SMU MEADOWS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS PRESENTS

FACULTY PERCUSSION RECITAL George Nickson, Percussion

Thursday, October 15, 2020 CARUTH AUDITORIUM 7:30PM

PROGRAM

An Hour of Change (2019) Shaun Tilburg (b. 1963)

The Mind is Like Water (2019) Kevin Day It’s About Time (2004) was written for Sam Solomon, one of my oldest collaborators. Some of the first music I wrote, I (b.1996) wrote for Sam, so when he asked me to write a solo for him in 2004, I started thinking about the sort of thing you cook for George Nickson, Percussion your best friends – food from the pantry, not designed to Samantha Bennett, Violin impress: the company itself is the point of the encounter. It’s About Time is precisely that: staples, things I know that I do well, and things I know Sam (and, by hopeful extension, any Cadernos (2009) Andreia Pinto Correia percussionist) does well. It’s About Time lasts 9 minutes and (b. 1971) is dedicated, with many thanks, to Sam Solomon. (-Nico I. Passos Muhly) II. Histórias III. Liberdade (a ȧquia de asas partidas)

George Nickson, vibraphone

Two pieces from De Color (1997) Tania Leon III. Cobre (b.1943) IV. Mestizo

George Nickson, marimba

Samantha Bennett, violin

It’s About Time (2004) Nico Muhly

(b.1981)

George Nickson, percussion

Two pieces from De Color (1997): III. Cobre and IV. ABOUT THE COMPOSER/PIECE: Mestizo

De Coloris a set of four pieces for violin and marimba about Shaun Tilburg: Shaun Tilburg’s compositional style can best be described by his influences, ranging from Stravinsky color and how it stimulates my imagination. These pieces to Radiohead to Schoenberg to Tower of Power to George are concerned with the color of sound and the sound of Crumb. With a penchant for the dark and rhythmic, Shaun color: sound paintings, pieces in search of colors that gravitates towards emo-esque tape elements and moments createcolors through speed. movement, rapid dynamic of unrest/aleatory. changes and manipulations of sound textures. With performances in Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Cobre(Copper) contains a dislocated "montuno," a the United States, South Korea, Italy and more, Shaun’s syncopated pulse at the heart of many forms of dance music Abstracts for Percussion & Flute has quickly become a standard for mixed chamber ensemble. in America Latina. The concluding Mestizois both a blend of previously used materials and an attempt to blend the colors An Hour of Change, a piece for solo snare drum and digital of the two instruments (doubling, imitating each other). audio, is currently enjoying premieres around the world and Toward the end of the work, the montuno rhythmic pattern can be found in the very popular collection, The Dynamic returns and prevails. Snare. Shaun’s piece is included alongside works of Andy -Tania León Akiho, Timo Andres and John Psathas. His percussion trio, The Infantryman, has been live broadcast by the President’s Own Marine Band and Nico Muhly: Nico Muhly (b.1981) is an American composer Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra percussion section. and sought-after collaborator whose influences range from Recently, Shaun was commissioned by Orphic Percussion American minimalism to the Anglican choral tradition. The for a percussion quartet to premier on their first European recipient of commissions from The Metropolitan Opera, tour, and by the Moreau VanTuinen Duo for a mixed Carnegie Hall, , Tallis Scholars percussion and euphonium duo to premier at the and St. John’s College, Cambridge and others, he has International Women’s Brass Conference. He has also written more than 100 works for the concert stage, including composed for the Urban Nocturnes and ensemble NEWSRQ the opera Marnie (2017), which premiered at the English chamber ensembles. National Opera and was staged by the Metropolitan Opera in the fall of 2018. An Hour of Change: An Hour of Change is loosely about Muhly is a frequent collaborator with choreographer America's foundation being built of grit and determination, Benjamin Millepied and, as an arranger, has paired with and how that is perhaps something we have wandered away Sufjan Stevens, Antony and the Johnsons and others. His from. It hints at something ominous, experiments with some work for stage and screen include music for the Broadway Alien-ish glitch beats and then resolves with one of the most revival of The Glass Menagerie and scores for films famous lines a President of The United States ever including the Academy Award-winning The Reader. Born in delivered. Vermont, Muhly studied composition at the before working as an editor and conductor for Philip Glass. He is part of the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue (2008). He lives in New York City.

