Kagel Nacht

Tired of dull, predictable concerts? The antidote is close at hand.

This Tuesday, April 26, the performance event known as Kagel Nacht comes to Lippes Concert Hall at Slee Hall. Described by its creators as "a performance event featuring new interpretations of works by the seminal avant-garde composer Mauricio Kagel," it interweaves a melange of inter-connected and overlapping pieces, highlighting the most absurd and engaging of Kagel's prolific output. From the disconnected political ramblings of Der Tribune, to the meticulous puppetry/theater of Repetoire, to the squealing and scratching of Acustica, Kagel Nacht connects to listeners in a way rarely found in the classical music world.  

For American listeners, Mauricio Kagel (1931 - 2008) occupies an odd place in the pantheon of contemporary composers -- too famous to be considered a cult figure, but too idiosyncratic to be an icon. Born and educated in Buenos Aires, he served as a visiting lecture at Darmstadt in the late 50s, and taught at UB in 1964-65 as the Slee Professor of Music Theory. Dramatic elements were a constant presence in his work, which often overshot the boundaries of music composition to encompass theater and film.

According to the creators of Kagel Nacht, "Despite being one of the most radical and revolutionary 20th century European avant-garde composers, Mauricio Kagel's music has remained relatively obscure, especially here in the US.  In an attempt to change this, two musicians from New York City have spent the last 3 years researching Kagel's massive body of work, seeking out rare scores, recordings, and videos of his bizarre, often hysterically theatrical compositions.  The result is the performance-event known as Kagel Nacht.  Joining them will be a stacked deck of musicians from Brooklyn's artistic multiverse, performers deeply situated in the theater, performance art, classical, and experimental music worlds.  They will be performing a very diverse selection from Kagel's grand oeuvre, including 'classical' works (Music For Rennaissance Instruments), electro-acoustic compositions (Acustica),  absurdist ballet (Kontra-Danse), radio plays (Der Tribun), and some of his most daring and hilarious works of 'instrumental theater' (Staatstheater, Con Voce). With interpretations ranging from strict to fully recontextualized, Kagel Nacht breaths new life into these important and underperformed works by joining them into one, multi-stage, panoramic, evening-length event that brings a new meaning to 'musical theater.'" 

Kagel Nacht is currently touring the Northeast, performing for universities as well as underground venues, art spaces, and other communities, giving people access to the world of classical and avant-garde music through the universal appeal of Kagel's profound and absurd compositions.  In order to limit costs and emissions, they are traveling on a school-bus-turn-tour-bus, that runs on waste vegetable oil. Kagel Nacht will feature the musical and theatrical artistry of:

• Rick Burkhardt  - orator, accordion
• Stephe Cooper - producer, glockenspiel, guitar
• Sam Kulik - trombone
• Jordan Mclean - trumpet, conductor, arranger
• Jason Mears - clarinet, saxophone
• Roberta Michel - flute, piccolo
• Geoff Nosach - lighting, set design
• Sam Sowyrda - producer, conductor, percussion
• Dennis Sullivan - percussion

Here's a video of Kagel Nacht in action.  

Recent grad Leah Muir on UB: "a rare mix of performance, intellect, and experiment"

Leah Muir completed her doctoral studies in composition at UB in 2008, and is now living in Berlin. She reports:

"My doctoral study at Buffalo was a huge enrichment to my musical life and experience, and continues to be so -- in fact I think it is one of the few organizations in the US that could prepare me for the European musical life I found myself suddenly in. Right now, in fact, I am preparing for a Morton Feldman concert for the Crescendo concert series on June 10, of which I am in charge of musical direction and conducting. Morton Feldman seems to be around every turn I take.

"It was Amy Williams who first introduced me to the University at Buffalo at 19; she brought a group of composers from Bennington College to June in Buffalo. There I met David Felder, and never forgot him or my amazing musical experience during the program. I applied later to Buffalo for my Doctoral degree and was accepted on a Presidential fellowship, where I was able to gain four years of teaching experience. There I made extremely close musical relationships with musicians and composers in the program, and had many compositional breakthroughs with David as my teacher. David Felder demands excellence from his students, and I was pushed very hard to go as far as I possibly could with my own talents, and then maybe even farther. For that I am very grateful.

"Beyond my work at the Institut für Neue Musik, I have also some commissions to write this year. The first is my Doppelkonzert für E. Gitarre und Akkordeon, dedicated to Krassimir Sterev, Yaron Deutsch, Ajtony Csaba and the Mitteleuropäisches Kammerorchester to be premiered in Vienna, Austria in 2011. The second for the Münchener Biennale, is a 25 minute music theater piece to be premiered in May of 2012. Last year, I had a couple of important premieres, on Märzmusik and Wien Modern, and a slight foray into video brought on a sudden premiere at Soundtrack Cologne.

