Live Music and Dance Works

The Departments of Music and Theatre & Dance will present a showing of new works in progress on Monday, December 9th at 4 pm in Lippes Concert Hall (UB North Campus). Admission is free.

Buffalo and Rochester area choreographers collaborated with PhD music composition students throughout the fall semester to create new works in a course collaboratively taught by SUNY Distinguished Professor and Birge-Cary Chair, Dr. David Felder and Associate Professor of Dance, Melanie Aceto. This course is a new venture between the dance program and the music composition seminar MUS 627. Rochester choreographers include Heather Roffe and William Evans. Buffalo choreographers include Melanie Aceto, April Biggs, Anne Burnidge, Nancy Hughes and Kerry Ring. Composers include Christopher Ashbaugh, Weijun Chen, Esin Gunduz, Clinton Haycraft, Dimitar Pentchev, David Rappenecker and Matt Sergant.

It has been a very exciting dialog and rewarding realization of these unique pieces. Movement is virtuosic to pedestrian and incorporates set and prop. Sound compositions span vocals, amplified rocks on wood, piano, electronics, marimba and vibraphone. We hope you will join us for an afternoon of dance, live music and an exhibition of the collaborative process.

Financial support for this project comes from the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music and the Birge-Cary Chair in Music, with additional funding from the Chair of Theatre & Dance. 
Contact Melanie Aceto (aceto@buffalo.edu) for more information.

A Musical Feast: 60th Birthday Gala Concert for Composer David Felder

David Felder (far left) watches son Zach's approach
 into 18 green at the Kiawah Ocean Course, April, 2011

The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music is very happy to announce: A Musical Feast, 60th birthday concert for SUNY Distinguished Birge-Cary Professor in Music Composition, Dr. David Felder. The gala will take place at 8 pm on Friday, November 8 in the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Auditorium of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo. 

Please join us for an evening of Felderian splendor, and help us launch David into his seventh earthly decade!

Program

David Felder – Another Face (1987), for solo violin, Yuki Numata Resnick

David Felder – TweenerB (1991, 2013), world premiere; Tom Kolor, percussion

David Felder – November Sky (1992), for flute doubling piccolo, alto, and bass flutes; Emi Ferguson, flutes

David Felder – BoxMan (1986, 2013), world premiere for horn, Adam Unsworth

Intermission

David Felder – Three Songs from Three Watches (2013), preview performance; Emi Ferguson, flutes; Jean Kopperud, clarinets; Yuki Numata Resnick, violin; Virginia Barron, viola; Lauren Radnofsky, cello; Tom Kolor, percussion; Daniel Pesca, piano/celeste; Ethan Herschenfeld, bass voice; Dan Bassin, conductor

Insomnia, poem by Dana Gioia

Buffalo Evening, poem by Robert Creeley

David Felder – Shamayim (2006-8), image by Elliot Caplan; Nicholas Isherwood, bass voice; JT Rinker, Olivier Pasquet, Ben Thigpen, electronics

Chashmal (Speaking Silence) (2006-7)

Sa’arah (Stormy Wind) (2007-8)

Black Fire / White Fire (2007-8)

A Musical Feast and The Center for 21st Century Music extend a heartfelt thanks to the Burchfield Penney Art Center's associate director Don Metz and lighting/sound engineer John Malinowski, and technical director of the UB Department of Music's Chris Jacobs for their all their help. Also many thanks to M+T Bank , videographer Marty McGee, and Holiday Inn/Hart Hotels, Inc. for their generous support. Special thanks to Dr. JT Rinker.

Program Notes

Another Face (1987)

Another Face was written in 1987 for the violinist Janos Negyesy and was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts. The work is the second piece composed in the “Crossfire” series of four works, some with electronics and optional video wall projection.

Another Face is a musical ‘response’ to the extraordinary novel by the great Japanese writer Kobo Abe, “The Face of Another”. Abe has created a set of circumstances in his novel that confront us with profound questions concerning identity; these prompted a composition which proposes small musical modules juxtaposed in coded sequences as the small building blocks contained within extended lines. Each of the small modules consists of a pair—two pitches, and two distinct rhythmic values, which are repeated locally (for memory’s sake), and transformed formally through four passes through the sequence.

And yet...the entire focus of the work is the emergence during the unfolding of the piece of an unnamed ‘third force’, a certain lyrical something that is contained within the somewhat more fiercely deterministic materials. The transformed reconciling materials appear very prominently at the end of the work. The work is a fiendishly difficult virtuoso piece and without the work, spirit and dedication of such virtuosi as Janos Negyesy, Karen Bentley, and Movses Pogossian, it would not have been possible to compose it. Thus it is dedicated to them with all admiration and gratitude.

© David Felder

About Another Face, for solo violin, former UB faculty member and virtuoso violinist Movses Pogossian, who recorded the piece, says, “It truly tests the performer to the extreme in a ‘take-no-prisoner’ style—in a sort of emotional tornado. A hellishly difficult and intensely beautiful solo violin piece.”

Luckily, violinist Yuki Numata Resnick, one of the UB Music Department’s new faculty members, has already proved that she has the chops to make the most challenging music come to life.

© Jan Jezioro

TweenerB (1991, 2013)

Like a versatile athlete who can play more than one position in a game, the percussion soloist in TweenerB fulfills many roles, and, in the course of the piece, goes from being a team member of the ensemble to becoming the featured protagonist. The relationship between soloist and group is volatile and constantly changing in this one-movement work: the soloist may be seen as a “catalyst,” igniting musical processes within the group. and also as a “mediator,” engaging in an ongoing “give-and-take” with his recorded image. Either way, the basic idea of the piece is the energetic exchange and metamorphosis of communication, but it is a communication of a mercurial sort, taking many unpredictable turns as it unfolds.

Yet this is not the only sense in which this work is a true “tweener:” it moves between the extremes of simplicity and complexity, in terms of both instrumental technique and musical structure. Instrumentally, the soloist can play simple pairs of notes on the marimba, alternating between left and right mallets, or highly involved passages with two mallets in each hand. Structurally as well, TweenerB alternates between two states of mind: it is part mysterious and introverted, part energetic and full of drama. In the course of the sixteen-minute work, two large cycles of slow-fast are completed, with many subtle nuances of speed within each basic tempo.

