2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

Welcome to the 2007 Cortona Contemporary Music Festival! Now in its third year, this unique event seeks to cultivate appreciation and support of contemporary art music. In a world of increasing virtual reality, Cortona enables an emerging generation of musicians to gain invaluable first-hand experience in the creation and performance of new music. Participants attend a variety of workshops, lessons, and concerts under the Tuscan sun, a landscape that has inspired countless individuals in the pursuit of great art.

This season will feature evening performances of 21st Century Premieres and 20th Century Classics. Open rehearsals throughout the week will educate participants in the furtive process of collaboration between composers and performers in the realization of a new piece. Workshops will address the breadth of contemporary performance techniques available to composers on specific instruments, as well as sessions devoted to formulating a strategic plan for networking and career advancement.

Thanks to the generosity of individual donors, and the Conservatorio di Musica di Perugia (Italy), many participants have received financial assistance to attend the festival. I would also like to acknowledge the support of Toscana Americana Music and its producer, Patrick Mahoney, along with the Department of Music & Dance at the University of Kansas (USA). I invite you to share in our collective vision for the advancement of this worthy cause; please join us for ten celebratory days of contemporary music in Cortona!

Nathanael May, Founder and Director Cortona Contemporary Music Festival

1 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

Performance Studies at Cortona Cortona offers performers the opportunity to collaborate with living composers. Each participant is assigned a new work, of which they will give the world premiere performance at the festival. In addition to private lessons and masterclasses with instrumental faculty, performers will also receive coachings with faculty and guest composers. Participants will also study new chamber music for performance at the festival.

Composition Studies at Cortona Cortona offers composers the opportunity to coach musicians in the performance of their music. Coachings are mentored by faculty performers and composers, with all sessions open to festival participants. In addition to private lessons with composition faculty, composers will also participate in the Colloquium, a daily forum featuring the music of festival colleagues.

Benefits for the Modern Musician Daily workshops discuss performance techniques, idiomatic writing, various repertoires, career planning, and networking. Evening concerts feature faculty and distinguished guest artists, with final performances of the festival highlighting the music of participants. Cortona fosters life-long alliances with composers and performers from around the world.

Cortona: The City of Art Located midway between the Adriatic and Ligurian Seas, Cortona is one of the most engaging of the Tuscan hill towns. Central to the town is the Piazza della Republica, the social and commercial hub of the city. In one direction from the piazza, the town's ancient brick and stone buildings climb steeply to a Medici fortress. In the other, they crowd down the hillside, forming a cascade of well- weathered tile roofs. In between lies a proliferation of late medieval and renaissance churches, monasteries, convents, and palatial houses. From vantage points overlooking these roofs can be seen broad stretches of the picturesque valley known as the Val di Chiana.

The name of one of the main thoroughfares -Via Dardano- is a reminder of Virgil's claim that Cortona was founded by Dardanus, son of Zeus and Electra and the mythical founder of Troy. Modern historians believe that Cortona was originally a fortified Umbrian city that passed into the hands of the Etruscans between the eighth and seventh centuries, BC. It was later granted Roman citizenship, and having bounced back and forth between political masters, was eventually sold to the Florentines by the King of Naples in 1411. Thereafter, it followed the fortunes of the Grand-duchy of Tuscany. In more recent times, the environs of Cortona have been set as a backdrop in several famous movies, including Under the Tuscan Sun, and Life is Beautiful.

2 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

Highlights of the 2006 Festival True to its roots, the 2006 festival encouraged the participation of musicians from around the world, including Brazil, Greece, Ireland, Argentina, Taiwan, Australia, Italy, and the United States. Over 30 works for piano, violin, flute, and guitar received their first performance. For detailed information, please visit: http://www.cortonafestival.com/2006.html

COMPOSITION COLLOQUIUM 11:00. SALA NEUMANN. Hotel Oasi..

Performers encouraged to attend.

The Composition Colloquium at the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival is a daily forum where festival composers meet together to discuss common issues and exchange ideas. Though the craft of composition is something composers practice largely in isolation, there are many aspects of this process that every composer, in one way or another, must face. The colloquium is based on the principle that composers benefit greatly from one another when they share their own experiences and learn from the experiences of others. Over the course of the festival, each composer will have the opportunity to present their work at the colloquium. S/he will be encouraged to discuss working methods, aesthetic philosophy, and other issues. Other festival participants will offer reactions and suggestions. Through these discussions, more general problems and questions will be identified. These develop into working 'themes' for the colloquium.

In addition to presentations by participant composers, issues that arise in the course of private lessons at the festival (with Brian Hulse) may become points of discussion at the colloquium. Depending upon the nature and progress of individual work, the colloquium may culminate with a reading session by faculty and participant musicians. There will also be time to discuss professional planning and career development. Finally, festival composers will benefit from frequent presentations by faculty artists on topics such as composing for particular instruments, networking, and developing relationships with performers.

3 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

INSTRUMENTAL WORKSHOPS 14:30. SALA NEUMANNN. Hotel Oasi. IN APPRECIATION

SUNDAY, 15 Composing for the Flute The Cortona Contemporary Music Festival wishes to thank the following with Lisa Cella. individuals and organizations, whose contributions and support have helped make this festival possible. TUESDAY, 17 Composing for the Piano with Nathanael May and Thomas Rosenkranz. Produced by: Toscana Americana Music WEDNESDAY, 18 Composing for the Guitar Patrick Mahoney, Executive Director with Matt Gould. In association with: THURSDAY, 19 Composing for the Violin The University of Kansas with Beth Ilana Schnedier. School of Fine Arts Department of Music & Dance Dr. Lawrence Mallett, chair PECIAL RESENTATIONS S P Conservatorio di Musica di Perugia 14:30. Note different venues. Hotel Oasi Individual donors: Robin Green SATURDAY, 14 Music of Frederic Rzewski Ronald and Susan Green The People United will Never be Defeated! Jordan and Samantha Davidson Green with Thomas Rosenkranz. Carolyn Green SALA NEUMANN David and Rene Bowditch

FRIDAY, 20 Music of Man-Ching Yu* performed by the composer. ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE FROM Sonata No. 4 "Chaos" Uncertainty Everest Administrators Fantasy on the Lady of Shallot Hell and Heave Arizona State University School of Music Etude "Birds" performed by CCMF Faculty Univeristy of Akron Knight Student Travel Award Autumm Elegy II SALA BEATO ANGELICO University of Nevada Las Vegas College of Fine Arts, Department of Music

SATURDAY, 21 Music of Brian Hulse SPECIAL THANKS TO SALA NEUMANN Bob Schnedier, Guitar Plus International * Program Notes on page 34.

4 49 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

CAREER DEVELOPMENT SEMINARS doctoral thesis on flexibility and uncertainty led her to pursue a diversified 10:00. SALA NEUMANN. Anne Ku will present her lectures on the days listed portfolio career as a freelance writer/editor, university lecturer, pianist, and below in. Private consultations available upon request. concert organizer (founder of Monument House Concert Series in the Netherlands). Dr Ku’s practical career workshops for musicians at the Cortona SATURDAY Crafting Your CV And Biography Contemporary Music Festival since 2006 are built on her training from London A CV is more than a chronological listing of your education and work history. Business School. Currently she is finishing her composition studies at Utrecht Similarly, your biographical blurb in the program notes conveys far more than a Conservatory. Visit her at http://www.anneku.com short paragraph about yourself. In both cases, they give the reader a first impression about you in which critical decisions to engage you are quickly ROBERT BEKKERS (Netherlands) obtained his teaching and performance made. This workshop helps you inventory your strengths, weaknesses, degrees from the Conservatory of Maastricht, during which he also studied opportunities, and threats, thereby translating your past accomplishments into contemporary music with Angelo Gilardino in Italy. After starting his musical future possibilities. education at age 6 with the recorder, French horn and trumpet, he chose the guitar as his main instrument at 12. Robert’s musical curriculum has spanned a SUNDAY Researching Material For Your Website wide range of experiences not limited to any genre. Parallel to his active career The research that goes into building your website includes understanding the as a performer, he has been a songwriter, arranger and composer. In order to competition, identifying potential employers or clients, getting quality samples satisfy his curiosity for flamenco, he accompanied flamenco dance classes and of your work, and making your website easily found. One strategy is to visit then formed the group "IMPETU" consisting of 9 musicians for whose your competitors, determine their key success factors, and aim to achieve arrangements he mixed classical music with flamenco rhythm and styles. He has something better. Whatever your approach, your website needs to be up-to-date performed throughout Europe with the mariachi band "Serenata Mexicana" and and easy to navigate. This workshop helps you learn from the mistakes of others "the Amstel Guitar Quartet". He was also guitarist and bass player of the and shortcut to the chase. "Berdien Stenberg Orchestra" which toured the Netherlands, Belgium, Indonesia, Curacao, and Oman. As Robert has always looked for the unusual in TUESDAY Networking Skills musical combinations, he formed a piano guitar duo with Anne Ku in 2001. The saying “it¹s whom you know not what you know” is the raison d¹etre of Since then their duo has performed in London, North Cyprus, Cape Town, networking. The art of networking is the art of reciprocity, or the expectation of Cortona, and throughout the Netherlands. Robert plays a 2005 Jeroen Hilhorst reciprocity. How do you get started? How do you build your contact list and expand concert guitar, custom-made for the duo to be an equal partner of the grand your network without being seen as a “user” This workshop provides an opportunity piano in both volume and sound. Besides launching his new solo repertoire, he for you to practice and refine your networking and communication skills. is also artist-in-residence in a flute ensemble, soloist in a mainstream flamenco group and guitarist in a new violin guitar duo. http://www.dutchguitar.com WEDNESDAY Portfolio Career: The Pursuit Of Flexibility Or Contingency? Throw all your eggs in one basket and become the best musician you can be. This may work if you have no financial worries and if you are certain the future will be kind to your blind faith. In the other extreme, do a variety of things and lose focus. Is there anything in-between? In this workshop, we explore different career possibilities and strategies, given the financial realities of today.

FRIDAY Creating The Life You Want: A Discussion Forum What does it take to get there as a composer or a performer? Share your vision

of the future and let others brainstorm to help you get there.

