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14th
Annual
Underwood
New Music Readings
Thursday,
May 5, 2005 9:30 am - 1:00 pm
Friday
May 6, 2005 9:30 am - 1:00 pm
Alfred
Lerner Hall, Roone Arledge Auditorium
Columbia
University, 115th Street and Broadway
Robert
Beaser, artistic director
Steven
Sloane, music director
Paul
Lustig Dunkel, conductor
James
Lowe, conductor
Steven
Mackey and Melinda
Wagner, mentor composers
Thursday,
May 5
ZHOU
TIAN: The Palace of Nine Perfections
SPENCER
LAMBRIGHT: Lyhennys
JOSEPH
SHEEHAN: Sail Away to Soft, Sweet Bells
MICHAEL
GATONSKA: An Expedition Aboard the Third Mind
JENNIFER
FITZGERALD: Having Once Been, Mvt. I
Friday,
May 6
KENNETH
FROELICH: Pulse Mutations
STEFAN
WEISMAN: The Bird Happened
DANIEL
VISCONTI: Graffiti
GREGG
WRAMAGE: Remember Death (The Hemingway Summer)
CARLOS
RIVERA: Popol-Vuh, Four Mayan Dances for Orchestra
Admission is free.
Reservations
suggested. Call (212) 977-8495 x260
or make a online
reservation
for the Readings.
Lead
support for the Underwood New Music Readings comes from Mr. Paul
Underwood, The Fromm Music Foundation and The Helen F. Whitaker Fund.
ACO's emerging composers programs are made possible with public funds
from the National Endowment for the Arts and with the support of
Jerome Foundation and the Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust.
American
Composers Orchestra
Selects
Nation's Top Emerging Composers
for
14th Annual New Music Readings
Ten premieres
to be presented on May 5 and 6, 2005 in NYC
American
Composers Orchestra announces the winners of what has become one of
this country's most coveted opportunities for emerging composers, its
fourteenth annual Underwood New Music Readings. The Readings will run
Thursday, May 5th and Friday, May 6th from 9:30 am to 1:00 pm at
Roone Arledge Auditorium, Alfred Lerner Hall, Columbia University.
Ten of
the nation's most promising composers in the early stages of their
professional careers have been selected out of hundreds of
submissions received from around the country. This year's winners are
Jennifer Fitzgerald, Kenneth Froelich, Michael Gatonska, Spencer
Lambright, Carlos Rivera, Joseph Sheehan, Zhou Tian, Daniel Visconti,
Stefan Weisman, and Gregg Wramage.
One of
these composers will receive a $15,000 commission to write a new work
to be performed by ACO. Last year's winner, Kristin Kuster, won the
top prize with her work The Narrows. Ms. Kuster's work is
often focused on the connections between architecture and music,
exploring the architectural relationships between public and private
spaces. Her works often feature collaboration with instrumentalists,
vocalists, poets, and visual artists. Ms. Kuster has been praised as
a "wonderfully ambitious" composer "reaching deep for
meaning and expressive breadth." In February 2005, ACO gave the
world premiere of Manly Romero's Readings-commissioned work Blanco,
Azul, Rojo, which opened an ACO concert of all world premieres
at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Romero won the top prize at ACO's 2003 Whitaker
New Music Readings with his work Merengue, which was praised
as "lively, rhythmic, and punchy," with a "personal
voice" that is "quirky and decidedly effective."
To
date, the New Music Readings have offered a vital resource to the
industry by providing essential career development opportunities to
more than 50 composers, including such award-winning composers as
Melinda Wagner, Derek Bermel, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Sebastian
Currier, Pierre Jalbert, Randall Woolf, Jennifer Higdon, and Augusta
Read Thomas. Since participating in ACO's readings, these composers
have held important residencies and had scores of works commissioned,
premiered, and performed by many of the country's prominent symphony
orchestras. ACO has placed particular emphasis on its role in helping
to launch composers careers, including many of today's top composers,
such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Joseph Schwantner, both of whom
received Pulitzer Prizes for ACO commissions; and Robert Beaser,
Ingram Marshall, Joan Tower, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Rouse, and
Tobias Picker, whom the orchestra championed when they were beginning
their careers.
The
Underwood New Music Readings are under the direction of ACO Artistic
Director Robert Beaser, ACO Music Director Steven Sloane and
Assistant Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky. Mentor composers for this
year's reading sessions are Steve Mackey and Melinda Wagner. The
conductors, mentor composers and principal players from ACO serve as
liaisons and provide critical feedback to each of the participants
during and after the reading sessions.
