Archive
Eleanore Oppenheim (DMA Candidate, Double Bass) Awarded CAP Recording Grant
https://www.newmusicusa.org/blog/composer-assistance-program-for-recording-awardees/
New Music USA’s third annual round of the Composer Assistance Program for Recording proved to be our most competitive round of applications to date, with a 140% increase in applicants from 2011, requesting over $2 million dollars in support. Our peer panelists had their work cut out for them, but after weeks of remote review and an intensive 2-day, in-person meeting here at our offices in New York City, we were left with an immensely talented final group of composers, performers, and artists who represent a tremendously diverse range of musical and aesthetic styles. Our final mix of awardees includes DVDs, video companions, CDs, digital releases, and works incorporating jazz, voice, multi-media, opera, film, string quartet, Partch instruments, thermin and shakuhachi, juststrokerods and zoomoozophone, instructional compositional videos for percussion, works for solo bass and electronics, among many other creative compositions and performances, all listed below.
Without giving too much away, we think it’s safe to say that the 2012 Composer Assistance Program for Recording awardees are some of the more unique – and extraordinary – artists that define and pioneer our field today.
“Home” is a self-released, ongoing commissioning project founded by bassist Eleonore Oppenheim in 2006, aiming to inspire talented emerging composers to create exciting repertoire for the upright bass. The works featured on this album are of composers Florent Ghys, Wil Smith, Angélica Negrón and Jenny Olivia Johnson. These composers offer a range of compelling techniques, unique sonic textures, and genre-defying idioms for upright bass. Johnson places the instrument in a rock setting, adding guitar effects to create a sound world akin to noise rock; while Negrón utilizes the performer’s voice, a gamelan-like electronics track, and the body of the bass as a resonating chamber for music box. Ghys, a bassist himself, creates beautifully interlocking melodic lines by layering sounds of the instrument with speech samples and live singing. Smith includes distorted, manipulated electronic samples of the bass while challenging the instrument’s extended percussive capabilities. The CD is virtuosic without sounding difficult, stylistically varied, but with a cohesiveness of aesthetic: to explore and experiment with the boundaries of the physical instrument, the player, and the genre associated with each work. Oppenheim will release the album in April of 2013.
David Bernard (B.A., 1986, M.M. 1987, Orchestral Conducting) Completes Residency With China Conservatory Orchestra
In November, David Bernard (B.A., 1986, M.M. 1987, Orchestral Conducting) traveled to Beijing at the invitation of the China Conservatory for a weeklong residency of chamber music coaching and conducting the China Conservatory Orchestra. The series of coaching, rehearsals and readings with the orchestra culminated in a performance of the student groups with the China Conservatory Orchestra led by Bernard.
The League of American Orchestras published a blog of Bernard’s residency at the China Conservatory on Symphony Now here: http://www.symphonynow.org/2012/12/china-odyssey-2/
Composer Max Giteck Duykers (Ph.D. 2012) Wins ISU’s Music Now Competition
Stony Brook Alum Composer Max Giteck Duykers’ String Quartet Glass Blue Cleft was selected as a winner of the Music Now Competition, and will be featured at ISU’s 46th Annual Festival of Contemporary Music, with guest composer Christopher Theofanidis. Cellist and festival chair Kurt Fowler will lead a faculty performance.
http://www.indstate.edu/music/cmf/contests/results/results.html
Max Giteck Duykers is a composer whose work is dedicated to unusual beauty. His music has been performed throughout the United States, in Italy, England, and Romania. He was recently commissioned by the Jerome Foundationto compose The Apricots of Andujar for his father, tenor John Duykers, electro-acoustic percussionist Joel Davel, and pierrot sextet. This is a chamber opera which is being developed with acclaimed filmmaker and playwright Philip Gotanda and veteran director Melissa Weaver. The piece was workshopped with Birds on a Wire at Western Michigan University in March 2012, and will be premiered by Fear No Music in Oregon and by Earplay in San Francisco and Petaluma in the 2013-2014 season.