The piece was originally written for solo percussion, orchestra and electronics. TweenerB is a different version of the work where the soloist is joined only by electronics. The soloist uses a KAT mallet controller system—an electronic percussion instrument triggering a computer. The piece opens with what seems primeval “mist,” out of which a number of short motifs gradually emerge, each centering around a certain interval such as a second, a third, a tritone or a seventh. It is striking that, if the motif consists of three notes, the middle note is often emphasized either by dynamics, by rhythmic elongation, or by a melodic leap, in another manifestation of the “tweener” idea.

The first fast tempo, marked “Dramatic,” arrives suddenly with insistent ostinatos leading into a brief jazzy passage marked “Sardonic.” The next section, “Lava-like,” introduces some fundamental types of motion in the piece, first spreading material inexorably in a linear (horizontal) fashion, and later erupting like a volcano in a “hyper-aggressive” outburst.

But then the tempo slows down again (“Lyric”); it is as though the music were succumbing to intense gravity and passing through a “black hole” into another dimension before the piece enters another high-energy phase. There is a cadenza where the soloist is instructed to improvise freely using materials suggested by the composer. The final measures see a last explosion of energy—a musical “exhalation,” as it were, where the soloist comes across somewhat like an Olympic running champion who winds down his gallop around the arena after passing the finish line.

Special thanks to JT Rinker and Matt Sargent for their work on the electronics and mixing, and to Jon Nelson, Tom Kolor, Eric Huebner, Ben Herrington, Adam Unswurth, Jim Daniels, Tony Marino, and Zane Merritt for their contributions!

© Adrienne Elisha and Peter Laki

TweenerB is a new, solo version of Tweener, a concerto for percussion and orchestra. UB professor of percussion Tom Kolor says, “It uses only the KAT mallet instrument, an electronic instrument configured like a marimba and played with mallets in the normal fashion, from the instrumentation of the original piece. It is run through a computer, allowing me to trigger a whole universe of sounds, and David indeed employs a vast timbral arsenal. I’ve been a big fan of David’s music for many years. He can do just about anything; his structures are really coherent without being predictable, he can bowl you over with hair-raising orchestral textures, but he can also break your heart in lyrical adagios.”

© Jan Jezioro

November Sky (1992)

November Sky was composed in 1990-92 for flutist Rachel Rudich. The work is the third in the “Crossfire” series, but the last composed, in the series of works featuring a virtuoso soloist and his (or her) electronically altered image. In this work, NeXT computers were used to process a huge library of archetypal flute materials made by the soloist and to create the four channels of computer-processed flute sounds. The acoustic flute is the sole source.

All of the musical materials were derived from a single melodic line that is played about halfway through the piece. The large-scale form is roughly articulated by four sections approximately coordinated with the changes of instrument from piccolo through bass flute. Each section offers increasingly reflective and distant perspectives on the musical material in the manner of ever-deepening meditation. The title refers obliquely to the psychologically shifting perspectives that accompany seasonal change; particularly the affect surrounding the inexorably failing light as fall gives way to winter. The work was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts. Rick Bidlack and Scott Thomas assisted the composer in the realization of the computer portion of the work.

© David Felder

Flutist Emi Ferguson, another new UB faculty member, will perform November Sky, a work that utilizes solo flute, doubling piccolo, alto and bass flutes and the soloists’ electronically altered sounds. The composer writes, “The title refers obliquely to the psychologically shifting perspectives that accompany seasonal change; particularly the affect surrounding the inexorably failing light as fall gives way to winter.

© Jan Jezioro

BoxMan (1986, 2013)

BoxMan was composed for trombonist Miles Anderson originally in 1985-87 and was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, and the La Jolla Museum for Contemporary Art. It is the final work (but the first composed) in the composer’s “Crossfire” series of works for soloist and his electronic image in both audio and video domains. The work is inspired by Japanese novelist Kobo Abe’s novel “The Box Man”, wherein the lead character is a thoroughly disenfranchised and nameless street person, living out a bizarre existence in a wholly alienating urban environment (Tokyo, circa 1960).

Musically speaking, five types of “behavior” were selected for the soloist: manic, threatening, introverted, aggressive, and lyrical, and these are juxtaposed throughout the work. On the technical level, all sounds are made by the performer; live, on the computer part, and through live electronic sound manipulation. The original electronics (outboard, stand-alone, rack-mounted, commercial ‘boxes’) were re-made, with programming by Erik Oña and David Kim-Boyle, with even more fixes and updates by Brett Masteller, and JT Rinker from 1999-2004, utilizing MAX/MSP and Macintosh machines to replace the outdated outboard signal processing boxes. The ‘vintage’ quality of that older processing is deliberately retained with limited elaboration made in MSP. BoxMan is a fiercely virtuosic piece challenging the performer in every way imaginable--technically, (range, speed, articulation, dynamics, endurance, synchronization with live and pre-recorded electronics, etc.), and perhaps more importantly, expressively.

© David Felder

“Boxman is an extraordinary work originally written for the incomparable trombonist Miles Anderson,” says horn player Adam Unsworth, who asked Felder to consider adapting Boxman for horn. “I am greatly looking forward to this performance, as one of my goals as a musician is to expand the boundaries of the horn, an instrument largely pigeonholed into a strictly orchestral role. The solo horn part to Boxman, which covers the entire range of the horn in rapid fashion and calls upon every color one could imagine, coming out of a brass instrument, is one of the most challenging pieces I have encountered.”

© Jan Jezioro

Three Songs from Three Watches (2003-14)

Norrbotten NEO, a new music ensemble based in North-Eastern Sweden that has visited UB twice in recent years, commissioned Three Songs from Three Watches, the newest work on the program. “It is an independent work,” says conductor Daniel Bassin, “that is inextricably linked with David Felder’s recent large-scale masterpiece, Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux. The poems by Robert Creeley and Dana Gioia, set in that large-scale work, are now set as chamber pieces for solo bass voice, chamber ensemble and electronics. We’ll be performing a preliminary version of the work for Norrbotten, which includes two of the three poems for the final version: Creeley’s ‘Buffalo Evening’ and Gioia’s ‘Insomnia.’”

Bass Ethan Herschenfeld, who offered an outstanding interpretation of these texts in the earlier version, returns for this performance.

Bassin says, “The world-class caliber of performers and performances brought in by the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, in complement with that of UB’s outstanding performance faculty, many of whom have recently expanded their roles in our community from outstanding instrumentalists to superb concert promoters—like Eric Huebner, Jon Nelson—and the composers and performers who come to UB each year to study have all been part of the inspiring backdrop for Felder’s recent, important output.”

