CMS Great Lakes Regional Conference Composition Concert April 2, 2016
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CMS Great Lakes Regional Conference Composition Concert April 2, 2016 Mountain Song………………………………………………………………………………………….Dominic Dousa Stephen Nordstrom, viola Dominic Dousa, piano Reflections in a Gasoline Rainbow…………………………………………………………Benjamin Fuhrman Electroacoustic A Seeker’s Song………………………………………………………………………………………..…Gregory Mertl Kenneth Meyer, guitar Two Lost Loves……………………………………………………………………………………….Andrew Hannon Andrea Cheeseman, Bb clarinet Digital audio 100 Kilos………………………………………………………………………………………..………….Frank Nawrot Mariah Boucher, piano Ketevan Badridze, piano Program Notes Mountain Song In March of 2007, after a professional engagement in the Denver area, I had the chance to spend one day in the Rocky Mountains west of town before my return trip home. With its crisp air, brilliant sun shining on a snow-covered landscape, and majestic 14,000-foot peaks in the surrounding areas, this setting provided the inspiration for Mountain Song. On that relaxed afternoon, I leisurely hiked some trails in the area, stopping along the way just to sit and admire the vistas, listen to the sounds of nature, and contemplate the beauty around me and the wonder of life itself. In Mountain Song, I hope to convey some of the moods of that spring day in the mountains. ---Dominic Dousa Reflections in a Gasoline Rainbow It's been a rough year. A number of friends have died, relatives have been given terminal diagnoses, and any number of other things have generally made my life hell. As such, I haven't written nearly as much as I normally do, and when I do write, I've been throwing it all away. Like I said, it's been a rough year. Reflections in a Gasoline Rainbow (composed 2014) is a piece about loss and grief. It begins with the solitary, synthesized droplets, leading into a reflective passage for bansuri. As the piece progresses, other instruments are introduced, forming contrapuntal lines before fading away. The melodic lines gradually morph and change, becoming more and more blurred, while also forming contrapuntal parts. After a brief period of respite, the droplet sounds return, guiding the piece back to the lonely notes that it started on. The title is, in part, from Robert Pinsky's Impossible to Tell. ---Benjamin Fuhrman A Seeker’s Song In virtually all of my pieces, it is the sound and personality of an instrument (or combination of instruments) that inspires a piece. As I gradually acquainted myself with it, the guitar revealed its searing, vulnerable beauty - a quality which totally enchanted me. It is the guitar's inability to sustain, its particular six-string resonance, the method of plucking, and the special sound of turns or ornaments - due to the technique of hammer-ons and pull-offs, that I believe yields this beauty. Turns, in particular, enthralled me. (There is simply nothing like that sound on any other instrument.) They are central to the musical fabric of the piece, as both rhythmic and figurative elements. Although we are used to the guitar in highly amplified settings, in its untainted state the guitar seems to me to embody intimacy, both in its delicacy and in its quiet power. And it is intimacy, mainly, that I explore in this piece - an exploration which unconsciously and naturally gave rise to an air of seeking. Seeking is universal to humans, but how and why we seek is uniquely particular to each individual. It is a personal process, intimate in the extreme. "Song" in the title speaks to an overarching lyricism, a particular quality in the music, which is punctuated by impassioned cries and invocations that seem to spill out beyond its confines. ---Gregory Mertl Two Lost Loves This project was created with the help of many individuals. Volunteers left messages at a Google Voice account setup for this composition. These messages were then used as source material for the vocal samples. While the entire story of the two primary messages in this piece is largely unknown, they both carry a thread of love, loss, and remorse. The end result is an intimate glimpse into the contributor’s emotional state during the voicemail. ---Andrew Hannon 100 Kilos The title of the piece is 100 Kilos. Because it's heavy. ---Frank Nawrot Composer Biographies Dominic Dousa, a native of Rochester, Minnesota, joined the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso in 2004. At UTEP he teaches music theory, aural skills, and composition. He holds degrees from Ball State University (D.A., Music Theory & Composition, 2003), Central Michigan University (M.M., Music Composition, 2000), Iowa State University (M.S., Statistics, 1998), and Harvard University (A.B. summa cum laude, Music, 1995). He also has studied composition in Prague. His primary composition teachers include Jody Nagel, David Gillingham, Craig Weston, and Milan Slavický. Dousa’s compositions have received performances at recitals, festivals, and conferences in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Peru, China, Korea, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Finland. He has