We here at the Center for 21st Century Music are looking forward to a program of solo works by performers in the Slee Sinfonietta on Wednesday, December 1st, at 7:30 pm, in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall at the University at Buffalo.
We are excited to have another live audience again after our September 14th concert honoring the passing of Charles Wuorinen.
Here is our program below, which features a great variety of local Buffalo performers and composers:
Koral 1, by Jeff Stadelman, performed by Tom Kolor, percussion and electronics
Rutaceae, by Robert Phillips, performed by Michael Tumiel, clarinet and electronics
Orbit, by Philip Glass, performed by Jonathan Golove, cello solo
Piri, by Isang Yun, performed by Megan Kyle, oboe solo
Three Etudes, by Steve Solook, performed by Steve Solook, percussion solo
Platinum Spirals, by Joan Tower, performed by Shannon Reilly, violin solo
David's Nimm, by Karin Rehnqvist, performed by Tiffany Du Mouchelle, soprano and electronics
Virtuosic new music ensemble and longtime friend of the Center for 21st Century MusicHanatsu Miroir will record works by UB graduate composers during October 7 - 9. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic travel restrictions no persons from Europe or France are allowed into the US, so they will rehearse via zoom and record remotely. We hope this changes soon!
As this is a remote recording session it will not be open to the public, but please check this page in a few months and we will upload some of the recordings. Hope to see your ears here soon!
We're excited to announce the opening concert of the Center for 21st Century Music 2021-2022 season! We have a program with some big instrumental forces in Lippes Concert Hall at the University at Buffalo on Tuesday, September 14th, at 7:30 pm.
A livestream link will be available for this concert but everyone is welcome to attend in person with masks on and social distancing observed.
The program will be:
Zoe, for string sextet, Charles Wuorinen
For CW, for chamber orchestra, David Felder
Grises osobres lágrimas, for small string orchestra, Christian Baldini
Introduzione all'oscuro, for 12 players, Salvatore Sciarrino
Octandre, for 8 players, Edgar Varése
The program will be conducted by UB alumn Christian Baldini who is now conducting the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. The concert features a premiere by David Felder, For CW, which honors the recently passed Charles Wuorinen who has been a friend of the Center since the beginning. The evening concludes with Octandré, by Edgar Varése, who was aa early supporter of Wuorinen's music.
David Felder and Charles Wuorinen at the Marriott near UB
Ticket purchasing information and livestream link coming soon!
We are very excited to announce that Stefano Gervasoni will join us as a senior composer for this year's June in Buffalo. Born in Bergamo in 1962, Stefano Gervasoni began studying composition in 1980 on the advice of Luigi Nono: this encounter, as well as others with Brian Ferneyhough, Peter Eötvös and Helmut Lachenmann, turned out to be decisive for his career. After attending the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where he studied with Luca Lombardi, Niccolò Castiglioni and Azio Corghi, Stefano Gervasoni met György Ligeti in Hungary in 1990, and then, in 1992, he attended the IRCAM Course in Composition and in Computer Music in Paris. The first three years in France launched Gervasoni's international career that eventually led him to be artist-in-residence at Villa Medici in Rome for the 1995-96 biennium.
Stefano Gervasoni has established himself as one of the most important Italian composers of his generation. His commissions include such prestigious institutions as the WDR, the SWR, the Orchestra Nazionale della RAI, the Münchner Kammerorchester, the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Radio France, IRCAM, the Casa da Musica in Porto, the Festival Archipel in Geneva, the Divertimento Ensemble in Milan, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva, the Maerzmusik festival in Berlin, the Ars Musica Bruxelles, the Festival Musica in Strasbourg, the French Ministry of Culture, Milan Teatro alla Scala and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. His catalogue – which includes chamber and vocal music, concertos, works for orchestra, for ensemble and the opera Limbus-Limbo – is published by Ricordi and by Suvini Zerboni.
A winner of numerous prizes, including the recent "Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award" (2018) and Premio della Critica Musicale "Franco Abbiati" (2010), his work has allowed him to be a grant-holder at the Fondation des Treilles in Paris (1994) and at the DAAD in Berlin (2006) and composer-in-residence at Villa Médicis in Rome as fellow at the Académie de France for the years 1995-96 and at the Domaine de Kerguéhennec during the period 2008-2010. He has also been invited to teach at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse, on the courses organised by the Fondation Royaumont (Paris), at Toho University in Tokyo, at the Festival International de Campos do Jordão in Brazil, at the Conservatory in Shanghai, at Columbia University (New York), at Harvard University (Boston) and at Takefu International Music Festival. He has been composer-in-residence at Lausanne Conservatoire (2005) and at Yellow Barn Summer Academy (Vermont, 2016). Moreover, he has been visiting professor at ESMUC in Barcelona for the 2012-13 academic year.
His disc Antiterra, featureing the pieces An, Animato, Antiterra, Least Bee, Godspell, and Epicadenza, was recently released in France by Aeon and bears witness to “a sonic world of great wealth, subtlety, refinement, expressive but also organic, that immediately captures one’s attention” (Philippe Albèra). Other recordings include the Harmonia Mundi CD in the series Musiqu Française d’Aujourd’hui (Ensemble Contrechamps), the Stradivarius CD by Divertimento Ensemble and the CD Dir-in dir released in Germany by Winter und Winter. From 2006 Stefano Gervasoni has held a regular teaching position as professor of composition at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. The musicologist Philippe Albèra wrote a substantial book on Stefano Gervasoni's work, Stefano Gervasoni. Le parti pris des sons, published in 2015 by Editions Contrechamps (Geneva). His last CD, entitled pas perdu has been released in 2018 by Winter & Winter.
