SIGNAL Ensemble featured in CAI Pilot Project

This week, UB's new Creative Arts Initiative launches the first of several pilot projects:  the residency of Ensemble SIGNAL, which will feature a masterclass, an open rehearsal, and a discussion on artistic entrepreneurship, all leading up to Performance in the Dark, a concert in the CFA Black Box Theater featuring works by Steve Reich and Georg Friedrich Haas.

The university-wide Creative Arts Initiative is "dedicated to the creation and production of new work upholding the highest artistic standards of excellence and fostering a complementary atmosphere of creative investigation and engagement among students, faculty, visiting artists, and the community."  Through a number of programs aimed at exposing UB students to the richness of the Buffalo arts community—including artist residencies and innovative interdisciplinary course offerings—the CAI will contribute to UB's Strategic Plan by "creating opportunities for creative interaction between visiting artists, students and faculty, and the Buffalo arts community."  "We feel a tremendous amount of energy in being able to create opportunities for people to interact with really high-level, excellent artists," says co-Director, David Felder, in the CAI's introductory video (see below), "We're talking about individuals and groups, companies as well as solo [artists]."

One of the ways the CAI will engage students is through direct interaction with visiting artists.  Ensemble Signal's residency is the first of many such engagements.  The residency will feature a number of exciting events, beginning on February 10th with "Rehearsing in the Real World," an open rehearsal at which students will be able to witness how the ensemble works together to prepare Georg Friedrich Haas's famous String Quartet no. 3.  Later that evening, Signal's leadership will host "The Entrepreneurial Artist," an open discussion and Q&A covering the ensemble's history, with the aim of empowering UB students in the creation of their own community projects.  The following day will feature a public performance workshop and masterclass, at which Signal co-artistic director and others from the ensemble will coach UB music students, some of whose compositions will be performed later this semester.  

Ensemble Signal

The residency will culminate in Performance in the Dark:  Music by Steve Reich and Georg Friedrich Haas, a free concert in the CFA Black Box Theater featuring two groundbreaking works of contemporary music.  The concert will open with Part I of Reich's Drumming, performed by Doug Perkins of Signal alongside Tom Kolor and students in his percussion studio.  The 1971 work was composed after Reich's trip to West Africa, where he studied with Ghanaian master drummers.  One of the first large-scale masterpieces in American minimalism, the piece quickly became a staple of contemporary percussion repertoire, especially its opening section:  a quartet for tuned bongos which employs Reich's characteristic phasing techniques.  The concert also features Haas's more recent String Quartet no.3 „In iij. Noct.“ (2001), a piece which is "performed in complete darkness, with the musicians playing from memory in different parts of the room."  The New Yorker's Alex Ross has described the piece as one in which the performers 

seem to map the space with tones, like bats using echolocation to navigate a lightless cave.  […]  Often, the music borders on noise:  the strings emit creaks and groans, clickety swarms of pizzicato, shrill high notes, moaning glissandos.  At other times, it attains an otherworldly beauty, as the players spin out glowing overtone harmonies.

This week marks just the first of two non-consecutive weeks of Signal's residency:  the ensemble will return the week of April 30 for a second week which will include a series of "secret" pop-up concerts around UB North Campus, a collaborative performance of Terry Riley’s In C with UB students, and a large-scale concert celebrating the music of Steve Reich.  (For more about Ensemble Signal, see our JiB 2015 profile post from last year.)

The CAI is currently accepting proposals for residencies from creative artists from all fields (music, film, plastic arts, visual arts, drama, writing, and architecture).  This first open call aims to attract artists from around the world, with the aim of giving students the opportunity to interact with great artists who are not currently active in Buffalo.  CAI Managing Director, Cynthia Stewart emphasizes that the initiative is seeking artists who will be actively creating at UB.  Rather than bringing in a visiting artist to simply give a talk, the CAI seeks artists who will actually engage in artistic creation as part of their residency, with an emphasis on student involvement.  "The call is really open with regard to how to incorporate student interaction," says Stewart, "but the more student involvement the better."  Stewart stresses the lack of constraints on the scope of the residencies artists can propose.  "It might be a micro-seminar or a master class.  It might be a semester-long encounter.  There are not a lot of strictures."  The first open call has a deadline of March 1st, and the CAI is eagerly anticipating a variety of proposals from artists of diverse disciplines.

