JACK Quartet Returns for Composer Workshop

JACK Quartet at One M&T Plaza, 2013

This week, the Center is excited to welcome back the JACK Quartet for a composer workshop in Baird Recital Hall.  Longtime friends of the Center, the JACK Quartet have taken part in many Center events, beginning with their first residency in October 2009, during which they worked with student composers and presented a concert that featured works by Xenakis, Sciarrino, Robert Morris, and Elliott Sharp.  Two years later, the quartet returned with Aaron Cassidy for a joint residency that included a concert featuring the composer's first quartet (and which also included John Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts and concluded with Ligeti's famous second quartet).  One of their most memorable performances was a concert at Buffalo's One M&T Plaza which kicked off the 2013 June in Buffalo Festival and Performance Institute.  The performance, part of Eric Huebner's "Music in Buffalo's Historic Places" series, consisted only of Morton Feldman's immense 100-minute String Quartet No. 1.

JACK Quartet at June in Buffalo 2013

This week, the ensemble—tireless advocates of new music that they are—will present a composer workshop, realizing new works by four UB graduate composers:  Roberto Azaretto, Alex Huddleston, Nathan Kelly, and Su Lee.  Known for their work helping young composers realize their ideas—the Toronto Star described them as the "musical vehicle of choice to the next great composers who walk among us"—the event is sure to be enlightening for composers and audience alike.

The members of the JACK Quartet met while studying at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.  Having studied with the Arditti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain (under the direction of Pierre Boulez), the quartet—consisting of John Pickford Richards, Ari Streisfeld, Christopher Otto, and Kevin McFarland—developed their sophisticated new music chops, quickly becoming one of the most active quartets on the scene.  They have collaborated with a number of renowned composers, including John Luther Adams, Caroline Shaw, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Matthias Pintscher, and John Zorn, with upcoming performances including premieres by Derek Bermel, Roger Reynolds, Toby Twining, and Georg Friedrich Haas.  It's no wonder the Washington Post referred to them as "the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a take-no-prisoners sense of commitment."

June in Buffalo Performance Institute concert June 7th!

Eric Huebner, JiB Performance Institute Director

The June in Buffalo Performance Institute has been going strong since last Thursday, May 30th, when the JACK Quartet inaugurated the Institute with a gorgeous performance of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 1 at the beautiful M&T Bank in downtown Buffalo. Since then Performance Institute participants have been working closely with the JACK Quartet, Eric Huebner, and Tom Kolor and members of the Talujon Percussion Ensemble preparing for Friday (June 7th) night’s concert at 7:30 p.m. in Baird Recital Hall at the University at Buffalo.

The full list June in Buffalo Performance Institute participants:

Ross Aftel, percussion

Hangyu Bai, piano

T.J. Borden, cello

Jade Conlee, piano           

Nicholas Emmanuel, piano

Matthew Geiger, percussion

Manuel Laufer, piano

Michiko Saiki, piano

Friday night's concert will also feature a guest appearance by violinist Irvine Arditti, who will perform Brian Ferneyhough's Intermedio alla Ciaconna, the full program is below.

June in Buffalo Performance Institute Concert, June 7th, 7:30 p.m., UB Baird Recital Hall

Chinary Ung:  Spiral no. 1                                               

Ross Aftel, percussion, T.J. Borden, cello, and Nicholas Emmanuel, piano                                                                                                      

Anton Webern:  Bagatelles, op.9                                               

members of the JACK Quartet with T.J. Borden

Brian Ferneyhough:  Intermedio alla Ciaconna                                   

Irvine Arditti, violin

                                               

                                             ---  intermission ---

Ralph Shapey:  Gottlieb Duo                          

Matthew Geiger, percussion, Manuel Laufer, piano

Anton Webern:  Two Pieces (1899), Three Little Pieces op. 11   

Hangyu Bai, piano, and Jonathan Golove, cello

                       

Charles Wuorinen:  Fifty-Fifty                                                 

Jade Conlee and Michiko Saiki, pianists           

The next day, on Saturday, June 8th, JiB Performance Institute faculty and participants will perform works by JiB composers Clint Haycraft and Megan Buegger, and works by Zimmerman, Cage, Babbitt, Carter, Stockhausen, Sciarrino, and Rivas. The concert will begin at 3:45 p.m. in B1 Slee Hall for the first piece by Megan Beugger, and then move up to Baird Recital Hall at 4:00 p.m. for the rest of the program. Check out the Performance Institute website, like their page on facebook, or follow the Center for 21st Century Music on twitter for more updates.

