UB Composers have been up to Great Things!

Summer is often a very exciting and active time for composers, and that's especially true for those here at UB.  This past summer saw many of our composers having works performed, and participating in conferences, festivals, and seminars in the US and abroad.

Colin Tucker

Colin Tucker had a particularly busy summer.  While attending the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, he presented a lecture recital with renowned Australian saxophonist Joshua Hyde.  The lecture dealt with issues of notation, interpretation, and performance practice in the solo pieces that Colin wrote for him (including futures unmade in the boundlessness of the instant).  In May, Colin had his newest piece, not this (2014) for bass flute, bass clarinet, saxophone, piano, percussion, mezzo-soprano, and strings premiered by the French ensemble, soundinitiative, in Paris.  Finally, his chamber piece, engulfed, constrained in a widening gap (2013), which was premiered at last year's June in Buffalo festival, saw three performances this summer, including two by the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble.

Su Lee also traveled to Europe, as her Melting Crystal for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and 'cello was a winner of the Kazimierz Serocki International Composers’ Competition in Warsaw, Poland.  In addition, her exciting large ensemble piece, Soundless Cry, was performed at the Mise-en Music Festival in New York. 

Chun-ting Pang was also at this festival, which saw the US premiere of his Vocalize the Voicelessness for trombone, percussion 'cello, and piano.  On the festival’s last day, Chun-ting flew to Finland to attend Sävellyspaja 2014, an annual composition masterclass in Porvoo. While in Finland, he studied with Jukka Tiensuu, Jouni Kaipainen, and Tomi Räisänen, and heard the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra perform his piece, The Flowers Appear on Earth. Later, Chun-ting was privileged to be one of the fellows at the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, a course led by Mario Davidovsky, Steve Mackey, and Augusta Read Thomas.  At Wellesley, Chun-ting revised Vocalize the Voicelessness, which had a successful performance at the conference’s final concert. 

For the past year, Nathan Heidelberger has had the honor of being the first ever composer-in-residence for Oerknal!, a new music collective based in The Hague. The culmination of this partnership took place in June, a portrait concert of Nathan’s music called Lunatics!, featuring his pieces, My Hands Are Empty (which was premiered by the Slee Sinfonietta in April 2012), Descriptions of the Moon (his epic song cycle for soprano and piano), and Breather, a brand new sextet composed for Oerknal!. You can hear some live audio from the performance here.  “It was deeply rewarding to work closely with such a phenomenal great of young performers,” Nathan said, “and I'm looking forward to future collaborations with them.  I was grateful to received support from The Center to help cover my travel expenses.”

Juan Colón-Hernández traveled to Valdeblore, France for the Zodiac Festival, where his trio for clarinet, 'cello, and piano, Sobre el camino y otras cosas, was performed.  While there, he took master classes with composer Andrew List.  Later, Juan's string quartet, A Discontinuous Flux, was awarded third prize at the Malta International Music Competition where he participated in master classes with composer/performer John M. Kennedy.  Finally, Juan's solo guitar piece, Tropos, was selected as part of the 12th Annual Festival of Contemporary Music in San Francisco.

Weijun Chen

Weijun Chen's Canoe for string quartet was premiered by the Freya Quartet at the Charlotte New Music Festival.  Inspired by the poem 'I Am a Canoe' by the Misty Poet, Cheng Gu, Canoe won 2nd prize in the University of Louisville's Frank Robert Abell Young Composer Competition for New Chamber Music.  The reviewer, Perry Tannenbaum, said of Weijun's piece, "Strands of melody broke loose from the quartet harmonies as the score replicated the drift, the loneliness, the longing, the emotion, and the despair of the poem. Toward the end, there were ethereal passages that jumped beyond the template of the poetry and showed that Chen, unlike many of his contemporaries, is unafraid of lingering in intense expression."  Weijun's music was also celebrated when his wind ensemble piece, Distance, won the Hat City Music Theater's American Prize.

Wooden Cities prepares to perform in Cleveland, OH

Other UB composers packed up and took their works on the road.  Buffalo's up-and-coming new music collective, Wooden Cities—which features a number of UB composers among its members—played a five-city DIY tour across the Rust Belt that included performances in university concert halls, experimental theaters, indy bookstores, and even a dive bar. In addition to performing works by Berio, Eastman, Ives, and Zorn, the ensemble's performances were bursting with new music from UB composers, including Ethan Hayden's (tRas), Nathan Heidelberger's Occasionally, music, Zane Merritt's The Reputation, and Matt Sargent's Tide, in addition to UB faculty composer Jeffrey Stadelman's Koral 8.

Megan Beugger

Several other UB composers had eventful summers.  Matt Sargent's large-scale glockenspiel solo, Saint, was premiered by its namesake, percussionist Trevor Saint at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  Matt also began an appointment as visiting lecturer in composition and electronic music at the Hartt School of Music.  Megan Grace Beugger spent the summer working on a new piece for her dissertation, as well as editing her Liason for piano-dancer, which was performed by Melanie Aceto at Hallwalls in late July (many of you will remember this intriguing piece from June in Buffalo 2013).  In addition to a performance of his bats with baby faces in the violet light at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival and performances with Wooden Cities, Ethan Hayden saw the publication of his book on Sigur Rós's ( ) by Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series.

All in all, a remarkably busy summer for our composers!  We can't wait to see what's next for them this year!

—Ethan Hayden

Busy summer for UB graduate composers!

Our composers had a very active summer participating at seminars, institutes, conferences, and festivals in the U.S. and all across Europe:

Jacob Gotlib was a selected as a participant composer for a two-week residency at the Wellesley Composers Conference in Wellesley, Massachusettes, where he studied closely with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner and June in Buffalo veteran composer Eric Chasalow. His piece, Year Without Summer (Daumenkino), was performed by some of today’s expert musicians, including conductor and friend of the Center James Baker, as well as UB faculty clarinettist Jean Kopperud. You can listen to Year Without Summer (Daumenkino) here.

UB graduate composer Jacob Gotlib
photo by Megan Metté

Juan Colón-Hernández spent two weeks at the soundScape Festival in Maccagno, Italy, just south of the French/Swiss Alps, where his piece Hazy Transmutations for violin and piano was performed, coached by pianist and conductor Thomas Rosenkranz.

Dimitar Pentchev participated in this year’s June in Buffalo where his piece, 1:05, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano was performed.

Robert Phillips was selected to be one of twelve composers to spend two weeks at the Harvard University Summer Composition Institute, where his piece Shindō no su for flute, bass clarinet, glockenspiel, keyboard with laptop, violin, viola, and cello, was performed by the Talea Ensemble under the baton of Eduardo Leandro in Paine Hall at Harvard University. He was also invited be a panelist at the Harvard Colloquia during the final days of the Institute, where he discussed the topic, (Un)Original(ity), curated by Aaron Einbond, from the University of Huddersfield.

Nathan Heidelberger had perhaps the most active summer of all – he was chosen to be one of only six composers to spend a month at the Aspen Music Festival led by New York Philharmonic composer-in-residence Christopher Rouse and joined by longtime friend of the Center Augusta Read Thomas and visiting Pulitzer Prize winning composer Jennifer Higdon. Nathan’s piece, in flux / in flecks /influx / inflects, for alto flute, viola, and percussion, was performed by the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, an elite group of student performers directed by Sydney Hodkinson. The festival also chose to workshop an orchestra piece of Nathan’s, titled Moves Through a Space, under guidance from conductor and Academy director Robert Spano. Nathan then continued on to the Cultivate Workshop at the Copland House, where his piece, Halve Time, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano was performed.

And the summer is not quite over yet! At the moment, Chun Ting Pang is currently in France participating as a selected composer at Fondation Royaumont with June in Buffalo veteran composer Brian Ferneyhough, and Diana Soh is just beginning her second year as an invited composer for the Cursus II at IRCAM.

Several other University at Buffalo musicians and performers were active this summer as well. UB graduate clarinetist, philosopher, and musicologist Christopher Culp attended the fresh inc. festival in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he worked with some of today’s top new music composers and musicians, and performed Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and Francis Poulenc’s Sextet. UB undergraduate flutist Jamie Sweringa spent two and a half weeks at the Orfeo Music Festival in Vipiteno, Italy, where she studied with flutist Elizabeth Goode and performed in several solo, chamber ensemble, and orchestra performances, and UB undergraduate trombonist Matt Stewart was able to attend both the Atlantic Brass Quintet Summer Seminar and the Summer Brass Institute.