SSMF until next time!

And just like that, the Sewanee Summer Music Festival came to an end. What an intense four weeks! Composers thrived with 20 premieres, an orchestral reading session, a full week of scoring for media and much more. WOW, what a group of bright, curious creative artists, I can’t wait to know more about your upcoming endeavors. Endless thanks to John Kilkenny (and all the SSMF staff) for your constant support of new music, to the amazing Gene Moon and Mathew Ward for making the reading sessions possible, to Vinny Oppido for sharing your expertise with us, and to Aaron Hunt for helping co-pilot this project. Until the next time!

* some pics by Jennifer Szeto

Ciudad Vieja (string trio) @ the AVS Festival

Ciudad Vieja (for string trio) was performed on June 3rd at the 2022 AVS Festival & 47 IVS Congress in Columbus GA. The trio involved string players of international renown: Lin He (violin), Hillary Herndon (viola) and Wesley Baldwin (cello). 

Program note: in South America, the “Ciudad Vieja” is an emblem that today represents the neighborhood of a city where tradition and modernity coexist. The sounds of the string trio are folkloric sonorities arbitrarily metamorphosed with the help of an academic lens. Tangos, milongas, candombes are all there, all present all absent.

Get the score here!

Amy I-Lin Cheng and Steve Beck to premiere “The Plus One” on 7-2 @ the SSMF

Pianists Amy I-Lin Cheng and Steve Beck to premiere “The Plus One” on 7-2 at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival

Program note: The Plus One is a sum of two pieces for solo piano that when played together create something greater than the sum of its parts. This work can be performed as a duo or as a three-movement piece: Piano I (solo), Piano II (solo) and Piano I + Piano II (duo).

Born in Taiwan, pianist Amy I-Lin Cheng has appeared on the concert stage in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Taiwan, Brazil, Canada, France, and Israel. She has been described by the New York Concert Review as a pianist whose “control of the keyboard is complete, technique easy and relaxed, with a wide range of touch.” Late pianist Claude Frank described her as “a brilliant, sensitive, imaginative and most beguiling pianist.” Cheng’s live performances have been heard on WGBH, KCSC, WHYY, La Radio Suisse Romande-Espace 2, and NPR. She has presented recitals at venues such as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, and National Concert Hall in Taipei, as well as on concert series across the United States. Cheng made her Boston concerto debut at the age of 17 at Jordan Hall under the direction of Benjamin Zhander. Since then, she has appeared as a concerto soloist with the ‘Musica Viva’ Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Taichung Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Pines in Texas, University Symphony Orchestra (University of Michigan), and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, among others. In 2015, she gave the North American premiere of the Kaprálová Piano Concerto at the Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor as part of the week-long Kaprálová Festival, hosted by the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. In Summer 2017, she gave the U.S. premiere of Improvisation on Misirlou, a single-movement piano concerto by Israeli-American composer Daniel Rein, with the Sewanee Symphony Orchestra during the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. In 2019, she gave the world premiere of the Double Concerto for YangQin and Piano by Taiwanese composer Chun-Da Huang, collaborating with the National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan (NCO), at the University of Michigan. Her recording of the Kaprálová piano concert was released in Summer 2021 on the Naxos label, with outstanding reviews.

In the 2019–20 season pianist Steven Beck performs Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals with the New York Philharmonic, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. He also reprised his annual Christmas Eve performance of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Bargemusic, the Brooklyn-based venue that has become a New York institution.

Mr. Beck is an experienced performer of new music. He has worked with composers including Carter, Boulez, Dutilleux, Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, Perle, and Fred Lerdahl, and performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble. Mr. Beck is a member of The Knights, Talea Ensemble, and Da Capo Chamber Players. He is also a member of Quattro Mani, a piano duo specializing in contemporary music. He has appeared as an orchestral keyboard player with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, and many others.

Steven Beck’s discography includes Lieberson’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (for Bridge Records) and Carter’s Double Concerto (Albany Records). He is a Steinway Artist.

The ORSO performs “BLINK” on May 7th

The Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra will perform “BLINK” in the last concert of their 21-22 season under the direction of Mtro. Dan Allcott. Season Celebrations at the Historic Grove Theater in Oak Ridge. 