Duykers has also received commissions to compose music for over 35 theatrical, dance, film, and multimedia projects in the New York City area, and with the theatre group Prototype he was an artist-in-residence at HERE Arts Center in 2002-2004. In 2000-2001 he worked for Philip Glass’ The Looking Glass Studios and Dunvagen Music Publishers, where he did studio recording, Pro-Tools post-production, music sequencing, music copying and music editing for the Philip Glass Ensemble, film scoring projects, and operatic works. He holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory where he studied composition with Randy Coleman, and he has just finished his PhD at Stony Brook University where he studied with Sheila Silver. At Stony Brook he also taught music theory, musicianship and private composition to music majors. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Rebecca and sons Quinlan and Liev.
For for information, visit his website at www.jealousgods.com.
Iryna Krechkovsky (DMA Candidate) Wins Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank Competition
http://instrumentbank.canadacouncil.ca/en/Press-Release/2012/CommuniqueSep26.aspx
Eighteen classical musicians are excited to have the opportunity to play an instrument from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank for the next three years.
Since last Sunday, 28 finalists have been auditioning at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto for a 3-year loan of one of 17 fine-stringed instruments and one cello bow created between 1689 and 1929. The winner’s placement in the competition determined the order in which they chose their instrument—the most coveted being the Stradivari violins and cello along with the Guarneri del Gesù, valued in the millions.
Download photos of winners, and biographical notes and instrument descriptions in the eletronic press kit.
“These artists will travel the globe bringing to life the Instrument Bank’s violins and cellos for countless audience members,” said Canada Council Director and CEO Robert Sirman. “Over the next three years, they will develop a very personal relationship with their instrument while sharing with the world their love of music, their passion for performance and their exceptional talents.”
Celebrated for her tone, emotionality and precision, violinist Iryna Krechkovsky has been featured at such venues as Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, Town Hall in Seattle, and The American Church in Paris, France. She was a top prize winner at the Sorantin International Competition (San Angelo, Texas), the Canadian Music Competition and the Kocian International Violin Competition (Czech Republic). She has performed as soloist with the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra (Ohio), the Toronto Sinfonietta, and the Lviv National Symphony Orchestra (Ukraine).
As a distinguished chamber artist, she has been invited to perform at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the Stony Brook Faculty Recital Series (New York) and The Banff Centre for the Arts. Iryna Krechkovsky is currently completing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University in New York.
She was born in Ukraine, raised in Toronto and is currently based in Irvine, California.
Stony Brook Students Among Winners of the Westfield Harpsichord Competition
Second Prize – Julia Ageyeva Hess (DMA, 2011)
Third Prize – Stephen Gamboa (DMA Candidate)
Semifinalists also included DMA candidates Wing Yin Wong and Elena Zamolodchikova.
http://westfield.org/ckfinder/userfiles/images/Jury&Finalists2CVSs5in.jpg
Mario Gotoh (DMA, 2012) Wins SUNY Arts Honor
Stony Brook University alumnus Mario Gotoh (Doctor of Musical Arts ’12) received the 2012 Patricia Kerr Ross Award for exemplary student achievement in the arts. The award is given annually by SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher to students who have demonstrated excellence, originality and promise in the arts. It is accompanied with $1,000 and is intended as a bridge between SUNY study in the arts and entry into a professional arts career.
“The Patricia K. Ross Award allows SUNY to honor some of our most creative arts students and provide them with financial assistance to support their ongoing work,” said Chancellor Zimpher. “Congratulations to Mario Gotoh for winning such a prestigious and competitive award.”
Gotoh, a dual-degree recipient with a DMA in violin and viola performance, was nominated for the award by two professors, Nicholas Cords, viola artist-in-residence at Stony Brook University; and Philip Setzer, professor of violin and chamber music at Stony Brook University and a founding member of the renowned Emerson String Quartet.
