arts and letters AND WIND ENSEMBLE UNCG CASELLA SINFONIETTA MATTHEW TOMMASINI Torn Canvases is inspired by the abstract (b..1 978) has been awarded top expressionist painting style of Jackson Pollock. CASELLA SINFONIETTA prizes including the Charles The piece imagines a video r dmera panninB d( ross Kevin M Ceraldi- .onduclor Ives Scholarship from the a large canvas made up of layers of fragmented American Academy of Arts paint drippings and splotches. The ensemble 1 Torn Canvases (2009)...... MatthewTommasini 9:03 and Letters and the ASCAP/ is divided into three groups on stage, each CBDNA Frederick Fennell representing musical "layers" of chiming chords Southern Comforts (2008) ...... Joel Puckett 15:29 Prize and grants from the and fragmented lazzriffs, which are piled on one ASCAP Foundation's Leonard another, creating rhythmically charged collages of 2 Faulkner Bernstein Fund and the American Music Center's sound. The climax of the work comes when the 3 Ritual: Football and The Lord 4:24 Assistance Program, among others. entire ensemble plays together, evoking the sound I Lamentation 3:44 Recently, he was named Finalist in the lnternational of a giant bell, transforming into the sound of a 5 Mint Julep 5:48 Composition Competition Cittir di Udine and driving jazz ensemble. Mariorie Bagley, violin awarded Top Prize in the Professional Division of the Foundation for Modern Music's Robert Avalon Named as one of National lnternational Competition for Composition. Public Radio's listeners' 6 AcrylicWaves (20.10)...... Mark Engebretson 15:54 favorite under the Mr. Tommasini is Co-Founder and Composer-in- age of 40, lOEt PUCKETT is Residence of the critical ly-acclaimed, Connections a composer who is dedicated Concerto for Alto Saxophone (2003) ...... 11:53 Chamber Music Series. Currently, he lives in to the belief that music can Hong Kong where he is Associate Artistic Director bring consolation, hope and 7 Celebratory 4:27 of the internationally-acclaimed composers/ joy to all who need it. Ihe B Anguished performers workshop, The lntimacy of Creativity, Washington Post has hailed 9 Lively 2'.59 and Composer-in-Residence/Visiting Associate him as both "visionary" and "gifted" and the Steven Stusek, saxophone Professor of Music at The Hong Kong University Baltimore Sun proclaimed his work for the of Science and Technology. Mr. Tommasini holds Washington Chorus and Orchestra, This Mourning, WIND ENSEMBLE degrees in composition from the University of as "being ofcomparable expressive weight" to John (DMA, he John R. Locke, conductor MA) where studied with Bright Adams' Pulitzer Prize winning work. Sheng, , , and 10 High FIighr r200s)...... losephTurrin l):J5 Leslie Basset! and UCLA (BA) where he studied Puckett is currently on the full+ime faculty of with Paul Chihara and lan Krouse. He is a member the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns of ASCAP Hopkins University where he teaches courses in musir theory, co-teaches lhe composilion seminar E E and recently finished a term as the composer- ll. Ritual: Football and The Lord MARK ENGEBRETSON (b. Regarding Acrylic Waves, Engebretson writes: in-residence for the Chicago Youth Symphony 1964) is Associate Professor Orchestras. He holds advanced degrees from the Sunday ritual: Breakfast, Sunday School, Service, of Composition and Electronic What does a synthetic polymer shaped into a where he studied with Lunch, Football. (ln the off-season: Col0 From Music at the University of flowing, translucent, blue wave sound like? While Pulitzer-Prize winner William Bolcom, MacArthur cradle to age 1 5, I can literally count on a single North Carolina at Creensboro. a specific answer may not be discovered in listening Foundation Fellow and Crammy hand the number of times that I missed any part He is the recipient of the to this piece, the search for it produced much of Award winner Michael Daugherty. of this routine. And I tackled each part of the 201 1 North Carolina Artist the music. I was thinking of the minimalist steel routine with equal seriousness. I still remember Fellowship in Composition, and acrylic sculptures of Donald Judd, trying in my Regarding Southern Comforts, Puckett writes: who Methuselah begot and every Sunday when and has received major mind to shape his signature box-shaped sculptures the prelude begins, I can smell the carpet at the commissions from Harvard University's Fromm into a gigantic smooth, rolling form. Horre. I think about it constantly. I haven't spent now defunct First