© Jan Jezioro

These three songs incorporate poems that present complementary images of the times of day; particularly dusk, the deep middle of the night, and early morning. Thus, Felder used two poems by Robert Creeley (1926-2005) and one by Dana Gioia (b. 1950); the poems can also be heard, as read by the poets (and manipulated in various ways by the composer), in the electronic layer of the work. These are the three movements; we are going to hear the first two tonight, as a preview, and as a work-in-progress for the full premiere next May in Sweden.

© Peter Laki

Shamayim (2006-08)

Shamayim began as a music work commissioned in three separate parts by various European festivals and the Project Isherwood, an initiative to create new works for bass singer Nicholas Isherwood. Commissioning funds were also provided by the Grame Center in France, the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, the New York State Music Fund, as well as the Birge-Cary Chair in Music, the UB2020 Scholar’s Fund, and the Morris Creative Arts Fund (image realization), all at the University at Buffalo.

Shamayim is a work for solo bass voice, 8 channels of electronic sound made or modeled upon Isherwood’s vocal instrument, with video created by Elliot Caplan. The work is an extended meditation inspired in part by the Book of Formation (Sefer Yetzirah), the writings of 13th-century mystic Abraham Abulafia, and descriptions of states of consciousness that accompany prophetic experiences, as in Ezekiel. The work is in three sections titled respectively:

Chashmal (Speaking Silence), 2006-7

Sa’arah (Stormy Wind), 2007-8

Black Fire / White Fire, 2008-9

Isherwood’s unique talents and abilities were the primary sources for all of the sounds in the piece, with accompanying natural sounds and selected ringing metals.

This work is designed to exist in three complementary versions: the first, is a conventional live performance, with image, in concert halls with live amplification, processing, and 8 channels of sound; the second, a version for installation, concert hall/large cinema with 8 channels, or thirdly, as a home theater presentation in surround 5.1 and with a specially prepared image presentation. The latter was commercially released in October, 2009 by Albany Records. Spatial distribution of musical elements is a critical component in the composition. The DVD/DTS may be played through a DVD multi-channel audio player by connecting the output to a surround receiver and a system that has a 5.1 setup as a prepared reduction of the original 8 channels.

© David Felder

Felder composed his multi-media work Shamayim—the title refers to the Hebrew word for heavens—between 2006 and 2008 in collaboration with the noted independent American filmmaker Eliot Caplan, best known for his collaborations with John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Structural principles are derived from the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, letters that contain both a numeric value and imply a sense of movement and direction. The computer generated sound throughout draws on the virtuosity of the bass vocalist. Caplan’s accompanying video effectively makes use of images from nature, such as a lake, trees and clouds, along with video processed images of hexagons that mirror the abstract nature of the music.

© Jan Jezioro

Inner Sky: Blu-Ray CD of Works by David Felder

In June, 2013 Albany Records released a Blu-ray CD of music composed between 1979 and 2010 by Professor David Felder, University of Buffalo's esteemed Birge-Cary Chair in Music Composition. Performers include the Slee Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra, June in Buffalo Festival Brass, and soloists Jean Kopperud, Tom Kolor, Stephen Gosling, Ian Pace, Mario Caroli, and Magnus Andersson. For audiophiles with a surround sound system, the Blu-ray CD features eleven pieces of glorious eight-channel audio. For the rest of us, a CD is included that contains the tracks that can be played back on a traditional stereo system. Hot tip: If you purchase Inner Sky, hie thyself to a top-notch surround sound system; your ears will thank you.

Track list:

1. Rare Air: Blews – bass clarinet, piano, and electronics (2008)

2. Tweener – chamber orchestra, solo percussionist, electronics (2010)

3. Canzone XXXI – trumpets, horn, trombone, bass trombone (1993)

4. Rare Air: Boxmunsdottir – clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, and electronics (2008)

5. Requiescat – bass flute, contrabass clarinet, percussion, guitar, piano/celeste, two violins, viola, cello, bass, and electronics (2010)

6. Inner Sky – flute (doubling  piccolo, alto, bass), percussion, piano, strings, computer-generated sounds (1994, revised 1998)

7. Rocket Summer – solo piano (1979, revised 1983)

8. Incendio – ten brass instruments (2000)

9. Rare Air: Boxmunsson – bass clarinet, piano, and electronics (2008)

10. Dionysiacs –  flute ensemble (6 players) and 'gli altri' (minimum 14) (2005)

11. Rare Air: Aria Da Capo – bass clarinet, piano, and electronics  (2008)

Inner Sky Review: Sequenza 21/, July 2013

David Felder's music is perfect to demonstrate the capacities of Blu-ray audio. Musical climaxes feature piercingly fierce highs and rumbling lows. Elsewhere, shimmering diaphanous textures, frequently blending electronic and acoustic instruments, surround one immersively in this multi-channel environment.

One of the magical things about Inner Sky, not just as a demonstration of an audio platform but as an expertly crafted composition, is the use of register to delineate the structuring of the three main facets of the piece: its solo part, the orchestra, and the electronics. Over the course of Inner Sky, flutist Mario Caroli is called upon to play four different flutes: piccolo, concert flute, alto flute, and bass flute. Moving from high to low, he negotiates these changes of instrument, and the challenging parts written for each of them, with mercurial speed and incisive brilliance. Even though all of the orchestra members are seated onstage, we are also treated to a spatialization of sorts through the frequent appearance of antiphonal passages. This ricochet effect is more than matched by the lithe quadraphonic electronic component. Featuring both morphed flute sounds and synthetic timbres that often respond to the orchestration, it is an equal partner in the proceedings.

Tweener (2010) a piece for solo percussion, electronics, and ensemble, features Thomas Kolor as soloist. Kolor is called upon to do multiple instrument duty too, using "analog" percussion beaters as well as a KAT mallet controller. An astounding range of sounds are evoked: crystalline bells, bowed metallophones, electronically extended passages for vibraphone and marimba. The percussionist's exertions are responded to in kind by vigorous orchestra playing from University of Buffalo's Slee Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra, conducted by James Baker. The Slee group flourishes here in powerful brass passages, avian wind writing, and soaring strings. The brass pieces Canzonne and Incendio are also played by UB musicians in equally impressive renditions. These works combine antiphonal writing with a persuasive post-tonal pitch language that also encompasses a plethora of glissandos.