Arts One will visit the Albright Knox Gallery this semester

One of the initiative's key new programs is the Arts One course.  Aimed at introducing students to "a wide range of artistic performance and creative activity," the course consists of a unique approach:  every week, students are exposed to a new artistic exhibition.  Through a partnership with a variety of local institutions, including the Albright Knox, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, students will attend a different event each week.  "This course is deliberately designed to put students in direct contact with artists and arts organizations in a very topical way. Each semester will be very different based on what’s happening in Western New York," says Felder.  This semester, the capacity-filled course will hear curator's talks at Hallwalls and the Albright Knox, attend concerts by Ensemble Linea, the BPO, and the Richmond Ballet, and will see performances by the Zodiaque Dance Company, among many others.  "The aim is to demonstrate to students the difference between a live performance and simply seeing something on YouTube," says Stewart, "it also forces them off campus and allows them to connect to the creative riches in Buffalo."

CAI co-director D. Felder

The Creative Arts Initiative was itself initiated through the hard work of co-directors David Felder and Bruce Jackson.  "It was their brainchild," says Stewart, "and they've been beating the drum for it for a long time."  Their vision was for an initiative that would see more investment in the creative arts, specifically.  "It's based on the idea that creating is a different process from studying," Stewart explains.  "Due to their work and persuasion we were able to receive a grant to get the initiative started, and using their relationships in the arts community we were able to assemble an excellent board.  This gives us a good position to help visiting artists make a splash in the community and not just here at UB."

Ensemble Signal Residency

Rehearsing in the Real World

Feb. 10, 3:00-4:00pm, B1 Slee

Open to all students

The Entrepreneurial Artist

Feb. 10, 6:30-8:30 pm, 211 Baird

Open to all students

Performance Workshop/Masterclass with UB Students

Feb. 11, 10:00am-12:00pm, B1 Slee

Open to UB music students

Performance in the Dark: Music by Steve Reich & Georg Friedrich Haas

Feb. 12, 8:00 pm, CFA Black Box Theater

FREE tickets required

Open to the public

Working in Time: A Celebration of the Arts in Honor of Bruce Jackson

The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music and Lippes Concert Hall is proud to host Working in Time: A Celebration of the Arts in Honor of Bruce Jackson, presented by SUNY Distinguished Professors Bruce Jackson and David Felder, on Friday, September 21, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m., in Lippes Hall. 

The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the University at Buffalo Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, and will celebrate the art of James Agee Professor of American Culture in the Department of English, Bruce Jackson, a Guggenheim Fellow whose interdisciplinary career as an artist and scholar integrates literature, music, ethnography, folklore, sociology, photography, and documentary film-making. He has written or edited 32 books, one of which is the recently published In This Timeless Time: Living and Dying on Death Row in America, in which he collaborated with UB English Professor Diane Christian, who will act as moderator throughout the day. Jackson has had 20 solo photography exhibits, including Death Row, on view this fall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Next Spring, the Burchfield Penney Art Center will present an exhibition of more than 350 of his photographs.

Bruce Jackson

The day will open with greetings from UB President Satish K. Tripathi, who speaks with great respect about Jackson’s work, “UB has a long history of leadership in scholarly and creative excellence at the vanguard of the arts, and as we launch a new annual tradition that celebrates that tradition of cutting-edge work, Bruce really emerged as an ideal figure to spotlight in this inaugural event.

“Like much of the very best work in the arts and humanities, Bruce’s work defies easy definition. His films, photographs, social commentary and scholarship all cut across multiple fields and have tremendously broad relevance, from the academy to popular culture, to international social policy. The incredible scope and reach of those achievements embody the complex, interdisciplinary contributions of the arts—and of the research university itself.”

The celebration will feature a world premiere by UB Professor and Birge-Cary Chair in Composition David Felder, titled A Garland for Bruce, starring UB faculty cellist Jonathan Golove. Jackson describes Felder as “one of the people who makes UB a viable intellectual and artistic community.”