Kevin Day: An American composer whose music has been South Africa. León was also Visiting Professor at Yale “characterized by propulsive, syncopated rhythms, colorful University, Guest Composer/Conductor at the Hamburg orchestration, and instrumental virtuosity,” (Robert Kirzinger, Musikschule, Germany and the Beijing Central Boston Orchestra) Kevin Day (b. 1996) has Conservatory, China. quickly emerged as one of the leading young voices in the world of music composition today. Day was born in A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León Charleston, West Virginia and is a native of Arlington, Texas. instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert His father was a prominent hip-hop producer in the late- Series, co-founded the Sonidos de las Américas festivals 1980s, and his mother was a sought-after gospel singer, with the American Composers Orchestra, and served as singing alongside the likes of Mel Torme and Kirk Franklin. Latin American Advisor to the American Composers Kevin Day is a composer, conductor, producer, and multi- Orchestra and New Music Advisor to the New York instrumentalist on tuba, euphonium, jazz piano and more, Philharmonic. She is the founder and artistic director of whose music often intersects between the worlds of jazz, Composers Now Festival and the Composers Now minimalism, Latin music, fusion, and contemporary classical organization, a nonprofit in New York City founded in 2010 idioms. Day currently serves as the Composer-In-Residence and dedicated to empowering all living composers, while of the Mesquite Symphony Orchestra. celebrating the diversity of their voices and honoring the significance of their contributions to the cultural fabric of A winner of the BMI Student Composer Award and several society. In 2017, a proclamation was presented to Tania other honors, Day has composed over 150 works, and has Leon and Composers Now on behalf of Mayor Bill de Blasio had numerous performances throughout the United States, in recognition of their contributions on behalf of living Austria, Australia, Taiwan, and South Africa. His works have composers. For more information please also been performed at Carnegie Hall, The Midwest Clinic, visit:Composersnow.org. TMEA, and other major conferences and clinics. Day has collaborated with the likes of Jens Lindemann, Demondrae León has also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Thurman, and Jeremy Lewis on for their Colgate University, Oberlin, and SUNY Purchase College, respective instruments, as well as chamber ensembles like and has served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American The Boston Symphony Orchestra Low Brass Section, Culture in Madrid, Spain. A Professor at Brooklyn College Ensemble Dal Niente, The Puerto Rican Trombone since 1985 and at the Graduate Center of CUNY, she was Ensemble, The Zenith Saxophone Quartet, The Tesla named Distinguished Professor of the City University of New Quartet, and many more. He has worked with and has been York in 2006. In 2010 she was inducted into the American mentored by distinguished composers Gabriela Lena Frank, Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2017 she received the Frank Ticheli, John Mackey, William Owens, Julie Giroux, Mad Women Festival Award in Music, in Madrid, Spain. Marcos Balter, Anthony Cheung, Matthew Evan Taylor, and Valerie Coleman. Her honors include the New York Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award, Symphony Space's Access to the Arts, Day is currently getting his Master of Music in Composition the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Degree at the University of Georgia, where he studies with Fromm, Koussevitzky, and Guggenheim Fellowships. In composers Peter Van Zandt Lane, Emily Koh, and conductor 2012 she received both a Grammy nomination (for "Best Contemporary Classical Composition") and a Latin Grammy Cynthia Johnston Turner. He received his Bachelor of Music nomination (for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition") Degree in Tuba/Euphonium Performance from Texas and in 2013 she was the recipient of the prestigious 2013 Christian University (TCU), where he studied tuba and ASCAP Victor Herbert Award. Most recently she was euphonium with Richard Murrow and composition primarily awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship.