The Slee Sinfonietta again, this time conducted by James Avery, gets to go their own way on Dionysiacs. Featuring a flute sextet, the piece contains ominously sultry low register playing, offset by some tremendous soprano register pileups that more than once remind one of the more rambunctious moments in Ives's The Unanswered Question. What's more, the ensemble players get to employ auxiliary instruments such as nose whistles and ocarinas, adding to the chaotic ebullience of the work (entirely appropriate given its subject matter).

Clarinetist Jean Kopperud and pianist Stephen Gosling are featured on Rare Air, a set of miniatures interspersed between the larger pieces. These works highlight both musicians' specialization in extended techniques and Kopperud's abundant theatricality as a performer. Pianist Ian Pace contributes the solo Rocket Summer. Filled with scores of colorful clusters set against rangy angular lines and punctuated by repeated notes and widely spaced sonorous harmonies, it is a taut and energetic piece worthy of inclusion on many pianists' programs.

Requiescat (2010), performed by guitarist Magnus Andersson and the Slee Sinfonietta, again conducted by Baker, is another standout work. Harmonic series and held altissimo notes ring out from various parts of the ensemble, juxtaposed against delicate guitar arpeggiations and beautifully complex corruscating harmonies from other corners. Once again, Felder uses register and space wisely, keeping the orchestra out of the guitar's way while still giving them a great deal of interesting music to play. Written relatively recently, Requiescat's sense of pacing, filled with suspense and dramatic tension but less inexorable than the aforementioned concerti, demonstrates a different side of Felder's creativity, and suggests more efficacious surprises in store from him in the future.

© Christian Carey

Inner Sky Review: Fanfare Magazine, August 2013

Tweener, a work for chamber orchestra with percussion solo. The percussion part is confined largely to the mallet instruments, the marimba and the KAT electronic mallet instrument (the latter a new one to me, to be sure). The work has its very busy and dissonant sections—imagine Varese on steroids—as well as sections of quiet repose, more akin to Feldman. Colors abound through imaginative scoring, and much of the work's unique sound comes through the use of instruments in their lower registers. Rather than consistently use the percussion in an overt soloistic fashion, Felder often integrates it into the texture, adding colors and textures to the effect of the ensemble. This is to take nothing away from the virtuosity of the percussion writing, or the considerable skill that percussionist Tom Kolor brings to it.

Rocket Summer is a work for solo piano, to date Felder's only contribution to the solo piano repertory, and is the earliest work included on the recital. The title is drawn from Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, and the work suggests whirling rotations, symbolic of a rocket's motor, and its blast-off that turns an Ohio winter into summer. Other parts of the piece apparently depict blizzard conditions and ice. Felder proves in this work that he can write colorful music even on the essentially mono-chromatic piano.

Incendio utilizes an ensemble of ten brass instruments. Rhythmically and harmonically very free, the interval of the major second plays a prominent role in certain parts of the work, but the composer zeros in on other intervals and pitches from time to time. While the work is not tonal, it doesn't sound serial at all. A close companion to Incendio is the following brass work, Canzone XXXI, scored for two trumpets, horn, trombone, and bass trombone, the latter replacing the more common tuba in the brass quintet. The effect of the piece is similar to its disc-mate, except that the level of virtuosity is ramped up a couple of notches. The work was written for the American Brass Quintet, but the players who present it here have every ounce of skill required to bring the piece off effectively.

The CD closes with Requiescat, a work for guitar solo and chamber ensemble, with electronics. Characteristic of Felder's writing, this piece is full of unusual sonorities, colors, and very expressive dissonance. It is remarkable how beautiful the extreme dissonances contained in this work sound in Felder's hands.

The first of these is Rare Air: Blews for a length of garden hose off-stage and electronics. The hose part consists mainly of wailing on the part of the soloist, leading me to wonder how those sounds were produced on the clarinet (the attribution on the tray card), but at under two minutes, the piece does not wear out its welcome. The similarly-titled Rare Air: Boxmunsdottir actually utilizes clarinet and bass clarinet, as listed, along with electronics, but the tray card lists piano on both of these works, of which I heard not a note. It is nonetheless full of interesting effects and overlaying of the two solo instruments. There are some piano sounds in the later-heard Rare Air: Boxmunsson but nary a word in the notes explaining the use of the Icelandic names.

Inner Sky is scored for solo flutes (apparently one player) and an orchestra of percussion, piano, strings and computer-generated sounds that mimic flutes and (especially) piccolos. It is a highly-dissonant exercise, with lots of notes in the extreme treble (those with sensitive ears will not be able to play this piece at a very high volume), and palpably exciting in its effect. It is, at 16 minutes, also the longest work in this anthology, and probably my favorite work herein given that it sounds so utterly original to me.

Finally, Dionysiacs is the work that utilizes all those flutists listed in the headnote. The opening of this work was a bit much in the treble department for my ears, but it wasn't long before lower pitches began to predominate. This is a most imaginative work--all those flutes make for a uniquely eerie sound. The orchestra doesn't make its appearance until well into the piece.

While not music for the masses (I could only wish that the "masses" would appreciate music like this, or even classical music in general), Felder's work will hold considerable appeal to those for whom the music of such composers as Ives, Varèse, Crumb, and other forward-looking composers of our era has appeal. His is a most individual compositional voice. Accordingly, strongly recommended.

© David DeBoor Canfield

Inner Sky Review: Buffalo Spree Magazine, November 2013

David Felder’s music may be somewhat difficult to categorize for the average listener. Electronics are an important component, not simply as an enhancement to human players in an orchestra, but as an additional instrument: a concerto for electronics and orchestra. This idea is beautifully expressed in the opening piece, “Tweener,” where electronics and the Slee Sinfonietta combine to give a feeling of the “music of the spheres.” Vigorous oscillations across many octaves from the very high to a descent well below the baseline by the rarely heard, contra-bass clarinet, attempt to express the feeling of infinite space.

“Rocket Summer” is this reviewer’s favorite piece on the CD. Written in 1979 and revised in 1983, it represents the earliest of the Felder pieces on this recording. The title of the piece is taken from the first chapter of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, which depicts a rocket lift-off from an Ohio launch pad during a winter storm. Pianist Ian Pace sets the tone of the rocket with repeated notes and pulsating chords that build to a crescendo as the rocket prepares for lift-off. As almost a contrast, an Ohio blizzard swirls around as the rocket lifts off. Then, silence—escape velocity is reached. Looking outward at the vastness of space, the ferocity of the Ohio blizzard is but a distant memory.