We are delighted to announce that Augusta Read Thomas will be a June in Buffalo senior composer for 2021. The music of Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964 in New York) is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and colorful. She has been championed
by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach,
Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, and was described by The American Academy of Arts and Letters
as “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American
Music."
In 2016, Augusta Read Thomas founded the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition. The Center comprises ten integrated entities: annual concert series
featuring the Grossman Ensemble, CHIME, visiting ensembles,
distinguished guest composers, performances, recordings, research,
student-led projects, workshops and postdoctoral fellowships.
Recent and upcoming commissions include those from the Santa Fe Opera
in collaboration with the San Francisco Opera and other opera
companies, PEAK Performances at Montclair State University and the
Martha Graham Dance Company, The Cathedral Choral Society of Washington
D.C., The Indianapolis Symphony, Tanglewood, The Kaleidoscope Chamber
Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, Boston Symphony, the Utah Symphony,
Wigmore Hall in London, JACK quartet, Third Coast Percussion, Spektral
Quartet, Chicago Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, the Danish Chamber
Players, Notre Dame University, Janet Sung, Lorelei Vocal Ensemble, and
the Fromm Foundation.
Thomas has the distinction of having her work performed more
frequently in 2013-2014 than any other living ASCAP composer, according
to statistics from the performing rights organization (New York
Times). Her discography includes 88 commercially recorded CDs.
Her recent piece for wordless soprano and string quartet, Plea for Peace (embedded below), was commissioned by The University of Chicago
for the Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of Chicago Pile-1. The
meditative, drawn out sustains of the quartet weave a gentle
counterpoint around an increasingly urgent vocal to a beautiful and
inevitable climax.
June in Buffalo is very pleased to announce that the composer and conductor Robert HP Platz will be among our senior composers this festival. Platz was born in Baden-Baden in 1951, and studied music theory, piano and conducting in Freiburg / Breisgau. He studied composition with Wolfgang Fortner and Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne, and later completed his conducting training with Francis Travis in Freiburg. Platz' various collaborations ahve variously taken him to the United Stated, Paris and Japan. From 1989, Platz’ compositions have been part of a journal-like all-encompassing cycle that continues in associative leaps, distributions in space, and a polyphony of forms.
From 1980 to 2001, Platz in Cologne directed the Cologne Ensemble he founded. Composers
such as Scelsi, Xenakis, Kagel, Hosokawa, Sylvano Bussotti and Klaus Huber
wrote for the ensemble, which specializes in contemporary music. With
guest conductors, Platz worked with ensembles and orchestras such as the
Ensemble Modern, the Klangforum and the Vienna series, the German Symphony
Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the WDR, the two SWR Symphony
Orchestras Freiburg / Baden-Baden and Stuttgart, the Radio Philharmonic
Orchestra of the NDR Hannover, and the Lower Rhine Symphoners, the Orchester
Philharmonique du Luxembourg or the Bavarian State Opera.
Platz has lectured and taught in many European countries as well as the USA, Mexico, Israel, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan; 1986-1996 and again in 2002 lecturer at the Darmstadt summer courses. From 1990 onwards, Platz led a composition class at the Maastricht University of Music, combined with a seminar on the performance practice of new music. Since October 2013, Platz has held a professorship for composition and ensemble management for new music at the Musikhochschule Würzburg. From 2000 to 2007, Platz was artistic director of the Schreyahner Herbst festival. Since October 2013, Platz has held a professorship for composition and ensemble management for new music at the Musikhochschule Würzburg.
The Steingraeber piano manufacturer has been building the first midi grand piano with permanently installed transducers according to Platz’ specifications since 2016. Since 2005 the composer has been a member of the Bureau du Directeur of the Henri Pousseur Electronic Studio, Liège. Numerous CDs document the compositional and conducting work of Robert HP Platz. His portrait CD Mauro Lanza with the Ensemble Alternance was awarded by the Académie Charles Cros, his first Hosokawa CD with NEOS received the Clef d'Or as "Best CD of the year 2009".
A disc of Platz solo flute works, Più di un sogno, was released in Feburary of this year, with flutist Roberto Fabbriciani.
We are pleased to announced that Hilda Paredes will be
working with students at this year’s June in Buffalo Festival as one of a number of senior composers and guest lecturers. Hilda Paredes was born in Tehuacan, Puebla in 1957 and is currently based in London, England. While it is fundementally European on the surface, Mexican and pre-colonial culture runs as a deep background thread through much of her work. At the same time, many of her means for manipulating
rhythm and structure have been influenced by her interest in the music
of India.
Firmly established as one of the leading Mexican composers of her
generation, Hilda Paredes has been based in London for 35 years.
Musicians, singers and conductors frequently praise the perfect balance
she achieves between brilliant compositional technique and a keen
sensibility for the particular instruments and individuals for whom she
writes.
