Performance Etiquette
So that others around you may enjoy
the performance without distraction,
we ask that you refrain from:
speaking audibly;
taking flash photographs;
entering or leaving the hall unnecessarily;
or any other aural or visual distractions.
Please turn off cellular phones and
all other audible devices.
WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
College of Fine Arts & Communication
& School of Music
present
New Music Festival 2016
Concert I
The use of unauthorized recording devices
is strictly prohibited.
Thank you.
New Music Festival is made possible with support from the
Performing Arts Society and the School of Music.
COFAC Recital Hall
Monday, March 7, 2016
7:30 PM
Ushering services provided by the Western Illinois University Chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon.
Pro gram
Two Movements for Chamber Ensemble (2016)
John Mindeman
John McMurtery, flute - Matt Goulding, oboe
Eric Ginsberg, clarinet - Bruce Briney, trumpet
Randall Faust, horn - John Mindeman, trombone
Julieta Mihai, violin - István Szabó, viola - Moisés Molina, cello
Richard Hughey, conductor
...like fire through black glass… (2013)
David Rappenecker
John McMurtery, flute
Rick Kurasz, vibraphone
Rotations, II. (2015)
Jonathan Wilson
Jonathan Wilson, voice, percussion,
ARP 2600, radio, fan, electronics
Avian Suite (2011)
I.
Eagle
II. Owl
III. Chickadee
Stacey Berk
John McMurtery, flute - Matt Goulding, oboe - Eric Ginsberg, clarinet
Douglas Huff, bassoon - Randall Faust, horn - Rick Kurasz, percussion
Angles of Response (2015)
James Romig
Eric Ginsberg, clarinet
Ashlee Mack, piano
An Unsent Letter (2015)
Paul Paccione
Jenny Perron, piano
Texturologie 2: Density 10.6 (2003)
John McMurtery, flute
James Caldwell
James Caldwell is Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Western
Illinois University. A native of Michigan, he earned a BM from Michigan State
University, and a MM and DMus from Northwestern University. In 2005 he was
named Outstanding Teacher in the College of Fine Arts and Communication and
received the first Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2015 he received
the College Award for Excellence in Creative Activity. He was named the 2009
Distinguished Faculty Lecturer. He was named the 2009 Distinguished Faculty
Lecturer. For twenty-nine years he has been co-director of the Western Illinois
University New Music Festival, which has hosted more than 200 composers for
performances of their music. For fourteen years he has been curator of an annual
concert of electroacoustic music, ElectroAcoustic Music Macomb. In 2004 he
began studying studio art as a way to stretch creatively and to reacquaint himself
with the experience of being a student, and earned a BA in Art from WIU in 2014.
There are thirty-six pieces, so far, in my Texturologie series. The pieces are
influenced by continuous-field or all-over-pattern paintings, and I borrowed the
title from a series of paintings by Dubuffet. I thought 10.6 is the specific gravity (I
don’t really know what that means) of antimony, but I looked it up wrong. (Ask a
flautist or composer about the “density” reference.) The sound of the alto flute is
analyzed by the computer (using MAX), and information about the
performance—pitch, loudness, activity density, contour, register, and to some
extent articulation—is mapped onto such parameters of the computer music as
brightness, delay characteristics, pitch range, pitch contour, reverb characteristics,
and activity tempo. Some of the mapping is meant to exaggerate the natural
properties of acoustic sounds, so as the flute plays louder, the computer music gets
brighter, in much the same way that acoustic instruments often get brighter as
they get louder. Other mappings are more complex, like the relationship between
pitch-plus-loudness of the flute and activity tempo of the computer music. The
computer responds to the flute in one of two modes. The first mode of response is
to create a penumbra of sound while the flute plays. (Penumbra is used in the
sense that astronomers refer to the halo around the shadow of an eclipse or Justice
Douglas refers to the penumbra of First Amendment rights surrounding the
Fourteenth Amendment.) The second mode creates interludes triggered by
particular actions in the flute music.
and Navona record labels, and also by Perspectives of New Music/Open Space.
His percussion works are especially well-known and have received hundreds of
performances around the world. Guest-composer visits include Eastman, Buffalo,
Cincinnati, Northwestern, Illinois, and the American Academy in Rome.
Residencies include Petrified Forest National Park, Grand Canyon National Park,
and Copland House. He holds degrees from Rutgers University (PhD, studying
with Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt) and the University of Iowa (MM,
BM). He has been on faculty at Western Illinois University since 2002.
