Switch Ensemble Residency March 27-29, 2022

[Switch~ Ensemble]

A new music ensemble for the 21st century

The Center for 21st Century Music is excited to announce a residency by Switch~ Ensemble from March 27-29, during which they will workshop new works by UB student composers and perform in concert at (UPDATED) 7:30 pm on March 29, 2022. For more details and to purchase tickets ($10), click here. Follow on Facebook here.

Concert (Updated Program):

Heather Stebbins, Among Arrows (2021)

*David Felder, A Garland (for Bruce) (2012)

Santiago Diez Fischer, perpetual green switch (2022)

Anna-Louise Walton, Crossing (2022)

Forbes Graham, Inflection: Beacon Hill/Roxbury

 

*UB professor

About Switch~

A new music ensemble for the 21st Century, the [Switch~ Ensemble] is dedicated to the creation of new works for chamber ensemble: we bring bold new acoustic, electroacoustic, and multimedia projects to life. At the core of each performance is our commitment to the total integration of technology and live musicians. We strive for compelling artistry achieved through the seamless creation, production, and execution of new music, and believe that working directly with composers—in a medium where the score is a point of departure rather than a finish line—allows for new and thrilling musical possibilities.

[Switch~] contributes to the future of the genre by strongly advocating for and commissioning the music of a new generation of emerging young composers. We have enjoyed fruitful collaborations with both emerging and established composers, with commissions and premieres of works by composers including Anna-Louise Walton, Alican Çamci, Igor Santos, Katherine Young, Stefano Gervasoni, Stefan Prins, Wojtek Blecharz, Anthony Vine, Rand Steiger, Philippe Leroux, Timothy McCormack, Tonia Ko, James Bean, Matt Sargent, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, Esaias Järnegard, Sivan Eldar, Julio Zúñiga, Zeynep Toraman, Alexander Schubert, Adrien Trybucki, Elvira Garifzyanova, Santiago Diez-Fischer, Lisa Streich, Anthony Pateras, and many others.

Recent engagements include performances and residencies at Cornell, Bard College, University of Chicago, Ithaca College, Buffalo State, UC Berkeley,  the VIPA Festival (Spain), Eastman School of Music, and Avaloch Farms Music Institute, as well as concerts at the Image/Sound Festival, San Francisco Center for New Music, MATA Interval Series, NYCEMF, Vanguard New Music Series at Kent State University, the Queens New Music Festival, the CD release of Christopher Chandler’s Smoke and Mirrors on the SEAMUS label, and more.

Student Works

Lihuen Sirvent

Thomas Little, Signed Distance Field - Flute, clarinet (doubling bass), saxophone (alto + tenor), violin, violoncello, percussion, piano (doubling celesta)

Computer graphics use the “signed distance field” (or “signed distance function”) to efficiently render 2D images in 3D space, and blur said images at increasing distances. In a musical adaptation of this function, the “image” is a central E Major triad, and the function uses various musical “yardsticks”—including the circle of fifths, the harmonic series, and distance in quarter-tones―to determine seven discrete levels of “blurriness,” indicated by dynamic level. Signed Distance Field moves through a warped, funhouse-mirror version of tonality as it navigates and juxtaposes these dynamically-determined pitch fields to bring various sonorities into and out of focus.

Brian Caswell

James PA Falzone

Matias Homar

Jonathan Rainous, Homeward - Flute, clarinet, saxophone (soprano + baritone), violin, violoncello, percussion, piano.

A fusion of non-classical styles using classically-enabled musical form and recombinant musical techniques to evoke a half-remembered roadtrip playlist.

 

 

 

Jeu de Tarot 2 Rehearsal

 

The Slee Sinfonietta rehearsing Jeu de
Tarot 2 on March 7, 2022

The view from the percussion section

Irvine Arditti Residency, Jeu de Tarot 2, and Student Composer Recordings

Irvine Arditti

Irvine Arditti Residency

The Center for 21st Century Music is excited to announce a residency by Irvine Arditti on March 6-10, 2022. He will be joined by the Slee Sinfonietta, conducted by Daniel Brottman, to perform David Felder's violin chamber concerto Jeu de Tarot 2.