The versatility of her work is manifest in a catalogue that includes a
wide range of electroacoustic works created at IRCAM, at SWR
Experimentalstudio and at CIRM, where the electronics of her widely
celebrated chamber opera Harriet, Scenes in the life of Harriet Tubman, were created. Harriet is based on poetry by Mayra Santos-Febres and a selection
of dialogues by Lex Bohlmeijer, and tells the story of Harriet Tubman, who
escaped her childhood of slavery and helped others to freedom via the
Underground Railroad, a network of safe routes to the free states. After the premiere at the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, the Dutch critic, Joep Stapel, placed Harriet as the number one Best Classical Music of 2018. In 2019, Paredes was awarded a prestigious Ivors Composer Award for this work.
While there is a testimony of constant collaboration with Mexican
poets and artists in her works, she also draws inspiration from music
and cultures from around the world. Her music has been acclaimed by the
critics for the refinement of her craft, marked by the intensity of the
relationship between time, dramatic force and poetic approach.
In addition to this award, Paredes has been honoured with a number of
international accolades, including the PRS for Music Foundation, J.S.
Guggenheim Fellowship, Rockefeller, Fund for Culture Mexico/USA, and the
Fellowship from Sistema Nacional de Creadores (FONCA) in Mexico.
Hilda Paredes’ music has been commissioned and performed by many
prestigious ensembles, orchestras and soloists including Trio Arbós,
Arditti Quartet, Aventure, Collegium Novum Zurich, Contrechamps, Court
Circuit, Ensemble Intercontemporain, L’Instant donné, Hilliard Ensemble,
Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Signal, Grup Instrumental
de Valencia, ICE, London Sinfonietta, Lontano, The New Julliard
Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten, Plural Ensemble, Psappha, Ensemble Phoenix
Basle, MDi Ensemble, Orchestra di l’Arena de Verona, RTE, OFUNAM,
Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, amongst many others.
Her works have been presented by such prominent international festivals and venues as the Wigmore Hall, Huddersfield Contemporary Music and Edinburgh Festivals in the UK; Eclat and Ultraschall in Germany; Festival D’Automne a Paris, Musica and Octobre en Normandie in France; Wien Modern and Klangspuren in Austria; Akiyoshidai and Takefu Music Festivals in Japan; Archipel in Switzerland; De Ijsbreker Chamber Music Festival in Amsterdam; Warsaw Autumn in Poland; Ultima in Oslo; Melbourne International Music Festival in Australia; June in Buffalo, the Composer Portraits Series at Miller Theatre NY, and Festival of Arts and Ideas in the USA, Ars Musica in Bruxelles; Festival de Alicante, Festival de Música Religiosa de Cuenca and ENSEMS Festival in Spain; and Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico.
Congratulations to the selected participants for June in Buffalo 2021, who will be joining the festival remotely this year!
The participants and selected works are:
Jia Yi Lee (Peabody Conservatory, John Hopkins University) - orbit for flute doubling alto, piano, violin, viola and cello.
Matías Homar (University at Buffalo) - Nus Ga Eid for flute, percussion violin, viola and cello.
Joel Kirk (University at Buffalo) - always update status for flute doubling piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and glockenspiel.
Kunal Gala (Berklee College of Music) - Currents for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Nicolas Chuaqui (Eastman School of Music) - The Windowed Present for clarinet, violin, cello, piano
Edgar Girtain (University at Buffalo) - For Aurora No. 3 for Piccolo/Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Percussion and piano
Zhuosheng Jin (McGill University) - Departure Pulse (August Story) for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello
Owen Eddy (Berklee College of Music) - self and efficacy for flute and piano
Sean Klink (Western Illinois University) - winds across water for crotales, marimba and piano
Sameer Ramchandran (Rutgers University) - Le jardin des ombres for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, percussion, two violins, viola, cello and contrabass.
Patricia Morehead (North Bay Symphony Orchestra) - Sounds and Sighs for John for oboe d’amore doubling oboe and electronics Emanuele Savagnone (Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim) - Forme della luce nello spazio for Clarinet in A, piano, two violins and cello
Jonathan Rainous (University at Buffalo) - Rapture 1 - Exuberance for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello. Treya Nash (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) - Nothing Motorized for clarinet, violin and percussion.
Parker Callister (Eastman School of Music) - crawl for amplified violin and piano.
Xuesi Xu (Florida State University) - wreckage for bass flute, piano and contrabass.
Tyler Adamthwaite (University at Buffalo) - Stone Pierrot for baritone, clarinet, trumpet, and trombone.
Ryan Carraher (University of Washington) - we also shape shift at a distance for baritone, clarinet, trumpet, and trombone.
Lihuen Sirvent (University at Buffalo) - pyrrhic victory for solo violin
John Aulich (University at Buffalo) - slacken tired shrouds for string quartet
James Falzone (University at Buffalo) - String Quartet No. 3 - A Curving Abacus for string quartet
Alex Buehler (University at Buffalo) - Wateriness for string quartet
Axel Retif (CIEM/West London College) - Jo-Ha-Kyu for string quartet
Tsu-Yao Yang (Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon) - Bleu II for string quartet
Sofía Rocha (University of Missouri-Kansas City) - Standing Waves for string quartet
We are very pleased to welcome Jeffrey Mumford as one of our June in Buffalo Senior Composers. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1955, Jeffrey Mumford has received numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions. His music has been performed extensively, by major orchestras, soloists, and ensembles, both in the United States and abroad, including London, Paris, Reykjavik, Vienna, The Hague, Russia and Lithuania.