“Requiescat” rounds out the disc with a tribute to new music conductor/pianist James Avery. Beginning with the superb deep tones of Jean Kopperud on the contrabass clarinet, this piece surveys single notes and multiple chords with guitar accents from guitarist Magnus Andersson. The resulting swirling sounds are typically Felderian, as the focus of the piece seems to shift from one group of instruments to another until a single sound fades to black.

If you can find someone with Blue Ray capability, don’t miss Rare Air. Written in 2008, the piece is in four parts and is meant to be interspersed throughout a larger program. Jean Kopperud playing clarinet and garden hose to produce sounds reminiscent of frogs, geese, and ducks is not to be missed in part 1. Part 2: Rare Air: Boxmunsdottir and part 3: Rare Air: Boxmunsson show Felder at his best, playing in the low registers with clarinet and piano doing repeated notes and octaves in a swirling pattern and colliding with electronic sounds. Part 4: Rare Air: Aria da Capo completes the collection with a short return to the serenity of nightlife beside a pond with flying insects and other night-flying creatures.

This collection is a terrific introduction to a brilliant compositional career.

© Peter R. Reczek 

Maestro Robert Treviño conducts works by Martino, Revueltas, Stravinsky, and Milhaud

The Center for 21st Century Music's fall concert season continues with the a program of works by four 20th-century composers: two household names, Igor Stravinsky and Darius Milhaud, and two somewhat lesser known composers, Donald Martino and Silvestre Revueltas.The music will be performed by the Slee Sinfonietta, conducted by Robert Treviño and featuring in the Martino Triple Concerto Garrick Zoeter on clarinet, Jean Kopperud on bass clarinet, and Ken Thomson on contrabass clarinet. The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29 in the Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on the University at Buffalo's North Campus in Amherst. Tickets are available at the Slee Hall box office, (716) 645-2921.

Program:

Donald Martino – Triple Concerto, for chamber ensemble and Bb, bass, contrabass clarinets (1977)

Silvestre Revueltas  – Ocho por radio, for eight musicians (1933)

Igor Stravinsky – Octet, for eight wind instruments (1923)

Darius Milhaud – La création du monde, for small (jazz-influenced) orchestra (1923)

Donald Martino composed the Triple Concerto (1977) as a 60th birthday gift for Milton Babbitt. It is scored for a chamber orchestra of 16 players and a trio of clarinets: soprano (Bb), bass, and contrabass. Martino regarded the clarinets not as three separate solo instruments, but as one "Superclarinet, a six octave gargantuan who would use the concerto as a world in which to romp and play with Superfriends." To do this, he discovered ways to bridge the gaps in timbre and articulation between "the elegant Soprano, the poetic Bass, and the obstreperous Contrabass." As with all his large-form works, Martino had the sense when listening to the Concerto that he had composed a story in sound that evolved in a similar way to the spiritual journey of a human life.

Translated literally the Spanish title Ocho por radio (1933) means "Eight by Radius." But Silvestre Revueltas, lover of wordplay, invested his title with a sly double entendre: a mathematical reference to a circle with a radius of eight units and a description of an ensemble of eight musicians arranged in a (semi)circle performing live on the radio. Revueltas, mostly indifferent to the European classics, was very fond of taking the folk and popular music of his homeland Mexico and investing it with a forceful rhythmic character, earning him the nickname: the Mexican Stravinsky. Ocho por radio is written in A-B-A form. The two outer A sections are fast and syncopated, while the middle B section is more relaxed and wistful. The piece ends with a short upbeat coda.

Igor Stravinsky

Like so many artists of his generation, Stravinsky was deeply affected by the horrors of World War I. In reaction he shed his Rite of Spring enfant terrible reputation and headed off in a radically different neoclassical direction. One of the first pieces he wrote in this style was the Octet (1923). Determined to avoid the lush strings and lavish gestures of Romantic music, he chose an edgy timbral palette of eight wind instruments: flute, clarinet, two bassoons, trumpets in A and C, tenor and bass trombones. The piece is in three movements: the first in sonata form, the second a theme and variations, and the third a rondo. Stravinsky (secretly) dedicated the Octet to Vera de Bosset, with whom he had fallen in love a few years before, and who would eventually become his second wife.

Darius Milhaud

In 1922 Milhaud went to Harlem, where he found the music to be "absolutely different from anything I had ever heard before and was a revelation to me. Against the beat of the drums the melodic lines crisscrossed in a breathless pattern of broken and twisted rhythms." He made plans to incorporate jazz into a chamber work, and got his opportunity less than a year later, when Rolf de Maré commissioned Milhaud to compose a ballet based on African legends. At the first performance of La création du monde (1923), critics denounced the piece as frivolous, more appropriate for a dance hall than a concert hall. Ten years later, the same critics – now ardent students of the philosophy of jazz – declared La création to be Milhaud's finest work.

Interview with Jon Nelson, Artistic Director of Pausa Art House

How did Pausa Art House come into being?

My wife Lázara and I opened PAUSA last March. For a long time, we had been looking for a place where we could hear really great music of all genres – classical, contemporary, jazz, ethnic, original – played at a high level, not at a loud volume. We couldn't find that place, so we opened our own.

What is PAUSA's mission?

Concert Night at PAUSA

Pausa Art House presents chamber music concerts and artistic exhibitions focusing on artists indigenous to Buffalo and its surrounding area. As a complement to the already vibrant nightlife on Allen Street, PAUSA adds a "boutique" entertainment element to the neighborhood with pre-concert and post-concert receptions that encourage intermingling among performers and audience members.

PAUSA is a gathering place for creative musicians, artists and writers, where a free exchange of ideas can take place. We believe PAUSA will support and enhance the cultural revival of both the Allentown district and Buffalo in general. We also seek to make PAUSA a destination for performers and audience members from outside Buffalo as well, in our effort to promote the creative activity that occurs here.

We set our programs conceptually and independent of outside commercial forces. We also collaborate with The Center for 21st Century Music in the UB Music Department, Hallwalls, and Allentown First Fridays, building on an already strong local art movement.

The relaxed atmosphere of the venue attracts patrons who wish to attend an intimate concert or art exhibit while enjoying a glass of wine. Arts are the primary attraction at PAUSA: audiences are intentionally small, to more easily return to the intimate origins of live musical experience.

Within the focus of our artistic mission, we seek to achieve diversity through the presentation of artists who blur the traditional lines of categorization.

What is the nature of your and Lázara's relationship with PAUSA?

