New Sounds Festival
Overview for Spring 2020 (details about guest artists below):
1/31/20: Scott Deal (percussion) @7:30 PM in Dalton Recital Hall
2/24/20: Landman/Stadler Saxophone Duo Saxophone Duo @7:30 PM in Dalton Recital Hall
2/25/20: Birds on a Wire Chamber Ensemble @7:30 PM in Dalton Recital Hall
2/26/20: Western Student Composers Alliance @1 PM in Dalton Recital Hall
3/19/20: Aurie Hsu and Steven Kemper (machines/dance) @7:30 pm in Dalton Recital Hall
3/26/20: Hinge Ensemble @7:30 pm in Dalton Recital Hall
4/4/20: Western Student Composers Alliance @7:30 PM in Dalton Recital Hall
4/6/20: Andrea Cheeseman (clarinet) @7:30 PM in Dalton Recital Hall
4/9/20: Dana Jessen, Sam Pluta, and Eric Wubbels Trio (basson, electronics, piano) @7:30 PM in Dalton Lecture Hall
Scott Deal – Percussion
Scott Deal will present a concert of works for percussion and electronics. He will be joined by pianist Yu-Lien The to perform John Luther Adams’ stunning “Red Arc/Blue Veil.” Deal will also present works by Christopher Biggs, Elainie Lillios, and a collaborative work he created with Jason Palamara.
Deal is a performer, composer and media artist who engages new works of computer interactivity, networked systems, electronics and percussion. His recordings have been described as “soaring, shimmering explorations of resplendent mood and incredible scale”....”sublimely performed”, and his recording of Pulitzer Prize/Grammy Awarded composer John Luther Adams’ Four Thousand Holes, for piano, percussion, and electronics was listed in New Yorker Magazine’s 2011 Top Ten Classical Picks.
Landman/Stadler Saxophone Duo Saxophone
Landman/Stadler Saxophone Duo is a modular saxophone duo that spans the Atlantic between New York City and Germany. Both dedicated interpreters of new music, Geoffrey Landman and Patrick Stadler met in 2007 while students at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel. L/S Duo has performed in France, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and has been featured on the IM FOKUS Concert Series in Berlin, the Composer’s Now Festival in Brooklyn, and were the featured guest artist for the 2019 Sounding Now Festival at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore. Both committed pedagogues, the duo has given Guest Artist recitals and masterclasses at the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee College of Music, Temple University, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel. The Landman/Stadler Saxophone Duo has commissioned works by composers including Elliott Sharp, Andreas Eduardo Frank, Paul Clift, Fernando Manassero, and William Dougherty..
Aurie Hsu and Steven Kemper
Aurie Hsu and Steven Kemper present a concert of interactive electronic music for sensor-equipped dancer and robotic percussion. This performance explores the relationship between the human and the machine, blending processed electroacoustic sounds with computer-generated and robotically-produced percussion, venturing from improvised noise to rhythmic textures.
Since 2010, Aurie Hsu and Steven Kemper have created works that explore questions of fluidity between organism and machine through sonic-cyborg performance focused on movement and sound. Hsu and Kemper have developed innovative performance technologies that translate movement to sound, including the Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing (RAKS) system and CADI robotic percussion instrument, co-designed by Expressive Machines Musical Instruments. Their works have been presented at a variety of concerts and festivals throughout the US, Canada, and Europe.
Hinge Ensemble
Hinge presents a performance of their program "Drifting Metal." Clanging metal, reverberating wood, robot percussion, and mechanistic process reveal a rich inner emotional world in an intense and expressive program featuring works by Philippe Hurel, Chaya Czernowin, Louis Andriessen, Bjork, and Dan VanHassel.
HINGE is drawn together by their passion for challenging and electrifying the 21st-century concert experience. Lying somewhere between a chamber ensemble and a rock band, this Boston-based quartet presents programs combining cutting-edge contemporary music, seamless multimedia integration, and the innovative reimagining of rock and pop songs. Their 2019/20 season features the music of Chaya Czernowin, Klaus Lang, Enno Poppe, Heather Stebbins, Meshuggah, and more; world premieres by Yoon-Ji Lee, Nicole Murphy, and Dan VanHassel; residencies at Tufts, Western Michigan, and Otterbein Universities and the University of Georgia; and a year-long collaboration with the music department at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
HINGE is Philipp Stäudlin (saxophones), Matt Sharrock (percussion), Keith Kirchoff (piano/keyboards), and Dan VanHassel (electric guitar).
For more information, visit www.hingeensemble.com.
Andrea Cheeseman - clarinet
Throughout her career, Andrea Cheeseman has been committed to playing good music and collaborating with inspiring people who challenge her. A versatile performer, Cheeseman frequently performs as a soloist and chamber musician. Although she regularly performs traditional repertoire, she is an advocate of new music and is a sought-after performer of electroacoustic music written for clarinet and bass clarinet.
Wishing to promote electroacoustic music, she has toured extensively, giving recitals and masterclasses throughout the country. Additionally, Cheeseman has been a featured performer at festivals such as the Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival and the Electroacoustic Barn Dance and has appeared at SEAMUS (Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States) conferences. Cheeseman released her debut album Somewhere in September 2019 (Ravello). Web: cheesemanclarinet.org
Dana Jessen, Sam Pluta, and Eric Wubbels Trio
Jessen, Pluta, and Wubbels will perform detailed, dynamic improvised music for bassoon, electronics, and piano.
Dana Jessen is a bassoonist, improviser, and educator with experience in artist-run ensembles, nonprofit organizations, and successful project-based music initiatives. She is the cofounder of Splinter Reeds, a San Francisco-based reed quintet, and has performed with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ensemble Dal Niente, Calefax Reed Quintet, Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Orchestra, and the Amsterdam Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Her tireless commitment to contemporary music through collaborations with composers and improvisers from around the globe has led to dozens of new solo, chamber, and electroacoustic works.
Sam Pluta is a Chicago-based composer, laptop improviser, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on the laptop as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating unique interactions of electronics, instruments, and sonic spaces, Pluta's vibrant musical universe fuses the traditionally separate sound worlds of acoustic instruments and electronics, creating sonic spaces which envelop the audience and resulting in a music focused on visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds.
Eric Wubbels (b.1980) is a composer and pianist, and a Co-Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble. His music has been performed throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and the U.S., by groups such as Wet Ink Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, yarn|wire, Splinter Reeds, Kupka's Piano (AUS), SCENATET (DK), Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, and featured on festivals including Huddersfield Festival, Chicago Symphony MusicNOW, New York Philharmonic CONTACT, MATA Festival, and Zurich Tage für Neue Musik.