"Buffalo, where American experimentalism is still cherished, was instrumental to my development in these musical directions. David Felder, Cort Lippe and Jeff Stadelman provided an excellent scope of what is out there that is most intellectually stimulating in music, and also what reality is and could be for a composer in our current musical landscape. Beyond this, an idealistic and utopian approach to music is also coveted at the university, where experiment is fully encouraged and when followed, given free reign of the imagination. I find this mixture to be quite unique. Charles Smith and Michael Long are also an extremely important part of the program for me, because the sort of analysis they teach is rare and hard to find. In other departments, with Tony Conrad and Elliot Caplan also in the wings of the greats teaching there, I had the possibility to participate in some transmedial collaborations. Hallwalls, Soundlab and the Burchfield-Penney, beyond the University, provided yet another platform to branch out into a wider community, together with self-organized group of composers, we were able to play music and have a public." Here's Leah's unsettling and inventive Sound Bandage, scored for the offbeat combination of soprano and bass saxophones, cello, and "tape."

A student looks back

Moshe Shulman, PhD candidate in composition at UB, recently shared some observations about his music.

"2011 is my last year in Buffalo, NY. Since 2007 I was studying music composition mainly with David Felder but also with Cort Lippe and Jeffrey Stadelman one semester each. During these years I wrote for brass, woodwind, and percussion ensembles, two string quartets, mixed ensembles including voice, a little piece for piano and a couple of solo pieces. Some of these were successful, some came to be tryouts, one of these even received third prize in a Composition contest in Russia in 2009.


"When the time for writing dissertation piece came, writing for a larger ensemble with a soloist was an obvious choice, mainly because I don’t have anything like that in my portfolio. Another reason for writing a piece for solo violin with orchestra was personal. I started to play violin at the age of five and writing a dissertation piece 28 years later seems like a circle that has been completed. Thanks to David Felder, this project was approved, well-advised and will be realized on April 18th, 2011 in a recording with the Slee Sinfonietta and most talented musician and a friend, violinist Yuki Numata.

"Before getting to what I wanted to achieve in the dissertation work I will try to remember what aspects of music concerned me during these years. One of the first pieces I wrote within the walls of Buffalo University was Frozen Moments for flute, violin, cello and piano. Here are the program notes of that piece:

Frozen Moments is a piece about different states of motion and motionlessness. The piece introduces different musical moments of those states as well as arrivals and departures from them. First movement deals with the sound as motion and silence as static process. Second movement is concerned with repetitions as motionlessness and the motion between the repetitions. The third movement can be actually called anything but Frozen Moment. This movement is full of energy and motion however the static quality is present on a new level. The motionlessness is present within the motion as if one runs down the street and suddenly stops for a second. Beyond that, the motion-motionlessness states are in counterpoint in that movement which gives the listener an option to hear both actions at the same time.

"Another musical aspect that concerned me was writing for a certain instrument as if it were another instrument - for example, treating brass instruments like strings. “Subito” for Brass Quintet is the outcome of that idea. My Second String Quartet was written for the Copland House Project during November 2009. My thought was to create a set of short movements that would exist within a margin of extremes (whatever those extremes might be: speed, dynamics, motion, etc.). Some movements contrast in their extremes with other movements, while others contain their diversities within.

There were many other issues during the years, of course, but these made their way into the dissertation piece that, for now, is titled Kivunim.

"Kivunim is a Hebrew word and it can have multiple meanings. But the ones I am referring to can be translated as directions, movements, goal-oriented processes. Here, in some sense, I come back to the issue I was resolving in Frozen Moments. The soloist and the ensemble arrangement distribute naturally the roles of motion and motionlessness.

"The dissertation defense will take place on May 3^rd and everyone is welcome to attend, to listen and hopefully to enjoy."

Charles Wuorinen and the New York New Music Ensemble in residence

The incomparable Charles Wuorinen visits UB on Tuesday, April 19 in conjunction with a four-day residency by the New York New Music Ensemble, distinguished proponents of his music -- along with many other composers working in "the more rigorous end of the contemporary repertory," as The New York Times put it in a recent, admiring review.

At 7:30 pm on Tuesday, Wuorinen will conduct members of the New York New Music Ensemble in four of his works at Lippes Concert Hall at Slee Hall: Salve Regina: John Bull (1961, rev. 1997); The River of Light (1996); Fifty Fifty (2002); Metagong (2008). That concert will be preceded by a lecture/demonstration on his music at 3 pm.

On Wednesday (4/20), the NYNME will give readings of works by four fortunate students in UB's graduate composition program: Kenichi Saeki, Chun Ting Pang, Jacob Gotlib, Ethan Hayden, Nathan Heidelberger, and Felipe Ribiero.  And on Thursday, the NYMNE steps into the spotlight at Lippes to perform works by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Tania Leon, Wuorinen, Alexandre Lunsqui, and Mario Davidovsky. Tickets for the latter event are available here.

Wuorinen is no stranger to Buffalo, having been a Senior Faculty member at June in Buffalo during the early 1980s, and in 2003.  His many honors include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Pulitzer Prize (the youngest composer to receive the award).  His more than 250 compositions encompass every form and medium, including works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, soloists, ballet, and stage.  

His newest works include It Happens Like This, a dramtic cantata on poems of James Tate to be premiered at Tanglewood in Summer 2011, Time Regained, a fantasy for piano and orchestra for Peter Serkin, James Levine and the MET Opera Orchestra, Eighth Symphony for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Metagong for two pianos and two percussion. He is currently at work on an operatic treatment of Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain to a libretto by the author. (Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories based on the novel of Salman Rushdie was premiered by the New York City Opera in Fall 2004.) Described as "maximalist," his works have been recorded on nearly a dozen labels including several releases on Naxos, Albany Records (Charles Wuorinen Series), John Zorn’s Tzadik label, and a CD of piano works performed by Alan Feinberg on the German label Col Legno.