48 5 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

FACULTY CONCERT 1* University under the tutelage of John Oberbrunner. She then received a Master 14 JULY 2007 of Music degree and a Graduate Performance Diploma from Peabody SUNDAY 21:30 Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland where she studied with Robert SALA NEUMANNN. Hotel Oasi. Willoughby. Ms. Cella received a DMA in contemporary flute performance at the University of California, San Diego while studying with John Fonville. While in Baltimore, she was the winner of the 1992 Washington Flute Fair Duo46, VIOLIN AND GUITAR Young Artist Competition and founded the flute and guitar duo, Adesso!, which BETH SCHNEIDER AND MATT GOULD was a finalist in the Baltimore Chamber Competition. A dedicated performer of contemporary music, she was a member of the Baltimore based contemporary PROGRAM ensemble Polaris in 1993. She attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in ALL WORKS COMPOSED FOR DUO46 1993 and was a fellowship member of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music Festival for two summers. She was the founding member of the ensemble Sounding, a contemporary quartet (flute, clarinet, piano, percussion) Daniel Asia Momentary Lapses (2001) that had its origins in the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. She has performed con calore e rubato many solo recitals with the most recent being Stanford University and the semplice University of Hong Kong. She has premiered many works and performed at Molto ritmico festivals and conventions around the country. She has performed with SONOR, con calore e rubato the faculty ensemble of UCSD, the ensemble SIRIUS, and in various concert series and festivals in the San Diego area. She is also the co-director of Kenneth Froelich from Triskaidekaphilia (2006) soundON, a Modern Music Festival in La Jolla, California. Prelude, Chaconne, Samba, Fantasy, Blues, Rave CCMF GUEST ARTISTS John Carollo Romantica Passione (2004) Volere ANNE KU (Netherlands) was born in Brunei of Chinese parents but grew up in Amore Tenace Okinawa, Japan where she began piano lessons with Ms Shimosato and later Ms Erterna Riconciliazione Betsy Hermann. She enjoyed her first stint as contract pianist at age ten, accompanist for school choir at 14, accompanist for adult choral society and Michael Quell Enigma (2005) church youth choirs at 16. By then, she was completely immersed in music, with 20 private piano students, 5 weekly church services as chief organist, and regular engagements as pianist and band keyboardist. Anne won a full tape Charles Mason Scrapings (2006) with scholarship to Duke University where she studied piano under Randall Love while double majoring in electrical engineering and mathematics. The John Mayrose Trigger (2004) prestigious A.B. Duke Scholarship also supported her summers at Cornell and Oxford, and her junior year abroad at McGill University. The AJ Fletcher Music Geoffrey Gordon Fancywork (2004/6) Performance Scholarship supported her senior year piano recital of French Florid, Kaleidoscope, Fast as Possible impressionist works. Anne graduated magna cum laude from Duke and a year later obtained a M.Sc. in Operations Research with distinction from London School of Economics. Subsequently she worked for leading companies in the financial, energy, and publishing sectors in Asia, Europe, and the USA. Her *Program Notes on page 12.

6 47 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

FACULTY CONCERT 2* Chair of Piano Studies at CCMF, DR. THOMAS ROSENKRANZ, was recently described as “in a league all his own” and “brilliant” for his 15 JULY 2007 performances of the music of our time. In 2003 he was awarded the Classical SUNDAY 21:30 Fellowship Award from the American Pianists Association and since then has SALA NEUMANN, Hotel Oasi. performed throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Africa including performances at Lincoln Center (New York), the Kennedy Center (D.C.), Poly Theatre (Beijing), National Concert Hall (Shanghai), L'Acropolium (Carthage), THOMAS ROSENKRANZ, PIANO and Theatre de la Ville (Tunis). He has been soloist with such notable ensembles as the Indianapolis Symphony and the National Orchestra of Beirut and twice been named an Artist Ambassador sponsored by the U.S. State PROGRAM Department touring North Africa and the Middle East promoting American Music. Timothy Jackson Variations on a Theme by William Byrd In addition to his work in classical music, Dr. Rosenkranz is also involved in various cross-cultural projects. He serves as Artistic Advisor and ensemble member for the Tunis-based ensemble, Le Minaret et la Tour which consists of Western and Arabic musicians. This ensemble recently performed at the International Festival of Carthage with the Vienna Opera Orchestra. He is a jury member for the 2007 Oberlin International Festival and Competition. Marcela Pavia Pain is not linear Trained at the Oberlin Conservatory and the Eastman School, He pursued further studies in Paris where he studied with Yvonne Loriod. He resides in Honolulu and is the head of the piano department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Chair of Flute Studies at CCMF, DR. LISA CELLA is a champion of Frederic Rzewski The People United will Never be Defeated! contemporary music, having performed throughout the United States and abroad. She is Artistic Director of San Diego New Music and a founding member of its resident ensemble NOISE. With NOISE she has performed across Note: Dr. Rosenkranz will present a lecture of The People the country premiering works of young composers. NOISE was also a featured United on the previous Saturday, July 14 at 14:30. SALA NEUMANN. ensemble at the Acousmania Festival in Bucharest, Romania in May of 2004, an invited ensemble for the Pacific Rim Festival at the University of California, Santa Cruz in May of 2005 and just finished a residency at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Dr. Cella is also a founding member of the flute duo inHale, a group dedicated to developing challenging and experimental repertoire for the flute duo. inHale was an invited ensemble at the National Flute Association Convention in San Diego in August of 2005. She is also a member of C2, a touring flute and cello duo.

She is an assistant professor of music at the UMBC and a founding member of its faculty contemporary music ensemble, Ruckus. She received her Applied Bachelors in Music with a dual concentration in Psychology from Syracuse *Program Notes on page 22.

46 7 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

PARTICIPANT CONCERT 1* completing his undergraduate degree in performance, Matt accepted a teaching 17 JULY 2007 assistantship to the University of Arizona in Tucson where he met his future TUESDAY 18:30 wife and duo partner, violinist Beth Ilana Schneider. After receiving his SALA BEATO ANGELICO, Hotel Oasi Doctorate in Chamber Music from Arizona State University, Matt and Beth moved to the island of Cyprus to teach at Eastern Mediterranean University, before returning to the U.S.A. to continue their musical activities closer to home Michele Chiasserini, PIANO in 2005.

Fernando Sulpizi "Plurimo n. 8 come..." Chair of Composition Studies at CCMF, composer/theorist Professor BRIAN HULSE, holds degrees from the University of Utah (B.M.), University of Illinois (M.M.), and Harvard University (Ph.D.). He has studied composition Alfredo Casella "Toccata per pianoforte" (1910) with Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Andrew Imbrie, Salvatore Martirano, and Morris Rosenzweig. His compositions include works for chamber and L.Berio "Four Encores" choral ensembles, as well as several chamber operas, and have received awards Wasser Klavier from BMI, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Harvard University, and other Erden Klavier organizations. Noted ensembles which have performed and/or commissioned his Luft Klavier music include, Duo 46, Speculum Musicae, 20th Century Unlimited, the Fuer Klavier Empyrean Ensemble, the Rire-Woodbury Dance Company, the Harvard Glee Club, and the HBO series “The Sopranos.” Brian has been a fellow at the Wellesley Composer’s Conference, served as Composer-in-Residence for Antoine Francoise, PIANO Intermezzo: the New England Chamber Opera Series, and was a Visiting Composer at Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus. He also received a grant from the College of William and Mary to record a CD of his music this Igor Stravinsky Piano-Rag-Music (1919) coming August, which will feature Duo 46 along with pianist Nathanael May.

Georges Crumb Makrokosmos II, Part 2 (1973) As a theorist Brian has published in Perspectives of New Music and has given Ghost-nocturne: For the druids of Stonehenge (Night-spell II) VIRGO papers at several scholarly venues, including “Repetition Theory” at Indiana Gargoyles TAURUS University, “Virtuosity in Rhythm and Rhyme: The Art of Ice Cube” at the 2006 Tora! Tora! Tora! (Cadenza Apocalittica) SCORPIO meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology Southeast-Caribbean Chapter, “On A Prophecy of Nostradamus {Symbol} ARIES the Virtual Environment of Music” at the University of Kansas, and most recently “Improvisation as an Analytic Category” at a conference in the Maurice Ohana Three Caprices (1967) Netherlands on improvisation. This coming September he will present a paper Enterrar y callar Hommage a Luis entitled “Repetition as Difference: Overturning the ‘Minimal’ in Minimalism” at Milan the First International Conference on Minimalism in Bangor, Wales (UK). His Paso theoretic interests include repetition, temporality, and the writings of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze, as well as Eastern philosophy. Brian has held positions at Wellesley College and Christopher Newport University, and is currently Assistant Professor of Music (Theory/Composition) at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (US).

*Program Notes on page 24

8 45 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

FACULTY CONCERT 3* international network of performers participate in this project, and several recordings are digitally available for download including many new trios with 17 JULY 2007 Piano, original trios from the early twentieth-century with Viola, and virtual WEDNESDAY 21:30 trios with Computer (electro-acoustic music) among others. SALA BEATO ANGELICO. Hotel Oasi

2006-2007 season highlights included appearances at the CSU Fresno New Music Festival, Kennedy Center Millenium Stage, and concerts in Germany LISA CELLA, FLUTE including the cities of Fulda, Meiningen, Schlitz and Wurzburg. Notable perforances next season include performances in Canada and Santiago, Chile for the International Guitar Festival Entre Cuerdas, a return appearance at the PROGRAM Guitar Foundation of America Festival in Los Angeles, and the release of a disc featuring Piano Trios by Paul Richards. http://www.duo46.com John Fonville Music for Sarah (1981) Emergence Chair of Violin Studies at CCMF, BETH ILANA SCHNEIDER-GOULD has Transformational Dance been described as "a prodigious talent, poised and introspective, and very Chant impressive" by the Los Angeles Times. Making her soloist debut at the age of 16 Whirling Dance with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Beth has since performed throughout the United States including the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, and toured Marcela Pavia Nayla (2006) Europe with Sir George Solti and the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra. She has performed chamber music with many renowned artists including Lynn Harrell and Yefim Bronfman, has worked under conductors including David Zinman, Neeme Jarvi, Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, Leonard Slatkin and Christoph Martin Kennedy Four Songs (1998) Dohnanyi, and has performed at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, the Ferocious Sarasota Chamber Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, Allegro ENCORE, Music '98 at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and the Great Lakes Moderato Chamber Music Festival. A graduate of Indiana University Bloomington and the Andante University of Arizona, her primary teachers have included Linda Cerone, Victor Danchenko, Eugene Gratovich, Conny Kiradjieff, Andreas Reiner, Mark Rush, With Nathanael May, Piano and Nelli Shkolnikova. Chamber coaches have included Henry Meyer from the Lasalle String Quartet, Paul Katz from the Cleveland String Quartet and Phillip Mario Lavista Nocturno (1982) Setzer from the Emerson String Quartet. Beth is a former member of the San Antonio Symphony and a former Professor of Violin, Viola and Chamber Music Hiroyuki Itoh Salamander (1997, 2005) at Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus.

Chair of Guitar Studies at CCMF, DR. MATT GOULD, has been described as Stuart Saunders Smith Embden Pond (2001) a "guitarist capable of giving performances of great beauty, enthusiasm and control" by EMI recording artist and former teacher, Manuel Barrueco. Matt began teaching himself to play guitar at age twelve, and at twenty, having had only two years of formal guitar training, was awarded a substantial scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music, receiving the Hos Award for Excellence in Guitar Performance by the Peabody Guitar Faculty upon graduation. After *Program Notes on page 26.

44 9 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

PARTICIPANT CONCERT 2* st As artists living in the 21 -century, Duo46 embraces music by living composers. 20 JULY 2007 Important advocates of contemporary art music, their recordings celebrate new FRIDAY 21:30 chamber music for guitar, most often music composed specifically for Beth and SALA BEATO ANGELICO. Hotel Oasi Matt. Ongoing collaborations with American composers inspired their Untaming the Fury record. In commemoration of 9/11, this disc features commissions by emerging and established American composers who are contributing greatly to PROGRAM their national heritage. A track from this CD is included on a compilation recording Communing with Music: Practicing the Art of Conscious Listening, Michele Chiasserini Toccata a un eventuale Preludio which teaches the listener how to experience music with a new focus and Tom Rosenkranz, piano intensity that will benefit the body, mind, heart and spirit.

Their most recent duo recording Aires de Sefarad has been described as "one of Dennis Reyes III Geovy King the most gorgeous releases of the year" by the Cincinnati Enquirer and features Lisa Cella, flute 46 Spanish songs by Argentinean-American composer Jorge Liderman. The Duo46, violin and guitar music was inspired by the composer's visit to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain and the vibrant flamenco dancing and music of Seville, and reflects his Lan-chee Lam Drizzle impressions of past and present Spain in its vast and varied culture. This work, funded in part by the Guggenheim Foundation, made the 2007 GRAMMY entry Bekkers- Ku Duo list for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The success of this recording motivated the composer to write another song cycle of forty-six Spanish songs Sebastian Cano-Besquet Eli’s Prelude and Brooke's Reverie for Duo46 and will soon be available on disc along with music by fellow Tom Rosenkranz, piano Argentinean composer Astor Piazolla.