Mumford’s music is appraised for the mesmerizing beauty of his orchestrations, shifting cloud-like and pointillistic textures, and unfolding layered lines. His highly evocative, almost painterly music is influenced by a broad and eclectic range of musicians, from Elliott Carter to Sarah Vaughan. His current projects include for Clare, a new work for solo piano commissioned by pianist Clare Longendyke) as part of her project entitled "UnRaveled", a project responding to and reimagining Ravel's piano music, and a CD of recent concerti.
His most notable commissions include those from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the Library of Congress (co-commission), the BBC Philharmonic, the San Antonio, Chicago & National Symphonies (National Symphony twice), Washington Performing Arts, the Network for New Music, ‘cellist Mariel Roberts, the Fulcrum Point New Music Project (through New Music USA), Duo Harpverk (Iceland), the Sphinx Consortium, the Cincinnati Symphony (twice), the VERGE Ensemble /National Gallery of Art/Contemporary Music Forum, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust, the Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, Cincinnati radio station WGUC, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, and the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress.
A notable new recording is two Elliott carter tributes by pianist Pina Napolitano as part of her new critically acclaimed CD "Tempo e Tempi" (Odradek Records ODCCDR378). Mumford has taught at the Washington Conservatory of Music, served as Artist-in-Residence at Bowling Green State University, and served as assistant professor of composition and Composer-in-Residence at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He is currently Distinguished Professor at Lorain County Community College in Northern Ohio.
The department is very pleased to welcome the British-based American composer, recording engineer, conductor and arts entrepreneur Aaron Holloway-Nahum. As the conductor, founder and artistic director of Riot Ensemble, his efforts have contributed to the premiers of over 250 original works. Holloway-Nahum has showcased contemporary work from a variety of composers, including Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Ann Cleare, Kit Downes, Daniel Kidane, Liza Lim, Alexander Hawkins, Clara Iannotta, Lisa Streich and a new work by Georg Friedrich Haas performed in total darkness, for which he learned to (re)tune a piano. He is now also the technical director of Ensemble Nikel, for whom he facilitates performances and live-recordings in addition to strategic marketing and logistics work.
As a composer, his music has been performed in over one dozen countries across four continents, and is characterized by its detailed and ornate timbres, bold melodic unisons, and experimental narrative structures. Upcoming premieres include works for chamber orchestra Ensemble Echapée, the renowned Keuris Quartet and an Opera – his first – based on the true story of Donald Crowhurst. Selected as one of just two composers for the Peter Eötvös Foundation inaugural mentorship class, Holloway-Nahum has held a variety of fellowships over the past decade, including Tanglewood, Bang on a Can, Aspen, Cheltenham, a Copland House Residency, and many more. Notable past performances of his music include the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra (Hungary), Plural Ensemble (Madrid), and a full length film score recorded at Abbey Film Road. His latest pieces include the mixed media piece, Imaginary Children I: How I would Paint the Future (2020) (embedded below), an evocative and intensely personal reflection on sadness, isolation and joy.
As a recording engineer, Holloway-Nahum has produced as many as 20 albums per year from premier ensembles across the United States and Europe. His clientele includes Ensemble Intercontemporain, Arditti Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, and Adam Swayne.
Holloway-Nahum will give a masterclass and lecture to PhD students in Composition on March 19th.
On Friday, March 12th, at 7:30 pm EDT, the Century for 21st Century Music will livestream a concert of University at Buffalo PhD composers performing their own and one another's works from Lippes Concert Hall.
The program will include:
Alex Buehler, Shatter, for solo trombone and electronics, performed by the composer.
Shatter
(2020) is created from, and inspired by, metallic, glass, and ceramic
sounds; particularly the sounds of shattering glass, cascading metal,
broken crockery, and blacksmith hammering. The moment of violent
breaking and shattering becomes a frozen environment that the trombone
finds itself wandering through and adapting to the necessities of
survival.
Joel Kirk, Studying Shrapnel, for solo flugelhorn, performed by the composer.
Rich Wang, The Yellow Plateau, for solo cello and electronics, performed by Jonathan Golove.
A
cello solo piece for Dr. Jonathan Golove. It has two movements which
are 1: 'Original' and 2: '2020'. The composer used the
electric orchestra combined with Chinese north western folk music
elements to state the river of history in the Yellow Plateau.
Matias Homar, Breathing reality, for brass trio and live electronics.
Alex Buehler - Trombone
Joel Kirk - Flugelhorn
Jonathan Rainous - Euphonium.
Piece
composed for a brass trio during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can be
thought of as a personal reflection on isolation through taking
quotidian sounds from a personal environment and laying them out within a
musical composition.
Tyler Adamthwaite, Fleeting Remnants of the Severed Wonderland..., for solo viola, performed by James Rhodes.
John Aulich, In an absence of sea, for solo flugelhorn, performed by Joel Kirk.
James Falzone, Neither/Nor, for violin, vibraphone and piano.
