
Slee Sinfonietta
UB Percussion Ensemble

Special Guests

James Baker
Roberto Fabricciani
Brad Lubman 

Application Procedures

Please submit the following materials for consideration as a participant for June in Buffalo 2012. All application materials must be postmarked by: 
February 17, 2012.

1. A résumé or curriculum vitae detailing your education, experience, and creative activity.

2. A letter of reference from someone acquainted with your current compositional activity.

3. A proposal requesting the performance of a recent work for:

a) flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello (or subset)

b) flute, clarinet, harp, piano, 2 percussion, violin, viola, cello (or subset)

c) saxophone, 2 trumpets, trombone, percussion (drum set), percussion (mallets), electric guitar, electric bass, violin (or subset)

d) flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, horn, trombone, percussion, piano, violin, cello (or subset)

e) 4 percussion (or subset)

f) solo instrument

Proposals with electronics or multimedia will be considered.

Included with the proposal should be a brief description of the work that includes title, duration, full instrumentation, and any technical requirements. Proposals for works in progress will be considered. A portion of the score plus the description listed above must be included with application materials for in-progress works.

4. One or two supplemental scores that demonstrate your recent work and accompanying recordings, if available.

5. A $25 non-refundable processing fee. Checks or money orders should be made payable to June in Buffalo. Foreign applicants must pay by international money order in US currency. Do not send cash.

6. An e-mail address at which you can be easily contacted and a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (optional) for the return of application materials.

To apply as an auditor please send a resume and the processing fee. Auditors attend all June in Buffalo events, but will not have a piece performed.

Materials should be mailed to the following address:

June in Buffalo
220 Baird Hall
Department of Music
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260

Participant Tuition $725
Auditor Tuition $350
On-campus Housing (optional) $325
On-campus housing includes single occupancy room for 7 nights. Food not included.

For general information, contact J.T. Rinker
phone: (716) 645-0624
fax: (716) 645-3824
email: jtrinker@buffalo.edu

Tom Kolor advancing contemporary American percussion music around the globe...

University at Buffalo Faculty member Tom Kolor is quickly becoming one of the country’s top specialists in late 20^th century American percussion music, and regularly commissions and performs repertoire from contemporary American composers at festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Tom has a lot coming up in the months ahead: festivals and performances in Europe, several recordings to be released featuring works by Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Louis Karchin, and Jeffrey Stadelman, and a string of residencies in universities throughout the U.S. and a self-presented concert series in New York City.

Tom is looking forward to being a featured performer this summer at the Sound Res Festival in Leche, Italy, where he will give the European premiere of Marimba Variations by Charles Wuorinen, a sophisticated 15 minute-long Marimba solo he commissioned from the composer. Marimba Variations will be part of a larger program of contemporary American music for solo percussion, which will include works by Babbitt, Shapey, Carter, and Cage. Some of the pieces Tom will perform at the festival will be included on a full-length solo CD recently recorded at Slee Recording Studios. The album will include several percussion works by contrasting American composers Milton Babbitt and John Cage, and weave together their divergent aesthetic outlooks and unique voices – the former being the pioneer of American serialism and the latter the pioneer of American aleatoric music, graphic notation, and a variety of experimental approaches to music that form the foundation of American experimentalism even today. Tom drew inspiration for the repertoire on the album from a quote by John Cage where he remarked that he preferred, “music with too many notes, or music that had not enough notes.” The album will be available on iTunes in Spring of 2012.

Tom Kolor and Jean Koperrud

University at Buffalo clarinetist Jean Koperrud joins Tom on an upcoming CD, entitled Rated X, which consists entirely of commissions the duo commissioned from contemporary composers. The commissions all push the boundaries of contemporary music and demand intense instrumental virtuosity. The CD includes Louis Karchin’s Evocations, John Aylward’s Twin Suspension, Mathew Rosenblum’s Throat, and Yiorgos Vassilandonakis' X-asti, and University at Buffalo composer Jeff Stadelman’s wills & wonts. Check in shortly with Albany Records here for the upcoming release.

