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Local Students and Composers Collaborate:
Composers in the Schools to Debut New Music 2012 Brian M. Israel Prize Winners announced Local Students and Composers Collaborate: Local students from the Fraser School and Cathedral Academy of Pompei will present original musical compositions as part of the Society for New Music's Billie Burdick Composers in the Schools program over the next few weeks. The first performance is on Wednesday, May 22 at 7:00 pm at Our Lady of Pompei / St. Peter Church in Syracuse, and the second is on Friday, June 7 at 4:00 pm during the Taste of Syracuse festival in downtown Syracuse on the McDonal's Family Fun Zone stage. The Fraser School performance is at 10:00 am on June 6 in the school's auditorium. All showcases are free and open to the public. The student performances will include a piece entitled, Miniatures, composed by the Cathedral Academy of Pompei students in collaboration with composer Nikolas Allen Jeleniauskas, who earned his M.M. from Indiana University. Approximately 40 students have spent the past few months exploring musical possibilities of traditional and nontraditional instruments, such as pots, pans and other found objects. "I've been working to expand their minds as to what music can be, and trying to help them organize these ideas into patterns or an overall shape for a new piece of music," said Jeleniauskas. "We started exploring color, rhythm, gesture and melody, all for the purpose of writing a piece." For their performances the Cathedral Academy students will be assisted by their teachers Alina Plourde (oboe), Jenni Foutch (flute), Victoria King (trumpet), Nikolas Jeleniauskas (piano), with Blagomira Lipari conducting. Joining them on behalf of the Society will be Eric Gustafson (viola), Walden Bass (cello), and Rob Bridge (percussion). Students from The Fraser School have been working with composer Paul Winchester and the Fraser K-8 music teachers Jack Jones and Sandy Picciotto. Mr. Winchester recently earned his M.M. in composition from Syracuse University. At Fraser School the teachers had the students write poems, then held a competition to select a couple for setting to music. Mr. Winchester worked with a select group of students exploring ways in which the poetry could be set. The resulting works for chorus and band are entitled Celebration and Growth. Over the past 25 years, the Society for New Music has built a successful track record with its composers-in-residence programs at local elementary and secondary schools. According to Society founder, Neva Pilgrim, the success of last summer's opera in the Cazenovia Counterpoint festival inspired this year's programs at Cathedral Academy and Fraser. "The young students who worked on this opera became friends with their professional counterparts, becoming inspired by them and modeling their work ethic," Pilgrim said. "As a result, the students' performance in the opera was of a very high caliber." [top]2012 Brian M. Israel Prize Winners announced The Society for New Music proudly announces the winners of the Brian M. Israel Prize for 2012. The $750 Society prize went to Ted Goldman for his work entitled digidigidha. The $250 NY Federation of Music Clubs prize went to Joseph Nathaniel Rubinstein for Shebesh Variations. The winners also receive a performance during the Society's 2012-13 series. Honorable mentions go to: Justin Paul Jaramillo, Brandon Luis Ridenour, Haralabos Stafylakis, and Amit Menahem Gilutz. Ted Goldman began his undergraduate studies in physics, and graduated summa cum laude with honors in music from Columbia University. He received his MM and DMA in composition from Juilliard and is currently an Assistant Professor at Eastman. Goldman's music has received many performances in the U.S. and abroad. Joseph Rubinstein received his BA in Music from Columbia University in 2008 and is currently a graduate student in music composition at Juilliard. He has been awarded many other prizes and recognition, including a choral commission from the Park Avenue Synagogue. The Brian M. Israel 2012 winners were selected from scores submitted by composers from throughout New York State. Those composers, all under 30 years of age, represented New York City, Rochester, Owego, Cicero, Utica, Sag Harbor, Ithaca, Fayetteville, Geneva, Buffalo, Huntington, and Poughkeepsie. The Society's three-judge panel was comprised of Heather Buchman, conductor; Samuel Pellman, composer; and Sar Strong, pianist, all on the Hamilton College faculty. [top] |
composer newsAndy Akiho's New York Philharmonic commissioned work was premiered in December 2012 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space in New York City. He was also one of the 13 recipients of a Chamber Music America commission. Former SNM board member Nicholas Anthony Ascioti had his latest choral work, Sacred Victim, premiered by the Aoede Consort. Sacred Victim is a five movement, a cappella piece with a text by Richard H. Hibbert based on passages from the Book of Isaiah. The well-attended concert took place at St. Jude the Apostle Church in Wynantskill, NY. Nicholas's piano trio, Adirondack Meditation, is featured on MOTO PERPETUO released on the PARMA Record label. Adirondack Meditation has received many performances including one coming up in October 2013 at the Weill Recital Hall in New York City. Nick, a Syracuse native, appreciates the early performance by SNM on a Cazenovia Counterpoint concert that helped get the ball rolling on performances of this work, a performance that was subsequently aired on