Angles of Response, for clarinet and piano, was commissioned by Eric Ginsberg.
The single-movement work, completed in August 2015, has a total duration of
approximately eight minutes. The title is borrowed from a line in an essay, by
American author David Foster Wallace, titled Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley:
“Competitive tennis… requires geometric thinking, the ability to calculate not
merely your own angles but the angles of response to your angles.” In the duo,
the two players frequently interact at close range, and must constantly interpret
and reinterpret different musical “angles” in the areas of pitch, rhythm, and
dynamic. Like a good tennis match, both players are called upon to contribute
equally and creatively as iterations and responses combine to produce memorable
events.
Paul Paccione (www.paulpaccione.com) is Professor of Music Theory and
Composition at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. He was named
Western Illinois University’s Distinguished Faculty Lecturer for 2002. He has
received degrees in music from the Mannes College of Music (BM, 1974) and the
University of Iowa (PhD, 1984). In 2010, New World Records released a c.d.
recording devoted entirely to his music, titled, “Our Beauties Are Not Ours.” His
recent chamber opera, The World is Round, based on a book by Gertrude Stein,
received its first performances at WIU in December 2015. Additional recordings
of his music are available on the Frog Peak and Capstone labels. His writings on
music have appeared in Perspectives of New Music, ex tempore, College Music
Symposium, American Music, the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and in liner notes
for New World Records. Frog Peak Music (www.frogpeak.org) publishes his
music.
An Unsent Letter is an expression of a complex of extra-musical personal
memories and thoughts. The problem, for me, was how to express these things in
an abstract musical context. The composition was written for pianist Jenny
Perron.
Biographies & Program Notes
John Mindeman has enjoyed a varied career as a trombonist, teacher, and
arranger. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric
Opera of Chicago, Music of the Baroque, Chicago Opera Theater, and the Millar
Brass Ensemble, among many others. His arrangements have been played by
groups such as The Chicago Brass Quintet, Monarch Brass, and the Millar Brass
Ensemble. John has taught at Roosevelt University, Northern Illinois University
and the Birch Creek Music Performance Center. He is currently Associate
Professor of Trombone and Euphonium at WIU.
Two Movements is scored for nine players - a trio each of winds, brass, and
strings. It was completed in February of 2016. My intent in this piece was to
explore contrasts of various kinds, and to highlight the particular sound
possibilities available with this instrumentation. The first movement, marked
Andante, uses the techniques of Klangfarbenmelodie (splitting of the musical line
among several instruments), and canon. The second movement, marked Allegro,
is in Rondo form, and exploits abrupt changes in color, sonority, texture,
dynamics, and register. Both movements are based on twelve-tone rows.
David Rappenecker (b. 1984) is a composer of acoustic instrumental and vocal
works. He holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Western
Illinois University, and is currently finishing his PhD from the University at
Buffalo. As a graduate assistant at the University at Buffalo, David taught courses
in music composition, music theory and fundamentals, and minimalist music and
aesthetics. His principal composition teachers are David Felder and Paul Paccione.
David has written works in a variety of mediums, including solo and small
ensemble, large ensemble, chorus, and enjoys working with dance collaboration
whenever possible. His works explore themes of gestural identity and
recollection, repetition and saturation, and he makes frequent use of symmetrical
design structures while using a pan-tonal harmonic language and modular formal
construction. David currently lives in his hometown of Burlington, Iowa, with his
wife Elizabeth and their son, Charlie. In his free time, he likes to read, go
running, and cook for his family and friends.
…like fire through black glass… (for flute and vibraphone) was written for my
friend and flautist Molly Shambo, and was first performed in the Spring of 2013 at
her final undergraduate recital. The work was my second exploration of a more
free approach to the timing of musical events in my works. There is no meter to
the work, and notes and gestures are given approximate timings for their
execution. The free metric layout is meant to allow the players to work together
to come up with what—for them—is the most appropriate and musical execution
of each event. This work continues my exploration of the concept of identity and
repetition over the length of a musical work, and is one of numerous duos I’ve
written over the last few years – a genre of which I have become quite fond. There
are seven sections to the work, arranged in a symmetrical layout, and it is
approximately seven minutes in length.