Besides performing and recording, Duo46 has a keen interest in education and Chris Williams The Poetry of Earth I and II research. Concert performances typically include an outreach component for Lisa Cella, Flute primary and secondary school programs titled Around the World in 46 Minutes, Beth Ilana Schneider, Violin an exploration of cultural diversity through music. While on faculty at Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus, Duo46 introduced Middle-Eastern Giovanni Scapecchi Reflection audiences to new American Music. Other ensemble residencies include Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, the Society of Student Lisa Cella, flute Composers, Inc., University of Uludag, Turkey, the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, and the American Composers Forum. These residencies have included Francesco Bianchi Teknomusik concerts, instrumental and compositional workshops, reading sessions, Nathanael May, piano masterclasses and lectures. Current research activity involves an annotated catalog of twentieth-century concert music for violin and guitar that establishes Man-Ching Yu Organic Synthesis and Explosion chamber music equivalencies for solo guitar and solo violin repertoire.

Man-Ching Yu, piano With the addition of a third instrument, Duo46 has expanded their group with Cello, Mandolin, Piano, Viola, Flute and Digital Sound. Many composers have *Program Notes on page 32. contributed to the project by creating the actual repertoire for these unusual instrumental forces, which in most cases lack representative works. An

10 43 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

PARTICIPANT CONCERT 3*

In a habit of speaking from stage almost as much as he plays, Nathanael derives 21 JULY 2007 true joy from the educational act of performing. From 2001 to 2005, he taught SATURDAY 19:30 applied piano, literature, and pedagogy as a faculty member of the music SALA BEATO ANGELICO. Hotel Oasi department at Eastern Mediterranean University on the island of Cyprus. In June of 2004, EMU hosted the 1st Beshparmak International Piano Festival and Competition, of which he was a founding member. The festival seeks to PROGRAM engender a musical dialogue between the war-torn communities of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and with the international community at large. Additional Hakki Cengiz Eren Cortona pedagogical activities encompass the adjudication of local and state Lisa Cella, flute competitions, including Missouri Music Teacher's Association district auditions Duo46, violin and guitar in 2005, guest artist and featured clinician for the 2006 Gladys Frisch Harris Piano Festival at Hastings College in Nebraska, and additional master classes conducted at Uludag University State Conservatory in Bursa, Turkey; Blue Lake Jeffrey Peplinski Perfect Contrition Fine Arts Camp, Michigan; and the Summer Piano Institute at the University of Lisa Cella, flute WisconsinWhitewater, among others. Mike Peplinsky, guitar

Nathanael is currently completing a DMA in piano performance at the Henk Alkema Sailor Talk University of Kansas. He has taught at the Eastman School of Music, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Hochstein School of Music & Dance, and Lake Country Bekkers-Ku Duo Conservatory. Nathanael holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. Chris Williams Somewhere Between Reason http://www.nathanaelmay.com and Light Nocturne and Postlude Established in 1994, DUO46, Ensemble-in-Residence of the Cortona Michele Chiasserini, piano Contemporary Music Festival, has been heard around the world --live, radio, television, webcasts-- and their intriguing mix of music has taken them to three continents with notable appearances at The Guitar Foundation of America Giovanni Scapecchi Shining Festival (with Manuel Barrueco, David Tanenbaum and Paul Galbraith), Syros Lisa Cella, flute International Guitar Festival (Greece), and Kennedy Center. Duo46, with Antoine Francoise, piano Violinist Beth Ilana Schneider and Guitarist Matt Gould, is well-versed performing experimenal and traditional classical music, and with a substantial Thomas Peterson Sonatine library of commissioned works and almost four hundred other original Antoine Francoise, piano compositions for violin and guitar, they have received critical acclaim from audiences and critics for their repertoire and artistry. Awards include a Barlow Commissioning Grant with composer Geoffrey Gordon, sponsorship by the Francesco Bianchi Trion American Composer Forum through its Encore program supporting the repeat Lisa Cella, flute performances of new works, and most recently chosen as a showcase ensemble for Chamber Music Amrica at the 2007 Western Arts Alliance Conference in Alla Penkina Recitative, Aira and Dance Los Angeles. Duo46, violin and guitar *Program Notes on page 36.

42 11 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

FACULTY CONCERT 1 as being in heaven with the shining of God. Duo46, VIOLIN AND GUITAR ETUDE for piano “Birds” (2006) The work depicts the natures of birds through DANIEL ASIA, born in Seattle, WA in 1953, has been the recipient of the the use of fast-run pitch cells in different registers. Octatonic materials are fully most competitive grants and fellowships in music including a Meet The utilized in the piece. Nevertheless, the techniques of the piece are highly Composer/ Reader's Digest Consortium Commission, United Kingdom demanded. Fulbright Arts Award Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four NEA Composers Grants, a M. B. Rockefeller Grant, an Aaron Copland Fund for AUTUMN ELEGY II for trio (2006) Autumn Elegy II is written for violin, guitar Music Grant, MacDowell Colony and Tanglewood Fellowships, ASCAP and and piano. The piece begins with several elegant musical patterns which are BMI composition prizes, and a DAAD Fellowship for study in the Federal announced by the harp and the piano. Long melodic lines are projected by the Republic of Germany. From 1991-1994, Mr. Asia was the Meet the violin. Numerous pentatonic elements are used in the piece. The piece has three Composer/ Composer In Residence with the Phoenix Symphony. main sections. The middle section contrasts with the previous one in that the emotion becomes even more intense. In the last section, the main theme was The composer's major orchestral works include four symphonies, a piano brought back by the guitar. concerto, a cello concerto, 2 song cycles and the works AT THE FAR EDGE, BLACK LIGHT, and GATEWAYS. He has also written extensively for chamber ensembles and solo performers. Working with many renowned FACULTY soloists, ensembles, and orchestras, Mr. Asia has been commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, NATHANAEL MAY, Director of the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival, is American Composers Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Grand a pianist with a penchant for contemporary music, whose performances Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Chattanooga composers have heralded as “first-rate, dynamic, and refreshing.” Recent Symphony, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony collaborations have featured the world premieres of music by Karl Korte (Gold Orchestra/Syde Family, Knoxville Symphony, Greensboro Symphony Medal; Queen Elisabeth Competition), and Pulitzer Prize nominated composer Orchestra, Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Philharmonic David Rakowski. He was also invited as a guest performer for the University of Orchestra, Koussevitsky Music Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation, Nebraska's 2007 New Music Festival in Kearney. A forthcoming CD will D’Addario Foundation for the Performing Arts/Domus, Oberlin Woodwind feature Nathanael performing chamber music written for the unique trio Quintet, Dorian Wind Quintet, American Brass Quintet, Meadowmount Trio, instrumentation of piano, violin, and guitar. Since this trio¹s inception in 2002, Andre-Michel Schub/piano, Carter Brey/cello, Alex Klein/oboe, Benjamin dedicated works for the ensemble have more than doubled the extant repertoire. Verdery/guitar, John Shirley-Quirk and Sara Watkins/baritone and oboe, Jonathan Shames/piano, violinists Curtis Macomber, Gregory Fulkerson, Nathanael maintains an active profile, with seasonal engagements on both sides Mark Rush and Zina Schiff, and Robert Dick/flute. http://danielasia.net of the Atlantic. He has presented a series of recitals featuring music of the 20th century in Italy, Turkey, and Cyprus. In the United States, he has performed solo MOMENTARY LAPSES is formed of four brief movements. The first is episodic and chamber recitals at many institutions of higher learning, including Harvard, and mercurial. It is formed of five brief phrases, the prevailing character being the University of Florida, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Washington that of a constant sense of rubato, as time seems to ebb and flow. The second is University in St. Louis. His performances have also been broadcast on National much more restrained in character, with simple motivic material being presented Public Radio affiliates around the USA, from Buffalo to Hawaii. He is a staunch in both instruments. It is almost as if a quiet and tranquil landscape were being advocate for developing an appreciation of modern classical music in the young, enunciated. The third, is speedy and quick. Marked molto ritmico, it is just that, presenting lecture recitals at elementary and secondary schools throughout the presenting a steady ostinato figure in the guitar, against which the violin mid-western United States. presents quirkily angular motives. The fourth and final movement returns to the

12 41 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

episodic music of the first. Here phrases alternate between the two players, gradually building to a climax, until fading into a quiet and ruminative ending. ADDITIONAL ATTENDING COMPOSERS

KENNETH D. FROELICH has received several national awards and BRITTNEY BONNY Festival Composr Participant. Currently studying at the recognitions for his compositions from ASCAP, the National Association of College of William and Mary in in Williamsburg, Virginia with Professors Brian Composers/USA, the California Association of Professional Music Teachers (in Hulse and Sophie Serghi. She recently was award the Monroe Grant to compose conjunction with MTNA), the New York Youth Symphony, the American an musical theater piece. Composers Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Society of Composers, Inc., and IDEAS (Interactive Digital Environments Arts and Storytelling). Kenneth's music has been performed by many world renowned SPECIAL PRESENTATION performing ensembles, including the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the MUSIC OF MAN-CHING DONALD YU American Composers Orchestra, the Fresno State Wind Ensemble, the Performed by the composer University of Southern California Symphony Orchestra, the California EAR Unit, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and the Orpheus Ensemble of Fresno. Works of his have been recently programmed on the Bakersfield MAN-CHING DONALD YU for biography, please see page 35. Symphony New Directions Concert Series and the Ashland, Oregon New Music Festival, and currently has upcoming performances with Duo 46, the Jolles Duo, SONATA NO. 4 “Chaos” (2002) Chaos is a scientific term for describing the and the University of New Mexico Percussion Ensemble. Dr. Froelich was born disorder and unpredictably in the universe. The piece’s energetic drive attempts in Chester, PA and raised in San Diego, CA. He received his Bachelor of Music to project a sense of mystery and an abstract impression of chaos degree from the University of Southern California, and both his Master of Music degree Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University, Bloomington. His UNCERTAINTY (2003) The title Uncertainty was inspired by the ambiguous principal composition teachers include Claude Baker, Don Freund, Sven-David quantum theoretical events discovered in 20th century science. The most Sandström, Eugene O'Brien, and Donald Crocket. Kenneth currently lives in noteworthy elements are repeated rhythmic pattern utilizing entirely “non- Fresno, CA with his wife Jennifer, where he is appointed as Assistant Professor retrogradable” rhythms â€" a technique influenced by French composer Oliver in Music Composition at California State University, Fresno. Prior to his Messiaen. With the accompaniment of the ostinato melodic cell, tone-row appointment at CSUF, Kenneth taught at Ball State University in Muncie, IN, techniques are employed in a symmetrical manner. The entire piece, both in and at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in Sewanee, TN. terms of global form and local details, is cast in an “arc” form.