Composers
Selected & Works to be Performed
 Jennifer
Fitzgerald: Having Once Been, Mvt. I
Jennifer
Fitzgerald studied composition with John McDonald and Anthony Brandt
at Tufts University and later with Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth and
Anthony Kelley at Duke University. She has received fellowships from
Duke University and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and is
the recipient of Duke University's William Klenz Prize in
composition. Ms. Fitzgerald has been commissioned by Anima Dance, the
Governor's School Women's Chorus of North Carolina, pulsoptional and
The Vassar Mahagonny Ensemble. Her work has been programmed on the
Duke/UNC Milestones Festival and the Eastman School of Music Women in
Music Festival, and choreographed by M'liss Dorrance, Rachel Brooker
and Jessi Knight Walker, and performed at the American Dance
Festival. Jennifer Fitzgerald is the co-founder/co-artistic director
and pianist for pulsoptional, a Durham, NC-based composers'
collective and performing ensemble. Born in Queens, NY, she is
currently residing in Durham, NC and holds a Ph.D. in Composition and
a Women's Studies Certificate from Duke University. Ms. Fitzgerald's
music has been praised for it's original voice, and "many lovely sonorities."
 Kenneth
Froelich: Pulse Mutations
Kenneth
D. Froelich was born in Chester, PA and raised in San Diego, CA. He
received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Southern
California in 1999, Masters in Music degree from Indiana University
in 2001, and Doctorate in Music degree from Indiana University in
2004. His principal composition teachers include Claude Baker, Eugene
O'Brien, Sven-David Sandström, Don Freund, and Donald Crocket.
Mr. Froelich's music has been performed by the Indianapolis Symphony
Orchestra, the California E.A.R. Unit., the University of Southern
California Symphony Orchestra, and the Indiana University New Music
Ensemble. He has received awards and recognitions from ASCAP, NACUSA,
SCI, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and IDEAS (Interactive
Digital Environments Arts and Storytelling). He has also presented
works at conferences hosted by SEAMUS, Electronic Music Midwest, and
SCI. Mr. Froelich has been faculty at the Sewanee Summer Music
Festival, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and
Composition at Ball State University. His work has been praised as
"imaginative," and possessing "effective, muscular
rhythms and gesture."
 Michael
Gatonska: An Expedition Aboard the Third Mind
Michael
Gatonska studied composition with Krzystof Penderecki, Marek
Stachowski, and Zbigniew Bujarski at the Academy of Music in Krakow,
Poland, as well as with Elias Tanenbaum at the Manhattan School of
Music. He has received the Morton Gould Young Composer Award from
ASCAP, as well as awards from the Minnesota Orchestra Composer
Institute, the Pacific Symphony Composer Competition, and the Chicago
Symphony First Hearing Award. His most recent commission is from the
Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and past commissions include SONYC
(String Orchestra of New York City), the Music At The Anthology
Festival 2003, the electric cellist Jeffrey Krieger (2003), and the
Connecticut Commission on the Arts. This past year he received a
Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, and grants from Meet the Composer and
the American Music Center. Mr. Gatonska has also been the recipient
of two post-graduate research grants from the Kosciuszko Foundation
for music composition studies in Poland, and a fellowship from the
MacDowell Colony. His texture-oriented work has been described as
"very original."
 Spencer
Lambright: Lyhennys
Spencer
Lambright's music has been performed in the United States, Canada,
and Russia by a growing number of ensembles, including the Blue Elm
Trio, the Festival Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, the Philharmonia
Orchestra of Yale, and the Cornell University Chamber Orchestra. His
ballet The Unsilvered Glass, inspired by the poetry of
André Breton, was performed in 2002 by l'Ensemble Synapse, a
Montréal-based chamber orchestra. Clever Mixture of Little
Lies was commissioned by violinist Jeanine Wynton for a concert
of American solo violin works performed in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Mr. Lambright's music has also been performed at the Aspen Music
Festival. In 2002 he was awarded the John James Blackmore Prize for
excellence in composition. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Mr.
Lambright is currently completing his doctoral studies at Cornell
University. He also holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and
the University of Oregon. His principle teachers have been Steven
Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Joseph Schwantner, and Ezra Laderman. Mr.
Lambright's music has been described as "brilliantly
striking" and "colorful and evocative" with textures
that create a "persuasive and involving tapestry."