Tom Kolor is also a member of the NYC-based percussion septet, Talujon Ensemble, whose concerts have been hailed by the New York Times as "frenzied explosions of percussion madness." Recently Talujon celebrated 20 years of performing contemporary percussion music with two 20^th anniversary concerts at Roulette in New York City. The concerts showcased a world premiere of a new piece by Alvin Lucier entitled For Kettle Drums. Tom met Alvin Lucier when he performed Lucier's Silver Streetcar for Orchestra at the June in Buffalo festival several years ago with the composer in attendance. The encounter led to the commission of For Kettle Drums, which includes four percussionists on timpani with their feet constantly performing on the glissandi pedal to produce ‘beating,’ a fascinating acoustic phenomenon characterized by the shimmering effect of two pitches in a close, microtonal relationship to each other. Alvin Lucier worked closely with Tom and the other percussionists while developing the technique for the percussion genre, perhaps the first time percussion instruments have produced this strange effect.

Talujon Ensemble

This Spring Talujon will present a concert series in New York City for the 100^th birthday of John Cage, check Talujon's website for details on their upcoming events and CD releases. As active as they are commissioning and recording, they will also be touring the U.S. and holding residencies this spring at Brandeis University and the University of Nebraska. The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21^st Center Music is excited to host the Talujon Ensemble on April 23^rd for an afternoon of student composer readings and a concert the following day, featuring Gerard Grisey's expansive masterpiece l'noir de etoile.

Check out the video below, of Talujon Ensemble performing with Steve Reich at the Bang On A Can festival in New York City:

The myriad projects of UB Cellist Jonathan Golove

University at Buffalo Professor Jonathan Golove has been injecting a high degree of dynamism into the music scene lately: he recently helped curate a chamber music concert at the Marine A Grain Elevator in downtown Buffalo, and has scheduled an upcoming midnight concert for CUBE, UB's Contemporary Music Ensemble, which he has been directing this year. Jonathan also enjoys frequent commissions as a composer, leads the cello studio at UB, and performs regularly on the theremin cello.

Jonathan Golove

The chamber music concert at Buffalo's grain elevators last October 21^st was a very rare occasion. Normally the elevators are closed to the public, but for one day only they were opened by the National Preservation Conference to allow architects, engineers, preservationists, and scholars from around the country to get a close-up look. Jonathan was accompanied by UB percussionists Tom Kolor and Michelle Purdy in a lengthy performance of John Cage's Four⁶ as admirers toured the 120-foot-high silos. Jonathan remarks, “I've never given a performance of Cage that was so enthusiastically received, partly because of the 8-10 seconds of reverb in the acoustics of the grain elevator.” The full article on the event is available at the Buffalo News.

Aside from ferreting out interesting locales for chamber music performance, Jonathan is one of the very few cellists who regularly perform on the theremin cello, an instrument he helped resurrect from the early 20th century. He is currently collaborating with pianola player Robert Berkman, and the two have formed a duet comprised of these rare mechanical instruments from the beginning of the century. The group's title is Duo Shiddach, and their repertoire is comprised mainly of Klezmer music. Jonathan, however, is not new to the theremin cello, and has been playing it for almost ten years. He describes some of his history with the instrument, “In the period from June 2009 to April 2010, I traveled to Amsterdam, Paris, and London to perform as a theremin cello soloist in Edgar Varèse's Ecuatorial. The theremin cello, invented by the same man, Leon Theremin (Lev Termen), who created the space controlled instrument that has achieved a certain amount of fame, is an early electronic instrument which had gone extinct for approximately 60 years. The theremin cello was recreated in 2002 by Floyd Engels, a retired model builder for Fisher Price, and its debut came when the Department of Music's Slee Sinfonietta performed Varèse's Ecuatorial, the only work known to have been composed for the instrument.

“The performances in Europe took place at a number of important festivals/venues, such as the Holland Festival, Festival de l'Automne (Paris Autumn Festival), and the Southbank Centre, and with leading ensembles, including the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble (conducted by Peter Eötvös) and the London Sinfonietta (conducted by Daivd Atherton). Ecuatorial was presented as part of “ Varèse 360º,” a retrospective including the complete works of Varèse, one of the most fascinating and influential figures of the music of the twentieth century.”