Founded in 1976, the New York New Music Ensemble is one of NYC's quintessential groups, noted for its authoritative interpretations of challenging "uptown" repertoire. With more than 120 commissions and 20+ recordings to its credit, it is one of the leading ensembles of its kind. Wrote the Times's Allan Kozinn in a recent review, "These are musicians for whom sharp-edged themes, complex rhythms, and dense harmonies hold no terrors, and they usually make the works they play, however thorny, sound fresh and vital."

A Sunday afternoon RendezBlue, 4/10 at 2 pm

As part of RendezBlue, a four-day exploration of Morton Feldman and the New York School presented by Buffalo's Burchfield Penney Art Center, A Musical Feast will present an intriguing mixed chamber music program on Sunday, April 10 at 2 pm, co-presented by the Center for 21st Century Music. The festival runs April 7 - 10; during that time, admission is free to the gallery and all concerts. 

Amy Williams, who along with her performance partner Helena Bugallo, make up the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, is Buffalo's favorite, wandering-pianist daughter. Hailed as "beyond brilliant" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and "simply stunning" (Gramophone), the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo has been presenting innovative programs of contemporary music throughout Europe and the Americas since 1995. 

Williams makes a welcome return to our series, performing her own composition, Brigid's Flame, composed in memory of her father-in-law, and based on the life of Saint Brigid, who is associated with many symbols, including sacred flames, high intelligence, and poetic eloquence. Williams will also join cellist Jonathan Golove for Morton Feldman's Durations 2 for cello and piano, the first of a series of small ensemble works composed in 1960, in which Feldman relinquished some of the usual control exerted by the composer over the harmonic content of the music.

Mythological references rule in Greek composer Iannis Xenakis' Kottos, a challenging but approachable work for solo cello which will be performed by cellist Jonathan Golove. Moshe Shulman (b. 1978), takes the title of his 2009 work, Secret Messages, literally, i.e. he supplies no description of the piece,  composed for solo violin, since if he provided a description beforehand,  the work, which will be performed by Charles Haupt, the founder and Artistic Director of 'A Musical Feast,'  would no longer be secret.

A memorable performance of contemporary German composer Ruth Wiesenfeld's haunting work, stories still, for cello and recorded text by Samuel Beckett, was a highlight on the last program. Alice Teyssier performs the world premiere of the composer's intriguing inflexionen, for solo flute on this program.

Says Don Metz, Associate Director of the Burchfield Penney, "Following our success with Lecture on the Weather: John Cage In Buffalo, it became apparent that there was great interest in programming events that highlight the creative spirit in Buffalo during the second half of the twentieth century. In keeping with the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s dedication to the distinguished artists of Western New York, it became evident that tribute should be paid to composer Morton Feldman." In addition to the Musical Feast concert, the weekend includes film/video, spoken word, visual arts, and lecture presentations. 

Edmund Campion

Beginning an alphabetical series of posts on June in Buffalo 2011's Senior Faculty composers, Edmund Campion leads the way. As a composer specializing in electroacoustic music, his pedigree is impeccable: he received his doctorate at Columbia and studied at the Paris Conservatory with the late master Gérard Grisey. Major commissions for IRCAM and Radio France followed, among them Natural Selection for interactive electronics and a full-scale ballet titled Playback. ME (2003- present) a work for baritone and interactive software, "explores the rise and development of consciousness in its egotistical, patriarchal sense." ME, a highly theatrical piece with a generous dose of black humor, is based on texts by the poet John Campion. It calls for an "in-ear prompter" that feeds the singer computer-generated material, which he has to imitate in various ways, and a child's hula hoop, which is used as a prop in various ways throughout the piece. The fascinating details can be found here, at Campion's website.

Campion's distinctive sensibility also comes through in Outside Music, described by Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer as "a rambunctious piece for synthesizer and live instruments." Reviewing a performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2006, Dyer wrote, "The synthesizer is constantly invading the personal space of the instruments by duplicating their timbres. The piece ends, like Haydn's 'Farewell Symphony,' when the players walk off the stage one by one, leaving the synthesizer unattended, playing on all by itself."

In addition to composing and teaching, Campion is the co-director of CNMAT, the Center for New Media and Audio Technologies at UC Berkeley. Visit CNMAT's website for an abundance of vital information on computer music and new music in general, including free downloadable software tools, publications, and audio/video for streaming.

A visit from Yehudi

On Wednesday, April 6, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Yehudi Wyner visits the Center for 21st Century Music for a round of master classes. Wyner has created a diverse body of over sixty works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo performers, theater music, and liturgical services. In addition to composing and teaching, his active and eclectic musical career includes work as a performer, director of two opera companies, and conductor of numerous ensembles in a wide range of repertory. Wrote Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times, "A comprehensive musician, Mr. Wyner is an elegant pianist, a fine conductor, a prolific composer, and a revered teacher. His works show a deep understanding of what sounds good and is technically efficient."