PAUSA Art Exhibit

PAUSA is truly a mom-and-pop business. Lázara takes care of all of the licenses and permits, accounting, purchasing, budgeting, Facebook, booking the visual artists, and updating the website. She bought the furniture on craigslist – working hard to beat out the antique dealers – and did all the painting in the club. I book the musicians, write and send press releases to the papers every week, and do other odds and ends as they come up. I painted the outside of the building (on a 28-foot ladder!), and did carpentry work, hung doors, and installed the floors. We both do all the cleaning.

Is PAUSA a livelihood for you two, a part-time job, a non-profit-making labor of love ... ?

It's a labor of love that requires full-time attention. We survive by selling drinks and food at the bar. All door proceeds and ticket sales go to the musicians. We hope it will turn a profit down the road.

What new and exciting things do we have to look forward to this year at PAUSA?

We are starting a monthly Silent Film / Lively Music series, in which composers and performers will create scores to silent films. We're also bringing in out-of-town acts to do master classes at UB, then play at the club. We'll have the Cuban composer and percussionist Dafnis Prieto in September, and the Peter Evans / Sam Pluta Duo in November. Combining forces – composers and performers – is a great way to bring in folks who would not normally play in Buffalo. UB Composition students have a strong presence at PAUSA. Esin Gunduz and Zane Merritt are regular performers, and we present the music of student composers at the end of each semester, often in collaboration with our local new-music ensemble Wooden Cities.

How long do you envision PAUSA going on? Do you have plans for eventual expansion or moving?

PAUSA will go on as long as we can keep it going. No plans to expand or move. We are in for the long haul.

Interview with Eric Huebner, Pianist and Curator of the Music in Buffalo's Historic Spaces Series

Please give a thumbnail bio of your Music in Buffalo's Historic Spaces series.

The Music in Buffalo's Historic Places series launched in March of 2013 with a fabulously well-attended concert of chamber music featuring UB faculty performing alongside Grammy-nominated violinist Jesse Mills in the Greatbatch Pavilion at Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House Complex in Buffalo. This past May, we held our second concert featuring the JACK Quartet in the lobby of One M&T Plaza, the Minoru Yamasaki designed corporate headquarters of M&T Bank. Both events drew capacity crowds inspiring us to move forward with additional programming this year.

Greatbatch Pavilion

The series originated from discussions I had with colleagues in the UB Music and Architecture departments concerning the value of showcasing the musicians (both visiting and UB faculty) in buildings of historic and architectural significance in Buffalo. Professor Felder's support and encouragement were essential in making the idea of the series a reality. Series sponsors have so far included the Center for 21st Century Music, Martin House Restoration Corporation and the M&T Charitable Foundation. Local piano dealer Denton, Cottier & Daniels generously donated the use of a 9-foot Steinway concert grand for our opening concert in March and will be doing so again for this season's two concerts.

What is the mission of the series?

To present high-quality music programming in places of civic, historic, and architectural significance in Buffalo.

How long are you envisioning Music in Buffalo's Historic Spaces going on?

I am currently working to expand the organization and resources of the series and hope to establish non-profit status and form a board of directors early next year. If the concerts continue to be successful, I plan to continue the series for as long as I am able!

What new and exciting things do we have to look forward to this year in the Music in Buffalo's Historic Spaces series?

On Sunday, December 15th at 3 pm in the Greatbatch Pavilion at the Darwin Martin House Complex, we will be presenting pianist Christopher Guzman in recital. Chris was the Grand Prize winner of the 2012 Orléans Piano Competition, Europe's premiere competition for pianists interested in 20th and 21st century music. Fresh from a recent European concert tour, he will present a program of solo piano music by Beethoven, Brahms, Henze, Liszt, and Widmann. Frank Lloyd Wright drew direct inspiration from Beethoven and the Germanic musical tradition for his groundbreaking designs. This program presents older works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Liszt, with more contemporary offerings that are inspired, in part, by music and operatic voices of the past. The program offers a musical parallel to the experience of viewing the Martin House – Wright's early 20th century Prairie-style masterpiece – through the glass walls of the modern Greatbatch Pavilion.

Kleinhans Music Hall

On Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 7:30 pm on the main stage of Kleinhans Music Hall we will feature music of the late Italian modernist composer Luciano Berio. UB performance faculty members Jonathan Golove, Eric Huebner, Jean Kopperud, Jon Nelson, and Yuki Numata Resnick will perform Berio's solo Sequenzas IV, VIII, IX, X, and XIV. We plan to give audience members the opportunity to sit where the Buffalo Philharmonic members sit – on stage at Kleinhans – to witness up close the performance of these incredibly virtuosic pieces. 

Interview with Nathan Heidelberger, Tanglewood Composition Fellow, Summer 2013

Congratulations on having been a Tanglewood Music Center composition fellow this past summer! What drew you to Tanglewood, do you have personal history with it?

I had participated in Tanglewood's high-school composition program through the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) during the summer before my senior year (2004). My memories are of a really inspirational summer – surrounded by musicians, with access to world-class concerts pretty much ever day, and able to focus in on my composing. So I guess it's been a goal to be a TMC fellow for quite some time. And it was a really amazing experience.

How many composition fellows were there this summer? Did you get a chance to hang out with any of them, make friends?

I was one of six composition fellows. We all got along really well and were more or less inseparable as a group. We went to classes and concerts together, ate together, hung out together, etc. What was really remarkable and exciting about the group was that we were musically very diverse. Our writing styles were all quite different, but we still got along and were very engaged with each other's music. For example, in one project, each of us had to conduct a piece by one of the other fellows.

I'm sure there are places where this wouldn't be the case, so it's definitely to Tanglewood's credit that they're interested in cultivating this kind of diversity rather than asserting one particular stylistic or aesthetic viewpoint. This is also something, by the way, that I value very much about the composition studio at UB.

Were you satisfied with the premiere of been a cold long time? Rehearsals, performers, audience, the actual performance?

Rehearsing been cold a long time was one of the highlights of my experience at Tanglewood. I was working with a group of incredible performers: Tammy Coil (mezzo-soprano), Cho-Eun Lee (piano), and Henrik Heide (alto flute). They all were very committed to the piece, and really threw themselves into the process. The rehearsals were coached by John Harbison and Dawn Upshaw, and I was really floored by their innate sense of musicality, and their ability to see exactly what I was going for in the music – without my having to say anything about it – and then help the performers bring that out. (I'll confess I was pretty star struck to be working with Dawn Upshaw.) Because we had ample rehearsal time, I also had the opportunity to make some revisions to the piece, which was very helpful.