 Jeu de Tarot 2

 Jeu de Tarot 2 was commissioned by Ensemble Mise-En, with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. Like its predecessor, Jeu de Tarot (details below), the work is a violin chamber concerto based on selected cards from the Tarot. The work is scored for flute (doubling), oboe (doubling), B-flat clarinet (doubling), F Horn, Bass Trombone, Percussion, Harp, Piano (with sampler), violin, viola, cello, contrabass, and the solo violin. The composition is in 6 movements, numbered 8-13, in this way contiguous with the first Jeu. The movements are:

The Chariot, from the Tarot

8. Death

9. Judgement/Resurrection

10. Temperance

11. The Wheel

12. The Tower

13. The Chariot 

Student Composer Recordings

In addition, these four students will have works recorded:

Alex Buehler - Diffraction Grating 

With this piece I wanted to combine the individual instruments into larger meta-instruments and approach the piece as if I was writing for a contemporary jazz combo. I was particularly inspired by the sounds of Matana Roberts and her album “Coin Coin Chapter two: Mississippi Moonchile”. I was also interested in a sound I was introduced to by trombonists David Whitwell and Kalun Leung in which they used an individual karaoke mic to generate feedback that  could be controlled with the left hand and the trombone. By using the trombone sound as a type of filter, the sounds of the meta-instruments and the combo are altered and replace each other.

  

Tyler Adamthwaite - Jesture

 

Ka Shu (Kenneth) Tam - Path of Earth

"Path of Earth" is one of the three pieces in my "Cosmic Trinity" series. The trinity includes the Heaven, the Earth and the Mankind. This three ideas form the skeleton of the Taoist philosophy about the universe. In these pieces, I attempted to articulate the irresistible nature (force majeure) of the universe with an entropic composition process derived from the western scientific concept "entropy," a quantity of disorder in a system.

(Richard) Ruixing Wang - TBA

 

Jeu de Tarot

 

Jeu de Tarot is a chamber violin concerto commissioned by Ensemble LINEA, and its conductor J.P Wurtz, with solo violinist extraordinaire Irvine Arditti, and is dedicated to these musicians. The work was composed in 2016-17, and is in seven movements. It is scored for flute, doubling, oboe doubling, clarinet doubling, horn, percussion, harp, and keyboard (piano, harpsichord, keyboard controller for electronic samples), solo violin, violin (doubling mandolin optionally), viola, cello, and contrabass.

The composition is in seven movements titled after seven selected cards from the twenty-two major arcana of the Tarot deck. They are:

The Juggler

The Fool

The High Priestess

The Hermit

The Empress (Whorld)

The Hierophant 

Moonlight 

Performance:

 

Matt Sargent

The Center for 21st Century Music is excited to welcome Matt Sargent (website) to campus for a masterclass followed by a lecture on his compositions.

Matt Sargent (b. 1984) is a composer, guitarist, and music technologist based in upstate New York. His work grows from interests in resonance, computer models of intelligence, and the making/breaking of long-form patterns.

His compositions have been described as “bringing a sharpened sense of the transcendental into the 21st century.” (Paul Muller, Sequenza21) On his 2018 album, Ghost Music, Bill Meyer writes, “this music isn’t about following in anyone’s footsteps; it uses bare resources to establish a bounded and essential place.” (The Wire Magazine)

His albums include Tide (A Wave Press), Separation Songs (Cold Blue Music), Tide (for ten basses) (Marginal Frequency), and Ghost Music (Weighter Recordings).

In demand as an audio engineer and technical producer for contemporary music, Matt recently recorded Alvin Lucier’s Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle), Sarah Hennies’s Spectral Malsconcities (New World Records), Ensemble Signal / David Felder’s Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux (Coviello Contemporary), and Paul Catanese’s Century of Progress / Sleep, among others. He developed networked scoring software for Alvin Lucier and the Swiss-based Ever Present Orchestra, which facilitates performance of numerous large ensemble works composed by Alvin Lucier. In 2021, he co-composed A Murmur in the Trees, for twenty-four basses, with Eve Beglarian and bassist Robert Black. Praising his work on Robert Carl’s album, Splectra (Cold Blue Music), Fanfare Magazine writes, “he could find no better collaborator than composer and sound designer Matt Sargent.”

Matt is a visiting assistant professor of music at Bard College.

 

Slee Sinfonietta Solos on December 1st

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 

Order tickets here: https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/music/events/performances.html

See you all soon!!!

Hanatsu Miroir to record works by UB grad composers, remotely from France!

Virtuosic new music ensemble and longtime friend of the Center for 21st Century Music Hanatsu 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!

Olivier Muriel and Ayako Okubo of Hanatsu Miroir

Hanatsu Miroir will rehearse and record works by University at Buffalo graduate composers: Alex Buehler, Lihuen Sirvent, and Tyler Adamthwaite. 

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!

September 14th Season Opening Concert

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!

June in Buffalo 2021 Senior Composer: Stefano Gervasoni

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.

June in Buffalo Senior Composer: Augusta Read Thomas

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.