 Carlos
Rivera: Popol-Vuh, Four Mayan Dance Scenes for Orchestra
A
composer of Cuban/Guatemalan descent, Carlos Rafael Rivera was born
in Washington, DC, and grew up in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and
Miami. While studying guitar with Carlos Molina, his compositional
studies began in Miami with Fred Kaufman and Orlando Garcia,
continuing in Los Angeles with Stephen Hartke, and Donald Crockett.
Mr. Rivera's work is an amalgamation of his passion for
cross-cultural folk music. Mr. Rivera's eclectic works have been
performed by ensembles such as the LA Guitar Quartet, the Cavatina
Duo, and Chanticleer. As a guitarist, Carlos is a second prize winner
at the D'Addario International Guitar Concerto Competition. He has
performed with Grammy Award winning Jazz Trumpet Soloist Arturo
Sandoval, and with singer/songwriter Randy Coleman, recently opening
for "The Who" at the Hollywood Bowl. Mr. Rivera is
currently pursuing a Doctoral in Musical Arts degree at the USC
Thornton School of Music, where he holds a teaching assistantship. He
also teaches guitar at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music. Mr.
Rivera's work has been praised as "colorful, evocative,
ambitious, skillful."
 Joseph
Sheehan: Sail Away to Soft, Sweet Bells
Joseph
Sheehan, a native of the Pittsburgh area, received a BM from Duquesne
University in 2002 and a MM from Indiana University in 2004. He is
currently pursuing a doctoral degree in music composition at Indiana
University, where he has studied with Don Freund, Sven-David
Sandstrvm and Claude Baker. His musical interests include
electronica/techno, popular music, and jazz. Inspiration for
Sheehan's recent music has come from such sources as sailing, the
poetry of Ogden Nash, and the piano work of Keith Jarrett and Herbie
Hancock. In 2002, he won a BMI Student Composer Award and was a
finalist in the 2003 Alea III International Composition Competition
in Boston. In the summer of 2002, he attended the Brevard Music
Festival in North Carolina. Mr. Sheehan's work has being recognized
for its "personal voice," and he has been praised as a
composer who is "mature beyond his years."
 Zhou
Tian: The Palace of Nine Perfections
Zhou
Tian was born in 1981 in the city of Hangzhou, China. He graduated from
the Shanghai Conservatory, where he studied composition and piano, and
in 2001, came to the U.S. to pursue a bachelors degree at the Curtis Institute
of Music, studying with composers Richard Danielpour and Jennifer Higdon.
Zhou Tian's music has been performed by the New Fromm String Quartet,
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Shanghai Conservatory Ensemble, Curtis Symphony
Orchestra and Guangzhou Symphony. His recent premieres include Iris
and Butterfly, performed by Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by
Steven Mackey. Zhou has won awards including first prize in the Kathryn
Thomas International Composition Competition, Julius Hemphill International
Composers Awards, Presser Foundation Music Award, ASCAP/Morton Gould Young
Composer Awards and a composition fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival,
where he studied with composer Bright Sheng. As a pianist, recently performed
his Three Songs (commissioned by Curtis Institute) with soprano
Rachael Garcia in the opening night concert of the Chamber Music Now!
series. His work has generated the expectation of a "melodic, fun
listen," from a composer with "great promise."
 Daniel
Visconti: Graffiti
Daniel
Visconti is currently pursuing a masters of music at the Cleveland
Institute of Music, where he studies with Margaret Brouwer, Orianna
Webb, and Zhou Long. Raised in Chicago, he came to music at a late
age, starting the violin at age 14 and beginning to compose three
years later. Mr. Visconti's compositions have won awards and
scholarships, including a BMI Student Composer Award, two consecutive
first-place awards in the ASCAP/Victor Herbert Young Composers
Competition, the NFMC Devora Nadworney Award for Vocal Writing, the
2004 BMI Foundation Boudleaux Bryant Commission, first place in the
2004 NACUSA Young Composers Competition, and a 2005 Copland House
residency. His recent commissions include works for the Moore/Better
Duo, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of
Arts's AKI Festival, and Antares. He is currently working on a
commission from the Kronos Quartet as a result of being named winner
of the most recent Kronos Under 30 Project. Currently, he teaches
composition, theory, and popular songwriting through the Cleveland
Institute of Music. Mr. Visconti's work has been recognized for its
"youthful, inventive energy," as well as its
"exciting" and "risky" effectiveness.