FANTASY ON THE LADY OF SHALLOT (2003) The work is inspired by the TRISKAIDEKAPHILIA This commissioned work for Duo46 was made possible poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It is in three short, inter-connected movements. with funding from California State University Fresno. The work is derived from They relate directly to the storyline of the poem. The first movement depicts the the more commonly known word “Triskaidekaphobia,” a documented Lady in her chamber. The second movement shows the mirror in which she sees psychological disorder that manifests itself in the form of a pathological fear of the Shadow of the World. The last movement portrays her encounter with the the number thirteen. Removing the suffix “phobia” and replacing it with the knight and her ensuing death. A large tone cluster represents the moment when suffix “philia” changes the meaning of the word, replacing the fear of thirteen the mirror breaks, and her life starts fade away. with a hypothetical “love of thirteen.” Utilizing this opens up all sorts of musical possibilities, as since music has been translated into numbers using a wide HELL AND HEAVEN (2003) The work is a programmatic meditation its title. variety of abstract analyses, so too can the number thirteen be explored and Through the use of contrasting registers, trills and motivic materials, these two puzzled out into a wide variety of musical ideas. opposites are depicted. The first movement begins with heavy tone cluster and then decorates with some prominent musical cell. In the next sections, ostinato As such, the composition Triskaidekaphilia is a series of thirteen short patterns build the piece towards several climaxes. The following section is movements, with each individual movement exploring a different aspect of the totally contrasting in character. The tonal areas at the end present the eternal life number thirteen. Several movements - the Samba - for example - take advantage

40 13 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL of grooving, syncopated rhythms made possible the asymmetrical meter of 13/8. Other movements, such as the Fantasy, use a series of thirteenth chords - extended harmonies that reach beyond the standard triadic and seventh chord SHINING was positively appreciated for demonstrating aspects of the potential structures of common practice harmony. The movement titled Blues stretches of the alto flute and for the piece's excellent audience appeal. This work explores the standard twelve-bar blues by one bar, creating in essence a “thirteen-bar extended flute techniques such as tremolos and air sounds to add colour to the blues.” Tying all of the movements together is the concept of the Baroque Suite, atmospheric mood. In this duo, the instruments begin in solo, with the piano where each movement can be perceived as a short dance form, while the whole creating an ambience which the alto flute punctuates with short motivic phrases. work is framed by a Prelude and a Postlude that are mirror images of each other. The alto flute then develops the melodic interest through a series of gestural This program features the abbreviated version of the work and includes 6 of the bursts, to the chordal accompaniment of the piano. The opening piano motif movments. returns and is heard in alternation with the chordal section, with the alto flute becoming increasingly animated towards the centre of the work. The opening JOHN CAROLLO was born in Turin, Italy on November 4, 1954. He was mood returns as the piece draws to an atmospheric. adopted in 1959 by an Italian family who raised him in Oil City, Pennsylvania. During grade school he studied and played piano and was a member of a THOMAS PETERSON Catholic Church choir who sang for the congregation during weekend services. He moved from Oil City to San Diego, California in 1976, where he attended SONATINA is a study of the effect of the subliminal accent created by meter college, taking courses in music and psychology. During this time, John studied that is, how we feel where beat one is. The first movement is completely the piano with a local artist, Robert Haffenden. He graduated in 1986 from San without meter, barlines, or rests; durations for large portions of the music are Diego State University with a Master’s Degree in Psychology and began given, but the bulk of the pacing and rhythmic activity rests on the performer. composing for the piano. He moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1987 and started a The second movement moves freely between metered and un-metered music, fulltime career as a mental health counselor with the State of Hawaii, while the third is almost completely metered. The presence of these barlines (or Department of Health. their absence) is sometimes emphasized, sometimes ignored, but always takes an active role in shaping the musical phrase. In 1997, he began private composition lessons with Dr. Robert Wehrman. John’s first work under Robert’s tutelage was The Crumb Suite for Solo Piano FRANCESCO BIANCHI see page 35 for Biography. and his first major work. Following this effort, he composed an atonal work in 1998 entitled “Frenetic Unfoldings for Solo Violin”. After its completion, John TRION is composed starting from a 3 sound cell, combined together through focused his energies on mostly solo and chamber works. He retired in March of the derangements technique, and contextualized in a time line determined by 2006 to compose full-time and to establish a music business named, Musica a sequence of exchanges of a rhythmic pattern derived from a series of Baudino. Musica Baudino published the artist's first CD, Ampersand, in June transformations of the starting cell. th 2006, which won best Classical CD at the 10 Annual Hawaii Music Awards Ceremony. John is a prolific artist, composing daily and has a working ALLA PENKINA was born in Pavlovo in the Nizhegorodsky region. She relationship with faculty members of the University of Hawaii's Music studied piano at the music school of Pavlovo. In 1975 she entered the music Department and with artists throughout the world. His works have been institute of Dzerzhinsk, where she graduated in 1980. She studied at the faculty performed in various venues/festivals in Hawaii and abroad. He is an ASCAP of music theory. From 1984 until 1989 she studied composition at the member and a lifetime member of the Society of Composers in America. A full Conservatory of Ashhabad at the faculty of composition under professor R. catalogue of his works can be found at: http://www.myspace.com/johnacarollo Allayarov. In 1995 she postgraduated on composition under R. Allayarov. Alla Penkina is a member of the Russian Union of Composers, member of the jury of Born on March 30th, 1982, GIOVANNI ALBINI studied Composition with the concurs “Young Composer” and member of the organizing committee of Paul Glass and then at the Conservatory "G. Verdi" of Milan with Mario Garuti. International Festival of Contemporary Music "Pictures from an Exhibition". He also followed courses and lectures by H. Lachenmann, E. Brusa, G. Manca, A. Smirnov and G. Giuliano. He composed music for ensemble, multimedia,

14 39 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

festivals, theatre and short movies winner of international awards. His compositions and soundtracks won several national and international in whatever way one wished. Since then, he’s acquired a passion to compose. composition prizes, and were executed and broadcasted in Italy, France, Spain, After studying engineering for several years at Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute Lithuania and Australia by international performers and orchestras (the in New York, Cengiz decided to switch his concentration and major to music. Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Duo46, Concordia Cordis, Giulio He began guitar studies in Cyprus at the Eastern Mediterranean University with Tampalini, Barrie Webb, Duo Bonfanti, and Faber Ensemble). Multimedia and Dr. Matt Gould, his mentor. Later, Cengiz was accepted to the Peabody short movies with his soundtracks have been played in galleries around Europe Conservatory to continue guitar studies with Ray Chester and after a year, was (ARCO - Madrid, Galleria Permanente - Milano, Š ). The italian radio channel accepted to study composition with Judah Adashi. So far, Cengiz has played in Radio CLASSica¹ broadcasted a monographical program dealing with him. masterclasses of Manuel Barrueco, written 4 compositions, one titled "Dream of a ship on the horizon" for oboe, bassoon and bass clarinet (premiered at “An He graduated in guitar, then he also studied with Betho Davezac. Recently a die music” as part of a contemporary music series), enjoyed a great deal of lecture was given about his guitar compositions during the (Darwin Guitar superb concerts and played chamber music, including his favorite, the Festival 2005. His theoretical research, supported by his degree in Math (with Boccherini Quintet with other instrumentalists. thesis “Musical Structures: an algebraic Point of View”) is mainly about Mathematical Music Theory; he has given several lectures in conservatories, JEFFREY PEPLINSKI Festival Participant, Ohio. high schools and universities.

An avid chamber musician and soloist, guitarist MICHAEL PEPLINSKI has SUITE AMERICANA is an open collection of duos for violin and guitar written played throughout Northern Ohio and Southeast Michigan. In addition to solo for Duo46. Each of the short pieces originated by an American feeling performances, Michael has collaborated with vocalists, violists, cellists, flutists, (aesthetical or/and programmatic) which is presented in a straight, virtuosic and and numerous other guitarists. He has also performed in early music ensembles sometimes deliberately “cheesy” way: looking for beauty in kitsch clichés. as a lutenist. Michael is currently exploring new music with Dan Perszyk, a flautist of the highest caliber. They have recently been awarded an Ellen Battel MICHAEL QUELL has received a number of commissions and prizes for his Stoekel Fellowship by Yale to participate in the Norfolk Guitar Workshop. compositional work (Kunstpreis Frankfurt 1989, Kompositionspreis 1989 Michael began his studies at Bowling Green State University under Dr. Matthew Berlin, selection for premiere Gaudeamus 1988 in Amsterdam, International Ardizzone and is currently studying at the University of Akron with Stephen Elisabeth Schneider prize 2003 etc.). His works have been performed at many Aron. He has also played in masterclasses for Benjamin Verdery, the Los international festivals such as S.E.M.A. (Semaine Européenne des Musiques Angeles Guitar Quartet, and William Yelverton. Michael lives in Canton, Ohio d'Aujord'hui) in Paris, the Festival de musique in Montreux/Vevey, the where he teaches guitar in a private studio and is completing his senior year of Gaudeamus Music Week in Amsterdam, the Internationale Ferienkurse classical guitar study. Darmstadt, Witten, Perth, Melbourne, Vienna etc.) as well as being recorded by numerous domestic and foreign broadcasting companies. HENK ALKEMA studied at the Hague Royal Conservatory of Music. Henk's One of the centres of gravity in Quell's work is research into the compositional academic appointments include professor of composition and acting dean at Utrecht possibilities of interdisciplinary dialogue. His most important works in this area Conservatory, Music Pedagogical Academy in Leeuwarden, Berklee College of are: “Ekstare“ (premiered at Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, 1990), Music, and the University of Montana. He has conducted nearly all professional “temps et couleurs I“ (premiered in Darmstadt, 1998), “Interdependenzen“ symphony orchestras in The Netherlands and has earlier toured as a jazz pianist, (premiered in Freiburg, 1998), "Satori" (premiered in Singapore 1999), composer, arranger, and studio pianist for Dutch Radio and TV. Sound clips of his "anisotropie - (vier) (aggregat)-zustände für klavier (premiered at the piano- works can be heard on his new website at http://web.mac.com/halkema festival 2002 Heilbronn), "Anamorphosis || / Polymorphia" (premiered 2003 in Freiburg), Momentaufnahmen / Caprichos (premiered in Vienna 2004) etc. His CHRIS WILLIAMS see page 33 for Biography. compositions are published by Tonos, Darmstadt.