“It is very unusual to work with a student who does many different things in music and does all of them equally and very well,” said Setzer. “Mario Gotoh is just such a musician. She is an excellent violinist and violist, strong and exciting soloist, intelligent and sensitive chamber musician and an excellent teacher and citizen of the University. She is most deserving of this prestigious award.”
 |
| Mario Gotoh is pictured performing the Walton Viola Concerto with the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra at the Staller Center for the Arts. |
“I have been very fortunate to work with Philip Setzer and Nicholas Cords, who have nurtured my development as a musician and in becoming my own teacher. I’m grateful to receive the Patricia Kerr Ross Award to support my work and life as a violinist and violist,” said Gotoh. “The invaluable support from the faculty throughout my studies in the newly-proposed dual-degree doctorate in violin and viola performance attests to the open-minded environment and broad outlook of the Stony Brook University Music Department.”
About Mario Gotoh
Mario Gotoh has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia, with performances being broadcast worldwide on NPR, PBS Television, TF1 French Television and more. She has served as concertmaster, principal violin, and principal viola in orchestras at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff Centre for the Arts, Music Academy of the West, Stony Brook University and the Eastman School of Music. She performs with several ensembles in New York City, including the Knights and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She currently serves as a viola instructor at Suffolk County Community College, a violin teacher at the Bloomingdale School of Music and the violin and chamber music teacher at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Camp. She received her BM and Performance Certificate at the Eastman School of Music and her MM at Stony Brook University.
About the Patricia Kerr Ross Award
Patricia Kerr Ross dedicated 30 years of service to SUNY, where she began in 1969 as assistant to the University Dean in the University-wide Program in the Arts. Ross directed the University-wide Programs in the Arts from 1971-91, and over the years, was also a board and committee member, panelist and speaker for a variety of arts-related organizations in New York State. She was a founding board member of the Gallery Association of New York State in 1973 and the Association of SUNY Arts Presenters in 1982. Following her death in 1999, Ross’ $30,000 bequest created the Patricia Kerr Ross Award to benefit graduates in the arts by enhancing the outreach of the Thayer Fellowship program. Nearly 100 applications for the awards are received each year. The applications are evaluated by a jury panel of experts in the various arts disciplines. The finalists are then interviewed in person by the jury panel, and their work is reviewed during performances, readings, screenings, and exhibitions. At the end of this process, the jury panel determines the winners.
Three Stony Brook Students Join Ensemble ACJW
Twenty New Musicians Join The Academy, A Two-Year Fellowship Program Combining Performance, Education, Advocacy, and Leadership
A new class of twenty young professional musicians will join The Academy at the start of the 2012–2013 season. The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute, in partnership with the New York City Department of Education—is a two-year fellowship designed to prepare the world’s finest young musicians for careers that combine musical excellence with teaching, community engagement, advocacy, and leadership. It offers performance opportunities and residencies in New York City and beyond, partnerships within New York City public schools—with each fellow paired with an instrumental music teacher for a year-long performance residency—and intensive professional development.
As part of the critically acclaimed Ensemble ACJW, the musicians collectively perform a number of concerts throughout the season at Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and other venues throughout New York City, including a series at (Le) Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village with programs conceived by the fellows themselves. Some program highlights of Ensemble ACJW’s six Carnegie Hall concerts this season include Zankel Hall programs led by early music specialist and artistic director of The English Concert Harry Bicket and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director Robert Spano. Mr. Bicket conducts the musicians in works by Bach, Gluck, and Rebel, with soprano Lucy Crowe as guest soloist; Mr. Spano leads the group in Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles… with guest pianist Juho Pohjonen. Other music to be heard on Ensemble ACJW programs in the new season ranges from Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, and Schubert to premieres of new works by Samuel Carl Adams and Missy Mazzoli, commissioned by Carnegie Hall.
The Academy’s in-school residency represents one of the largest in-depth collaborations between a cultural institution and New York City public schools. Each fellow is partnered with a local public school for a performance residency that totals 25 days over the course of the year. Fellows bring mastery of their instruments as well as a professional performer’s perspective to music classrooms in all five boroughs of New York City. They team up with each school’s instrumental music teacher to build students’ musical skills through a tailored and creative approach, depending on the school’s needs. Fellows also create, develop, and perform in interactive ensemble concerts with Academy colleagues in each of the ensemble members’ schools.
Created in 2007 by Carnegie Hall’s Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson and The Juilliard School’s President Joseph D. Polisi, The Academy supports young professional musicians in developing careers as top-quality performers, innovative programmers, and dedicated teachers who are fully engaged with the communities in which they live and work.