Mexico. Commissioned by Hans Werner Henze and the city of with Neil Anderson-Himmelspach. His works are published Munich for the Fourth Munich Biennale, it took home the coveted with Murphy Music Press, Cimarron Music, and Kevin Day BMW Prize. The aria "Oh Yemanja" ("Mother's Prayer") was Music. Day currently serves as a board member for the recorded by Dawn Upshaw on her Nonesuch CD, "The World So Millennium Composers Initiative and is an alumnus of Kappa Wide." Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America. Commissions include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt Quartet, Nestor Torres, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New The Mind is Like Water (2019): The Mind is Like Water is a World Symphony, Koussevitzky Foundation, Fest der Kontinente work for solo violin and percussion that explores the concept (Hamburg, Germany), Cincinnati Symphony, National Endowment of meditation. The composition is comprised of a central for the Arts, NDR Sinfonie Orchester, American Composers theme and seven different variations that play on this idea of Orchestra, The , Ensemble Modern, The Los how the “waters” of our minds can often become clouded, Angeles Master Chorale, and The Kennedy Center for the and how peace can eventually be found through the chatter. Performing Arts, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, and International Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Recent commissions include: the score for the opera, The Little Rock Nine, with a Andreia Pinto-Correia: The prestigious literary magazine libretto by Thulani Davis, and Jornal de Letras describes Andreia Pinto Correia’s historical research by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., commissioned by the compositions as “a major contribution to the dissemination of University of Central Arkansas's College of Fine Arts and Portugal’s culture and language, perhaps a contribution Communication. larger than could ever be imagined.” Her music — described by the Boston Globe as “compellingly meditative” and by the Her works have been performed by such orchestras as as an “aural fabric” — is characterized by Gewaundhausorchester, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the close attention to harmonic detail and timbral color. China National Symphony, and the NDR Orchestra. She has Following a family tradition of scholars and writers, her work collaborated with authors and directors including John Ashbury, often reflects the influence of literary sources from the Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Jamaica Kincaid, Mark Lamos, Julie Iberian Peninsula and beyond. Taymor, and Derek Walcott. León has appeared as guest conductor with the Symphony Honors include a 2020 Arts and Letters Award in Music by Orchestra and Chorus of Marseille, the Orquesta Sinfonica de the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a John Simon Asturias, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orquesta Filarmonica Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and de Bogota, the Gewaundhausorchester, Chamber Orchestra of commissions from the European Union Presidency, League Geneve, Switzerland, the Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra, of American Orchestras and the Toulmin Foundation, Mexico, Symphony Orchestra of Johannesburg, and the WaZulu- Washington Performing Arts (Kennedy Center), Fromm Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, South Africa, as well as the Music Foundation at Harvard University, Tanglewood Music Orquesta de la Comunidad y Coro de Madrid, and the New York Center, Boston Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet, Philharmonic, among others. American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, She has lectured at Harvard University and at the prestigious Chamber Music America, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Mosse Lecture series at the University of Humboldt in Berlin and National Symphony and National Dance Company of was the Andrew Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Scholar at the Portugal, and Culturgest/National Bank of Portugal, among Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, others. Her for orchestra, Timaeus, commissioned by the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood Music Center in memory of Elliott Carter, was recently premiered at the Born in Portugal, Andreia Pinto Correia began her musical opening concert of the Festival’s 75th anniversary. studies in her native Lisbon and received her Masters and Doctoral of Music degrees from the New England Her works have been performed by the Minnesota Conservatory of Music as a student of Bob Brookmeyer and Symphony Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gandolfi. She received additional mentorship from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra, Orquestra composers John Harbison and the late Steven Stucky. She Metropolitana de Lisboa, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, attended the Minnesota Composer Institute, the European and the JACK, Borromeo, and the Mivos String Quartets. Network of Opera Academies (ENOA), the American Opera She has also been the recipient of a League of American Projects (AOP), the Composers Conference, and the Orchestras/ New Music USA Music Alive Composer Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals. She currently resides in Residency, a Rockefeller Foundation Center Fellowship, a Brooklyn, New York. Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, the Alpert Award in the Arts/Ucross Residency Prize, a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, and the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award by Cadernos (2009)- Cadernosis inspired by Notebooks from the Japan Society. She was the curator of the Fertile the House of the Dead(1862) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821- Crescent Festival for Contemporary Music at the Institute for 1881). It follows Alexandr Petrovich Goryanchikov’s narrative Advanced Study in Princeton and composer in residence arc and is divided into three movements: with contemporary music ensemble OrchestrUtópica Passos(Footsteps) reflects the sounds made by the (Lisbon). She has collaborated with an array of artists and prisoners during their walks on the small prison patio. This scholars including historian Prof. Ann McGrath (Australia), movement’s claustrophobic feeling is suggested by its marine biologist Dr. Claudio Campagna (Argentina), circular structure, and by the exploration of the same filmmakers Daniel Blaufuks and Salomé Lamas (Portugal), material through inversion, retrogression, diminution and writers Mia Couto (Mozambique), Ondjaki (Angola), Betty augmentation. Shamieh (Palestine/USA), João David Pinto Correia (Portugal), and choreographers Omayra Amaya (Spain/USA) In Passos, melodic manipulation takes a primary role in and Victor Pontes (Portugal). contrast with the second movement, Histórias(Stories), which is built upon rhythmic manipulation. Here, different Ms. Pinto Correia received the Honorary Title of Fellow of ‘stories’ are related simultaneously, paralleling the narrative the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, where construction of the book. she was a guest of the ARC Laureate Program for the Deep Human Past and the Indigenous Linguistics Alliance (Fall Liberdade (Freedom), the last and shortest of the three 2018). Additional recent highlights include the world movements, presents a moment of lyricism and simplicity, premieres of Night Migrations, a piano trio commissioned by ending the work in a hopeful tone. Chamber Music America for the Horszowski Trio, and a string quartet for the JACK Quartet (String Quartet No.1, Unvanquished Space), commissioned by the Calouste Tania Leon: Tania León, (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly Gulbenkian Foundation. The year of 2018 also saw a world regarded as a composer and conductor and recognized for premiere of Ciprés given by the Columbus Symphony her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts Orchestra under the baton of maestro Rossen Milanov, a organizations. She has been profiled on ABC, CBS, CNN, work commissioned by the League of American Orchestras PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and independent films. and the Toulmin Foundation. She is currently writing a cello concerto for American virtuoso Jay Campbell to be León's opera Scourge of Hyacinths, based on a play by premiered during the 2021 season. Wole Soyinka with staging and design by Robert Wilson, received over 20 performances throughout Europe and