Yehudi Wyner was born in Western Canada and grew up in New York City in a musical family. His father, Lazar Weiner, was an eminent composer of Yiddish Art Song as well as a notable creator of liturgical music for the modern synagogue. This early exposure paved the way for a Diploma in piano from Juilliard and further musical studies at Yale and Harvard Universities with composers Richard Donovan, Walter Piston, and Paul Hindemith. A Handel course at Harvard brought Wyner to the attention of Randall Thompson, who became a staunch supporter and friend. In 1953, Mr. Wyner won the Rome Prize in Composition enabling him to spend the next three years at the American Academy in Rome, composing, performing, and traveling. Since then, he has received many honors which include the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Piano concerto Chiavi in mano, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a grant from the American Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Brandeis Creative Arts Award. In 1998 Mr. Wyner received the Elise Stoeger Award from Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society for his lifetime contribution to chamber music. His Horntrio was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, and in 1999 Mr. Wyner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Not only is Wyner a distinguished composer, but a teacher of distinguished composers. His students include:

• Robert Beaser
• Chester Biscardi
• Martin Brody
• Donald Wheelock
• Yu-Hui Chang
• Laurie San Martin
• Tom Johnson
• Lew Spratlan

During his visit, Wyner will give a presentation of his own music to the UB composition seminar, as well as giving individual lessons. Later in April (on the 19th), another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Charles Wuorinen, will visit the Center. Watch this space for further details.

Tom Kolor gets a bang out of UB (and vice-versa)

UB's music department has a distinguished tradition of percussion teaching. Legendary percussionist Jan Williams arrived in 1964 as a Creative Associate, joined the faculty in 1967, and taught at UB for nearly 40 years, achieving worldwide renown as an interpreter of contemporary music. He is now an emeritus professor.

Assistant Professor Tom Kolor has proven a worthy heir to this tradition. Through performances with the Talujon Percussion Quartet, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso, and others, Kolor has earned a place as one of the top percussionists on the new music scene. As a soloist, he has given dozens of premieres by such composers as Milton Babbitt, John Zorn, Wayne Peterson, Tania Leon, and Jerome Kitzke. He has recorded for Bridge, New World, Albany, Capstone, Innova, Wergo, Naxos, CRI, Koch, Tzadik, North/South Consonance, and Deutsche Grammophon labels. At UB, Kolor directs the Percussion Ensemble, gives private lessons, and is the Principal Percussionist of the Slee Sinfonietta. 


Here are a couple videos of Kolor at work -- one of them serious fun (a Julia Wolfe piece, performed by Talujon), the other simply fun (a restroom sign "concerto" with violinist Todd Reynolds). 

Trevor Bjorklund: developing one's own identity

Continuing our series of posts on recent and soon-to-be graduates of UB's composition program, here are some remarks by Trevor Bjorklund, who graduated in 2010 and is currently serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh.

Trevor's musical background is eclectic, to say the least. From the ages of eight to ten, he sang in the San Francisco Boys' Choir and performed in several productions of the San Francisco Opera. In the years that followed, he began composing while playing guitar, trumpet, euphonium, and percussion. He attended San Francisco State University as a composition major, winning the Theodore Presser Fellowship, and studied trombone with with McDowell Kenley. He graduated summa cum laude from SFSU with a Bachelors of Music in Composition while taking part in an exchange program in Trossingen, Germany. He stayed in Germany to compose and perform as a trombonist and drummer for the next 3 years.

His music has been performed in the United States, Germany, Korea, The Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, France, and The Netherlands, and at major festivals including June in Buffalo and the Darmstadt Ferienkurse. It has been played by internationally renowned groups and artists including the Arditti Quartet and Valerio Fasoli, and has been conducted by James Avery, Manfred Schreier, Christian Hommel, and Christian Baldini.

In addition to his activities as a composer of contemporary music, he continues to perform traditional and modern repertoire as a trombonist, and plays drums for the international funk band, Blind-Ass Chicken, in which he is a founding member and songwriter. These diverse interests and influences are reflected in his dissertation work for UB, Deus Ex Machina, which is scored for "large chamber ensemble and heavy metal trio." You can hear it here.

Says Trevor, "I arrived in Buffalo after having spent several years in the new music scene in Germany and was more than a little unsure about my role as a composer in general. What I found at UB was an entirely open environment that had no preconceived notions about what "good" or "real" music is (or isn't), and I found a small community of musicians developing their own identities in a variety of ways.

Trevor Bjorklund

"My composition teachers there (Jeffrey Stadelman for my first year and then David Felder) whole-heartedly supported the exploration and development of my own unique artistic personality. They were also extremely patient with me as I went through the shock of re-entery into the States after having lived abroad. I was provided with opportunities to hear my own creations performed by some stunningly talented and dedicated musicians. In fact, without David's gentle but consistent encouragement, I could never have even begun composing some of my most successful pieces... not necessarily successful because they are masterworks of the 21st century, but because they form an honest reflection of my own particular musical perspective. For me, creating honest work is the single most important thing an artist can do.