Jonathan Wilson is a candidate for the doctorate in music composition at the
University of Iowa. With a Master of Music and Bachelor of Music in composition
from Western Illinois University, Jonathan has studied composition with Josh
Levine, David Gompper, Lawrence Fritts, James Romig, James Caldwell, Paul
Paccione, and John Cooper. In addition, Jonathan has studied conducting under
Richard Hughey and Mike Fansler. His compositional process is derived from a
concept, and each concept becomes the foundation for the structural ideas of his
works. His works have been performed at the Experimental Superstars
International Film Festival, the 38th Big Muddy Film Festival, the 2015 and 2016
SEAMUS National Conferences, the National Student Electronic Music Event, the
Iowa Music Teachers Association State Conference, and the Midwest Composers
Symposium. He is the winner of the 2014 Iowa Music Teachers Association
Composition Competition and a runner-up for the 2014 Donald Sinta Saxophone
Quartet National Composition Competition. Jonathan is a member of the Society
of Composers, Inc., SEAMUS, the Iowa Composers Forum, and the American
Composers Forum.
Rotations consists of three movements: movement 1 for fixed media, movement 2
for performer and live electronics, and movement 3 for performer, live
electronics, and fixed media. Inspired by my visit to the Moss Arts Cube in March
2015 for the SEAMUS National Conference, the work, as a whole, explores
rotation, as it can be conceived in a musical context. Each movement is conceived
as a complete rotation of the role of the performer and electronics. The first
movement focuses on spatialization, specifically to the entrainment of sound
traveling counter-clockwise and smooth transformation of timbre. The second
movement of "Rotations" introduces the performer, focuses on improvisation,
diverges from smooth timbral transformations to combine a wider spectrum of
sounds, and investigates the sonic relationships between the body and
machine. Various instruments chosen for this performance represent different
stages from body to machine. The voice represents the body. Percussion represents
an intermediary stage between the body and machine, and the radio and ARP 2600
represent the machine. In the live electronics I record sounds from each instrument
onstage and manipulate the pitch and EQ of each channel independently and
manually, while the patch determines where each sound will be heard.
Stacey Berk (formerly Willer) is Professor of Oboe and Music Theory at the
University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. Her compositions have been performed in
cities across the United States, in Europe and in Asia. She has received many
commissions for works, including from the Central Wisconsin Symphony
Orchestra, the U.S. Air Force Band of Mid-America, the Point Dance Ensemble,
the Polaris Wind Quintet, Lake Park High School and others. Her compositions
often have a programmatic or literary reference, and her works cover a broad
spectrum of styles including humorous ensembles, exciting fanfares, challenging
contemporary works, and serene lullabies. Her works are available through
Cocobolo Music Press. In addition to teaching and composing, Stacey is an active
performer. She currently performs as principal oboist with the Central Wisconsin
Symphony Orchestra and with Trio Canna. She has been a concerto soloist with a
number of orchestras and other ensembles throughout central Wisconsin. She lives
in Waupaca, Wisconsin with her husband and daughter.
In Avian Suite, the colorful timbres and techniques available in the instruments of
the quintet are utilized to capture characteristics of five contrasting birds. The open
intervals and melodic embellishments of Eagle lend a Native American feel to the
introduction. This carries the listener to the magnificent open plains where the
music gradually swells into a soaring theme before returning to rest at the end. Owl
is a shift into a dark forest, with creepy night noises and the bassoon taking the lead
with a spooky octatonic melody. Chickadee is the most literal translation of
birdsong in the suite, with “chick-a-dee-dee-dees” and “phoe-bes” used as motivic
material. In addition, the movement attempts to capture the perky, inquisitive
nature of the little bird. Swan characterizes the beauty of the majestic bird as it
sweeps through the water. Finally, Hummingbird is a rondo that uses the ensemble
to emulate a tiny bird that zooms in and out of sight as it hovers and zips around
with its lightning-quick wings. Kimberly Helton and The Polaris Wind Quintet
commissioned Avian Suite and premiered it in February 2011. The work was reorchestrated for the Central Wisconsin Symphony to perform in 2012.
James Romig (b. 1971) endeavors to create music that reflects the intricate
complexity of the natural world, where fundamental structures exert influence on
both small-scale iteration and large-scale design, obscuring boundaries between
form and content. His music has been performed in 49 states and more than 30
countries. Notable ensemble performers include the JACK Quartet, Talujon,
Ensemble Chronophonie, Duo Contour, Helix, the Khasma Duo, New Muse Duo,
the Zodiac Trio, Suono Mobile, and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. Solo
performances include recitals by pianists Ashlee Mack and Taka Kigawa, flutists
John McMurtery and Harvey Sollberger, violinist Erik Carlson, and numerous
others. Recordings of his music have been released on the Blue Griffin, First Step,