Jonathan is very active in the recording studio as well, and just recently released an album of contemporary music from Mexico on Albany Records entitled Voces Internas. The CD features several pieces by renown composer Mario Lavista, as well as some more esoteric pieces, such as those by Nicandro Tamez, who specializes in graphically notated music and scores with a high degree of directed improvisation. UB Professor Emeritus of Piano Stephen Manes joins Jonathan on the CD, and the two have recently performed repertoire from the album at the dedication of the new concert hall at St. Lawrence University. The album has already received rave reviews, including an extensive interview, article, and front-page feature by Fanfare Magazine, “...the well-played CD should provide rewards to those interested in the avant-garde school of cello writing and playing. Jonathan Golove and his colleagues are up to the considerable technical and musical demands placed upon the performers of these works.” The complete article is available here.

Jonathan is a composer in his own right as well – earlier this year he was commissioned by A Musical Feast to write a piece to accompany an exhibit on synesthesia at the Burchfield Penney. The work, Kreisler's Coat, for cello and piano, takes its title from a character of E.T.A. Hoffman's, who Hoffman describes as being, “A little man wearing wearing a coat the color of C# minor with an E major collar.”   The piece was premiered earlier this year at Burchfield Penney as part of A Musical Feast's concert series.  

You can see Jonathan on Friday December 12^th, at 11:59 p.m., when CUBE will present a unique concert of Night Music. The event will take place in Slee Hall and include Night Music by Robert Erickson, selections from Donald Martino 's Pulitzer Prize-winning Notturno, and a few other special surprises.

In the video below, you can listen to Jonathan performing Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise on the theremin cello  – the perfect instrument to convey the haunting melancholia of Rachmaninoff. The video was taken at the Burchfield Penney as part of last year's A Musical Feast concert series and features pianist Claudia Hoca.

Flutist Barry Crawford's many activities at UB and around the world...

University at Buffalo Flute Professor Barry Crawford currently tours as a flutist in countries all around the world (20 countries to date), performs a wide range of repertoire ranging from 19^th century salon music to contemporary music’s thorniest and most demanding works, regularly releases recordings as a member of several top ensembles, and teaches a full flute studio here at UB. Early next year, Barry will perform in festivals in Europe and New York City before returning to participate with the Slee Sinfonietta in June in Buffalo 2012.

Barry Crawford

In January, Barry will be performing with the renowned Talea Ensemble at the Chamber Music America Conference in New York City. The group will be premiering a new work by John Zorn, bateau ivre, in a program filled with pieces by New York City’s major composers. Shortly after the conference, Barry will travel to Iceland to perform in Iceland’s Dark Music Days Festival with Poetica Musica, an ensemble of musicians that are currently Artists-in-Residence at Old Westbury Gardens in Long Island. The Dark Music Days Festival is named after the four-hour days that occur in Iceland during the winter, and will feature some of Scandinavia’s top musicians and composers (more info here). Barry will perform in many concerts throughout his time there, and will star as the soloist in David Felder’s November Sky, for flute and electronics.

One of Barry’s most active groups is the Manhattan-based Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, who perform a 20-week season and 40 gigs a year, and usually play in front a sold-out audience. The group enjoys resurrecting the sometimes forgotten repertoire from the 18^th and 19^th century – often picking pieces which have no available recording to reference and delving into the challenging work of interpreting the music and making it their own. One of the forgotten gems from the Romantic era, Aldabert Gyrowetz’s Flute Quartet, has been featured on their program and is one of Barry's personal favorites. Much of the music from that time was too instrumentally virtuosic to be regularly included in concerts, and provides a perfect opportunity for a chamber group of today to hone their skills for bringing pieces to life that lack the incredibly refined performance practice of Haydn or Schubert. The group is partly named after the late Jens Nygaard and his Jupiter Symphony, and as the New York Times puts it, mimics his “[inspiring] determination to explore rarely heard early works by Mozart and present virtually unplayed music by 19th-century composers like Louis Spohr, Ethelbert Nevin and Carl Czerny.” The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players worked with Jens Nygaard often and continues to perform regularly to carry on his vision as a conductor and curator.

Barry has high praise for the Department of Music at UB, calling it, “an absolute pleasure to play here, with so many top new music performers to play with and a lot of really terrific opportunities to perform with the Slee Sinfonietta.” He is very active in the department, and leads the music department’s flute ensemble Plosion, who have recently commissioned and premiered works from UB graduate composers Juan Colón-Hernandez, Ethan Hayden, and Chun Ting Pang. Plosion plays not only at venues in the music department, but at the Student Union and other venues around campus, bringing new music to students and faculty all around the campus community. Barry’s flute studio, which now has several students wait-listed to get in, has been quite successful, with undergrads and graduates performing regularly in competitions and festivals in Italy, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere around the world.