"Although Buffalo is a small city, seemingly remote from the larger American new music community, it is a place of where astounding musical events transpire. In my humble opinion, June in Buffalo has become one of the best, if not THE best, festivals for new music in America and trumps some of the more well-known European festivals. During my tenure as a graduate student and since, David Felder continually ups the ante, bringing in some of the best performers in the world to perform contemporary masterworks, read and perform student pieces, and lecture about their work.

"Another important aspect of my UB education was an excellent platform for professional development. I had the opportunity to teach a variety of important courses that prepared me (and qualified me!) for the post-graduate school world of American Academia. The constant and continued support and advice I received from my teachers and especially my advisor, David Felder, have led me to opportunities for performances and employment that would never have happened had I chosen a different path.

"I recently visited Buffalo and the feeling of walking into Baird Hall was like coming home. There is a family there, my family, and UB and I will remain lifelong friends."

Composer Evan Johnson: UB remembered with "intense affection and gratitude"

Evan Johnson received his PhD from UB's composition program some five years ago, and his career is off to a flying start. Recent and upcoming highlights include performances at festivals in Darmstadt, Huddersfield, Witten, and others, as well as in Japan and Singapore; residencies at Copland House and the Millay Colony in 2011; and recordings on the HCR, Metier, and (later this year) Mode labels.  In June, at the Issue Project Room in New York, Claire Chase of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will premiere a piece for bass flute commissioned by BMI and the Concert Artists Guild.

Says Evan, "When I came to do graduate work at Buffalo, it was a bit of a shot in the dark; I knew little more of the department than the June in Buffalo festival and the fact that David Felder and some of the other faculty were interested in having me there.  It turned out to be a tremendously significant decision for my professional career.  Buffalo is a unique place for composers, in that absolutely any sort of investigation is permitted and encouraged -- pieces written bycolleagues during my tenure included both works of incredible complexity and intricacy and a piece for amplified styrofoam cup -- as long as you continually question your assumptions and strive to improve your understanding of your own work.   David himself is the best composition teacher I have ever had, despite the fact that his own music has virtually nothing to do with mine, and his own approach to his craft and his profession have been crucial models for me to a degree I doubt even he understands.  And, five years after I received my Ph.D., some of the most significant relationships I have with performers around the world arose from visits they made to UB while I was a student there.

"The only thing I wish would change about UB's graduate composition program is that it would become better known, and its singular place in the American musical landscape more celebrated; but I remember UB with intense affection and gratitude, and I credit a good deal of my own musical and professional development to my experience there."

Visit the "Sounds" area of Evan's website for some intriguing excerpts from his work.

From Singapore to Buffalo...and back

Diana Soh

As noted in our previous post, UB's composition program has a global reach. Composer/pianist/singer Diana Soh came to Buffalo from Singapore to study with David Felder. Not only is she earning her PhD, but she ended up working for UB's Center for 21st Century Music as an assistant to Managing Director J. T. Rinker.  She's returned to her native country, where she has just been appointed to the Music Faculty of Singapore's School of the Arts. Her career is flourishing: she has just been nominated for the prestigious Gaudeamus Prize, and has been selected for the IRCAM 1 course in Paris. But she retains many fond memories of the Center.

"I really miss Buffalo, all my friends and working with JT and David on Center events as well as being a graduate student there. I find that the artists that the center brings to UB are all top-notch and I have learnt so much from each and everyone of them. Not just musically but especially in the more human aspects. Some of whom I still keep in contact with, with no other reasons than that we got along and I regard them as friends.

"The next best thing, besides having David as your teacher, is the numerous opportunities to have your works read by important ensembles like Ensemble Surplus and the Arditti Quartet, JACK quartet and numerous others. And to have real life feedback with such established groups. I'd like to think that such an opportunity is priceless...well, put it this way, even if you had x amount of $ to spend, these groups just might not play your music, but if you are a UB student, they have been hired just for you to workshop and record your music! Amazing right?

"The program is also very supportive of our external activities, premieres, festivals etc and provides a flexibility much needed for a developing composer. Also I must highlight strongly that the centers support of the new and untested is very encouraging and of extremely high standards on the global scale...as this is not the case in most parts of the world, be it for financial reasons, sense of security or even a matter of 'taste.'

"Also, it's exciting to have monthly lectures by renowned musicians and composer to share their work and their views and to have masterclasses with them. I found the composition program to be enriching and stimulating with a varied group of composers and mentors like David and Jeff who are experienced experts that have helped me blossomed over the past 4 years. The electronic studies with Cort Lippe has also yielded brilliant students like Chikashi Miyama among others. 

"There is a sense of camaradarie in the Buffalo group of composers and no one is shy to share their views which makes for a great platform of exchange. I miss them very much and I urge them to make full use of their time in Buffalo as once we are out in the real world...life is different." 

Kudos for UB's composition department

Though it ran a few months ago, we think that The Spectrum's Oct. 17 story about UB's composition program, titled "A Department with National Renown," makes good reading anytime.

Assistant News Editor Brendon Bochacki interviewed David Felder, Trevor Björklund, Cort Lippe, and Jeffrey Stadelman, spreading the word about the department's international prominence to the entire UB community. Reports Bochacki, "Unknown to many students, the music department in Baird and Slee Halls is one of the most highly respected graduate composition programs in the nation." That may not be surprising, given the sheer size of the school -- 29,000+ students in nearly 300 undergraduate, masters, doctoral, and professional degree programs -- but it certainly bears repeating.