We very excited that the esteemed composer Ann Cleare will join us in the coming weeks to discuss her recent work and host a masterclass with graduate students. Ann Cleare is an Irish composer working in
the areas of concert music, opera, extended sonic environments, and
hybrid instrumental design. Her work explores the static and sculptural
nature of sound, probing the extremities of timbre, texture, colour, and
form. She creates highly psychological and corporeal sonic spaces that
encourage a listener to contemplate the complexity of the lives we exist
within, exploring poetries of communication, transformation, and
perception.
Her recent projects have focused on creating
experiential environments where sound is given a visual as well as sonic
dimension, such works includeeyam i-v, a
series of five attacca pieces, centred around clarinet and flute
writing in various solo, ensemble, electronic, and orchestral settings,
spanning just over two hours of music that is continuously transformed
in shape, time, and motion around the listener; rinn, a
time travel chamber opera involving a multichannel sonic sculpture that
the singers and actors wear, interact with, and are amplified by;
spatially choreographed chamber pieces such asI should live in wires for leaving you behind,anchor me to the land, and on magnetic fields; a newly-designed instrument that a musician simultaneously wears and plays in eöl; surface stations, multi-layered theatre involving the staging of extended brass instruments, vocal ensemble, and visuals.
Ann Cleare will host a masterclass on Novebember 23rd, and give a lecture to Buffalo PhD students on November 25th.
We are happy to announce that the Emmy-award winning filmmaker Elliot Caplan, famed for his work with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and John Cage will be giving a lecture to graduate composition students on Friday November 6th. Caplan served as the filmmaker-in-residence
for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. His work in documentary, art
filmmaking, and performance with choreographer Cunningham, composer John
Cage video artist Nam June Paik and filmmaker Bruce Baillie is
internationally recognized. Caplan’s films and videos are in museum and
film collections throughout the world. Caplan received an Emmy Award
for “Outstanding Cultural and Historical Programming” for his work on
the PBS Network. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards. Film
and video retrospectives have been presented in Portugal, Holland,
Japan and the United States. He has taught courses, lectured and been in
residence at colleges and universities in the United States and abroad
including co-direction with Michael Kidd and Stanley Donen of the
Dance/Film/Video Workshop at the Sundance Institute. In 1996, Caplan
founded Picture Start Films to facilitate his artistic work.
We are very pleased to welcome the composer James Romig back to Buffalo since last his last visit in 2012. He was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music, responds to an increasingly fragmented and accelerated world by creating highly isomorphic works that evolve slowly and reveal themselves gradually. Endeavoring to reflect the fragile intricacy of the natural world, his compositional designs exert influence on both small-scale iteration and large-scale structure, obscuring boundaries between form and content. Critics have described his music as “rapturous, slow-moving beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle), "developing with the naturalness of breathing" (The New Yorker), and “profoundly meditative... haunting” (The Wire). He is a two-time Copland House award recipient and has served as artist-in-residence at numerous national parks including Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Petrified Forest. Recordings have been released by New World Records, Navona, Blue Griffin, and Perspectives of New Music. His scores are published exclusively by Parallax Music Press.
Romig's music combines the systematic, rigerous pitch processes and complex harominic languages often found in the tradition of American Serialism, including that of his former teachers Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt with the minimalist, repetitious soundworlds of the New York minimalists.
On Friday, November 6th, James Romig will give a talk introducing his large-scale piano piece Still and host a masterclass with several of the University at Buffalo PhD composition students.
You can read a little more about each composer, and others at UB, on a blogpost from earlier this year here. As always, Center for 21st Century Music livestream concerts at the University at Buffalo are free and require no online ticket or password.
The esteemed Chiléan flautist Alejandro Lavanderos will introduce his long-running Antara project to Buffalo's PhD students on September 25th. The Antara ensemble aim to bring their deep knowledge and familiarity with precolumbian instruments and open them to new possibilities in close collaboration with composers. As part of his presentation, Lavanderos will demonstrate the sound and playing techniques of various Latin American flutes and discuss recent projects.
Lavenderos has performed internationally (France, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Peru,
Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay), and more than 40 works by Chilean
and foreign composers have been dedicated to him. He has been instrumental in renewing the
repertoire and use of the flute in his country, and a pioneer
in the incorporation of traditional instruments systematized in
contemporary musical creation. He
has recorded the CDs "Resonances, works by Chilean composers for flute
and piano", "Antara, new music of America", "Antara, the textures of
sound" and is preparing the edition of the CD selected by the 2014
NATIONAL MUSIC FUND from the Chilean government "Music Americanas for
flute" by Latin American composers.
Lavanderos is the artistic director of the Festival “Presences de las Musicas Actuales de América Latina”, of the “Forum de la Fluuta” meetings, of the Chiloé Music Festival and of the “Flautas de América” festival. He chairs the Chilean Music Council - CIM, the RICMA Music Research and Creation Network of America, and is executive secretary of the COMTA Music Council of the Three Americas. He
is currently a professor of the Music School of the University of
Valparaíso, of the flute chair of the Institute of Music of the
Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, of the National
Conservatory of Music CNDM.
Congratulations to the 16 selected participant composers who will be joining the remote June in Buffalo Festival this year (more about the remote festival here)!
