For Immediate Release October 2014 Further Info: Blaine Todd Director of Communications (415) 934-8134 ext. 301 office (760) 712-8041 mobile Other Minds 20 Festival of New Music March 6, 7and 8, 2015 SFJAZZ Center 201 Franklin Street (at Fell) San Francisco, CA 94102 Other Minds to Celebrate 20th Anniversary Festival with Unprecedented Retrospective Cast U.S. Premiere of Michael Nyman Symphony No. 2 World Premiere of Pauline Oliveros’ Twins Peeking at Koto Tributes to Australian Composer Peter Sculthorpe and American Maverick Lou Harrison Centennial Commemoration of Armenian Genocide Other Minds (OM) in San Francisco announces its 20th anniversary festival of avant- garde music, taking place in San Francisco on Friday March 6th, 7th and 8th, 2015 at the historically distinguished SFJAZZ Center. This annual event is presented in cooperation with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. For 20 years Other Minds has searched the world over for the most unconventional and inspiring composers of our time. This March, the Other Minds Festival celebrates its 20th edition, and to mark this occasion, for the first time in its history, will present a retrospective cast from festivals past. Among the many highlights this year are the U.S. premiere of Michael Nyman's Symphony No. 2, featuring the San Francisco School of the Arts Youth Orchestra (SOTA) and accompanied by historical clips from Mexican cinema of the 20th Century; the world-premiere performance of Pauline Oliveros' Twins Peeking at Koto, featuring Oliveros and Norwegian accordion virtuoso Frode Haltli and recent Doris Duke Award recipient Miya Masaoka on koto; Masaoka presents her own world premiere, String Quartet No. 2 “Tilt” composed for San Francisco's Del Sol Quartet; Del Sol will perform a tribute to the late Australian master Peter Sculthorpe, of his String Quartet No. 14 "Quamby" (1998), with Stephen Kent on Didjeridu, and a centenary commemoration of the Armenian Genocide with Yerevan composer and ECM artist Tigran Mansurian's Canti Parelleli on Armenian folks songs, featuring Viennese soprano Hasmik Papian accompanied by the SOTA Orchestra directed by Matthew Cmiel. Other Minds Executive & Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian explains Other Minds' 20th anniversary as an opportunity to reflect on two decades’ worth of prescient programming. "As we look back at the nearly 200 composers we've brought to San Francisco for these gatherings,” say Amirkhanian, “it seemed a good time to tip our hat to some of our most surprising discoveries who have gone on to make signal contributions to international concert life. We'll also pay tribute to the late Peter Sculthorpe, who had accepted an invitation to be with us as our elder statesman, and the legendary Lou Harrison, whose last work was composed for our 2002 festival and our American steel guitar soloist David Tanenbaum, and will be reprised on our opening night." Following its recent success with OM 19, Other Minds returns for its second year to the incomparable SFJAZZ Center, a landmark venue ideally suited for a landmark event. OM’s featured artists will have their works brought to life in the superlative hall of the SFJAZZ Center. Other Minds 20 featured artists include: Peter Sculthorpe (AU.), Lou Harrison, Miya Masaoka, Maja S.K. Ratkje (NO.), Errollyn Wallen (BZ/U.K.), Pauline Oliveros, Don Byron, Tigran Mansurian (AM, 75th birthday year), Michael Nyman (U.K., 70th birthday year), and Charles Amirkhanian, (70th birthday year), David Tanenbaum, and Frode Haltli (NO). This year’s artists will have their works performed by an exceptional cast of musicians including: Soprano Hasmik Papian (AT), violinist Moves Pagossian, the Del Sol String Quartet, multidisciplinary artist Kathy Hinde (U.K.), didjeridu player Stephen Kent, pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Cameron Brown, drummer John Betsch, and a special appearance by the San Francisco School of the Arts Youth Orchestra and Jazz String Quartet. Prior to taking the stage in San Francisco for three days of concerts and panels, the Other Minds composers will assemble privately and share their work and ideas with one another in a pre- festival residency hosted by the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, located in the scenic forested hills of Woodside, CA. Prior to each concert, they’ll discuss their work with Amirkhanian in a 7 pm panel discussion on Friday and Saturday, and 3 pm on Sunday. Each composer also will donate a signed original page of his or her music for exhibition and auction in the SFJAZZ lobby. These framed works of art offer yet another level of insight into the language of the creators, as audiences will be able to see the artist’s work up close and in their own respective musical fingerprints. This year, as a special benefit to Other Minds and to celebrate our 20th anniversary, a number of past OM composers will be donating original handwritten score pages for exhibition and auction at the OM 20 festival. Full Program Information Other Minds 20th Anniversary Festival CONCERT ONE Friday, March 6th, 2015 7 pm Panel Discussion | 8 pm Concert PETER SCULTHORPE From Kakadu (1993) 10 min. David Tanenbaum, classical guitar LOU HARRISON Scenes from Nek Chand (2001-02) 10 min. David Tanenbaum, National Steel just-intonation guitar CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN Rippling the Lamp (2007) 8 min. Kate Stenberg, violin; tape MIYA MASAOKA String Quartet No. 2, “Tilt” (2014-15, world premiere) 25 min. Del Sol String Quartet —INTERMISSION— MAJA S.K. RATKJE Traces II (2014-15, U.S. premiere) 25 min. Maja S.K. Ratkje, voice and electronics; Frode Haltli, accordion; Kathy Hinde, staging PETER SCULTHORPE Quartet No. 14 “Quamby” (1998) 20 min. Del Sol String Quartet, Stephen Kent, didjeridu CONCERT TWO Saturday, March 7th, 2015 7 pm Panel Discussion | 8 pm Concert CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN Dumbek Bookache IV (1986) 2 min. Ka Himeni Hehena (1997) 3 min. Marathon (1997) 3 min. Charles Amirkhanian, voice with tape ERROLLYN WALLEN London’s Burning & Other Songs 35 min. Errollyn Wallen, voice and piano; SOTA Jazz String Quartet —INTERMISSION— PAULINE OLIVEROS Twins Peeking at Koto (2015, world premiere) 23 min. Pauline Oliveros, accordion; Frode Haltli, accordion; Miya Masaoka, koto DON BYRON Don Byron Quartet 27 min. Don Byron, clarinet; Aruán Ortiz, piano; Cameron Brown, bass; John Betsch, drums CONCERT THREE Sunday, March 8th, 2015 3 pm Panel Discussion | 4 pm Concert CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN Miatsoom (Reunion, 1994-97) 27 min. Tape work TIGRAN MANSURIAN Canti Paralleli (2007-08) for soprano and string orchestra 28 min. (texts by Paghtasar Dpir, Yeghishe Charents, Avetik Isahakyan) Hasmik Papian, soprano; SOTA Orchestra; Matthew Cmiel, conductor —INTERMISSION— TIGRAN MANSURIAN Romance for Violin and Strings (2011) 10 min. Movses Pagossian, violin; SOTA Orchestra; Matthew Cmiel, conductor MICHAEL NYMAN Symphony No. 2 (2014) 30 min. SOTA Orchestra; Matthew Cmiel, conductor Artist Bios COMPOSERS Miya Masaoka – OM 3 Miya Masaoka resides in New York City and is a classically trained musician, composer and sound/installation artist. She has created works for solo koto, laser interfaces, laptop and video, sculpture installations and written scores for ensembles, chamber orchestra and mixed choirs. She has a large body of work for solo koto, live electronics and video. She often works with the sonification of data, and maps the behavior of brain activity, plants and insect movement to sound. Her work has been performed at the Venice Biennale 2004, the Miller Theater, NYC, Ircam, Paris and V2, Rotterdam. Awards and commissions include the Alpert Arts Award, Bang On a Can, Engine 27/Harvestworks, and Gerbode Foundation. Don Byron – OM 2 For over two decades, Don Byron, a recipient of the first Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, has been a singular voice in an astounding range of musical contexts, exploring widely divergent traditions while continually striving for what he calls "a sound above genre." As clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and social critic, he redefines every genre of music he plays, be it classical, salsa, hip-hop, funk, rhythm & blues, klezmer, or any jazz style from swing and bop to cutting-edge downtown improvisation. He has been consistently voted best clarinetist by critics and readers alike in leading international music journals since being named “Jazz Artist of the Year” by Down Beat in 1992. Acclaimed as much for his restless creativity as for his unsurpassed virtuosity as a player, Byron has presented a multitude of projects at major music festivals around the world. Pauline Oliveros – OM 8 Pauline Oliveros is a senior figure in contemporary American music. Her career spans fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. In the '50s she was part of a circle of iconoclastic composers, artists, poets gathered together in San Francisco. Recently awarded the John Cage award for 2012 from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Oliveros is Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, and Darius Milhaud Artist-in-Residence at Mills College. Oliveros has been as interested in finding new sounds as in finding new uses for old ones --her primary instrument is the accordion, an unexpected visitor perhaps to musical cutting edge, but one which she approaches in much the same way that a Zen musician might approach the Japanese shakuhachi. Pauline Oliveros' life as a composer, performer and humanitarian is about opening her own and others' sensibilities to the universe and facets of sounds. Since the 1960's she has influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. Pauline Oliveros is the founder of "Deep Listening," which comes from her childhood fascination with sounds and from her works in concert music with composition, improvisation and electro-acoustics. Pauline Oliveros describes Deep Listening as a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of one's own thoughts as well as musical sounds.