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Charles Wuorinen receives honorary doctorate from UB, conducts Slee SInfonietta at June in Buffalo 2013!

Charles Wuorinen

We’re looking forward to Tuesday, June 4th, when University at Buffalo President Satish K. Tripathi will present June in Buffalo 2013 Faculty Composer Charles Wuorinen with an honorary doctorate from UB. The brief award ceremony will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Slee Hall, after which two recent works by Charles Wuorinen will be performed. First will be Wuroinen’s Piano Quintet, to be performed by the JACK Quartet and pianist Eric Huebner. Wuorinen will then pick up the baton and lead the Slee Sinfonietta in his It Happens Like This, a dramatic and sometimes jocular cantata in which the composer has set text from seven poems by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate. It Happens Like This will feature 12 members from Slee Sinfonietta, who will be joined by four vocalists: soprano Sharon Harms, alto Laura Mercado Wright, tenor Steven Brennfleck, and bass Ethan Herschenfeld.

The Slee Sinfonietta performing Ligeti's Piano Concerto

Charles Wuorinen has been a friend to the Center for 21st Century Music for many years now – his full biography can be found on our new webpage: Slee Sinfonietta Artist Bios, which includes full biographies and pictures of all of the composers, performers, and staff that make up the Slee Sinfonietta.

The Sinfonietta presents a series of concerts each year that feature performances of challenging new works by contemporary composers and lesser-known works from the chamber orchestra repertoire. Founded in 1997 by composer David Felder, and comprised of a core group including UB faculty performance artists, visiting artists, national and regional professionals and advanced performance students, the group is conducted by leading conductors and composers. More can be found on the history of the Sinfonietta at their program archives. 

Like us on Facebook and/or follow us on twitter for more updates on the Slee Sinfonietta and June in Buffalo 2013. 

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JACK Quartet, Eric Huebner, Jonathan Golove, Talujon, kick off opening weekend of June in Buffalo 2013!

We’re looking forward to the opening weekend of June in Buffalo 2013! The festival will kick off with a concert by the JACK Quartet on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m., at One M&T Plaza, a special historical building in downtown Buffalo which was designed and built in 1966 by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect for the World Trade Center in New York City. In addition to opening JiB 2013, the concert is also part of the Center for 21st Century Music’s Music in Buffalo’s Historic Places series (more on the event and the series here), and will open with a brief presentation by UB Professor of Architecture, Brian Carter, who recently published M&T Bank, a book detailing the history and design of the building. 

The concert, which starts at 7:00 p.m., will consist entirely of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 1, performed by the JACK Quartet. There will be a nice reception with wine and light snacks before the concert, hosted by M&T Bank, and it’s likely the concert will sell out, so we recommend you RSVP.

Eric Huebner

Jonathan Golove

The concert on the following day will be held here at UB in Slee Hall on Friday, May 31st, at 7:30 p.m., and will feature soloists Eric Huebner on piano, and Jonathan Golove on cello and Theremin cello. The program will include Iannis Xenakis' Kottos for solo cello (1977), Roger Reynolds' imAge/E and imagE/E (2007), Edgard Varése's Density 21.5 (1936, revised 1946) arranged for Theremin cello by Jonathan Golove, the world premiere of Eric Wubbels' Psychomechanochronometer (2013), which was commissioned with support from the Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, Elliott Carter's Sonata for cello and piano (1948), and some selections from György Ligeti's Études (1985-94).

Saturday, June 1st, boasts another concert of virtuosic contemporary music in Slee Hall, this time performed by the Talujon Ensemble. Their concert will feature Brian Ferneyhough's Fanfare for Klaus Huber (1987), Charles Wuorinen's Marimba Variations (2012), Marc Mellits' Gravity (2013), Ross Bauer's Echometry (2013), and Iannis Xenakis' Okho (1989).

Talujon Ensemble

RSVP here for the inauguration of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute on Thursday, May 30th, at 6:30 p.m., with the JACK Quartet -- we'll be keeping everyone updated on June in Buffalo 2013 at the Center for 21st Century Music, as well as through facebook and twitter. Also, stay tuned for more on our finale concert on Sunday, June 9th, at 2:30 p.m. with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, with pianist Geoffrey Burleson, featuring the work of JiB faculty composers at the University of Buffalo in Slee Hall.

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The JACK Quartet kicks off the June in Buffalo Performance Institute with Feldman's String Quartet No. 1 at Buffalo's historic One M&T Plaza!