This year's participant composers and their compositions are:
Yifan Guo (Mannes School of Music at The New School): Wanderer in May for the Arditti Quartet
Daniel Gostelow (University at Buffalo): New work for String Quartet
Jack Herscowitz (Middlebury College): “For There They Were…” for the Arditti Quartet
Matias Homar (University at Buffalo): New Work for Guitar, Bassoon, and Cello
Zhouseheng Jin (McGill University): A Piece of Watermelon for Soprano, Flute (C and Bass), Clarinet (B-flat and Bass), Percussion, Piano, Violin, and Cello
Scott Kehoe (Peabody Conservatory): New Work for Guitar, Bassoon, and Cello
Oliver Kwapis (Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University): Approach to Zion for solo Piano
Young Jun Lee (Berklee College): Revelation for the Arditti Quartet
Jonathan Newmark (University of Cincinnati): Excerpts for Haber’s Law for Soprano, Baritone, and Piano
Sameer Ramchandran (Rutgers University): Le jardin des ombres for Oboe, B-flat Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn in F, Percussion, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass
Axel Retif ( London College of Music) Sombre el nombre de mi padre for Flute, B-Flat Clarinet, Horn in F, Bassoon, 2 Violin, Viola, and Cello
Brian Simalchik (Hart School of Music at the University of Hartford): Overlooks for Flute, B-flat Clarinet, Vibraphone, Piano, Viola, and Cello
Ka Shu (Kenneth) Tam (University at Buffalo): New Work for Guitar, Bassoon, and Cello
Daniel De Togni (University of Oregon) Turn for Violin and Piano
Xuesi Xu (Florida
State University): Red
Winter for the Arditti Quartet
Tengyue Zhang (Mannes
School of Music at The New School): Meaning
in Absurd for Flute, B-flat Clarinet, Piano, Violin, and Cello
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. We at the University at Buffalo had our scheduled spring break occur shortly after during March 16 – 20. When classes resumed on Monday, March 23, we began engaging in distance and remote learning. Since then, all music events at the University at Buffalo have been cancelled or held remotely, and teachers, students, and administrators have been working remotely from home.
Musicians, composers, and ensembles, are witnessing their concerts, premieres, and other music events cancelled. With these cancellations come tremendous disappointment, loss of income, stress, stalls in professional development, and demotivating time-lags in the realization of musical ideas and projects.
We at the June in Buffalo Festival are creating a remote version of the festival where no travel will be necessary, and all of the participant composers can participate without leaving their home. They will be invited to coach, via Zoom, one of the several rehearsals of their work, as well as receive a high-quality stereo recording of their work. There won’t be any concerts, audiences, or gatherings of more than ten people.
Each of these rehearsals and recordings will involve no more than ten people gathering together in the hall, and all of the musicians and staff will remain at least six feet apart, and adopt social distancing measures and safety precautions. Some rehearsals and recordings may happen outside of the June 1 – 7 festival dates, dependent upon health and safety conditions.
We are encouraged to announce that 16 participant composers from around the world will be joining us remotely for the festival. In addition to the rehearsals, and the high-quality stereo recording they will receive, the participant composers will also have one-on-one lessons with each of the senior composers, and have exclusive access to their two-hour lectures.
We are mourning the recent passing of Charles Wourinen, frequent honored guest at the University at Buffalo Center for 21st Century Music and the June in Buffalo Festival. Wourinen was an exceedingly rare musician with an exceptional ability to also perform and conduct complex contemporary music, making his role as an advocate for his work, and that of his colleagues, authoritative and invaluable.
Wuorinen with conductor Brad Lubman during his 80th birthday portrait concert
Throughout his long career, Wuorinen has been a frequent guest at UB. Charles served as guest professor for several years in the early 1990’s, commuting to Buffalo from NYC and his New Jersey farm for several semesters. He has served as a senior composer at numerous June in Buffalo festivals, from the early days of the Festival in the 1970s all the way through to 2015. In turn, the festival has had the opportunity to present many of Wuorinen’s works over the years, including large-scale works such as the complete Fenton Songs (performed by Ensemble Surplus in 2006), the orchestral Microsymphony (performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic in 2007), and the cantata It Happens Like This (performed by the Slee Sinfonietta in 2013). Building on this long-standing relationship, the State University of New York awarded Wuorinen an honorary doctorate during the 2013 June in Buffalo Festival, where an honorary ceremonial was followed by a portrait concert. Further, an 80th birthday concert was produced by the Slee Sinfonietta featuring Ensemble Signal, and conductor Brad Lubman, only a few short years ago.
Charles Wuorinen conducting and rehearsing at June in Buffalo 2013
Wourinen has had many, many works featured at the June in Buffalo Festival, since its reincarnation in June, 1986, under David Felder’s direction, and he has been invited to the festival numerous times as a senior composer, dating back to the performance of his String Sextet (1989) on June 5, 1991. His orchestral piece Bamboula Squared (1984) was performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under his baton in 1993 and many other compositions were performed throughout the years by both Ensemble Signal and the Slee Sinfonietta. Other works performed by the BPO at June in Buffalo include Microsymphony, Bamboula Beach, and a premiere of a version of The River of Light (CW conducting) among others.