GIOVANNI SCAPECCHI see page 33 for Biography. Michael Quell was born in 1960. He studied classical guitar at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt/Main with Heinz Teuchert as well as harmony

38 15 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL and counterpoint, conducting and musicology. At the same time he studied composition with Hans-Ulrich Engelmann and also philosophy and theology at the J.-W. Goethe University in Frankfurt. From 1985-89 he studied composition amounts of compositions have been performed at numerous occasions and in the masterclass Rolf Riehm at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt and continued venues in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia. His music is published his compositional studies with Izhak Sadaj (Paris,Tel Aviv). Michael lives as a primarily by Gold Branch Music, Inc. in North Carolina and Wehr's Music freelance artist in Fulda, Germany teaches at various Academies and as a guest House in Florida. His piano and chamber music is released by Zimbel Records. lecturer at several universities Yu's music has been commissioned and performed by various prominent performers and organizations, including the Ithaca College Trombone Troupe, ENIGMA HOMMAGE a FRIEDRICH NEITZSCHE the Onondaga Civic Symphony Orchestra, U.S. organist Carson Cooman and the Harvard University Choir etc. Since 2006, he is the artistic director of the Hong "Deep antipathy of resting in any kind of general-view of the world Kong Integrated Arts Association and the Composer-in-Residence of the once and forever; the magic of contradictory thinking, not being Crossover. His honors include: International ASCAP Awards, Classical bereft of the magic of the enigmatic character." -Friedrich Nietzsche Archives, the Ithaca College's Commission Grant, and the Onondaga Civic Symphony's Commission Grant etc. Basic aspects of the composition are Nietzsches central ideas of critical epistemology – respectively his fragmentary conceptional critical debate of the EXPLOSION is inspired by the 20c Spanish artist Dali‘s painting, explosion. In philosophy of science, that at his time still was unquestioned, especially coined the piece, numerous abstract expressions are involved and it is delineated by his late aphoristic work. several sections in which some kinds of abstract variations take place. Each section is clearly articulated by changes in registers and textures. The piece Thus the ambivalence between pre-configurative far-sighted space of reality on begins with a mysterious introductory gesture which is followed by groups of the one hand and the concretion in the term, which is a grasping of assumed colourful harmonic patterns. Following this section, repeated motivic patterns reality in the term, which simultaneously goes along with redundance and the are generated in different registers, and they gradually bring the music from loss of reality on the other hand – is the actual basic key conception of the lower states to intense climaxed states. The piece ends with the mysterious composition, the original impulse which sets the composition into motion and introductory gesture. The motivic materials of the piece are mainly unified and affects it substantially … and associated with it the ever specifying ambivalence developed by pitch-classes (014) and (0156). between clear structure and construction and the obscuring, concealing of the constructive principle … ORGANIC SYNTHESIS is a single movement piece based on a scientific chemical idea. It is a process in which every organic molecule joins together to At the same time the permanent struggle between mental captivity respectively form a higher-order form of organism. There are totally 13 sections in the piece, the strict bondage in operationalistic – mechanical systems and the consistently and transposition occurs in each section with a chromatic half step. in which occurring would-be liberations of the entity is the basic structural force in the each section has a centric pitch spanning the 12 chromatic scales from C to C. work …

… transcending borders … disentanglement …discovering and opening of a new PARTICIPANT CONCERT 3 space … of sound, timbre, structure … HAKKI CENGIZ EREN was born and raised in Cyprus. After playing the … which for example can be found in the sound-fields of the bowed guitar at the guitar for seven years and composing music for almost two, Cengiz began his beginning of the work with its hyper- differentiated parameters of timbre formal musical training with a local guitar teacher. Around this time he heard coinciding with a subtle micro-tonal harmony which ranges up to complex sound an LP recording of the famous pianist Kristian Zimmerman playing a Debussy mixtures and noise, not instrumentalized as a self-complacent colorism or Prelude, The Engulfed Cathedral, making him realize how free, uncomplicated suchlike, but which establishes multiple causal relations with the constitutive and minimalistic classical music could be according to one's own desires. compository and structural constructive principles – they thus affect changes in the Moreover, the incident also made Cengiz think that the established, complicated work anew perpetually … and the intimidating nature of western art music could be avoided and replaced

16 37 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

… or manifests itself in the form of multi-faceted compository acts with different shades of presence of structural processes in the adjacent `fantasy-figure phase`. (Zone di Improvvisazione Contemporanea) band that experimented a non- orthodox approach to traditional musical instruments, as well as the use of … or in the following fluctuating hyper-sound-net, which bases on an 52-voiced concrete material and computer equipment within improvisation confines. chord that is absolutely fixated, which – as such – is strictly kept up ( as it is static) While in the band, he carried out concerts and theatre performances, recorded and which finally binds everything that is happening – although its compository a CD produced by the Cervello a Sonagli Association, released in March 2003. embodiment presents itself extremely versatile: a perpetual variation of the In 2003 he established Linea, together with Massimo Lella, improvisation combinatorics of its tones , on the level of the timbre fluctuating in multiple ways band through musical instruments and electronic techniques. On the … International Day for the Refugees, on June 20th, 2005, promoted by … a moment of definitive liberty and of outmost bondage at the same time … UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, for the Turin branch, he was asked to … and finally a broadening of the systematics by deliberate transcending … compose an electroacustic piece, Africa. … "denying and affirming of one and the same theorem" … "the magic of contradictory thinking" and resulting from it : freedom, liberation … motion …

transition …. As a cantor, after an opening phase experience with the Eximia Forma choir, specialized in performing both antique and contemporary music, he joined … up to the sudden moment of displosion, disruption, splitting … - a shower of the Ensamble Oktoechos, with whom he performed many concerts relicts and fragments, deformed and denaturated – throughout Italy, taking part in the most important national and international … a fragmentaric pointillistic nature coinciding with an eclipse of pitch level- antique and medieval music festivals. Together with the Ensamble, he presence are suddenly manifesting themselves as characteristic features recorded a CD, produced by Tactus, released in May 2000. He also made recordings with the Consortium Carissimi group, produced by the Naxos Enigma- vom Zauber der entgegengesetzten Denkweise is commissioned by and label. He is founder and director of the vocal band Fònema, who performs dedicated to Duo 46 (Matt Gould and Beth Ilana Schneider). - Notes by the medieval, renaissance and contemporary music. composer. translation: Dieter Umlauf.

TEKNOMUSIK is named after its source of inspiration techno music. Sounds, CHARLES NORMAN MASON has received many awards for his mainly made of non - harmonic components and rhythmic textures, are the compositions, including the 2005 Samuel Barber Rome Prize Fellowship, the set-off basis of this arrangement, where material, organized by definite 1998 Premi Internacional de Composició Musical Ciutat de Tarragona Orchestra harmonic relations, is remixed over patterns where sound roughness prevails Music prize, and a 1994 National Endowment of the Arts Individual Composers and strays towards indefinite percussions. Grant. Among the commissions he has received are commissions from the Alabama Symphony, the Goliard Ensemble, the Corona Guitar Kvartet MAN-CHING YU started his training as a concert pianist at the age of 10. He (Denmark), the Dale Warland Singers, Karen Bentley Pollick, Craig Hultgren, made his debut as a soloist with Pan Asia Symphony Orchestra when he was 16 William DeVan, Mildred Allen, Scott Deal, Wagner Campos, Roderick and wrote arrangements for the Pan Asia Symphony Orchestra. He earned his Ferguson, Atlas Saxophone Quartet, Luna Nova Ensemble, Youth Opera Bachelor Of Music degree from Baylor University where he studied piano Foundation, Fairbanks Symphony Association, and ONIX ensemble (Mexico) performance with renowned pianist Krassimira Jordan. He also studied and Duo46 (USA). He has held residencies at the Hambidge Center, the composition and conducting. In the summer of 2000, he was invited to attend University of Alaska in Fairbanks, the ppIianissimo New Music Festival in the piano summer class in Vienna's Boesendorfer International Piano Academy Bulgaria, and was sponsored by the Seaside Institute as an "Escape To Create" where he again studied with Jordan. He holds a Master of Arts degree in composer-in-residence at Seaside, Florida. Composition at Hong Kong Baptist University where he studied composition under Christopher Keyes. Yu is prolific composing over one hundred works in Charles N. Mason was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and has lived in Miami, various genres including piano music, organ music, chamber music, vocal Indianapolis, and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Lately he has been composing music, choral music, opera, film music, concerti and orchestral works. His vast and living in the city of Birmingham. He attended the University of Miami and

36 17 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL the University of Illinois where he studied composition with Ben Johnston, Salvatore Martirano, Dennis Kam, and John Melby. An strong advocate of other composers and new music in general, Dr. Mason is executive director of Living GIOVANNI SCAPECCHI took a first degree in Organ and Organ Artist Foundation, an organization devoted to promoting new music. Mason Composition with full marks at the Perugia Conservatory of Music, but his was editor of the Living Music journal for fifteen years prior to taking over the music interest is turned mainly to the composition. So in 2005 he got a full Foundation in 1999. Mason is also co-founder of the Birmingham Art Music marked degree in composition with Fernando Sulpizi at the same conservatory Alliance, an organization whose primary purpose is to present concerts of new and in 2007 a Specialization Degree in Composition Studies of the St. Cecilia music in the Birmingham area. For six years, he was vice-president of the National Academy in Rome under the guidance of Azio Corghi. At present he is nd Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U. S., and is currently chairman of the going to complete the 2 level of composition with Fabio Cifariello Ciardi. He Alabama Music Teachers Association Composition Commissioning program. has attended master classes with Stefano Gervasoni, Giacomo Manzoni and He is founder and director of Living Artist Recordings, a non-profit recording Hubert Stuppner and also followed the courses at the Chigiana Academy of company that is solely dedicated to new music, and he teaches composition and Siena with Azio Corghi and Mauro Bonifacio and those of film music and theory at Birmingham-Southern College, a private liberal arts college in cinematography with Nicola Piovani, Luis Bacalov, Emidio Greco, Andrea and rd Birmingham, Alabama. Antonio Frazzi. Awards include a 3 Prize of the A. Manoni International Composition Award, "Primesecuzioni" Prize of the V Rassegna Primesecuzioni st nd th SCRAPINGS for violin, guitar, and pre-recorded sound was written in Composition Contest; 1 and 2 Prizes and Honorable Mention of the 5 nd th Birmingham during the fall of 2006 for Duo 46. Last year, while working in Euritmia International Composition Award; 2 Prize of the 9 Rotary Music Rome, I developed a keen interest in writing music for architectural spaces. I Award; Mention of the Composer Award of Wolkersdorf; Mention of the rd have approached that concept in several ways in different pieces. The manner in Rarescale Alto Flute Composition Competition; Finalist of the 3 C.A. Seghizzi th which I approached it with Scrapings was to compose different layers of music International Composition Award; Finalist of the 8 Franco Evangelisti for specific spaces or rooms of the Hill Building at Birmingham-Southern International Composition Award; Public Prize of the International Alkmaar College. For example, one layer was written for the lobby, another for Call for Scores; Finalist of the Fourth International Choral Composition rd backstage, another for the restrooms, and another for outside. All layers then Competition City of Hasselt; 3 Prize of the Valentino Bucchi 2006 work together to form the composition that is heard in the recital hall itself. I International Composition Award. In 2004 he was awarded with a Honour envision this process as a type of counterpoint wherein each layer works alone Degree by the Chigiana Academy of Siena. He was selected as a student at the as well as together with the other layers. Featured on the pre-recorded sound is composition course given by Brice Pauset and Joshua Fineberg in Rome. His text spoken and sung by Terri Goodrich, Dorothy Hindman, David Smith, and compositions and educational works have been published by Carrara Edizioni, Jenna Lyle. The text is a poem entitled Scrapings written by Patrick Barron. Hyperprism, Animando and Eurarte. http://www.giovanniscapecchi.com Patrick Barron is an assistant professor in English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He was recently awarded the Rome Prize by the REFLECTION (2006) for Solo Flute is the expression of a feeling that remains American Academy in Rome, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant for between the inner prayer and a harsh claim which comes out the primordial his translations of the work of Italian poet Andrea Zanzotto. His books include contact tieing man with the earth - which every living beings roots cling. As the Italian Environmental Literature: An Anthology, Circle of Teeth: 55 Poems, and man the nature too is completely leaned forward the heaven. The branches of the the forthcoming The Selected Poetry and Prose of Andrea Zanzotto (University trees, which are turned high, try in vain to catch something and join the of Chicago Press). He has published essays, poetry, and translations in numerous immensity above them. Suddenly you can hear racked cries of those who feel journals, including Ecopoetics, The North Dakota Quarterly, Interdisciplinary themselves lost and try to go up the thin slab of a inexpressible sorrow, out of Literary Studies, MELUS, ISLE, Italica, and Forum Italicum. the times.