Christian Church in College Music Foundation and theThomas S. Kenan Center more than a week in the South in more than seven Park, CA. (And I can also tell you who started at for the Arts. The composition takes form through a series of years and yet, I know it will always be home. every position for the 1 980 Falcons.) interconnected waves that obtain on the global, Sometimes it's a phone call from mom or a card He is the founder of the UNCC New Music Festival, sectional, and phrase levels, and this notion from my sister. Sometimes itt the faint smell of a lll- Lamentation with performances at SEAMUS, ICMC, Wien could also be understood as governing aspects dogwood or an Atlanta Braves box score in the Modern, Third Practice, Festival of New American ranging from the overall tonal plan to small scale paper. No,l haven't really been there in years but I Lamentation is a traditional form that began in Music, ISCM, BCSU Festival of New Music and gestures. One may imaginc subtlc and not so subtle think about it daily. early baroque opera and is characterized by a Art, Carnegie Hall, Argentina, Albania, Azerbaijan, associations with wave-like structures and wave mourning text and the so called "descending Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, China, Terre Haute and or deep water imagery, paired with the smooth, ln Southern Comforts I am sharing some of the tetra-chord" which is a falling chromatic line that many more. Recordings of his work are available shiny surfaces of minimalist visual art. On the other things that wcre imporlanl to me BrowinB up is usually treated as an ostinato. Egypt Puckett on the Albany, lnnova, Lotus, and Capstone labels. hand, harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic aspects in Atlanta or have become important in trying died May 5, and we mourned her with equal parts of the piece employ concepts of key, progression to remember home. Each movement is my emotion and, as is tradition, great restraint. Dr. Engebretson taught composition at the and tonal transformation, procedures perhaps less representation of a memory or item from my University of Florida, at SUNY associated with minimalism than to musical ideals childhood in the South. lV. Mint lulep Fredonia, and twentieth-century music history ofthe nineteenth century. The piece thereby seeks, at the Eastman School of Music. He studied at perhaps paradoxically, to project both a kind of l. Faulkner I must admit this is a late affectation that I have the University of Minnesota (graduating Summa existential detachment and a passionate drive developed. Before I left the South I had no idea cum Laude), the Conservatoire de Bordeaux (as a toward overflowing emotion. Often when I am feeling particularly nostalgic I what a mint julep was and didn't give a hoot Fulbright Scholar), and Northwestern University, like to pull out Sounc/ and the Fury or As I Lay about some horse race over in Kentucky. But as where he received the Doctor of Music degree. Dylng. Faulkner's descriptions of Mississippi and time passes it seems that I look for reasons to At Northwestern he studied composition with dysfunctional southern families always make me feel nostalgic, so every year around May 1, I can M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta want to get on the first plane back home. be found breaking out the mint leaves and the Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and whiskey. Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with . His teachers in France were Michel Fuste-Lambezat and Jean-Marie Londeix. T CHARLES ROCHESTER IOSEPH TURRIN has been Well-documented is the record of those Americans Violinist MARIORIE BAGTEY YOUNG has won high praise commissioned by the some of who served with the Abraham Lincoln and Ceorge made her Lincoln Center for his work as a composer. the world's leading symphony Washington battalions, volunteers who fought concerto debut in 1997 with Young's original compositions orchestras, chamber ensembles alongside the British, Irish, Canadian, and other the Little Orchestra Society have been performed on fivc and soloists. His work nationals comprising the Fifteenth lnternational after beginning her performing continents, in all fifty states, encompasses many varied Brigade. Historical notice, too, has been made career in her home state of and in major concert halls of forms, including film, theater, of the courageous US men and women who North Carolina with the the US and Europe, including opera, orchestral, chamber, worl