In the end, the performance was a big success – not just my piece, but the whole concert, which featured a world premiere of a song from each of the composition fellows. The other fun aspect of this project was that we were responsible for pairing each of our pieces with a pre-existing song from the repertoire. Tammy suggested our pairing – Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai, the first song from Schumann's Dichterliebe. The initial idea was that the "spring-ness" of the Schumann would be a nice contrast with the "winter-ness" of my piece. But in the end the dark, understated character of the Schumann actually matched my piece quite well.

What are your plans for the next year or two?

I have a very busy year ahead of me. At the moment I'm studying for my comprehensive exams, which will bring me one step closer to my doctorate. I also have two big writing projects on the horizon: a string quartet for the Arditti Quartet to play when they appear at UB in March, and a new large-scale work for voice and chamber ensemble which will be premiered by Oerknal, an ensemble in the Netherlands, in the late spring. I'm also teaching a class at UB for non-music majors on the music of Luciano Berio. 

Interview with Emi Ferguson, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Flute Performance at UB

Emi Ferguson, a flute player dedicated to expanding the boundaries of contemporary performance, has been hailed by critics for her "tonal bloom" and "hauntingly beautiful performances." Emi's unique approach to the flute can be heard in her use of the silver flute, historical flutes and auxiliary flutes to play repertoire stretching from the Renaissance to today.

Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her playing can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as well as in her adopted hometown, New York City. Extremely passionate about championing new flute works by contemporary composers, she has premiered pieces by Wayne Oquin, Kendall Briggs, Elliott Carter, and even CPE Bach to name a few. Emi has been a featured performer at the Marlboro Music and Lucerne Festivals, and this past summer, performed and taught with Juilliard Global, PianoSonoma in California, Juilliard Baroque in Germany, and Les Arts Florissants in France. In addition, she was awarded 1st Prize at the National Flute Association's prestigious Young Artist Competition. 

Emi is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School and was recently appointed to the faculty of the University of Buffalo where she teaches flute and ear training. She was the first person to have graduated from Juilliard with Undergraduate and Graduate degrees with Scholastic Distinction in flute performance, as well as a second Graduate degree in Historical Performance as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.

Please tell us about yourself. Bonus points for an insider's view of Emi, delightful tidbits not covered in a standard bio.

Well, I guess the most important things are that I hate cheese, but absolutely love Japanese food which I blame on my being born in Japan. If anyone wants a partner in crime for Japanese dinner in Buffalo let me know! I also have a serious weakness for English candy since I grew up there. :)

I also play the flute ... I started when I was six and haven't stopped yet! I seriously considered studying epidemiology instead of music but decided to stick with music and sneak in articles and studies about various diseases on the side. Boston is my hometown in the US but I have lived in New York City for the past eight years and love it there!

How did you become interested in contemporary music?

I started really playing contemporary music while as a student at Juilliard.  I worked with a lot of composers there, played in the New Juilliard Ensemble and AXIOM Ensemble (Juilliard's contemporary music ensembles) where I fell in love with the music and the challenges posed and was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who were incredibly enthusiastic about it as well. All of this was solidified for me my junior year where I was so fortunate to work with some of the titans of new music – Elliott Carter, James Levine, and Pierre Boulez – both in New York and at the Lucerne Festival Academy.

Do you still have a strong relationship as a performer and listener with traditional/classical music?

Absolutely! In addition to my work with contemporary music I also play early music on historical instruments, a lot of Baroque and Classical music on those with various groups around the world. I'm also a huge fan of late Renaissance music, which unfortunately doesn't usually have flutes, so I'm just a listener there.  Of course the core of the modern flute repertoire comes from the romantic period onwards so I'm always searching for new gorgeous pieces from that time period to play.

What brought you to Buffalo/UB?

I was contacted by the Department of Music this past summer and the rest is history! I'm so thrilled to be here.

Do you have a "mission" as a performer/musician/artist(/human)? If so, please share.

I believe it's incredibly important for musicians to make sure that they do not live or perform in a vacuum.  It's so easy for us to get caught up in the details of our craft as we strive for perfection, but it is so important to take a step back and see that the most important things are often communication and the power that we have to truly affect people with our music.

What new and exciting things do we have to look forward to this year from Emi Ferguson?

Well, I'll be in Buffalo for one! I'll be playing the October 28th concert with the Slee Sinfonietta, the November 8th birthday concert for David Felder, and will be joining my former teacher Carol Wincenc, a Buffalo native, on her April 15th recital. I also recently finished a record of composer Kendall Briggs' flute music, much of which was written for me, which should be available sometime this year.

For performance listings, audio and video recordings and more, please visit: emiferguson.com.

Interview with Yuki Numata Resnick, Assistant Professor of Music, Violin & Viola Performance at UB

Yuki Numata Resnick is rapidly gaining attention as a charismatic virtuoso, having performed as a soloist with the New World Symphony, the University at Buffalo's Slee Sinfonietta, the Wordless Music Orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra. With a penchant for performing new music, she is a member of the Talea Ensemble and performs frequently with Alarm Will Sound and Ensemble Signal. Yuki has appeared at numerous summer festivals including Music in the Vineyards, Tanglewood, Music Academy of the West, the Banff Centre and in recent summers, she has been teaching and performing at the Wellesley Composers Conference and UB's Summer String Workshop. Having been a New York freelancer for several years, in addition to her new music and classical playing, Yuki has also had the pleasure of performing and recording for bands and artists including Passion Pit, The National (where she met her husband), Grizzly Bear, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, and John Cale.

Originally from Vancouver, BC, Yuki holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan. Her primary teachers include Zvi Zeitlin, Andrew Jennings and Gwen Thompson. She also spent three years living in the sunny paradise of South Beach where she was a fellow at the New World Symphony. Having happily traded her cozy one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for an entire floor of a house in Buffalo's Elmwood Village, she is very excited to be starting a new life here in town. Yuki shares her three-bedroom palace with her husband Kyle Resnick, both of whom are thrilled to be welcoming their first baby around Thanksgiving of this year.

How did you come to be interested in contemporary music?

I first became interested in contemporary music when I went to the Eastman School of Music for my undergraduate degree. There was always much excitement and energy surrounding the new music scene there so it was an undeniable draw. In a curiously dorky way, it was almost as if all the "cool kids" were playing new music!