One of the reasons that the program attracts so many top students from around the world is its nurturing, undogmatic approach. Bochacki quotes Björklund as saying, "The composition faculty members are very interested in helping young composers bloom on their own... A lot of places tend to push people in a particular direction but UB doesn't. It tends to attract people who have a slightly different take on things."

June in Buffalo: a timely reminder

If you're reading this blog, you're no doubt aware of June in Buffalo, the annual festival and conference that offers a select group of rising composers the opportunity to study with leading teachers in the field, and have scores performed by top ensembles. For those interested in applying, the deadline is Friday, February 25. Application and program details can be found here. 

Presented by University at Buffalo's Department of Music and the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, June in Buffalo features an enticing 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. Here's the rundown on this year's luminaries:

Senior Faculty
Edmund Campion
Eric Chasalow
David Felder
Hilda Paredes
Brice Pauset
Jeffrey Stadelman
 
Resident Ensembles and Special Guests
Magnus Andersson
Irvine Arditti
Roberto Fabbriciani
Ensemble Linea
Brad Lubman
SIGNAL
Slee Sinfonietta

Explosive!

Nothing matches the explosive energy and rhythmic excitement of a skilled percussion ensemble. Tonight, Feb. 22 at 7:30 pm, listeners in western New York will have a rare chance to experience the artistry of the French group Les Percussions de Strasbourg, one of the most venerable new music ensembles of any instrumentation. The 2011/12 season marks the sextet's 50th (!) anniversary; many seminal works in the genre were composed for them, including Xenakis's Pleiades, which forms a centerpiece of tonight's program at Lippes Concert Hall at Slee Hall. Other works being performed tonight include Varèse's classic Ionization. Here's a taste of Les Percussions de Strasbourg in a spatially-oriented score by Gérard Grisey, Tempus ex Machina. 

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). 

The latest from Felder

As Director of the Center for 21st Century Music and the June in Buffalo festival, David Felder is the force behind UB's status as an international destination for studies in composition and new music performance. At the same time, he has maintained a flourishing compositional career, with an enviable array of commissions, residencies, recordings, and honors. His latest project is a second Koussevitzky Foundation commission: a 35-minute work for soprano and bass singers, chamber orchestra, and electronics, titled Les Quatre Temps cardinaux, after the René Daumal poem that provides one of its texts. The other texts are by Pablo Neruda and Robert Creely (1926 - 2005), a member of the UB faculty for 36 years. Les Quatre Temps cardinaux will be played by a trio of illustrious ensembles: the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) under Gil Rose; the group known as Signal, with Brad Lubman conducting; and UB's own professional chamber orchestra, the Slee Sinfonietta. Laura Aikin and Ethan Hirschenfeld will be the vocal soloists; watch this space for further news on the piece.

In other news, Felder's gripping work for flute and chamber orchestra, Inner Sky, will be played in the final concert of the 2011 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. Here's an excerpt of the piece played by the Slee Sinfonietta with Brad Lubman conducting.



You'll find several engaging videos relating to Felder's music at the Center's YouTube channel.

Synaesthesia

Many's the listener for whom a musical experience conjures visual images. For some, however, the experience is involuntary: different pitches and chords consistently give rise to specific colors, a phenomenon known as synesthesia. Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen, and Michael Torke are among the composers who have reported these correspondences, and it has inevitably influenced their music.

This Friday (Feb. 11) at 8 pm at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, the Center for 21st Century Music is co-sponsoring a concert by A Musical Feast, titled "Sensory Crossovers: Synesthesia in American Art." The program includes Robert Muczynski's Gallery: Suite for Unaccompanied Cello; Kreisler's Coat by Jonathan Golove for cello and piano; Sequence pour un hymne à la nuit by Alain Margoni (1979); Ruth Wiesenfeld's stories still for cello and pre-recorded tape with voice; and Kodály's Duo for violin and cello. Golove, Fang Hew, and Carter Enyeart perform (in different pieces) on cello, while Claudia Hoca plays piano, and A Musical Feast's founder, Charles Haupt, joins in on violin for the Kodály.

While none of these pieces are by synesthetic composers, nearly all of them are inspired by visual images. Muczynski's Gallery was suggested by Burchfield's watercolors; a recording of Carter Enyeart playing the piece has recently been issued on the Centaur label. Golove took his cue for Kreisler's Coat from a description by E. T. A. Hoffmann (of the eponymous Tales) of a character who wore "a coat the color of C-sharp minor with an E-major colored collar." French composer Margoni was a student of Messiaen; Golove, who performs the work, finds echoes of Messiaen's "color chords" in it.

An enigmatic image - "a rotating lamp, illuminating for a moment only what happens to be within its beam of light" - spurred Wiesenfeld's piece, which makes use of a text by Samuel Beckett. Full program notes are available here.

Kodály's Duo completes the program, and while it doesn't have any specific visual genesis, it's always worth a listen. Here it is in a fine performance by violinist Kurt Nikkanen and cellist Daniel Gaisford.