Fresh Ink. Innova has released Ion Sound Project, the fourth recording dedicated to the music of composer Jeremy Beck. The recording takes its title from the Pittsburgh-based chamber group of the same name, with whom Beck has collaborated since 2007. Beck's music is unabashedly tonal, rhythmically intricate, and makes nods to the past while sitting squarely in the present. He is a prizewinner in Boston Chamber Orchestra's 2011-2012 Commission Competition and the 2012 Aliénor International Harpsichord Composition Competition. Chris Cresswell's Three Nocturnes was performed in November 2012 at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, and pianist Sar Shalom Strong will be performing the pieces in Utica and Hamilton, NY, and Concord, NH in February and March 2013. Chris was selected to write a new work for the Hot Air Music Festival in San Francisco, CA. hesheyoumeus for amplified soprano and electronics, will be premiered in March 2013 at the San Francisco Conservatory. He will also be premiering a new song cycle at the Tenri Cultural Institute in June 2013 with Phillip Cheah and Trudy Chan. The Jerome Foundation, via the American Composers Forum, has awarded a commission to Cresswell for his project with tenor Jon English, tentatively titled Stone Seeking Warmth, for premiere in fall 2013. William Duckworth, who worked with the Society for two years when he was in Syracuse, died on Sept. 13, 2012 at age 69. He was best known for his choral works, piano cycles and, in recent years, interactive electronic projects using the Internet. He was a terrific person and wonderful composer, and added so much to the Society and to the community at large. Daniel S. Godfrey had his Four Dawns over Bard's Isle, a concerto for saxophone and 15 players, premiered at Bowling Green State's New Music Festival. He is completing a string quintet for the Cassatt Quintet (Chamber Music America commission), and working on a piano concerto for Gloria Cheng and the Minnesota Orchestra for November 2014. Twelve compositions of Sydney Hodkinson will fill Kentucky stages for the University of Louisville's annual New Music Festival. Dr. Hodkinson is artist-in-residence for the Festival held in Louisville in November 2012. The 12 works to be performed range from solo and chamber music offerings, two pieces for choral ensembles, to large compositions for the University's Wind Band and Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he will give a Convocation Address, hold composition seminars, master classes, and coach many rehearsals. Karel Husa's 90th birthday inspired the release of a special edition CD of his wind symphonies, released by North Texas Wind Symphony. The CD and composer received a glowing review in WASBE World. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen conductor, also re-released a DG concert CD "Shadow of Stalin: Ligeti, Husa & Lutoslawski," that includes Husa's most famous work, Music for Prague 1968. The South African pianist Justin Krawitz continues to tour throughout Europe, the U.S. and Africa with Husa's piano music. The Peabody Wind Ensemble at Peabody is performing Marc Mellits' Requiem For a Hummingbird two times in the fall of 2012 and also recording it for Naxos. Syracuse native Stephen Montague's version of John Cage's "Dinner Party", part of Cage's MusiCircus, was performed several times--in the UK, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Columbia, Texas, Tokyo, Syracuse--during Cage's 100th birthday anniversary year. There will be two concerts of Montague's music in London in March 2013. His new harpsichord concerto, Carman Moore's Alleluia from his Mass for the 21st Century was performed in November 2012 at the United Nations. He conducted the Alleluia Youth Choir in this performance, joined by Senegalese griot Mor Dior Bamba. Eric Nathan will be one of the composers-in-residence at the Chelsea Music Festival in New York City in June 2013. The two-week festival explores the interplay of art forms -- in particular music, and the visual and culinary arts. Later that month, he will be a composer-in-residence at Chamber Music Campania, a cross-disciplinary chamber music festival in southern Italy. The Momenta Quartet and Eric have received a Jerome Foundation Fund for New Music commission from the American Composers Forum for a major new work for string quartet that the quartet will premiere in New York City in June 2013. In November, Eric's chamber work Walls of Light received the ISCM-IAMIC Young Composers Award at the 2012 World Music Days in Belgium. This commissioning award includes a commission for a new work to be premiered at the 2013 World Music Days, taking place in Vienna, Kosice and Bratislava. In September 2012, Boston's Collage New Music gave a stellar performance of the same piece. The performance received great reviews in NewMusicBox and the Boston Music Intelligencer. In October 2012, the Mirari Brass Quintet released their debut CD featuring Eric's composition, Spires. The Mirari Brass will be performing the work in May 2013 on their New York tour. The St. Petersburg (Russia) Chamber Philharmonic has commissioned a new 10-minute chamber orchestra work to premiere in May 2013, conducted by Jeffrey Meyer. The world premiere of Toying for solo trumpet, performed by Hugo Moreno at Le Train Bleu's concert, "Toy Stories," at DROM in New York City, takes place in February 2013. Nicholas S. Omiccioli was awarded the 2013 MACRO Composition Award through Truman State University for reach for string quartet. The same work was also the winner of the Region VI SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Competition, runner-up in 2013 Red Note Composition Competition, second place in the 8th Annual Chengdu (China) Sun River Competition, and finalist in the Kanter/Mivos String Quartet Competition. Earlier this year, reach was one of six works nominated to represent the U.S. at the 2014 ISCM World Music Days Festival in Warsaw. The work was performed in February 2013 by the Jasper Quartet in Naples, FL, and at UC Davis by the Calder Quartet. Nicholas was also commissioned to write a second string quartet by the Third Angle Ensemble in Portland, OR. Congratulations to Kevin Puts, the winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his opera Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts. Former Israel winner Chris Rogerson, along with four friends from Yale, has been working on launching Kettle Corn New Music! over the last year. The inaugural concert takes place in March 2013. In May 2013, Josef Spacek performs Rogerson's Lullaby: no bad dreams for violin and piano in Prague and Vienna. Rogerson was one of four composers commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta to write a piece reflecting on the city's famous architecture. His work is based on Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavilion and will be premiered in June. Chris is also looking forward to writing for the Kansas City Symphony, Orchestra 2001, and the Attacca Quartet. Alan Gilbert led the New York Philharmonic in the world premiere of Christopher Rouse's new orchestral work Prospero's Rooms in April 2013 at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. The Philharmonic then took this work on a European tour in May that included stops in Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. As he continued his appointment as Composer-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic during the 2012-13 season, Rouse helped develop and program the Philharmonic's new music series CONTACT! and has also had multiple performances of his works programmed with the Philharmonic during the season. The New York Philharmonic will bring Rouse's mammoth Requiem to Carnegie Hall in 2014, participating in the Spring for Music Festival. Edward Ruchalski's studio recording "The Sound Collector" was presented at the Dudley House, Harvard University, as part of the East Coast Mix presented by 60 x 60 in March 2013. Other composers who made the cut include Joel Chadabe, Douglas DaSilva, Robert Dick, Joan La Barbara, Judith Shatin, Laurie Spiegel, and Bert Van Herck. 60 x 60 presents hour-long concerts of 60 works by 60 composers (all works are 60 seconds or less). The Santa Fe Opera will present the American premiere of Huang Ruo's Dr. Sun Yat-Sen in the 2014 Summer Festival season. The opera, which commemorates the centennial of Chinas 1911 Revolution, was commissioned by Opera Hong Kong and given its world premiere there in October 2011. Huang Ruo's viola concerto In Other Words: Concerto for Vocalized Violist and Chamber Ensemble was recently given its world premiere by the Camerata Pacifica featuring Richard Yongjae O'Neill as the vocalizing soloist. Adam Schoenberg's score for Graceland, a new Filipino thriller for which Adam and Steven Schoenberg wrote the score, had its nationwide theatrical release in May 2013. Adam is also a part of the American Symphony Project which seeks 50 orchestras in 50 different states and US territories to perform Adam's American Symphony. Participating orchestras so far are Aspen, Atlanta, Kansas City, Lexington (KY), Shreveport, and Tucson. Adam's Swoosh received its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall in May 2013, with Piotr Szewczyk, violin. Also in May, La Luna Azul was performed by the Kansas City Symphony with Michael Stern conducting; Nadia Shpachenko performed Picture Etudes at Cal Poly Pomona, to be recorded later in the summer; and Finding Rothko received its New York premiere by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra with Tito Muñoz conducting The Detroit Symphony gave the world premiere of Roberto Sierra's Navidad en la Montaña, featuring soprano Heidi Grant Murphy, in December 2012. Leonard Slatkin conducted this performance, which was streamed live. Steven Stucky premieres this season include a work commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, for the ACDA National Conference in Dallas (March 2013) and The Stars and the Roses (March 2013), for the Berkeley Symphony where he is Music Alive Composer in Residence. His Radiant Light was aired internationally on Symphony Cast by the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Esa Pekka Salonen conducting, at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn in October 2012. In addition, Stucky will be in residence at the Curtis Institute in 2013; and, as an expert on the music of Lutoslawski, he is series consultant for Woven Words Lutoslawski Centennial Celebration with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Stucky also serves as Chair of the Performing Arts Admissions Committee for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, New Music USA; and Trustee for the American Academy in Rome. Augusta Read Thomas had her Earth Echoes premiered by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in October 2012 at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. Thomas, along with Steven Stucky and Richard Wernick, are among the 25 composers to have their works premiered by the New York Virtuoso Singers during the 2012-13 season, the ensemble's 25th season. |
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