 Stefan
Weisman: The Bird Happened
Stefan
Weisman is a graduate of Bard College and Yale University, and is
currently a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University. His principal
composition instructors include David Lang, Joan Tower, Martin
Bresnick, Jacob Druckman, Steven Mackey, and Paul Lansky. Among his
commissions are works for Sequitur, the Minimum Security Composers
Collective, the Gay Gotham Choir with the Cosmopolitan Symphony
Orchestra, the Battell Chapel Choir, and the Oregon Bach Festival
Composers' Symposium. His works have also been performed by the
Miró String Quartet, So Percussion, the Locrian Chamber
Players, the New Millennium Ensemble, the Yesaroun' Duo, the Da Capo
Chamber Players, pianist Lisa Moore, and the Hudson Valley
Philharmonic. Mr. Weisman has received fellowships and residencies
from the MacDowell Colony, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Blue
Mountain Center, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. His
choral work Light, light, light, light, light was the
first-prize winner in the Roger Wagner Center's Choral Composition
Competition, and his work From Frankenstein recently won the
Chicago Ensemble's Discover America Competition, and will be
performed in Chicago and Memphis in 2005. Mr. Weisman has been
described as having a "personal vision," with his work
displaying "a very nice evanescence."
 Gregg
Wramage: Remember Death (The Hemingway Summer)
Gregg
Wramage is currently a doctoral candidate at the City University of
New York Graduate Center. He received his BM and MM from the
Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Richard Danielpour.
He has also studied with David Liptak, Steven Stucky, Joan Tower,
Michael Daugherty, Christopher Rouse, David Del Tredici and George
Tsontakis. Mr. Wramage's work has been premiered by eighth blackbird,
Pentasonic Winds, Aspen Sinfonia, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival,
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and Friends and Enemies of New Music in
New York. He is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Young Composer
Award and has also been awarded the New Music for Young Ensembles
Josef Alexander Award, as well as residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell
Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Atlantic
Center for the Arts. He also received scholarships from the Bowdoin,
Brevard, Aspen, and Norfolk music festivals and the American
Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. In 2002, Mr. Wramage received
the Michigan Music Teacher's Association Commission, and in October
of that year, his song cycle, Mourning Songs, was premiered at
the MMTA annual conference. Mr. Wramage was also one of three
composers selected to participate in the Cabrillo Festival of
Contemporary Music Young Composer's Workshop. Mr. Wramage's work has
been described as "on the edge," with "interesting,
poetic sounds."
Reservations
and Info
The Underwood
New Music Reading Sessions take place on Thursday, May 5, 2005 and Friday,
May 6, 2005 from 9:30 am to 1:00 pm in Roone Arlege Auditorium at Alfred
Lerner Hall at Columbia University, 115th Street and Broadway in Manhattan.
The Readings are open to the public at no charge, but reservations are
suggested. For reservations or further information, please call (212)
977-8495, ext. 260 or email
ACO.
Lead
support for the Underwood New Music Readings comes from Mr. Paul
Underwood, the Fromm Music Foundation and The Helen F. Whitaker Fund.
ACO's emerging composers programs are made possible with public funds
from the National Endowment for the Arts and with the support of
Jerome Foundation and the Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust.
Major
support of American Composers Orchestra is provided by Alliance
Capital Management, Amphion Foundation, Anncox Foundation, The Argosy
Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, Arlington Associates, ASCAP, The
Bagby Foundation for the Musical Arts, Bodman Foundation, Booth
Ferris Foundation, BMI, BMI Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable
Trust, Citigroup Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Consolidated
Edison, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, FerrellCalvillo
Communications, Fidelity Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation, Ann and
Gordon Getty Foundation, The Estate of Francis Goelet, Horace W.
Goldsmith Foundation, The Irving Harris Foundation, The Hauser
Foundation, Henfield Foundation, Victor Herbert Foundation, Christian
Humann Foundation, Jephson Educational Trust, John and Evelyn Kossak
Foundation, Helen Sperry Lea Foundation, Meet the Composer, The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, JPMorganChase Foundation, Neil Family
Fund, The New York Community Trust, The New York Times Co.
Foundation, Bay and Paul Foundation, The Rodgers Family Foundation,
Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Susan and Ford
Schumann Foundation, Smith Barney, the Virgil Thomson Foundation,
Oakleigh L. Thorne Foundation, Paul Underwood Charitable Trust and
The Watchdog and Sonata Charitable Trust. ACO programs are also made
possible with public funds the New York State Council on the Arts, a
state agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. |