The day will also showcase images from Jackson’s forthcoming book Inside the Wire: Photographs from Texas and Arkansas Prisons, as well as music from Jackson’s Grammy-nominated album Wake Up Dead Man. American filmmaker and documentarian Frederick Wiseman will also participate, and screen his most recent film, Crazy Horse.

After the event, at 5:00 p.m., there will be a reception at the nearby UB Center for the Arts Atrium, where all will be invited to participate in an open discussion with Bruce Jackson, David Felder, and Frederick Wiseman. 

Announcing the Fall 2012 Season at the Center!

We at The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music are excited to announce our Fall 2012 Season! June in Buffalo 2012 was a great success and a stimulating week of fresh new compositions and performances, as well as, in the words of the great New York Times music writer Allan Kozinn, “an intensive weeklong boot camp for budding young composers.” Allan Kozinn wrote up two great reviews of June in Buffalo 2012 in the New York Times, which you can read here and here.

UB alumn Judith Sherman

Our Fall season already began on August 25, when UB graduate composer Matt Sargent served as the music director for American Grain, a multimedia performance event for the Marine A grain elevator of Silo City, in Buffalo, NY. The event featured, amidst dance performances, an array of art on the walls, and tours throughout the silo, a cello quartet written by Matt and headed by UB faculty cellist Jonathan Golove. Read more about the event at the Buffalo News.

Our next event will be Working in Time: A Celebration of the Arts in Honor of Bruce Jackson on September 21. The event will celebrate the life and works of documentary filmmaker Bruce Jackson, who is the James Agee Professor of American Culture at the University at Buffalo. Working in Time will feature music by UB Birge-Cary Chair in music composition David Felder, and also feature projects by filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, and UB poet and documentarian Diane Christian. Working in Time will take place on Friday, September 21, 1:00-5:00 p.m., in Lippes Hall.  

Our first Slee Sinfonietta concert will be on Monday, Sep. 24, and will showcase two pieces by Alban Berg on the program: his op. 5, Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, and his Chamber Concerto for Violin and Piano with 13 wind instruments, featuring violinist Yuki Numata and pianist Daniel Pesca, under the baton of Robert Treviño. The program will also include Gyorgy Ligeti’s Melodien, and John Adams’ Chamber Symphony.

On Wednesday, October 10, we will be hosting composer Jake Romig from Western Illinois University for a day of composer master classes and workshops, as well as a presentation on his own music.

Our second Slee Sinfonietta concert will be on Tuesday, October 30, and will offer an exciting and dynamic program of late 20th century works, under the baton of Maestro Daniel Bassin, including: Karlheinz Stockshausen’s Kreuzspiel, Gyorgy Ligeti’s Horn Trio, Morton Feldman’s De Kooning, Tristan Murial’s Vues Aériennes, and Witold Lutoslawski’s Dance Preludes. Our concert will again include violinst Yuki Numata, alongside horn player Adam Unsworth, and UB faculty pianist and New York Philharmonic pianist-in-residence Eric Huebner.

From November 26th to 28th, violinist Curtis Macomber, from the Manhattan School of Music, will visit the Center, alongside UB alumn and two-time Grammy winner of the award for Classical Producer of the Year, Judith Sherman. For three days they will run a workshop on recording, editing, and producing Classical music.

Norrbotten Neo

On Tuesday, Dec. 4, the expert contemporary music ensemble from Sweden, and longtime friend of the Center, Norrbotten Neo, will join us for a composer workshop. The next day, on Wed., Dec. 5, they will give an evening concert. 

Spring at the Center will be even more active than the Fall. April's Slee Sinfonietta concert will feature bass singer Ethan Herschenfeld, soprano Laura Aikin, and about 30 musicians from SIGNAL Ensemble, for the premiere of David Felder’s Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux (The Four Cardinal Seasons), a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation. Also on the program will be Felder’s Tweener, featuring UB percussionist Tom Kolor. Spring will also include visits from composer Phillipe Hurel, French ensemble Court-Circuit, and Oberlin composer Josh Levine.

New York City’s Talea Ensemble, who were originally scheduled to come in October, will now come for June in Buffalo 2013, stay tuned for details on the upcoming June in Buffalo!