You can listen to Barry perform on a recent recording of Three Romances, by Milos Raickovich, now available on iTunes, as well as on a CD of Gabriela Frank’s music with Ensemble Meme, soon to be released on Albany Records (available here). 

Oberlin Conservatory's Bonne Action performs new works at the University at Buffalo

Bonne Action 

On Tuesday, November 15^th, Oberlin College Conservatory’s premiere new music ensemble, Bonne Action, will visit the University at Buffalo to give a concert of works by today’s leading composers. The group, founded in 2009, features some of Oberlin’s finest musicians, including flutist Laura Cocks, clarinetist Theophilus Chandler, violinist Holly Jenkins, violist Carrie Frey, cellist Dylan Messina, pianist Daniel Walden, and percussionist Christian Smith. Bonne Action will be joined by the head of Oberlin’s composition department, Lewis Nielson, who will have two pieces on the concert. Also on the program will be pieces by young American composer Jason Eckardt, and German composers Rolf Riehm and Reiko Füting. 

The group’s dedication to sharing new music is evident in their very thoughtful mission statement: “Bonne Action is a group of performers from Oberlin Conservatory who devote the majority of their time and energy to the performance of contemporary music. Each player has, in the context of the music they play or the music they play and write, placed an emphasis on the musical present in their lives and attitudes toward the world. Bonne Action finds it’s name and association in performing the good (and therefore essential) task of presenting music that changes the musical and social environment; that assumes the audience is not merely admirers of works or those who perform them but, rather, active participants in the experience of music; equal in all respects to composer and performer, and just as necessary. We believe that this exchange relation represents an excellent model not only for the experience of art but for socio-political organization as well. Bonne Action is about music and community.” 

One of the concert highlights will be Lewis Nielson’s Iskra, which features a singer with several options to navigate: he/she may sing a fully-composed melody to one of the two given texts, use incipits provided to improvise with, or improvise the entire melody while the other members of the trio continue with their music – it is a piece full of spontaneity and risk. A video of Bonne Action performing Iskra can be found here.

Join us at 7:30 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall on November 15^th for Bonne Action’s concert of new works. 

Eric Huebner performs with the New York Philharmonic

The University at Buffalo’s own Eric Huebner, who is Assistant Professor of Piano in the Department of Music, will perform with the New York Philharmonic on December 16 and 17 as part of their CONTACT! New Music Series at The Met Museum, with conductor Alan Gilbert. In addition to an active performance schedule, Eric also keeps busy expanding the discography of his new music group, Antares, and working to incorporate master classes for young performers into the June in Buffalo festival.

Eric Huebner

Eric’s frequent stints as the guest pianist of the New York Philharmonic will continue into next year and carry across the Atlantic Ocean, where he will tour with the Philharmonic throughout Europe next February to perform Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements and Thomas Adés’ Polaris. Upon returning to the U.S., Eric will be premiering an exciting new work by esteemed American composer and centenarian Elliot Carter, Conversations, for piano, percussion, and chamber orchestra, with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of David Robertson in New York City, in June of 2012 (more details can be found at the Philharmonic’s website).   

In between bouts of touring and performing with the Philharmonic, Eric will bring his group Antares to the University at Buffalo next March to host a master class and give a concert of Stravinsky, Ravel, Reynolds, and Hindemith. Antares is a quartet that specializes in performing and recording new music, and includes clarinetist Garrick Zoeter, violinist Jesse Mills, and cellist Rebecca Patterson. While they are in residency at the University at Buffalo, they will also be spending an afternoon performing the works of UB graduate composers at a composer reading and workshop. Eric, who has recently released a full-length disc of Roger Reynolds’ piano works on Mode Records, enjoys working closely with composers and fostering an intimate collaborative relationship. He remarks, “by collaborating with composers, I’ve been given opportunities to learn not only about their work, but also about my own playing. Composers have given me great insight into my own performance tendencies and approaches to the piano, and each new composer I collaborate with provides me with a learning experience that broadens my abilities to successfully interpret new music.”