Within EarShot

In a perfect world, every talented young composer would have the opportunity to hear his or her scores read by a committed professional orchestra. No matter how good your ear may be, there's simply no substitute for the experience of having live musicians engage with your work. Which is why EarShot, a program that teams emerging American composers with orchestras around the country, is such a valuable resource. Through EarShot, some 24 such composers have had readings by the Memphis, Colorado, Nashville, Pioneer Valley, and New York Youth Symphonies.

Earshot comes to Buffalo February 8 - 10 for the Buffalo Philharmonic New Music Readings, highlighted by a free concert by the BPO at Kleinhans Hall on Wednesday, March 9 (7 pm). No tickets are required for this event. Four composers, selected from a national call for scores, will hear their works read by the BPO under the baton of associate conductor Matthew Kraemer, and will receive feedback from mentor composers David Felder, Steven Stucky, and Robert Beaser, and the conductor and BPO principal musicians. The four composers selected, diverse in background and style, are Michael-Thomas Foumai, Austin Jaquith, Nathan Kelly, and Carl Schimmel. EarShot is a partnership among American Composers Orchestra, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, the League of American Orchestras, and Meet The Composer.

In conjunction with EarShot, the Center for 21st Century Music will present a concert at Kleinhans Hall's Mary Seaton Room on Tuesday, February 8 at 7 pm. Violinist Yuki Numata will play David Felder's Another Face, and pianist Eric Huebner will perform selections from György Ligeti's fiendishly virtuosic Etudes, plus rewarding works by György Kurtág and Steven Stucky. The balance of the program will be devoted to chamber works by Frank Zappa, played by Buffalo's eclectic Genkin Philharmonic. If you haven't heard this rock icon's concert music, don't be fooled: titles such as Peaches en Regalia, Igor's Boogie, Eat the Question, and Harry, You're a Beast belie a composer of considerable skill and imagination. 

Remembering Milton Babbitt

Milton Babbitt (l.) with Lejaren Hiller, c. 1980. Photo by Irene Haupt.

Milton Babbitt passed away on January 29 at the age of 94. Known as the first composer to extend serial techniques to sonic elements beyond pitch, Babbitt was arguably one of the most influential musical researchers of the 20th century. He was familiar to Buffalo audiences, not just through performances of his music at UB, but through his participation as a Senior Faculty member at June in Buffalo, most recently in 1994. One of Babbitt's students, Lejaren Hiller (shown above) became the Slee Professor of Composition at UB from 1968 to 1989.

Though Babbitt's music was known for its intellectual rigor, it is also filled with vitality and wit -- qualities that were abundant in the man himself. He was no stranger to controversy: his 1958 essay “The Composer as Specialist,” more famously known as “Who Cares if You Listen?” (a title given by his editor at High Fidelity magazine) set off a debate that still rages more than half a century later. But throughout his career he enjoyed the genuine respect of composers (such as UB's own Morton Feldman and David Felder) whose music was highly dissimilar to his own. An early pioneer of electronic music, he once said: "The new limitations are the human ones of perception." Prophetic words indeed. There have been a number of remembrances published during the past week, but Allan Kozinn's informative obit in The New York Times and Mark Swed's thoughtful essay in the Los Angeles Times are particularly worth reading.

Here's an odd little video to the first section of his most famous work, Philomel, for soprano and synthesizer.

Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)

Henryk Górecki, one of the leading composers of the Western-European avant-garde, passed away in his home city of Katowice on November 12th. He was 76.

Born in 1933 in Czernica, southern Poland, Górecki worked as a teacher before studying music in Rybnik with Bolesław Szabelski. In 1961, he studied in Paris, and his music was often heard at the Warsaw Autumn festivals in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Like many of his contemporaries, Górecki's early works extended from the post-Webernian school of serialism. His orchestral work Scontri was controversial upon its premiere in Warsaw in 1960 due to its harsh articulations, and frantic, dissonant textures. In the mid sixties, with the work Refren (1965), which featured whole-tone-based harmonies, his work took a turn toward more straightforward modality and traditional expressivity.

Composed for Pope John Paul II's visit to Kraków in 1979, Górecki's Beatus Vir set biblical psalm texts for baritone, chorus and orchestra, and became something of a personal victory over the secular Soviet regime. Poland's political unrest inspired many of the composer's works, including 1987's Miserere for unaccompanied chorus, composed in remembrance of the violence in Bydgoszcz between the Polish military and members of the Solidarity movement. In 1992, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Górecki's Third Symphony, was recorded by the London Sinfonietta under David Zinman, with Dawn Upshaw. The recording, which TIME magazine called "a transcendental meditation on mortality and redemption," became an international bestseller, projecting the reclusive composer into the spotlight and proving it possible for a contemporary composer to achieve significant success without compromising originality or substance.

Górecki's later years were plagued with poor health, and he was unable to compose much. His Fourth Symphony was scheduled to be premiered by the London Philharmonic in April, but was postponed due to the composer's health problems.

The Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honor, which was awarded to his contemporaries Penderecki and Lutosławski in years past, was awarded to Henryk Górecki in October, a month before his death.