The Center for 21st Century Music is gearing up for the first year ever of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute, which invites performers with an interest in contemporary music to take part in an intensive 10-day festival of concerts, master classes, and seminars. Held on the campus of the University at Buffalo, the 2013 Performance Institute invites pianists, string players, and percussionists as well as pre-formed string quartets and percussion ensembles to apply. All participants will have the opportunity to study and collaborate with Performance Institute faculty and perform as well as attend June in Buffalo composer workshops and concerts. The Performance Institute coincides with the annual June in Buffalo Festival for composers and will run from May 30th - June 8th, 2013.

The JACK Quartet

There is still time to apply to the June in Buffalo Performance Institute – the postmark deadline is February 15, 2013. More information can be found here. 

The opening weekend of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute will be jam-packed with events. The Institute kicks off on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m., when the JACK Quartet will offer a concert of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 1, at One M&T Plaza. One M&T Plaza is a special historical building and office tower in downtown Buffalo which was designed and built in 1966 by Minoru Yamasaki, who was the architect for the World Trade Center in New York City. The concert will also be part of the Center for 21st Century Music’s Music in Buffalo’s Historic Places series, and will open with a brief presentation by UB Professor of Architecture, Brian Carter, who in 2011 published the book, M&T Bank, about the history and design of the building.

Friday’s and Saturday’s concerts will both take place at 8:00 p.m. in Slee Hall, at the University at Buffalo. On Friday, May 31, pianist Eric Huebner will premiere Velocity and the Grain of Time for solo prepared piano by Eric Wubbels, as well as give a world premiere of a new work by Roger Reynolds. The next day on Saturday, June 1, Talujon Percussion Ensemble will perform Steve Reich’s Drumming, and other works recently commissioned by Talujon. 

Eric Huebner

The opening weekend will conclude on Sunday, June 2, at 6:00 p.m., at the Pausa Art House in Allentown, Buffalo, one of Buffalo’s liveliest areas. There, the June in Buffalo Festival will throw a welcome party for faculty and participants and offer special guest performances.

After the weekend is over, the Performance Institute will coincide with the larger June in Buffalo Festival, which runs June 3 – 9, and which features an all-star lineup of composer faculty, including: Raphaël Cendo, 
David Felder, 
Brian Ferneyhough, 
Augusta Read Thomas
, Charles Wuorinen
, and Yehudi Wyner. The week will be filled to the brim with concerts and performances by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, 
Ensemble Linea, 
Ensemble Signal, 
Slee Sinfonietta, 
Talea Ensemble, JACK Quartet
, Talujon Percussion Ensemble, and students of the Performance Institute.

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June in Buffalo Performance Institute applications already rolling in

The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music is pleased to report that the applications are already rolling in for the first ever June in Buffalo Performance Institute, at June in Buffalo 2013.  We have an absolutely all-star performance faculty line-up, including the JACK Quartet, Talujon Percussion, Eric Huebner, Jonathan Golove, and Tom Kolor. This will be a great opportunity for contemporary music percussionists, string quartets, ensembles, and other musicians to work with some of the most engaging, talented, and virtuosic musicians of our time. The Performance Institute enriches the entire June in Buffalo experience, and provides a network for composers and performers, young and old, emerging and veteran alike, to be able to meet, brainstorm, workshop, and collaborate together in a supportive and dynamic environment specifically designed to explore new musical frontiers.

For more information visit our website at www.music21c.org or contact the June in Buffalo Performance Institute director Eric Huebner. The application deadline (postmarked) is February 15, 2013.

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June in Buffalo 2013 call for scores announced!

June in Buffalo 2013 call for scores announced! June in Buffalo will be very special this year with the addition of the Performance Institute, which will begin on Thursday, May 30th, and then run concurrently with June in Buffalo from Monday, June 3 – Sunday, June 9th. This will be the first year ever where emerging contemporary music performers and ensembles will be studying, practicing, and workshopping alongside participant composers. We expect one of the most dynamic, collaborative, and compelling June in Buffalo Festivals ever this year, as young contemporary music performers and composers blend together and form relationships with not only faculty composers and performers, but each other as well. Full details on applying as an auditor or participant composer below: 

June in Buffalo

Presented by the Department of Music and The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, June in Buffalo, a festival and conference dedicated to composers, will take place from June 3 -9, 2013 at the University at Buffalo. June in Buffalo offers an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, workshops, professional presentations, participant forums and open rehearsals as well as afternoon and evening concerts open to the general public and critics. Each of the invited composers will have one of his/her pieces performed during the festival. Evening performances feature faculty composers, resident ensembles and soloists renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music.