Originally founded in 1996, Antares has been releasing critically acclaimed recordings of world premieres for several years. The group was recently treated to a glowing review by Ken Smith of The Gramophone, who wrote, “Antares have the gift of making whatever they’re playing seem the most important piece in the world. And as long as they keep playing, I’m tempted to believe them.” The group has recently released a world premiere recording of Shadowed Narrative by Roger Reynolds on Innova recordings, and has several other new releases available on a variety of record labels (find a complete list here).

The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21^st Century Music is happy to report that Eric is helping to develop a performance institute for the annual June in Buffalo Festival. Though the final details of the project are still being coordinated, the institute is planned for June in Buffalo 2013 and will include opportunities for solo instrumentalists, string quartets, and pre-formed contemporary music ensembles to workshop and study with June in Buffalo performance faculty. The institute will be modeled, in a smaller scale, after the Lucerne Festival, and provide a framework for meetings and collaborations between composers and performers. The JACK Quartet are currently slated to be on the list of performance faculty members, as well as other members of UB’s music performance faculty including Jean Kopperud, Jonathan Golove, and Tom Kolor. Stay tuned for a formal announcement on the June in Buffalo performance institute in Spring of 2012.

Below is a video of an excellent concert of Eric Huebner with David Robertson and the Juilliard Orchestra, performing Olivier Messaien’s Oiseaux Exotiques.

Paolo Cavallone since graduating from the University at Buffalo...

Composer and UB alumnus Paolo Cavallone has recently returned to Buffalo after lecturing in New Zealand and Canada, and having had works premiered and toured in Italy, Portugal, and Brazil. We met with Paolo and asked him to fill us in on his recent activities abroad since graduating with a PhD in music composition in 2009.

Paolo Cavallone
photo by Luca Del Monaco 

“I just returned to Buffalo last Friday from Florence, Italy, where I had been invited by renown Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli to participate in ‘Festival Play It!’ a three day-long festival dedicated to contemporary Italian music, which, this year, celebrated the 80th birthday of great Italian composer and artist Sylvano Bussotti. It was a privilege to be a part of this fantastic showcase of Italian music played by some of Italy’s greatest musicians and broadcast live by Italy’s public radio station, Radio RAI. My symphony, Porte, was premiered there by Orchestra Toscana under the baton of Tonino Battista, and received an enthusiastic response by the audience (see the complete program here). It was a very special event, as painters, poets, and artists from all over the country would open the day’s activities with presentations and lectures about their art. Florence has a rich environment full of history and beautiful architecture, and was a magical place to be.

“It has been a very productive time for me in many ways since graduating from the University at Buffalo. Recently I gave visiting lectures as a composer at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. Moreover, after a year at UB as a piano accompanist and research collaborator for the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, I spent the fall of 2010 in New Zealand as a visiting professor teaching composition and orchestration at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington at Victoria University. I am excited to be returning there next year for the premiere of my flute concerto, commissioned by the Siemens Foundation, for the Stroma New Music Ensemble conducted by Hamish McKeich, and featuring flute legend Roberto Fabbriciani, whom I originally met when he visited the University at Buffalo to give a lecture and concert. Many of the performers I’ve developed successful working relationships with I met through the music department here at UB.

“I am very glad to announce the upcoming release of my new monographic CD, Confini, on the Tactus label. The CD is the fruit of the collaboration between my publisher, RAI Trade, and the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, and includes a bonus DVD and video documentary, Paolo Cavallone: Potrait of a Composer, which shows footage of UB and interviews with conductor Harvey Sollberger, saxophonist Gaetano Di Bacco, violist Luca Sanzò, and David Felder, among others. The CD itself features many UB musicians such as Tony Arnold, Jean Kopperud, Jonathan Golove, Catarina Domenici, Sabatino Scirri, Christian Baldini, Nicholas Isherwood, and Movses Pogossian. The first track on the CD, (Dis)tensioni, for clarinet and piano, was a commission by Jean Kopperud and Stephen Gosling for the ‘Rated X Project’ which I composed during my time in the PhD program at UB and having composition lessons with David Felder. Both Jean and Steve gave a remarkable interpretation of the piece, performing complex, virtuosic passages, extended techniques, and gestures that perhaps only they are able to play, such as pitches outside of the normal range of the clarinet, which Jean was able to execute with extreme facility. The CD will be released by the end of November and be available on the internet and at most major CD retailers (more information about the CD can be found at Paolo’s website, and will soon be available at Tactus Records).