FRANCESCO BIANCHI was born in Rome in 1972 and graduated in piano, musical composition and choir direction. At present, he is attending a musical composition two-year specialist course of study at the Perugia conservatory. Between 1995 and 2001, he has been a member of the ZIC

18 35 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

for film. He also seeks to use devices of the classical and baroque idioms, strong Scrapings counterpoint, variation and themes, the art of the fugue, as a backbone to A little dirt apart shifted to the side in a dance modern instrumentation and a modern sensibility to create popular music viable between for and even appealing to the average listener. of particulates modes-moods that shift ELI'S PRELUDE and BROOKE'S REVERIE had their principle themes lifted of perceiving mote by mote a certain conception from a sketch notebook meant to catalogue daily (but not so frequent, in towards another actuality) meditations on possible principle themes. They are two of the three corruption knowledge short pieces (not featured: Lisa's Prelude) that form a ten minute set, and derive of time a process their names from the friends for which they were written. One might notice they within space pushed forward make use of the harmonic language of French impression. Eli's Prelude is an splitting of strings by leaps experiment in 'theme recycling,' or rewriting a minimal number of themes (2 or that hold of stray motions. 3) in barely detectable variations and a variety of keys to see how long one can areal bodies prolong interest. Brooke's Reverie features a much looser structure, and a variety (ar'-ē-əl) a part of the cerebral cortex having a particular function of themes which do not repeat save for the principle theme. There is little together development of thematic material, though the themes themselves have a great potentiality for (modal) variation and cross pollination. However, the piece remains its present length on account of my insistence that the set be ten minutes JOHN MAYROSE is a composer as well as an active performer, having long coupled with the fact that pianos in Italy, so I've discovered, are not readily performed and premiered new works for classical guitar, electric guitar, electric available to wandering Americans. bass, mandolin, banjo and MIDI guitar, as well as more traditional performances on classical guitar, and more recently, the tenor viola da gamba. He holds a Ph.D. in composition at Duke University and a B.M. degree from the University CHRIS WILLIAMS lives and works in Sydney, Australia, where he holds a of South Carolina Honors College. His teachers have included Steven Jaffe, foundation scholarship at St.Paul’s College, Sydney University. He is currently Scott Lindroth, Sidney Hodkinson, Anthony Kelley, Christopher Berg, and studying for his Bachelor of Music, majoring in Composition, at the Sydney Michael Cedric Smith. John has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Conservatorium of music, and has also studied, as a high school student, at the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival. Newcastle Conservatorium of Music. Recent awards include, the Raymond Hanson, and Alfred Hill Memorial Prizes for Composition, awarded in 2006 and 2007 respectively, by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In his first year of John's music has been played throughout North America and Australia, by study, Chris was also awarded the prestigious Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize among others, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Fireworks, pulsoptional, Duo for Composition for his “Piano Quintet no.1” This award, given by the d'amore, Metamorphosen, and the University of North Carolina Wind University of Sydney, is open to all undergraduate students at the University and Symphony as part of the Milestones 2002 Music Festival. Recent commissions Conservatorium. Chris’s work has been performed at the Cortona Contemporary are from the Southeastern Music Library Association, and Geoffrey Burgess for Music Festival in 2006, and following this performance had a recital given by performance on the Australian Broadcast Company. His work Vivaldiana is Pam Morton (piano), at the University of Kansas, School of Fine Arts. available on Duo d'amore's CD Incantations and Inspirations. He is the recipient Commissioned works from him have been and are performed by the M.H.S of the William Klenz Prize in Composition (2001), the ASCAP Morton Gould Symphony Orchestra and the M.H.S. Combined Choirs. His music has been Young Composer's Award (2004) for "What Hath God Wrought": Reflections performed in Newcastle and Sydney in Australia, Canada, Austria, Italy and on a Theme by Samuel F. B. Morse, the Bass Named Instructorship (Duke America. “Piano Quintet No.1” is currently catalogued and held at Fischer 2005/2006), and the Mary Duke Biddle Fellowship. Along with his research into Library, University Sydney. music, meaning and semiotics in the music of Alfred Schnittke, he has taught courses on music theory, music and technology, and electronic music at Duke. John is a member of the new music ensemble pulsoptional, a composer's

34 19 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

collective based in Durham, North Carolina, and is director of publishing for Alejandro Viñao. ‘Nightmare’ was recorded and broadcasted on the "Hong Fugu Fish Publishing. Kong New Generation Young Composer's Concert" in 2006, a program sponsored by Radio Television Hong Kong Radio 4. The renowned pianist, TRIGGER incorporates elements of interactive electronic music in an acoustic Nancy Loo premiered ‘Autumn Sketch’ in the Chinese Composers piano recital composition. Instead of treating the duo as two independent musicians, I organized by Hong Kong Composers’ Guild in January 2007. She also envisioned a single performer using one instrument to trigger events in another. participated in an operatic composition workshop, a collaborative project with This approach is extremely applicable to guitar and violin, both string the librettist Michael Patrick Albano. The chamber opera ‘The Lady Doth instruments with similar left hand techniques, but with drastically different Protest Too Much’ was performed in February 2007 in the Contemporary Opera methods of producing sound: the pluck of the guitar is percussive, but lacks Showcase, New Music Festival at the University of Toronto. ‘The Lost World’ th sustain, while the bowing of the violin provides sustain with a nuance of timbre. was premiere in March 2007 in the 6 Annual Concert New Music Festival at By writing essentially the same music for both instruments, my goal was to the California State University (Fullerton), organized by the International create what sounds like a violin/guitar hybrid, a combinatorial timbre of the two Alliance for Women in Music. She will pursue her doctoral degree at the instruments. After a brief solo introduction, the violin leads the first half of University of Toronto in the coming September. Trigger. Any deviation in the guitar’s incessant, pulsing drones is triggered the violin’s disjunct melodic interjections. With a slightly more relaxed tone, the DRIZZLE means ‘rain in very small light drops’. The piece is a developing guitar begins the second half of the work directing the violin through a variation and concentrates on the raindrop sound effect and interactions between reworking of previous material. The melodic fragments begin to smooth out and the two instruments. The music also features special technique like guitar snap extend, and Trigger ends with both performers working in conjunction. This pizzicato, knocking the soundboard and left hand tremolos. performance of “Trigger” is sponsored by the American Composers Forum through its Encore Program, supporting repeat performances of new works. The music based on a pentatonic scale, starts with the simple delicate guitar harmonics and bell-like sound produced by plucking the strings inside the piano. GEOFFREY GORDON'S list of works includes orchestral and chamber The folk-like melody is constructed in double fugue between the piano and music--vocal and instrumental--as well as scores for theater, film and dance. His guitar, with occasionally cross-hand piano chords introduced. The music music has been called "brilliant" (Philadelphia Inquirer), "stunning" (Milwaukee becomes more and more intense after the guitar tremolo passage and leads to the Journal Sentinel), "wonderfully idiomatic" (Salt Lake Tribune), "haunting" improvisatory section with free guitar glissando, pitch bending and virtuosic (Strings Magazine) and “remarkable” (Fanfare). During the past year, Mr. piano arpeggios which brings the music to the climax. The piece ends with the Gordon's works were performed more than fifty times on three continents. He opening materials and finally dissolves with a series of guitar harmonics chords. has been nominated for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Elise Stoeger Prize, which honors achievement in chamber music composition, and is SEBASTIAN CANO-BESQUET is a rising junior at Yale University, studying the 2003 recipient of the Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship in Music both 'Music' (composition) and 'Physics and Philosophy.' Although not as Composition. His work has been funded by the Barlow Endowment, the experienced as his more seasoned peers, performers and composers alike, having National Endowment for the Arts, the United Performing Arts Fund, the begun his musical education only in his junior year of high school, Sebastian American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, the MacArthur Foundation, possesses a unique love of music that has 'fast-tracked' the educational process, the American Music Center and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. He has and given him a keen ear for imitation, assimilation, and composition. been in residence at the La Napoule Arts Foundation in Cannes, and at the Cliff He is particularly fond of the era of French Impressionism, Debussy, Les Six, in Dweller Club in Chicago. particular Poulenc, and Ravel… His musical philosophy revolves around long, sinuous melodies that lend themselves to prolific variation and the ready He is a 2003-04 recipient of an American Composers Forum (JCCP) development of secondary themes. He fervently believes that instrumental commission, funding a new work for Brazilian recorder virtuoso Clea Galhano, virtuosity is secondary to tight-knit thematic weaving, a strong main theme, and and harpsichordist Vivian Montgomery. He is also the 2004 winner of the voice. While he thus far has restricted his compositions to solo piano and voice, Connecticut State Music Teachers commission competition. A Canticle in he intends to ultimately make use of the large orchestra and hopes to compose

20 33 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

production, competitions, and became a bemedalled student for his musical gift. Shards, for flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and piano, premiered in Hartford, A brief stay and a good academic standing in college as a biology student only Connecticut, in November, 2005. He is the inaugural winner of the Lester S. made clear to him what he had known all along - that music is his calling. He Abelson Foundation Commission Prize. A new work for soprano and mixed wasted no more time in moving to the College of Music in the University of the chamber ensemble, Fallen Eve, after the poetry of Ted Hughes, premiered on the Philippines. Unexpectedly choosing to pursue studies in composition instead, he International Contemporary Ensemble’s 2005-06 concert season. Additional went under the tutelage of Prof. Josefino Toledo, Prof. Christine Muyco, Dr. performances included the Library of Congress and the French Chancellery--as Jonas Baes, and Dr. Ramon Santos. His other musical influences are Webern, part of a planned collaboration between Ensemble Aleph and the Contemporary Ligeti, Stockhausen, and Maceda. Dennis wrote music for both chamber and Music Forum, in early 2006. The excellent Avalon String Quartet large ensembles, electronic instruments, and music rituals. He carries with him commissioned a new work for the 2006 concert season. Ink on Paper will musical ideas and methods from the Philippine islands. Currently, he is taking premiere at Interlochen and elsewhere--details to be announced. Geoffrey is a his final year of graduate studies in Music Composition under Dr. Jorge 2004 winner of a Barlow Endowment commission, through which he composed Grossmann in the University of Nevada Las Vegas. a new work for Duo46, a leading guitar and violin duo now based in the U.S.A. http://www.DENNISREYESIII.com The new piece, Fancywork, premiered as part of the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival, outside Florence, Italy, on 16 July, 2006, with recent GEOVY KING is a piece for flute, violin, and guitar which uses the concept of performances in Germany. Aguava’ New Music Studio will tour with Love opposition and polarity. The piece starts with two separate ideas that interact Among theRuins, for SATB and a mixed ensemble, next year. and interlock with each other. The flute starts with a monotonous melody followed by a bed of pointillist strings which later burst into different colors and FANCYWORK This commissioned work for Duo46 was made possible through intricate interlocking lines. The second part starts with a single note which a generous grant from the Barlow Commissioning Fund in 2005. Scholars have slowly transforms into new ideas that are presented in different levels of color long categorized the colorful and playful American artifacts which date from the and texture. The composer uses musical ideas and methods from the Philippine early part of the 19th century as “folk,” but during this period they were actually islands. Texture, heterophony, counterpoint, and color are the primary ideas of called “Fancy” and were mainstream designs for the 19th-century homes of the Geovy King. This is the first music installment from a large unfinished work by growing middle class. An exhibit organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the composer. Geovy King is a friend of the composer from the Philippines who American Fancy: Exuberance in the Arts, 1790-1840—featuring more than 200 deals with the daily oppositions of life - failures/ achievements, depression/ of the most ornamental and emotionally engaging artifacts ever produced in this happiness, and problems/ solutions. Currently, he is pursuing a family business country, including furniture, textiles, costume, ceramic, glass, metals, paintings which did not fail to garner him admiration and attention which he fully and prints—directly inspired the music herein. deserves. The bright colors, vibrant patterns and imaginative designs that stirred the senses LAN-CHEE LAM was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the Chinese during this era of American history informed every aspect of this work, although University of Hong Kong with first honors, studied composition with Prof. Chan the music is in no way intended to reflect or imitate the 19th century sonically. Wing Wah. She has received several awards, including Lo Kui Chuen Rather, it is the spirit of the invention which I have attempted to capture… the Scholarship, Jackie Chan Scholarship and Cash Scholarship during her studies. love of color, the intense joy and bursting confidence of these Fancyworks. In 2004, her orchestral work ‘Firework’ was awarded Academic Creativity These were invigorating and visually stimulating works, ambitious and Award. She was also the winner (Chinese instruments) and the second runner up innovative conceptions which captured the feeling of an era. And Fancy was as (Western instruments) of Doming Lam Composition Prize in 56th School Music much a worldview as it was a style: Literary and philosophical trends, dramatic Festival. She completed her Master Degree in the Music Department of social changes and scientific inventions all contributed to the spirit of Fancy--- University of Toronto in 2007, under the supervision of Prof. Ka Nin Chan. Her mirroring the youthful optimism of the new nation, from its 18th-century works were performed in the student composer concert, read by Ensemble philosophical origins to the living manifestation as art and artifact in the 19th- contemporain de Montreal and University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She century. Little wonder, then, that this explosion would have sufficient also attended private lessons with the visiting composers James Macmillan and reverberation to inspire 21st-century music.

32 21 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

This is a three movement work. The first two movements, florid, exuberant and STUART SAUNDERS SMITH is an American composer, editor, and poet. moto-rhythmic, would seem to require no further explanation. The second Earning a DMA in composition at the University of Illinois, he studied with movement, subtitled “Kaleidoscope,” does. Part of the Fancy phenomenon Edward Miller, Edward Diemente, Slavatore Martirano, Herbert Brün and included a fascination with the then brand-new kaleidoscope. “Kaleidoscope- Benjamin Johnston. Mania” swept the nation in the early 19th century, the oscillating colors and almost magical imagery not surprisingly resonating with the same crowd which Smith has come to create a diverse and unusual body of musical and literary fancied Fancy. This movement--at once shimmering and still--is a reflection of compositions. His music is impressive in both the breadth of its scope and the that. richness of its diverisfication. As a reflection of the multiplicity, his scores themselves stand out as exciting and orginal examples of the variety of contemporary developments in musical notation. FACULTY CONCERT 2 THOMAS ROSENKRAN, PIANO Stuart Saunders Smith is not an eclectic, but his style is unpredictable from piece to piece. He is, rather, in the forefront of a trend to encompass in one output the Born in Rosario (Argentina) MARCELA PAVIA studied at the Universidad diversity of the contemporary music world. His interest in notation and in Nacional de Rosario completing a degree in Composition. She has taken master indeterminate composition has developed into pieces which will work for any courses with Dante Grela, Francisco Kropfl and Franco Donatoni; she has also performer, even an actor or a dancer. This has led him into a kind of theater which obtained the diplomas of the Master Courses of the Civica Scuola di Musica reintegrated the arts at their compositional roots. The unifying thread in all of his (Milano), the Accademia Internazionale di Musica "Lorenzo Perosi" (Biella) and works is a primary interest in the psychology of performance. the Summer Courses of the Accademia Chigiana (Siena, 1991,1992). She has followed also Seminars and Master Classes in Composition with Giorgy Ligeti, FAMILY PORTRAITS: EMBDEN POND Over the years I have made a collection Ennio Morricone and Henri Pousseur, receiving a scholarship from the of musical portraits of my family members - my wife, children, father, Accademia Chigiana (Siena) and honored as artist-in -residence at the Virginia grandparents, and more. In each portrait, I try to capture the spirit of that Center for the Creative Arts (USA). She has obtained different awards in person.Embden Pond was our summer home in Maine - a place of peace and National and International Competitions like the 7th International Composition beauty. The pond was really a lake, with clear, deep water. The alto flute Competition for Guitar "Paolo Barsacchi," like the International Musical represents the spirit of the pond. The vibraphone music is the water.-- Stuart Competition TIM, like the 6th European Competition "Citta di Barletta" and the Saunders Smith IBLA Grand Prize. ARTICIPANT ONCERT She has published articles including "La estructura de la musica atonal" (The P C 2 structure of atonal music) published by CODEXX (Associacio Musica i Comunicacio - Barcelona) and "El analisis musical" (The musical analysis) DENNIS A. REYES III was born to a family which traces a musical pedigree published by the magazine CONCEPTOS (Universidad del Museo Social three generations earlier. Nurtured in such a musical environment, it became Argentino- Buenos Aires). natural for Dennis to express himself through the piano. The young Dennis made the piano virtually an extension of himself, performing works like Her works have been published by Edizioni Curci Milano ("Nayla" for solo Chopin’s Polonaises and Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas with strength, virtuosity, flute; "Suite Tupac Amaru" for two guitars; "De Puna y Pampa" : Argentinian and stamina, uncommon for a very young musician. Playing to audiences of folk music for two guitars) and Edizioni Musicali AGENDA, Bologna mostly adult musicians themselves, his early exposure to the performing arts ("Solentiname" for clarinet and guitar). commanded attention and drew encouragements. But a seemingly more standard childhood came his way, becoming a student in the conventional school setting. But even while in his high school his talent did not fail to garner him attention and admiration. He became a constant feature in the school’s musical

22 31 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

CRI recording Voces Americanas). He has been a member of the Academia de She has also published didactic music with Edizioni Curci, Milano ("La Favola Artes de México since 1987 and El Colegio Nacional since 1998. di Alighiero e del suo violino"; "Viva Jujuy": Music Kit for a flexible ensemble) Nocturno was written in 1982 inspired by a poem by Sia Ching. The poem and so on. references color and light constantly and Lavista uses delicate multiphonics and pitch alterations to create a “colorful” musical tapestry. She has taught at the Universidad Nacional (Rosario- Argentina), at the Conservatorio Municipal "Manuel de Falla" (Buenos Aires- Argentina), at the The sun takes back its shadows Universidad del Museo Social Argentino (Buenos Aires- Argentina) and at the The air contains its breath Universidad del Salvador (Buenos Aires). Since 1992, she lives in Italy where The dream brings out the green pupil of the cat she has taught at the Civico Istituto Musical "Folcioni" (Crema), Scuola Civica With its nocturnal gold. (translated by Dana Frye) (Cesano Boscone), the Civico Liceo Musicale di Varese, the C.P.S.M Conservatorio "Verdi" (Milan) and at private schools such as the Accademia di HIROYUKI ITOH (b. 1963, Sakata , Japan ) received his PhD in music from Musica Moderna (Milano). She has collaborated with the Segretaria di Cultura the University of California , San Diego in 1994. He studied composition with of Buenos Aires (Analysis and Compositions Seminars); with the Civica Scuola Joji Yuasa, Shin-ichiro Ikebe, Brian Ferneyhough, and Roger Reynolds. His di Musica of Gorgonzola and the Italian Istitute Goitre (Convention, 1995) and awards include the first prize at the Nuove Sincronie International Composition with AUPREMA ("Music and Cinema: Haendel's Sarabanda in Barry Lindon"). Competition (1995), a Stipendienpreis at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse (1996), and the Akutagawa Composition Award for Orchestral Music (1998). He has been Her works have been played in Argentina and Italy (Asociacion Santafesina de commissioned by the Suntory Music Foundation, the Akiyoshidai Festival, the Compositores, Agrupacion Nueva Musica de Rosario, Cluster Ensemble, Yokohama Culture Foundation, the Klangspuren Festival, the Museum of Accademia Musicale Chigiana of Siena, Octandre Ensemble, guitar duet Modern Art Saitama , the Izumi & Kioi Halls, and Music From Japan, among Maruzzelli-Diegoli, Rocco Parisi Maria Vittoria Jedlowski and so on) and she others. His works have been performed at major festivals such as Darmstadt, has been invited to do radio and TV broadcasts. She is also member of Gaudeamus, ISCM World Music Days (2000 in Luxembourg, 2004 in SUONODONNE Italia since 2004 and of International Alliance of Women in Switzerland), Klangspuren, June in Buffalo, Akiyoshidai, and Takefu, and by Music. orchestras and ensembles such as the New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra, Izumi Sinfonietta PAIN IS NOT LINEAR was dedicated to young and talented pianist Thomas Osaka, Art Respirant, Nieuw Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, and the Arditti Rosenkranz (Hawaii University Professor). Many possibilities of the piano’s Quartet. His work has been published by the Japan Federation of Composers and resonances are explored: harmonics (resounds softly without being played, like a Ricordi, and recorded on Einstein Records ( New York ), ALM Records (Tokyo) ghost); the “cloud” of harmonics that resound contemporarily to a note played and MusicScape ( Tokyo ). Itoh currently lives in Tokyo while it fundamentals are pressed; a note or chords that resound while other are http://www.musicscape.net/itoh.html stopped and so on. All this apply for a note, the A, that resounds, that returns in a non linear formal way. Just like pain when it lives in the depths of the soul. - The title SALAMANDER refers to a mythological, lizard-like reptile that is said Marcela Pavia to have lived in fire. Despite this, a salamander is believed to be extremely cold. It is also believed to move very quickly. Once it is out of the fire, however, it FREDERIC RZEWSKI (pronounced zheff-skee) attended Harvard and dies immediately. This mysterious, imaginary creature inspired the sonic image Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, of this piece, though no concrete narrative is intended. Control over a constantly Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt. In 1960, he went to Italy, a trip which was changing speed of the materials is one of the principal factors that underlie this formative in his future musical development: in addition to studying with Luigi piece. For this reason, rather complex rhythms are meticulously notated in the Dallapiccola, he commenced a career as a performer of new piano music, often score. Because of this, as well as the extensive employment of quarter-tones, with an improvisatory element. A few years later he became a co-founder of this piece is extremely difficult to play. (HI) Musica Elettronica Viva with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum. Musica Elettronica Viva conceived music as a collective, collaborative process, with