I had a lot of terrific experiences at ESM when it came to experimenting with contemporary music. I played with the student-run ensemble, Ossia, which collaborated with Alarm Will Sound in a recording of Steve Reich's Desert Music. I also played with conductor, Brad Lubman's school-based group, Musica Nova, which performed regularly throughout the year. It was through Musica Nova that I had my first run-ins with the music of John Zorn and Charles Wuorinen and I haven't looked back since!

Do you still have a strong relationship as a performer and listener with traditional/classical music?

Definitely. With the violin in particular, there is a such a sense of history with its large traditional repertoire and the many great violinists who have come before, that when I was a student, I treated this historical connection as baggage. It was – and can still be at times! – intimidating to play older music. I never had a real answer for why the world needed my version of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto when so many others before me had played it with such great technical and musical prowess. With the confidence that I have built through playing new music which has none of those intimidating historical ties, I find that I can return to playing traditional classical music with a renewed sense of self.  I have a greater appreciation for the traditional concepts of beauty of sound and tonality. And the technical challenges of playing new music have only served to solidify my technique in approaching the performance of "old music." Vice versa, I find that I can also bring older concepts of melody and line to my performance of new music. So both inform each other in a positive way.

What brought you to Buffalo/UB?                                                

My position as Assistant Professor at UB was the main reason for coming to Buffalo, though I've had a connection to the school for much longer. My first experiences with the Slee Sinfonietta were back in the early 2000s when I was still a student at Eastman. I also remember coming to play Steve Reich's Triple Quartet  at the June in Buffalo Festival in 2003. After I moved away from Rochester, my connection with Buffalo diminished, but it resumed in 2007 when I came back to play Charles Wuorinen's Spin Five. Since then, I've been in Buffalo regularly about 4-5 times a year to perform. I taught one year as an Adjunct Instructor in 2010, and for the last three years I've been teaching at UB's Summer String Workshop alongside Prof. Jonathan Golove. I'm happy to be able to say that, rather than traveling to and from Buffalo every few months as I did for the last six years, I am now a proud Buffalo resident!

Do you have a "mission" as an  performer, musician, artist?

I find that my goals are always evolving as I myself evolve, although they generally center around two aspects of my musical life: the first my desire to use new music as a way to reach new audiences, and the second my dedication to using teaching as a way to impact people on a very personal basis. As exhilarating and rewarding as being a performer in the spotlight can be, it can also be a lonely world, with an invisible barrier between the stage and the audience. So I find that my relationships with my students is a direct way for me to see how all of my training and experiences can affect and hopefully benefit other human beings.

With regards to my first mission, it is becoming more and more obvious that the tried and true model of classical music training and concert presentation is no longer sufficient for the current musical and social climate. It is my hope that new music can be a way of attracting listeners who are hungry for new sounds and ideas. I strongly believe that as daunting as new music can be, if it is presented in a way that is less intimidating – whether it be in more intimate and casual venues like Professor Jon Nelson's art space, Pausa Art House, or by juxtaposing new music with old music – it is an excellent way for us musicians to reach people who are just waiting to have their ears opened in a way they've never been opened before.

What new and exciting things do we have to look forward to this year from Yuki Numata Resnick?

Well, I suppose the biggest news is that my husband and I are expecting our first baby around Thanksgiving of this year! Musically speaking, I'm looking forward to an all-Brahms program that I'll be playing in March with my colleagues, Professors Eric Huebner and Jonathan Golove, as well as a Berio Sequenza evening at Kleinhans Hall in April, organized by Professor Huebner. With this being my first year in official teaching capacity at UB, there's a bit of a learning curve to settling in here and discovering all of the terrific things UB and Buffalo have to offer. I'm really looking forward to see how my presence can make a positive impact both at school and in the community.

For more about Yuki, please visit: yukinumata.com.

2013-2014 Calendar of Events

I am very happy to announce the 2013–2014 Calendar of Events for The Robert & Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music. We've put together an outstanding set of musical events this season. Adventurous listeners are sure to be both delighted and challenged by the rich selection of pieces, performers, and venues. We look forward to seeing you in the avant-musical trenches! – David Felder, Director

Slee Sinfonietta

Music of Boulez, Ravel and Varèse

Case Scaglione, conductor, and Julia Bentley, mezzo soprano

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Music of Martino, Milhaud, Revueltas, and Stravinsky

Robert Treviño, conductor

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Music of Reynolds and Varèse

James Baker, conductor, and Laura Mercado Wright, mezzo soprano

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

June In Buffalo 2014

Faculty Composers: David Felder, Joshua Fineberg, Philippe Hurel, Hilda Paredes, Bernard Rands

Resident Ensembles: Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Court-Circuit, Ensemble Signal, Meridian Art Ensemble, Norrbotten Neo, Slee Sinfonietta

Special Guest: Irvine Arditti

Monday, June 2 – Sunday, June 8, 2014

Wednesday Lecture Series

Ensemble Son and Either/Or

Monday, September 30 – Thursday, October 3, 2013

Wilhem Latchoumia, pianist, and Franck Bedrossian, composer

Wednesday, October 16 – Thursday, 17, 2013

Composer/Choreographer Workshop Presentations

Monday, December 9, 2013

Arditti Quartet

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Third Coast Percussion Residency

Monday, March 24 – Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Roger Reynolds

Monday, April 7 – Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Cosponsored Events

A Musical Feast

Burchfield Penney Art Center

Friday, October 11, 2013

Birthday Concert for David Felder

Burchfield Penny Art Center

Friday, November 8, 2013

Music in Buffalo’s Historic Places

Christopher Guzman, pianist

Greatbatch Pavilion, Darwin Martin Complex

Sunday, December 15, 2013

UB faculty performs Berio’s Sequenzas

Kleinhans Music Hall, main stage

Thursday, April 3, 2013

For well over forty years, the Music Department at the University at Buffalo has maintained and nurtured a commitment to creative and performing artists at the forefront of contemporary music. The Center for 21st Century Music is built on this legacy, featuring the internationally renowned “June in Buffalo” festival, the Slee Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra concert series, The Wednesday Series of performances, lecture presentations, and workshops, and the performance activities of the Hiller Computer Music Studios. The Center for 21st Century Music is dedicated to the creation and production of new work upholding the highest artistic standards of excellence while simultaneously fostering a complementary atmosphere of creative research.

The activities of the Center are made possible through funds from Robert G. Morris and Carol L. Morris, the Cameron Baird Foundation, the New York State Music Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund, the Ditson Fund, the Birge-Cary Chair in Music, the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo and other generous supporters.

For more information please visit www.music21c.org.