As an example, Wourinen's second attendance at the June in Buffalo Festival was in 1992 where his chamber ensemble piece On Alligators was performed. He returned to the festival in 1993 and 1994 with performances of his orchestral piece Bamboula Squared and Sonata for Violin and Piano by pianist Margaret Kampmeier and violinist Curtis Macomber respectively. In 2006, during a visit, Wourinen's Epithalamium was performed by trumpeters Nelson and Levine, and in 2008, during another visit, his compositions The Blue Bamboula, performed by pianist Alan Feinberg, and Spin 5, were both featured on a concert.
In April 2011, a Slee Sinfonietta concert was dedicated to the works of Charles Wourinen. His works Salve Regina: John Bull, Metagong, Fifty Fifty, and Canzona were all programmed on the concert and performed by the contemporary music specialists that comprise the Slee Sinfonietta. Fifty Fifty featured pianists Eric Huebner and Stephen Gosling, who were later joined by percussionists Tom Kolor and Daniel Druckman for Metagong. In April 2018, for his 80th birthday, Wourinen gave a lecture at a concert of his works presented by Ensemble Signal. Ensemble Signal was joined by soloist Eric Huebner on their performance of Megalith, violin soloist Olivia de Prato on Spin 5, and oboe soloist Jacqueline Leclair on Iridule.
Charles Wourinen applauding the Slee Sinfonietta and Ensemble Signal after the performance of Megalith at his 80th birthday portrait concert
Other works performed at June in Buffalo – and this is not by any means an exhaustive list, include: Archaeopteryx, Percussion Symphony, Hyperion, On Alligators, Ashberyana…
His lectures at June were legendary; unforgettable events that live in the memories of those fortunate enough to be in attendance.
In the next concert season, we’ll offer a performance of his most recent Second Percussion Symphony, and hoist a martini in tribute to this lion of post-war American composers. We shall not ever see his like again… and he will be sorely missed.
David Felder and Charles Wuorinen at the Buffalo Marriott in 2018
Roger Reynolds will be
working with students at this year’s June in Buffalo Festival as one of three
senior composers and guest lecturers. Roger Reynolds is a
composer, writer, producer and mentor, pioneer in sound spatialization,
intermedia, and algorithmic concepts, is an inveterate synthesizer of diverse
capacities and perspectives. His notorious (1961) composition, The Emperor of
Ice Cream, which uses graphic notation to depict performer location on a
stage, was widely imitated. In fact, Reynolds’s work often arises out of text or visual images. His Pulitzer
prize-winning composition, Whispers Out of Time, for string orchestra muses
on a poem by John Ashbery. The recent FLiGHT project (2012-16) arose out of a
collection of texts and images stretching from Plato’s time to that of the
astronauts. Projects with individual performers and ensembles, theater
directors, choreographers, and scientists have provoked challenging
inter-personal collaborations. He has been, for decades, a sought-after mentor
at UC San Diego.
Reynolds’s body of work demonstrates how seamlessly test,
electroacoustic resources, and novel presentation strategies can be melded with
live instrumental and vocal performance. Sanctuary (2003-2007) for percussion
quartet and real-time computer processing arose from interactions with Steven
Schick. About it, Gramophone writes: “Reynolds goes right inside
sound. … Here’s the most outstandingly original view of percussion since
Varèse’s ‘Ionisation’”. A recent
cycle of duos, SHAREDSPACE, for solo instrumentalist and real-time computer
musician includes Shifting/Drifting (with violinist Irvine Arditti). The Strad notes: “This is music that demands
close attention, but repays it with startlingly abundant invention, delivered
with cool authority.” In addition
to continuing musical composition, Reynolds’s current projects include an
innovative collection of texts and images, PASSAGE, and a collaborative book
exploring Xenakis’s creative ways as exemplified in a Desert House he designed
for Karen and Roger Reynolds.
Reynolds envisions his own path as entailing the principled
weaving together of threads from tradition with novel provocations originating
outside music. The elements (wind, fire, water) have spoken in his works beginning
with the vocal storm in VOICESPACE I: Still (1975) and continuing in
Versions/Stages and The Red Act Arias. Mythic themes are also frequently drawn upon. Reading about and research in psychoacoustics have affected
his outlook. Research in the Sacher Foundation’s Collections resulted in
publications about Varèse’s conceptualization of “space”: “The Last Word is
Imagination: Parts I and II”. His long friendships with Cage, Nancarrow,
Takemitsu and Xenakis also inform his outlook in procedural and personal ways.
Reynolds conceives of composition as “a process of illumination”, a path toward
(occasional) clarity in turbulent times. He seeks the satisfaction of proposing
and experiencing unexpected connections, of bringing the elevating capacity of
music into public spaces, of engaging with other arts and artists to discover
new amalgamations of sensation and insight that can “improve the human
experience”.
Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon will be working with students at this year’s June in Buffalo Festival as one of three senior composers and guest lecturers.Ricardo
Zohn-Muldoon was born in Guadalajara, México, in 1962. Literature inspires
many of his compositions, such as the extended song cycle Songtree, on poetry by Raúl Aceves and
William Shakespeare, the miniature opera NiñoPolilla, on
a libretto by Juan Trigos senior, and the scenic cantata Comala, based on the novel Pedro
Páramo, by the great Mexican author Juan Rulfo. Comala was
selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011.