Artistic Director

David Felder

Senior Faculty

David Felder

Augusta Read Thomas

Charles Wuorinen

Yehudi Wyner

Resident Ensembles

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Ensemble Linea

JACK Quartet

SIGNAL

Slee Sinfonietta

Talea Ensemble

Talujon Percussion Ensemble

APPLICATION PROCEDURES

To apply to June in Buffalo, please send all materials by mail. Applications must include the following materials:

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

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

3. A proposal (including score and brief description) requesting the performance of a recent work for

a) Percussion Quartet (or subset)

b) String Quartet (or subset)

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

d) solo for any orchestral instrument

e) works with electronics will be considered

f) other instrumentations will be announced shortly

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

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

6. A SASE for the return of materials (optional) and an e-mail address at which you can be easily contacted.

If the performance of a selected work by a participating composer becomes impossible due to circumstances beyond the control of the June in Buffalo festival, every attempt will be made to arrange a substitution where possible.

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

All application materials must be postmarked by

FEBRUARY 15, 2013.

Mail to:

June in Buffalo

220 Baird Hall

Music Department

University at Buffalo

Buffalo, NY 14260-4700

Fees

Tuition fee: $700

Auditing fee: $350

Housing

On-campus housing, 7 nights, single occupancy: $300. Additional: $30/night. No double occupancy discounts; no meals included.

For general information, contact J.T. Rinker

phone: (716) 645-0624

fax: (716) 645-3824

email: jtrinker@buffalo.edu

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June in Buffalo Performance Institute announced!

JACK Quartet

The Center for 21st Century Music is excited to announce the details of the first ever June in Buffalo Performance Institute! For the first year ever, contemporary music performers around the world are invited to participate in masterclasses, seminars, workshops, and performances at June in Buffalo, and work with members of the June in Buffalo Performance Faculty, including the JACK Quartet, Talujon Percussion Ensemble, Tom Kolor, Jonathan Golove, and New York Philharmonic pianist-in-residence and Performance Institute director Eric Huebner. Complete details below.  


June in Buffalo Performance Institute

The June in Buffalo Performance Institute invites performers with an interest in contemporary music to take part in an intensive 10-day festival of concerts, master classes and seminars. Held on the campus of the University at Buffalo, the 2013 Performance Institute invites pianists, strings players and percussionists as well as pre-formed string quartets and percussion ensembles to apply. All participants will have the opportunity to study and collaborate with Performance Institute faculty and perform as well as attend June in Buffalo composer workshops and concerts. The Performance Institute coincides with the annual June in Buffalo festival for composers and will run from May 30th - June 8th, 2013.

Performance Institute Faculty:
Ensembles-in-Residence:

JACK Quartet
Talujon Percussion Ensemble (5/31-6/3)

Eric Huebner, piano

Performance Institute director
University at Buffalo assistant professor
New York Philharmonic principal pianist

Jonathan Golove, cello

University at Buffalo associate professor

Tom Kolor, percussion

University at Buffalo assistant professor
member, Talujon Percussion Ensemble

June in Buffalo Faculty Composers
David Felder
Augusta Read Thomas
Charles Wuorinen
Yehudi Wyner

Performance Ensembles
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Ensemble Linea
Ensemble Signal, Brad Lubman, conductor
Slee Sinfonietta
Talea Ensemble, Jim Baker, conductor

Arrival day: May 29, 2013
Departure day: June 9, 2013
Tuition: $950
($750 per member for string quartets or percussion ensembles)
On-campus housing: $400 (does not include meals)

APPLICATION PROCEDURES
Please submit the following for consideration by February 15th, 2013:

- Full contact information including name, mailing address, phone number and email

- Short bio including education and performance experience

- A representative CD recording (preferably live)

- Application Fee: Check in the amount of $25 made out to "June in Buffalo"

Completed applications should be mailed to:

Prof. Eric Huebner
220 Baird Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260

For general information, contact Eric Huebner

phone: (716) 645-0637
fax: (716) 645-3824
email: erichueb@buffalo.edu

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Aaron Cassidy: going places, coming home

Composer/conductor Aaron Cassidy is coming home. A proud product of UB's composition program, where his mentor was David Felder, Cassidy has been a Senior Lecturer in Composition at the University of Huddersfield in the UK since 2007. His career has been flourishing, with performances by ELISION, Ensemble SurPlus, musikFabrik, Ictus Ensemble, ensemble recherche, and other prominent groups; his music is featured at the Donaueschingen, Ultraschall, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield, Darmstadt, and Gaudeamus festivals, along with the ISCM World Music Days. His works have been played in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, Croatia, England, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. ELISION has made two recordings of his music, with more to come. 