"My perspective as an artist is based on framing a unique musical gesture/object from different angles, so after completing my studies at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, I was eager to expand my artistic vision in an international environment, and experience a different side of Western culture in America. At the University at Buffalo I met a faculty full of first-rate scholars and musicians. First and foremost was my composition teacher, David Felder, who has a rare sense of musical form, and is able, as a teacher, to integrate the students’ perspective without imposing a pre-formed musical aesthetic or compositional school onto the student. I learned from other professors at UB as well – I still remember the high quality of Michael Long’s class on Medieval and Renaissance notation, and Jeffrey Stadelman’s class on contemporary music. I am happy to be back in Buffalo for a while, where I can enjoy and participate in the musical activities at UB and the Center for 21st Century Music."

Bernard Rands, Gil Rose, and Julia Bentley visit the Center next week

Julia Bentley

Next week will be a very exciting and interesting one for all of us at the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, as we will be hosting top tier musicians from all over the country. Mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley, conductor Gil Rose, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands will be visiting the University at Buffalo and converging for a concert with the Slee Sinfonietta on November 1st at 7:30 p.m.

Julia Bentley, who has previously performed at June in Buffalo, is a dizzyingly accomplished singer and voice teacher at the Music Institute of Chicago and has been featured as a soloist with orchestras led by Pierre Boulez, George Manahan, Raymond Leppard, Oliver Knussen, and Robert Shaw. She has taken on leading roles in several operas including Carmen and Rosina, as well as performed and premiered some of contemporary music’s most engaging and virtuosic works. The New York Times recently gave a glowing review of her singing in Pierre Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maître, stating, “The mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley brought rich sound, deep expressivity and an uncanny sense of pitch to the work's restless vocal lines, alive with sudden skips and spiky rhythms one moment, hushed and Impressionistic the next.” She will join the Slee Sinfonietta in Tuesday night’s concert in Lippes Concert Hall for an evening of works by Bernard Rands, Iannis Xenakis, Igor Stravinsky, and Nikos Skalkottas.

Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project

The concert will be conducted by Gil Rose, who in 1996 founded the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, one of the world’s leading professional orchestras dedicated exclusively to performing and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Throughout his tenure as the music director of the BMOP, Gil has received numerous awards from Columbia University and ASCAP, among others, as well as worked laboriously to record an extensive discography of world premieres by Louis Andriessen, John Cage, Robert Erickson, Lukas Foss, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, David Lang, Tod Machover, Steven Mackey, Bernard Rands, George Rochberg, Elena Ruehr, Gunther Schuller, Reza Vali, and Evan Ziporyn on such labels as Albany, Arsis, Cantaloupe, Chandos, ECM, Innova, Naxos, New World, and BMOP/sound, the Grammy-nominated label for which he serves as Executive Producer. His recordings have appeared on the year-end "Best of" lists of The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, American Record Guide, NPR, and Downbeat Magazine (learn more about Gil Rose and the BMOP here).

Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands will be joining us for the concert as well as giving a lecture the following day on Wednesday, November 2nd at 3:00 p.m. in Baird Recital Hall, on his recent work Vincent, an opera about the life of Vincent van Gogh with libretto written by American poet J.D. McClatchy. Vincent was premiered last April in Bloomington, Indiana after being commissioned by the Indiana University School of Music and Opera Department. According to the program note, the two act opera is a “succession of ‘tableaux’ each placing Vincent in contexts which were his real experiences thus revealing his complex character - that of genius artist, religious fanatic, alcoholic, epileptic, unstable of temperament resulting in behavior ranging unpredictably between kindly affability and violent aggression.”

Below is a video of Bernard Rands discussing the tumultuous life of Vincent van Gogh, his captivating works as a painter, and their effect on Rands and his opera.

Composer Derek Charke since graduating UB...

We recently caught up with University at Buffalo alumnus and composer Derek Charke, who has had a very exciting career since graduating from the UB composition program in 2005.  Derek currently teaches music composition and theory at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and is kept busy composing and fulfilling commissions. We sat down with Derek and asked him about his time at UB and to fill us in on his recent projects.