Program note

BLINK celebrates the uniqueness of the synchronous fireflies, a singular species of fireflies that lives in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park whose individuals synchronize their flashing patterns.

In the piece, the magic of the event is captured in the form of a journey that starts and ends in the National Park, going through imaginary worlds that exist inside of the smokies. The glide through surreal underwater worlds, giant caves and Daliesque cities ends where it started, in the park, with the synchronous fireflies in full splendor.

BLINK was commissioned by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra for the 2021 Young People’s Concert: “Nature at Night: A Smokies Symphony”.

Duo Montagnard performs “Urban Design”

“Urban Design” uses a simple chromatic idea to intertwine the discourse of the guitar and the saxophone. For moments improvisatory, the interplay of the instruments is structured around a rhythmic structure inspired by Ligeti’s “L’escalier du diable.”

Duo Montagnard Joseph Murphy, saxophone Matthew Slotkin, guitar

Oak Ridge Chorus: The Journey

On March 4th the Oak Ridge Chorus under the direction of Brenda Luggie will premiere my piece “What is home” for mixed choir and jazz trio.

Program notes:

What is Home poses a question about identity and personal roots. For many, home is not simply the house or the city that you were born, it is a complex idea that changes with time. Our childhood memories and multisensorial experiences of our upbringing make our “home”; people, places, foods, sounds, also identify our place in the world. A sound, a simple scent can place us there.

The piece has the form of a tune for mixed choir with jazz trio and transits the fine line between what’s familiar and what’s not.

More information and tickets:

https://orcma.org/thejourney

The journey is different for each of us as humans, but there are common themes. Hear the Oak Ridge Chorus sing about our journeys as humans in this uplifting concert. A special commissioned piece by composer Jorge Variego will be announced. The concert is part of our Penny4Arts programming offering FREE attendance for youths 18 and under.

Event Supported By

Oak Ridge Civic Music Association (ORCMA)
(865) 483-5569
office@orcma.org

Composing with Constraints is OUT!

Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition provides an innovative approach to the instruction of the craft of music composition based on tailored exercises to help students develop their creativity. When composition is condensed to a series of logical steps, it can then be taught and learned more efficiently. With this approach in mind, Jorge Variego offers a variety of practical exercises to help student composers and instructors to create tangible work plans with high expectations and successful outcomes.

Each chapter starts with a brief note on terminology and general recommendations for the instructor. The first five chapters offer a variety of exercises that range from analysis and style imitation to the use of probabilities. The chapter about pre-compositional approaches offers original techniques that a student composer can implement in order to start a new work. Based on lateral thinking, the last section of the book fosters creative connections with other disciplines such as math, visual arts, and architectural acoustics.

The one hundred exercises contain a unique set of guidelines and constraints that place students in a specific compositional framework. These compositional boundaries encourage students to produce creative work within a given structure. Using the methodologies in this book, students will be able to create their own outlines for their compositions, making intelligent and educated compositional choices that balance reasoning with intuition.

Get your copy:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/composing-with-constraints-9780190057244?cc=us&lang=en&#

https://www.amazon.com/Composing-Constraints-Practical-Exercises-Composition/dp/0190057246/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=composing+with+constraints&qid=1634257587&sr=8-1

Hispanic Heritage Month on September 23

Schedule

9 AM – Jacky Avila. El Espectáculo on Stage and Screen: Evocations of the teatro de revistas in cine mexicano. SU 169 – Tiered Room.

10 AM – Maria Fernanda Castillo. LAMI: Proactiveness in promoting Latin American music and heritage. SU 169 – Tiered Room.

11 AM – Juan Luis Jurat-Fuentes. A brief history of Argentine tango music and dance. SU 169 – Tiered Room.

Noon – Donato Juarez & Julieta Julieta. Argentine Tango Master class at the SU Auditorium. Come dance!

4 PM – Live concert. New Music from el Rio de la Plata. Featuring the Domino Ensemble (Jorge Variego – saxophone and compositions, Matías Pedrana – bandoneon, Jon Hamar – double bass, Keith Brown – drums) and dancers Julieta Julieta and Donato Juarez. SU Auditorium.