Introducing the 2012–2013 Academy fellows:
Alexandria Le, Piano (Las Vegas, NV)
SUNY Stony Brook (Graduate)
The Eastman School (Undergraduate)
Clara Lyon, Violin (Boalsburg, PA)
SUNY Stony Brook (Graduate)
The Juilliard School (Undergraduate)
Tyler Wottrich, Piano (Roseville, MN)
SUNY Stony Brook (Graduate)
University of Minnesota (Undergraduate)
David Bernard (MM, 1988) Wins First Prize in the Orchestral Conducting Competition of the American Prize
NEW YORK, NY (September 7, 2012) – The American Prize Competition 2012 has announced that David Bernard, Music Director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony has been awarded FIRST PRIZE in Orchestral Conducting.
The American Prize is a series of non-profit national competitions providing cash awards, professional adjudication and regional, national and international recognition for the best recorded performances of music by ensembles and individuals each year in the United States. Mr. Bernard was chosen as the winner from a diverse group of conductors from across the country, on the basis of video recordings of their live orchestral performances. The panel of judges was led by Maestro David Katz, conductor and chief judge of The American Prize. Earlier this week, The American Prize Competition 2012 also awarded to Mr. Bernard and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony FIRST PRIZE in Orchestral Performance.
“Congratulations to Maestro Bernard on receiving this prestigious and well-deserved award,” says Andrea Berger, Administrative Director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony. “We are excited that his artistic leadership and musicianship are being recognized on a national level. We look forward to many more years of collaboration and exciting music making with him.”
“This is a terrific honor,” says Maestro Bernard. “These awards recognize the intense passion and commitment of musicians and ensembles that nourish and brighten our communities. With The American Prize, these efforts are given a national focus.”
The judges of The American Prize provided the following enthusiastic comments: ”A first rate conductor–a stunning, lovely performance–masterly in shaping, phrasing, technique and expressivity. Insightful and inspired, Maestro Bernard possesses the vision and skill to build beautifully shaped interpretations of the major repertoire. A significant talent.”
David Bernard has performed in more than 20 countries on four continents. His performances have been heard in many of New York City’s most prestigious venues, among them Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and The Riverside Church, on radio stations WNYC and WQXR and telecast on WCBS, and through an extensive catalog of recordings on iTunes, Naxos/ClassicsOnline, Amazon and Spotify. He and his work have been profiled inSymphony Magazine, PlaybillArts.com, The Juilliard Journal, The New YorkDaily News, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Bernard has led the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony on a nine-city tour of the People’s Republic of China and has appeared as a guest conductor with the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble and the Putnam Symphony.
Devoted to the music of our own time, David Bernard has presented world premières of scores by Bruce Adolphe, Chris Caswell, John Mackey and Ted Rosenthal. He has collaborated with distinguished soloists and artists including Carter Brey, David Chan, Catherine Cho, Pedro Díaz, Bart Feller, Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Ingolfsson, Christina Jennings, Jessica Lee, Jon Manasse, Todd Phillips and James Archie Worley.
Prior to the 1999 founding of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, David Bernard served as Music Director of the Stony Brook University Orchestra, the Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island and Theater Three. He also held the post of Assistant Conductor of both the Jacksonville and Stamford symphony orchestras. Bernard is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Stony Brook University, The Tanglewood Music Center and Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and studied with Sergiu Celibdache, David Lawton, Roger Nierenberg and Arthur Weisberg.
Yarn/Wire Reviewed in NYTimes
Yarn/Wire, a contemporary music group dedicated to the music for two pianists and two percussionists and composed of all Stony Brook University graduates, received praise for their inaugurated residency and recent concert at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn.
The group consists of pianists Laura Barger and Ning Yu, and percussionists Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg. The ensemble was formed at Stony Brook in 2005.
New York Times critic Steve Smith admired the eclectic percussion instruments and range of collaborative composers on the concert. You can read the full review here.