works published by TRN Music and Dorn Publications. Two of Dousa’s song cycles, With a Song in My Heart and Six Songs on the Poetry of Langston Hughes, are available on a CD released by Blue Griffin Recording. This CD features art songs set to texts of African American poets. In addition to his activities as teacher and composer, Dousa has remained active as an accompanist and chamber musician. He has performed in numerous recitals at various universities and concert venues with faculty, guest artists, and students. He served as an official accompanist for the 4th Annual International Singing Competition in Trujillo, Peru in August of 2000, and performed as a pianist for the El Paso Pro Musica Chamber Music Festival in 2009 and 2014. Born in Lansing in 1982, Benjamin Fuhrman is a graduate of the doctoral program in music composition at Michigan State University, where his principle instructors were Dr. Ricardo Lorenz and Dr. Mark Sullivan. He holds a master’s degree in music composition from Michigan State University, and a bachelor’s in violin performance from Hope College, where his principle instructor was Mihai Craioveanu. He has had works commissioned from a number of performers and has been performed throughout the world. He is currently serving as instructor of mandolin and computer music at the MSU Community Music School. For more information - www.benfuhrman.com “A talent the ear wants to follow wherever it goes” (Boston Globe), Gregory Mertl has garnered commissions from the Tanglewood Music Center, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Tarab Cello Ensemble, the Phoenix Symphony, the Wind Ensembles of the Big Ten Universities, the Ostrava Oboe Festival, Czech Republic, Kenneth Meyer and the Hanson Institute, and the Barlow Endowment for a piano concerto for pianist Solungga Liu and the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, Craig Kirchhoff, conductor. Born in 1969, Mertl has degrees from Yale University (BA 1991) and the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D. in Music Composition 2005). A 1998 Tanglewood Composition Fellow, he studied there with Henri Dutilleux and Mauricio Kagel. His most recent works are two song cycles, Gathering What Is To Be Told for mezzo and guitar and On To Stillness for mezzo, oboe, guitar and percussion (the CSMTA 2013 Commission), and a piece for flute and piano, The Way Things Are, commissioned by the University of Oregon for Molly Barth and David Riley. Currently, he is composing a chamber work for German clarinetist Sebastian Lambertz and a cello concerto for the French cellist Xavier Phillips. Dr. Andrew Hannon earned BM and MM degrees from Southern Illinois University, and a DMA in music composition from the University of South Carolina. Dr. Hannon’s compositions have been performed throughout the United States at the NASA National Conference, Kentucky New Music Festival, Outside the Box Music Festival, and CMS Pacific Northwest Conference. His soprano saxophone and piano composition,Eternal Enamor, is published through Dorn Publications and has been widely performed. His music is an amalgamation of many diverse influences and alternates between extreme moments of violence and serenity. Score and audio examples can be found at www.andrewhannon.com. As a theorist, much of his research has concentrated on the analysis of Ligeti’s final composition, Hamburg Concerto. This research focuses on how Ligeti creates an expansion and contraction of the melody, harmony, and formal design in the composition. Frank Nawrot (b. 1989) is a composer, guitarist, and music educator from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Currently, Nawrot is an adjunct faculty member at Delta College where he teaches courses on the History of Rock ‘n’ Roll and Contemporary Guitar Techniques. Nawrot received his Master of Music Composition degree from Central Michigan University in 2015 under the tutelage of David Gillingham and Jay Batzner. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Grand Valley State University while studying composition with Bill Ryan and classical guitar with Carlos de la Barrera. In 2013, he was named Composer of the Year at Grand Valley State University. Nawrot’s music has been performed at ArtPrize, St. Cecilia’s Music Center, George and Barbara Gordon Gallery, Northern Illinois University, Henderson State University, Bowling Green State University, and the Broad Art Museum. He has presented his research on composition pedagogy at the 2015 Region V Society of Composers, Inc. conference and the 2015 Michigan Music Conference. He will be presenting his research on African-American minimalist composer Julius Eastman at the Fifth International Conference on Minimalist Music in Finland. His piece Prozium is slated for performance at the 2015 New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. Nawrot’s goals are to be a responsible artist by bringing attention to issues he feels pertains to the betterment of society through his art and providing quality education to members of his community. His research interests are composition pedagogy, minimalism, and rock ‘n’ roll.