Kronos Quartet's David Harrington said of the composer: "There is no one who can replace Henryk Górecki in the world of music. Many others have created beautiful, passionate, even exalted music. But Henryk found a way forward and beyond, through thickets of styles and fashions, that resonates of the single human being in communion with the power of the Universe. I miss him immensely."

In September of 2008, the Slee Sinfonietta performed Górecki's Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings. An excerpt is available here.

Guest Composer to Conduct Copland, Corigliano

The end of October marks the arrival of composer/conductor Matthias Pintscher in Buffalo. Pintscher will conduct the Slee Sinfonietta in a program consisting of crowd favorites: Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Corigliano’s Red Violin Suite (Soloist: Tim Fain).

Also on the program is Pintscher’s own songs from Solomon’s garden. Pintscher is fast gaining recognition internationally as a composer/conductor with numerous accolades. His recent activities include work with distinguished ensembles such as the BBC Scottish Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic. Tickets for the concert are available at the ticket office in Slee Hall at the University at Buffalo. (Advance: $12/$9/$5 Day of: $20/$15/$8) For more information on Matthias Pintscher, check out his very cool website.

Juilliard Composer Visits UB

This week, the Center for 21st Century Music and the UB Department of Music welcome the Emmy-nominated composer Bob Beaser.  Beaser will conduct master-classes for UB graduate composition students on Wednesday October 13th 2010 and lecture on his own works during the graduate composition seminar. Hailed as one of the most accomplished creative musicians of his generation, the Center is excited to host Beaser for this short residency in Buffalo. Beaser is currently Professor and Chairperson of the composition department at the Juilliard School.

CIKADA to Premier Work, Read Student Works

From October 17-22, the center will host Norway’s leading contemporary music ensemble CIKADA. Along with Magnus Andersson, the ensemble will premiere a new commission by David Felder, director of the Center for 21st Century Music and composition faculty of the UB Music department. The visiting ensemble will also conduct a workshop/reading session with the graduate student composers. The session will take place on Wednesday the 20th of October at 3.30pm and is free and open to public. The young composers involved include Chun-ting Pang, Joe Lake, Diana Soh and Jacob Gotlib.

Virtuosic Trio Plays New Music at UB

“Did you see that? There are Gods walking down the halls!” remarked Trevor Bjorklund, adjunct theory professor, upon bumping into the Trio of Magnus Andersen, Pascal Gallois and Rohan de Saram. Indeed, the center for 21st century music and the UB music department was fortunate to have powerhouse virtuosi Magnus Andersson, Pascal Gallois and Rohan de Saram visit for a week of masterclasses, workshops that culminated in an arresting evening concert. The concert program included contemporary music staples like the Berio Sequenza for Bassoon and Xenakis’s Kottos for Cello.
	Champions of their instruments, the trio have individually contributed to the development of contemporary music through their collaboration with established composers like Luciano Berio, and Ianis Xenakis to name a few. Now with the new formation of this yet unnamed trio, they are coming together to pass on their valuable experience and to spark a whole new genre of works for this instrumental combination. Student composers that benefited from the workshop include John Bacon, Felipe Ribero, Diana Soh, Ethan Hayden, Chun-ting Pang and Robert Philips whose piece was selected to be played as an encore in their evening concert.
Unassuming in their demeanor, they were approachable and generous with their time, offering anecdotes on their past experiences working with other composers and educating all that were in the room.

"In Low Key Buffalo, a New Music Milestone"

Wrapping up his series of articles and reviews on JiB 2010, Allan Kozinn of The New York Times contributed a lengthy writeup on several of the festival's concerts, including recitals by Signal, Ensemble SurPlus, and the Arditti Quartet.

While Kozinn had much to say about works by JiB master composers, including Steve Reich, Augusta Read Thomas, Olivier Pasquet, and David Felder, he also devoted substantial space to works by this year's participants, including Daniel Bassin, Matthew Heap, Ashley Wang, Emily Koh, Peter Van Zandt Lane, Huck Hodge, David Wightman, Ray Evanoff, and Jordan Kuspa.  Kozinn described Heap's Illicit Trysts as "an engagingly noisy, rhythmically sharp-edged essay, full of sudden starts and stops and colorful instrumental effects (including quiet sections that sounded as if they were a tape being played backward)."

Noted Kozinn, "Emily Koh’s beautifully eerie circum perceptio, built in layers of delicate string, piano and woodwind timbres, was another highlight of the Signal program. And Peter Van Zandt Lane’s Magana, with a repeating, syncopated clarinet figure taken up contrapuntally in the cello and percussion writing, was one of several student works that used Minimalist techniques as a springboard but headed off in different directions.

"Another, on the Ensemble SurPlus program, was Huck Hodge’s Apparent Motion, which began with a thoroughly Reichian figure and evolved into a harmonically fresh work with a variegated texture full of both sparkle and thunder.

Regarding Kuspa's Piano Trio, Kozinn wrote, "His writing here was sharply focused, carefully shaped and attuned to coloristic possibilities of the piano, violin and cello. The resulting four-movement work, animated and melodically opulent, sounded consistently alive and inspired."

You can follow Allan Kozinn (left), a writer whose interests range from Buxtehude to the Beatles, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Kozinn, also via http://twitter.com/nytimesmusic.