Stony Brook Alumnus Steven Mackey (MA, composition) Wins Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance
http://www.grammy.com/nominees?year=2011&genre=5
Steven Mackey was born in 1956, to American parents stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. His first musical passion was playing the electric guitar, in rock bands based in northern California. He later discovered concert music and has composed for orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance, and opera. He regularly performs his own work, including two electric guitar concertos and numerous solo and chamber works, and is also active as an improvising musician and performs with his band Big Farm.
His most Recent CD – Lonely Motel: Music From Slide – was nominated for 4 grammy awards including Best Contemporary Composition and Best Small Ensemble Performance. Also released in the fall of 2012 is his epic work for SO percussion – It Is Time – on Cantelope records. This release includes a DVD of the work by Mark DeChiazza.
He is currently working on piece for the SOLI ensemble in San Antonio Texas. In 2012 he will be writing a new work for the Brentano String Quartet and a large multi movement piece for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Stumble to Grace, his piano concerto for Orli Shaham, co-commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, the St. Louis and New Jersey Symphonies was recently premiered and TONIC, an orchestral work for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia will premiere in February. He will also be performing in a variety of contexts including his role as guitarist and narrator in his music theater piece called SLIDE with eighth blackbird and Rinde Eckert.
As a composer, Mackey has been honored by numerous awards and has been the composer-in-residence at major music festivals, including Tanglewood, Aspen and the Holland Festival. Among his commissions are works for the Chicago, St Louis, New World, San Francisco Symphonies, and Dutch Radio, symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, The Scottish and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, the Kronos Quartet, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, Fromm Music Foundation, Brentano String Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet, Fred Sherry, Dawn Upshaw, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and many others.
As a guitarist, Mackey has performed his chamber music with the Kronos Quartet, Arditti Quartet, London Sinfonietta, Nexttime Ensemble (Parma), Psappha (Manchester), and Joey Baron. As a concerto soloist he has performed with many conductors including David Robertson, Michael Tilson Thomas, Peter Etvos, Dennis Russell Davies, and many others.
His monodrama, Ravenshead, for tenor/actor (Rinde Eckert) and electro-acoustic band/ensemble (the Paul Dresher Ensemble), has been performed nearly 100 times and is available on a MINMAX CD. In a year-end review of cultural events, USA Today crowned the work the “Best New Opera of 1998.”
Recent CD releases include Steven Mackey: Dreamhouse, an hour-long oratorio for amplified vocal ensemble, electric guitar quartet, and orchestra conducted by Gil Rose on the BMOP sound label. Dreamhouse was nominated for 4 Grammy awards including Best Classical Album of 2010. Also newly released is Busted Micro Shorts, three chamber works featuring percussionist Tim Williams and the Psappha ensemble. Other available discs of Mackey’s work include Lost and Found: Mackey performing his own solo electric guitar music, released by Bridge Records in 1996; Tuck and Roll: Michael Tilson Thomas conducting orchestral music by Mackey, released in 2001 by BMG-RCA Red Seal; String Theory: the Brentano String Quartet playing string quartets and string quartets with the addition of other instruments, released in 2003 on Albany Records; Heavy Light: Mosaic playing mixed chamber ensemble music, released in 2004 by New World Records. Interior Desigin (2006): featuring music for violin with Curtis Macomber on Bride Records and Speak Like the People, Write Like the King (2008): string quartets and octets for the Borromeo and Brentano Quartets also on Bridge Records. Tuck and Roll and Lost and Found both made the New York Times year-end top ten list, along with similar lists in several other publications. Individual works by Mackey are included on numerous collections on Nonesuch, BMG/Catalyst, CRI, Newport Classics, and many other labels.
Mackey is currently Professor of Music and chair of the Department of Music at Princeton University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. Helping to shape the next generation of composers and musicians, he teaches composition, theory, twentieth century music, improvisation, and a variety of special topics. He regularly coaches and conducts new work by student composers, as well as 20th-century classics. He was the recipient of Princeton University’s first Distinguished Teaching Award in 1991.
Mackey’s web site is http://www.stevenmackey.com. His music is published by Boosey & Hawkes. Hi lives in Princeton New Jersey with his wife, composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, and their son Jasper.