"I remember my time at SUNY Buffalo fondly.  Prior to this I had studied with Louis Andriessen in Holland, at the Royal Academy in London, and at the University of North Texas.  I wanted to find a place that allowed for experimentation and cross fertilization of ideas and aesthetics.  Composer Rodney Sharman, a UB grad himself, encouraged me to apply.  What I encountered at UB was a top notch faculty, an assortment of amazing new music performers, and a thoughtful and diverse bunch of fellow students, each with their own individual voices.  At UB there was an openness, and a free exchange of ideas, that made the environment invigorating.

Derek Charke

"First off, I’ve got to give kudos to David Felder, for his inspiration, and for his guidance.  He has an uncanny ability to get to the heart of the matter, to be flexible in identifying what an individual student is trying to get at aesthetically, formally, etc., and for his ability to impart solid advice on what the next step(s) should be in order to fully realize a particular idea.  I gained many valuable insights from David that will stick with me throughout my career.

"I had the great privilege of studying flute with the late Cheryl Gobbetti-Hoffman.  Cheryl was a nurturing instructor whose pedagogical use of ‘extended’ techniques in her approach to both contemporary and traditional flute literature was inspiring.  I worked closely with the flute studio, performing concerts with the contemporary ensemble (under Jonathan Golove), the Slee Sinfonietta, JiB, Augenmusik (a composer collective), and in the Pantasmagoria flute festival, which was run by Cheryl, and where I had the opportunity to work with visiting artists like Robert Dick, Mathias Ziegler, and Peter Lloyd.  UB allowed me to combine my interests in composition and flute performance.  I ended up with two degrees; a Masters in flute performance, and; a PhD in composition.  No surprise then that my dissertation ended up as a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra!

"Theory and history courses with Michael Long, Charles Smith and Jeffrey Stadelman, and four years as a TA/GA, helped me obtain my current position as an associate professor of music.  And the electronic music courses with Cort Lippe gave me the necessary skills to work with Max/MSP.  Soundscapes and electronics have rapidly become an important facet of my compositional activity––so much so that very few works these days are without some sort of EA component.

"Much has happened since I graduated from SUNY Buffalo six years ago.  I'm currently on my first sabbatical leave from Acadia University.  Recent commissions have come from established ensembles like the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the National Flute Association, and the Katona Twins, as well from many local performers and ensembles in Atlantic Canada.  As a professor I’ve had the opportunity to start my own new music festival, Shattering the Silence, which is now into its sixth year (more information on Shattering the Silence here).  And I continue to perform regularly on the flute.

"A recent commission highlight is my first full-length symphony.  ‘Symphony no. 1 - Transient Energies’ is a 45 minute work that was commissioned in 2010 by Symphony Nova Scotia.  It uses an electronic soundscape consisting of sounds from energy production and usage: wind turbines, diesel power generators, electric hums, sounds of shoveling coal, train whistles, car engines, etc...  Sounds are triggered using Max/MSP from a laptop performer in the orchestra.  'Transient Energies' was premiered to much acclaim this past April, and is currently available on CBC Radio, Concerts on Demand website (click here to listen to 'Symphony no. 1 - Transient Energies'). 

"One of the most fruitful collaborations since leaving UB has been a series of commissions for the Kronos Quartet.  Interestingly enough, this came about as a direct result of my studies at UB.  During a particular composition seminar with David Felder, we were given the task of creating small chamber works to be recorded in the UB recording studio.  I transcribed some Inuit throat song games and reworked them for string quartet––I’ve always had an interest in the arctic.  Using experimental circle and vertical bowing techniques (and assisted by fellow student Carter Williams) I created a set of 11 throat songs.  Subsequently, I sent these to a call for scores with the Kronos Quartet.  David Harrington called me a few months later and, out of the blue, commissioned a new work.  ‘Cercle du Nord III’ for string quartet and a soundtrack of northern sounds was created.  Kronos premiered this work, alongside a selection of the original Inuit throat song games, in 2006.  They went on tour with them, including some illustrious spots along the way, like Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Concert House.  With this success, Kronos commissioned a second work, this time including Inuit throat singing superstar, Tanya Tagaq.  ‘Tundra Songs’ (a 30 minute work) was premiered in May 2008 at the Walt Disney Hall in LA (audio samples available on Derek's website).  

"Now, I’m completing a third commission for the Kronos Quartet, a 22 minute concerto for amplified string quartet and orchestra (commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra), that will be premiered on March 3rd, 2012 at the New Creations Festival at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto (more information available here).  I hope to see some of you there!"