Ricardo’s compositional voice is also shaped by a steady collaboration
with the particular group of musicians for whom he writes, including TonyArnold, Molly Barth, Stuart Gerber, Dieter Hennings, Hanna Hurwitz, Daniel Pesca,
Paul Vaillancourt, Colin Stokes, and Tim Weiss, among others. This artistic
affinity brought many of these musicians together to co-found with Ricardo the
ensemble Zohn Collective in 2017. Ricardo has also collaborated across artistic
disciplines, with cartoonist José Ignacio Solórzano (Jis), writer / performer
Deidre Huckabay. songwriter Alfredo Sánchez, PUSH Physical Theater, Garth Fagan
Dance, and puppet company La Coperacha.
His works have been performed internationally, and supported by
the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Koussevitzky Foundation,
Fromm Foundation, Barlow Endowment, Guggenheim Foundation, and México’s
Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte, among other institutions in the
U.S. and abroad. Recordings of his music have been released on the Bridge,
Oberlin Music, Verso, CRI, Quindecim, Innova, Ravello, New Focus, and Tempus
labels. He studied at the University of California, San Diego (BA, 1986),
and at the University of Pennsylvania (PhD, 1993), where his principal teacher
was George Crumb. He is currently Professor of Composition at the Eastman
School of Music, having previously taught at the College-Conservatory of Music,
University of Cincinnati, and the Escuela de Música, Universidad de Guanajuato.
Hilda
Paredes will be working with students at this year’s June in Buffalo Festival
as one of three senior composers and guest lecturers. Hilda has been firmly established as one of
the leading Mexican composers of her generation, she has made her home in
London since 1979 and her music is now performed widely around the world.
As an active participant in master
classes at Dartington Summer School, studied with Peter Maxwell Davies,
Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Rodney Bennett. After graduating at the
Guildhall School of Music, she obtained her Master of Arts at City University
in London and completed her PhD at Manchester University.
Her collaboration with
choreographers led her to receive the Music for Dance Award from the ArtsCouncil of Great Britain in 1988.
After taking part at the Garden
Venture Opera Project in Dartington, she completed her first chamber
opera The seventh seed, released by Mode Records.
She continues to be involved in
the musical life of her native country, having taught at the University in
Mexico City and several other music institutions and was also a radio producer
of new music.
As a freelance lecturer, Hilda has
taught composition and lectured at Manchester University, the University of San
Diego California, University of Buffalo and other prestigious Universities in
the US, at Centre Acanthes in France and in 2007 was appointed the Darius
Milhuad Visiting Professor at Mills College in the US. In 2011, she has been
visiting professor at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya en Barcelona.
Recently completed
works include La tierra de la miel, a collaborative opera project
commissioned by Susan Narucki and premiered in 2013 at UCSD. More recently she
completed her third string quartet Bitácora capilar premiered
at Milton Court Theatre in London and a shorter version of this work Hacia
una bitácora capilar which was premiered in May at the Festival Tage
fur Neue Musik in Witten , both written and premiered at the celebrations for
the Arditti String Quartet fortieth anniversary.
Robert HP Platz will be working with students at this year’s June in Buffalo Festival as one of three senior composers and guest lecturers. Robert HP Platz was born in Baden-Baden in 1951. In
1970 he began to study music theory, piano and conducting in Freiburg /
Breisgau. He studied composition with Wolfgang Fortner and musicology with
Elmar Budde, as well as parapsychology with Hans Bender. In 1973 he moved
to Cologne to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1977 he completed his
conductor training with Francis Travis in Freiburg.
In 1978 and 1979, Platz received a scholarship from the Heinrich Strobel
Foundation of Southwest Radio and then lived for a long time in the United
States and Paris. In 1980 he attended a computer course for composers at
the Paris IRCAM. This is where the tape for his piece Chlebnicov for
chamber ensemble and tape (1980) was created, which was premiered at the
Brussels IGNM festival in 1981.
From 1980 to 2001, Platz in Cologne directed the Cologne Ensemble he founded. Composers
such as Scelsi, Xenakis, Kagel, Hosokawa, Sylvano Bussotti and Klaus Huber
wrote for the ensemble, which specializes in contemporary music. With
guest conductors, Platz worked with ensembles and orchestras such as the
Ensemble Modern, the Klangforum and the Vienna series, the German Symphony
Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the WDR, the two SWR Symphony
Orchestras Freiburg / Baden-Baden and Stuttgart, the Radio Philharmonic
Orchestra of the NDR Hannover, and the Lower Rhine Symphoners, the Orchester
Philharmonique du Luxembourg or the Bavarian State Opera.
In 1989/90 there was space in the Schreyahn artists' yard , where the multi-part work SCHREYAHN for
violoncello solo, flute, trumpet, soprano, two pianos and wind instruments. In
1990, at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation, he spent a few weeks as
a composer in residence at Villa Serbelloni. A longer stay in Japan
followed two years later. In 1996/98, up down strange charm was
commissioned by the festival in Akiyoshidai, the Schömerhaus Klosterneuburg
(Vienna Modern) and the WDR (overall premiere in Witten).
For fifty 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 Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, founded and directed by composer David Felder in 2006, is built on this legacy, featuring the internationally renowned “June in Buffalo” festival, the Slee Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra concert series, and the Guest Artist Series of performances, lecture presentations, and workshops. 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 investigation.
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