Cassidy returns to UB on February 23 for a residency that will include compositional masterclasses and seminars, lectures, and performance coaching. He will join the JACK Quartet -- a group that has long advocated his music -- for a composer reading workshop on February 25. (More about JACK's visit in an upcoming post.)

Cassidy's music can be characterized by an uncompromising dedication to instability and fragmentation. The received wisdom of performance practice is continually questioned and reasserted, often with intentionally unpredictable results. His recent works have experimented largely with the interaction of a performer with his/her instrument, introducing a decoupling of component performance techniques through a variety of extended tablature notations. Fracture is prioritized in timbral, structural, and rhythmic strata in such a way that resulting aural units are themselves only the byproducts or collisions of independent (and often cyclic) musical processes. The musical score becomes, then, both the locus of processual sediment and concurrently the cause of significant deterritorialization on the part of performer and listener alike.

Recent projects have included significant research of linguistic, semantic, and spatial theories, focusing in particular on heightened states of dislocation (as in Jakobson's analysis of aphasics or Deleuze and Guattari's writings on smooth and haptic space). It all may sound a bit abstract, but there's no denying the visceral impact of pieces such as I purples, spat blood, laugh of beautiful lips (2007). 

JACK plays a little Sharp

The JACK Quartet's open reading of student works on October 14 is part of a short residency that includes a concert the previous evening, Oct. 13, at Baird Recital Hall. JACK is particularly noted for its command of technically demanding avant-garde repertoire, and this program is an apt showcase for the group's skills. Their program opens with Iannis Xenakis's Tetora, also heard on JACK's new disc surveying all four of Xenakis's works for string quartet (Mode Records 209).

Next is Aaron Cassidy's String Quartet; on his website, the composer avers his "uncompromising dedication to instability and fragmentation." The world premiere of experimental composer Robert Morris's Arc follows.

After intermission, Italian master Salvatore Sciarrino's String Quartet No. 7 is heard; his music is noted for its use of extended playing techniques and sonorities that seem to skirt the edge of perception. The program closes with The Boreal by Elliott Sharp (right), an alumnus of UB's graduate composition program who has gone on to international renown in a variety of genres.

Welcome JACK

As noted below, the Center's 2009-10 season features visits by a tempting array of topnotch ensembles. On October 14, the NYC-based JACK Quartet will perform as part of the Center's Wednesday Composer Series, reading a selection of works by students in UB's composition program.

Lucky students! JACK - the name is an acronym derived from the first initials of its members, John Pickford Richards (viola), Ari Streisfeld (violin), Christopher Otto (violin), and Kevin McFarland (cello) - is rapidly gaining notice for high-energy performances of today's most demanding works for string quartet. The New York Times called the quartet's performance of Iannis Xenakis' complete string quartets one of the "most memorable classical music presentations of 2008," and in 2009, the group received an ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music.

Commissioning and performing new works for string quartet is central to the group's mission, leading them to work closely with composers Helmut Lachenmann (who'll be visiting the Center in April), György Kurtág, Matthias Pintscher, Wolfgang Rihm, Elliott Sharp, Samuel Adler, and Aaron Cassidy. Upcoming premieres include works by Caleb Burhans, Peter Ablinger, and Alan Hilario.

Here's a clip of JACK playing the opening movement of New York composer Christian Amigo's String Quartet No. 1.

The New Season!

The Center has announced its programming for the 2009-10 season, and it's an exciting one indeed, with concerts by the Slee Sinfonietta (with Elmar Oliveira and Eric Huebner as soloists), Signal, JACK Quartet, Music from Copland House, and others. There will be visits by composers Ben Thigpen (Paris), Roberto Fabricciani (Italy), Olivier Pasquet (Paris), Robert Beaser, David Dzubay, Joshua Feinberg, and Chinary Ung (USA).

June in Buffalo (May 31 - June 6, 2010) is marking the 35th anniversary of its founding and the 25th anniversary of David Felder's stewardship. To celebrate, there will be performances by the Arditti Quartet, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Slee Sinfonietta, Signal, and an array of distinguished soloists. Festival faculty will include David Felder, Olivier Pasquet, Steve Reich, Roger Reynolds, Augusta Read Thomas, and others to be announced.

All in all, as the late author Donald Barthelme once wrote in a different context, "there's more than enough aesthetic excitement here to satisfy anyone but a damn fool." See for yourself at the Center's website.

Over the next few weeks we'll be previewing some of these events in a bit more detail. But to whet your appetite, here's a clip of Signal - recently described by The New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind,” - performing Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, caught last September at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC.