Showing posts with label Peabody Conservatory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peabody Conservatory. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
This year's June in Buffalo participants: some demographics
Year after year, June in Buffalo draws emerging composers from around the globe, offering an ideal opportunity to exchange ideas and network with colleagues in other territories.
Applications were submitted by some 90 composers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the UK, and of course the USA. This year, about a third of the JiB applicants were accepted.
American conservatories were represented by the Juilliard School, Peabody Institute, Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, among others.
Universities included Columbia, Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, plus scores of others. Foreign institutions included the National Conservatory of Paris, Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Hamburg, Robert-Schumann-Hochschule, Duesseldorf, the Conservatory Vincenzo Bellini in Parlermo, Universities of Huddersfield and Brunel (UK), Wilfrid Laurier and Montreal (Canada), Trinity College Dublin, and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Many participants find June in Buffalo to be an eye- and ear-opening experience, as they encounter composers whose aesthetic views diverge widely from the ones they cherish. Lively discussions -- whether in seminars or in late-night bull sessions over pitchers of beer and authentic Buffalo chicken wings -- can often prove illuminating, and the bonds formed in these encounters can last for decades.
Labels:
Berkeley,
Columbia,
Eastman,
Harvard,
Juilliard,
June in Buffalo,
New England Conservatory,
Peabody Conservatory,
Penn,
UCLA,
Yale
Friday, March 26, 2010
from JiB alum David Smooke
We're taking a short break from introducing this year's senior faculty to offer some reminiscences from a former June in Buffalo participant, composer David Smooke (JiB '99). Says David, who's now a member of the composition faculty at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, "My June in Buffalo experience was one of the formative moments of my compositional career. I made friendships among my compositional peers that remain strong over a decade later and enjoyed hearing music from many different styles over the course of the festival. The music and masterclasses with the guest composer Jukka Tiennsu made an especially strong impression on me, opening my ears to musical ideas that remain quite dear to me.
"At the festival, I encountered recent experiments in microtonality and in the utilization of natural sounds in compositions in ways I had never before considered. In addition, June in Buffalo was the first opportunity that I had to work closely with professional performers, and some of these performers remain friends and advocates to this day."
At David's website, www.davidsmooke.com, you can hear samples of his beautifully-crafted and engaging scores, and view some videos involving his music. Here are two, one lyrical and reflective (blades, for whistling and singing cellist) and the other funky and playful (Four Score, for toy piano and two violas).
Do you have June in Buffalo stories and memories to share? Drop us a note at c21cmusic [at] the mail with the 'G' and we may just post them in this blog. Doesn't matter if they're serious, trivial, life-changing, or funny...bring them on!
Labels:
David Smooke,
Peabody Conservatory
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