30 23 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

improvisation and live electronic instruments prominently featured. In 1971 he Kennedy also remains active as a pianist, performing both as a soloist and returned to New York. (Sadie 1980) collaborator. As a student, he performed with the Indiana University New Music Ensemble and the New Juilliard Ensemble. He has also performed with In 1977 Rzewski became Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal such distinguished artists as violinist Lara St. John and flutist Thomas de Musique in Liège, Belgium. Occasionally he teaches for short periods at Robertello, recording a CD with the latter in 1999 Souvenir: Works by Fauré schools and universities throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Yale and Kennedy. His music is published by Theodore Presser Company. He will be University, the University of Cincinnati, The California Institute of the Arts, the performing a March 2008 solo concert at the Teatro della Rosa in Tuscany. University of California, San Diego, and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. FOUR SONGS for flute and piano was commissioned in 1998 by flutist Thomas THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED! is a set of 36 variations Robertello. Written when the composer was just 20 years of age, it received its on the Chilean song ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! by Sergio Ortega and premiere at the National Flute Convention in Phoenix, Arizona (August 1998). Quilapayún. The piece received its World Premiere on February 7, 1976, played by Ursula Oppens as part of the Bi-Centennial Piano Series at the John F. MARIO LAVISTA (b. April 3, 1943, Mexico City) is an esteemed Mexican Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. The song on which the composer of mostly orchestral, chamber, vocal, and piano works that have been variations are based is one of many that emerged from the Unidad Popular in performed throughout the world; he is also active as a writer. Chile between 1969 and 1973, prior to the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government. Rzewski composed the variations in September and October1975, Prof. Lavista is the nephew of the composer Raúl Lavista (b. 1912 - d. 1980). He as a tribute to the struggle of the Chilean people against a newly-imposed studied piano with Adelina Benítez and Francisco Gyves in Mexico City as a repressive regime, as he saw it; indeed the work contains allusions to other child. He studied analysis with Rodolfo Halffter and composition with Carlos leftist struggles of the same and immediately preceding time, such as quotations Chávez and Héctor Quintanar at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in from the Italian traditional socialist song "Bandiera Rossa" and the Bertold Mexico City from 1963-67, on a grant from the Secretaria de Educación Pública. Brecht-Hanns Eisler "Solidarity Song." Much of the work uses the language of He then studied analysis with Jean-Étienne Marie at the Schola Cantorum in 19th-century romanticism, but mixes this language with pan- diatonic tonality, Paris from 1967-69, on a scholarship from the government of France. He also modal writing, and serial techniques. As in the Goldberg Variations by Johann attended an analysis seminar with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1968, courses Sebastian Bach, the final variation is a direct restatement of the original theme, with Christoph Caskel, Henri Pousseur and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the intended to be heard with new significance after the long journey through the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne in 1968 and Darmstadt in 1969, where he variations. encountered György Ligeti. In addition, he worked at the electronic music studio of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City in 1970 and of NHK in Tokyo in 1971-72. PARTICIPANT CONCERT 1 Among his many honors are the Diosa de Plata from the Asociación de MICHELE CHIASSERINI a Diploma in Pianoforte summa cum laude from Periodistas y Críticos de Cine (1978, for Flores de papel, shared with Raúl the Conservatorio “F. Morlacchi” (Perugia, Italy), under the direction of Lavista), a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation (1987-88), the Premio Maestro Valentino Di Bella.In October 2002, he performed for the “Elena Nacional de Artes y Ciencias (1991), and the Medalla Mozart (1991). In Marino” Association, which awarded him a prize as best graduate of the year. addition, he was named an emeritus composer by the Sistema Nacional de He has specialized, under the direction of Maestro Stefano Micheletti, in the Creadores del Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) (1993) and literature of “Concert for Pianoforte and Orchesta”, both at the “Perugia has received the Diploma de la Unión Mexicana de Cronistas de Teatro y Classico” event and at the “Officine Musicali del Borgo” in Rome. After that, he Música (1999, for his entire oeuvre). For recordings of his music, he has gained a Diploma in Fortepiano summa cum laude, under the direction of received the award for best classical album of the year from the journal Maestro Claudio Veneri. Thanks to his interest in this instrument, he has met Viceversa (1998, for Missa Brevis ad Consolationis Dominam Nostram) and a internationally acclaimed musicians such as Malcolm Bilson, Bart van Oort and Grammy nomination (1999, shared with the other composers featured on the

24 29 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

type of finger opposition. Tongue rams are used to suggest another state Stanley Hoogland. In 2003, he passed the selection of the “best Italian graduate” of exultation which ends the movement. contest in Castrocaro Terme, and succeeded in being in the top ranks. He then III. With the foot-joint removed and the tube stopped, the flute produces an E continued specializing with Maestro Malcolm Bilson, in Brussels at first, and below middle C. This movement explores the interactions of the then in Milan at the Villa Medici Giulini. In 2003-2004, Bart van Oort harmonics between the voice and the stopped tube. One might make an welcomed him in his class at the Royal Conservatory (The Hague) for association with Tibetan chant. specialization courses. IV. Flute and vocal sounds alternate in an ostinato pattern. The differences in timbre create shifts in meter and stress. The voice is ingressive singing so He has performed in concerts in Italy, Holland (The Hague Royal that there are no breaks in texture. This movement is directly influenced Conservatory), Germany (University of Regensburg), United States (Two by a young woman from a pygmy tribe. World Spoleto Festival, Charleston SC) as a soloist, chamber musician and piano duo. He is currently attending a II level degree course in Pianoforte, in MARCELA PAVIA see page 22 for Biography. Maestro Luigi Tanganelli’s class, at the Conservatorio of Perugia (Italy). He has recently been invited for a pianistic collaboration by the Kronstadt NAYLA is an ancient arab name that has a particular sound, that evokes the name Philarmoniker Orchestra, for the performance of music from Piazzolla and iand of an ancient goddess, that belongs to a distant elsewhere…these and many by Orchestra Sinfonica di Perugia. He is currently a student in Maestro Edgar other echoes come from this powerful ancestral symbol. Name, place and Alandia composition class. sound tresspasses distances and times and have risonances that amplify the magical sense, risounding one into the other.We can recognize inside ourselves ANTOINE FRANCOISE has studied piano with Paul Coker and saxophone these forces, that belong to mankind… and this is also the departure point from with Laurent Estoppey in Neuchatel, Switzerland, and is currently studying with which the music of “Nayla” starts.The music then follows it’s own logical sense Yonty Solomon at the Royal College of Music in London under full scholarship. communicating what only music can communicate. From a technical point of Actively involved in chamber music and contemporary music, he won in 2004 view, “Nayla” intends to tresspass the phase of punctual rythm and melody, the “first price with distinctions” with contemporary chamber music duo without making use of particular “effects”, to arrive to the perception of more piano/saxophone at the Concours des jeunesses musicales suisses in instruments, waves, bands: so as to say the realm of “timbro”. Switzerland, and. has performed world premieres for piano and electronics and small ensemble. Since 2006, he has been engaged by the professional MARTIN KENNEDY was born in England in 1978 and moved to America as a contemporary ensemble NEC (Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, La Chaux-de- child. He received a B.M. in Piano Performance and a B.M. in Composition Fonds, Switzerland) and played several concerts including music by Eliott from the Indiana University School of Music, where he also received his M.M. Carter, Morton Feldmann, Rand Steiger or Michael Jarrel. Antoine’s interests in Composition. He received his D.M.A. from the Juilliard School in 2005 and are also focused on new music as a saxophonist and composer. He enjoys is currently Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Washington performing free improvised music and his own works, and in 2004, he founded University in St. Louis. the experimental group Melee Mellow Crew, an instrumental hip-hop band for which he’s the pianist/leader/composer. Recent highlights include performances Kennedy has received several awards, including a BMI Student Composer at South Bank Center in London with members of the London Sinfonietta for the Award, five ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the 1999 re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall, and projects for 2007 involve a concert Raymond Hubbel award from ASCAP, and the Indiana University Dean's Prize tour of China featuring the Hindemith Piano Concerto with the NEC orchestra. in composition in both 1998 and 2002. His music has been performed by the Antoine’s solo repertoire is focused on contemporary music, especially American Composers Orchestra, the Bloomington Camerata Orchestra, the composers like Ligeti, Crumb, Berio and Cage, but is also extends from Bach to st Polish National Chamber Orchestra of Stupsk, the Haddonfield Symphony, and 21 -century, through Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Ravel. His debut as a the Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra, among others. soloist was in 1999 with Mozart’s piano concerto K.414, and more recently the Grieg Piano Concerto and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Neuchatel Symphonic Orchestra.

28 25 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007 CORTONA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL

instrument. The third piece, paso, is a reference to a musical genre of the 18th Dedicated to Artur Rubinstein, who never liked neither performed the piece, the century and contrasts a lot with the two others by the energy and the rhythms Piano-Rag-Music is a really short piece that sounds almost improvised. As the that lead the movement. title says, IGOR STRAVINSKY wrote the piece under the influence of the American jazz ragtime style freshly arrived in Europe. However, with a very little knowledge of the style, the piece remains full of the young Stravinsky’s FACULTY CONCERT 3 modern almost cubist style. During 3 minutes, the pianist jumps from a topic to LISA CELLA, FLUTE the other without any relation to the form nor harmonies (use of bitonality) and ends abruptly as if it has been silly enough so far… JOHN FONVILLE, Flutist/composer, is dedicated to extending the language and technique of the flute. Toward that objective he is a master of all the recent One of the most special American composers of our time, GEORGE CRUMB, technical developments and an explorer in their use in various musical contexts: wrote two volumes of Makrosmos, twelve fantasy pieces after the Zodiac. microtonal music, improvisation, and new compositions that push the Today’s concert includes only no 5-8 of the second volume. Even if Crumb uses boundaries. He performs on a complete set of quarter-tone flutes from bass flute traditional harmonies and chords and never followed the serialism and the avant- to piccolo and was instrumental in their development. His numerous premiers garde of contemporary music, it would be extremely hard to describe him as a include composers such as Ben Johnston, Sal Martirano, Joji Yuasa, Roger more classical composer. His style and his writing are extremely unique. His Reynolds, Hiroyuki Itoh, Paul Koonce and numerous others. scores are usually great art works. Through all the mystic references and the unusual notations as well as the wonderful use of all the possibilities of the He is a member of the TONE ROAD RAMBLERS, the EOLUS QUINTET, and instrument (inside and outside) and the uses of the performer’s abilities to sing the University of California San Diego Department of Music's or whistle or even shout, Georges Crumb always leads the performers and the PERFORMANCE LAB. Widely recorded, he can be heard on CRI, New World, audience in a deep, sacred and mystic world of music and magic. Neuma, OO Discs, Advance, TR2, Orion, and Opus One. A solo flute CD featuring the compositions of Ferneyhough, Fonville, Johnston, Martirano and "The great lessons I had about music never came from the musicians Yuasa is on Einstein Recordings. He is past chairman of the University of themselves. I directly received them from the sea, the wind, the rain on California San Diego Department of Music. the trees and the light; or even from the contemplation of certain landscapes that seems to belong more to the world’s creation then our Dancer Sarah Brumgart asked me (John Fonville) for music and MUSIC FOR civilized lands." -Maurice Ohana SARAH is the response. The music is directly influenced by her technical and emotional abilities as a dancer and choreographer. The extended techniques for MAURICE OHANA was a French composer originally born in Morocco from flute are aligned with her isolation skills, her interest in ll kinds of dance from Spanish parents. Ohana originally studied architecture, but abandoned this in around the world, and her ability to perform on several levels simultaneously. favour of a musical career, initially as a pianist. He studied under Alfredo The musical framework is primarily based on non-Western sources. Casella in Rome, returning to France in 1946. Around this time he founded the "Groupe Zodiaque", which fought against prevailing musical dogma. I. This movement is indebted to Nyozan Miygawa’s composition Ajikan for shakuhachi. The movement is an exploration of sound patterns and The Three Caprices were composed at three different period (I 1944, II 1954, III inherent counterpoint found in bi-phonics. The tube is gradually pushed 1948) and rearranged as one piece later on. There are both related to Goya’s to the limits of air acceptance. paintings Caprichos. The first one (to bury and stay silence), written after 4 II. Rim fingerings are used to simulate a bamboo flute. These fingerings years of war, is written in a countrapuntic style and gives a really soft but tensed generate polymetric patterns by using left=right hand finger oppositions. feeling through little melodic motifs. The second is written purely in an As the speed increases, the hands become more independent Eventually harmonic writing and trough high-pitched chords and clusters observing a the flute sound stops while the fingers continue clicking, using the same certain freedom, the pianist has to bring out the light and the brightness of the

26 27