Recent Awards (list from the past decade)
Archive of previous newsletters
February 2023 Newsletter
Alumni News |
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Longleash Trio, Ensemble Pi To Premiere New Works from Louis Goldford (MM ’14) Louis Goldford has received a commission from Ensemble Pi for a new work based on the controversial life of comedian Lenny Bruce, which is slated for multiple performances throughout 2023 in New York. Louis was also awarded the Research-Creation Grant from the ACTOR Project (Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration) along with colleagues in ACTOR’s Voice Timbre Workgroup. Louis and fellow researchers at the Laboratoire de recherche sur le geste musicien at the Université de Montreal and at McGill’s Music Perception and Cognition Lab will conduct a novel study on vocal timbre within instrumental genres of music, the outcome of which Louis will use in the pre-compositional stages of a new work for The Longleash Trio in New York, with 2024 engagements in Montreal and New York. |
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Ryan Lott (BM ’01) Receives Two Academy Award Nominations Ryan Lott received two nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this past month for best score and best song. The first was for his score to the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, in collaboration with his band Son Lux. The second was for the song “This is a Life,” also from Everything Everywhere All at Once, and was co-written with David Byrne and Mitski. The Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12 at 8pm and will be televised on ABC. |
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Ukraine Grief: A Soundscape by Carol Ann Weaver (BM ’70, MM ’72, DM ‘82) Carol Ann Weaver’s 2023 soundscape composition Ukraine Grief – with Nataliia Kurhan features a Ukrainian woman who fled the war in dangerous times in response to Russia’s deadly invasion into Ukraine. Nataliia’s voice (in English and Ukrainian), along with backdrops of Weaver’s choral and piano compositions about the war (Singing to the Children of Ukraine and Spirit Unbound), plus missile sounds from Dnipro sent by Ukrainian friends, bring the pain of war and its ongoing tragedies into our awareness, allowing for a personalized encounter with this ongoing tragedy. Grief has many sounds including “hopelessness, despair and loss of meaning of life,” Nataliia says, revealing the strength, steadiness, and courage required to survive this war. The work is now housed in WFAE Library (World Federation for Acoustic Ecology). |
Student News |
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Corey Chang’s Music Featured in Carnegie Hall On January 16th KOE, a duo consisting of NYC-based flutist Eva Ding and cellist Emma Kato, performed Corey Chang’s flute/cello arrangement of Something To Say in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on 57th Street & 7th Avenue, Manhattan, New York, as part of APAP’s Young Performers Career Advancement Program. The piece was originally written for KOE one year ago, where it premiered three times in The Center at West Park for KOE’s Mum and Dad series, alongside music by Asian-American composers Lei Liang, Chen Yi and Zhou Long. Since then, KOE and Corey Chang have collaborated together on multiple projects, including a summer residency at the Avaloch Music Farm Institute and a series of concerts at NYC’s Arts On Site. Concert press can be found on The Violin Channel here; other musicians that were featured in this program include the Balourdet Quartet, double bassist Kebra-Seyoun Charles, bassoonist Eleni Katz and cellist Alexander Hersh. |
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Daixuan Ai Joins European American Musical Alliance Academy Faculty Group This spring, Daixuan will start teaching the Intro to Keyboard Harmony class at the European American Musical Alliance Academy, directed by Philip Lasser and Benjamin Boyle. This is a 6-week online course that studies root motions, cadences, sequences, and realization of Vidal bass. EAMA is a music training program that was established in 1995 by Narcis Bonet and Philip Lasser as a continuation of the teaching philosophy of Nadia Boulanger. |
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Dmitri Volkov Releases Pivotuner: Automatic Real-Time Pure Intonation and Microtonal Modulation Dmitri Volkov released Pivotuner, a plugin which tunes MIDI data in pure intonation in real time. Besides enabling beautiful purely-tuned chords on keyboards, this also enables many other cool things such as microtonal modulation, and unusual chord sonorities! If you’re a member of IU and curious to try it, feel free to email dvolkov@iu.edu. More information here! |
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Kian Ravaei Premiere with Music from Copland House Kian Ravaei’s work Unstoppable will be virtually premiered by Music from Copland House as part of their CULTIVATED SPACES 3.0 series, presented in collaboration with American Composers Forum and I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. Ravaei composed the work as a fellow for Copland House’s CULTIVATE 2022 emerging composers institute, directed by Derek Bermel. Unstoppable will premiere at this link on Thursday, February 16 at 5:00pm EST, and will remain on YouTube for future viewing. |
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Shuyu Lin’s Works Featured in EMM, MOXsonic, and CMS Conferences Shuyu Lin will perform her electronic piece, A Dear of Butterfly, A Butterfly of Dream at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival (EMM). It is an electronic music piece combining data-driven, robotic, and visual elements. Another piece of hers, When Dandelion Whistles, the electronic and flute solo piece, will be featured in the MOXsonic Missouri Experimental Sonic Arts Festival. The sound played by flute is the main dandelion, triggering the electronic music, which is the flying dandelion seeds. Shuyu Lin’s Feather Mallet, for live electronics, will be performed at CMS 2023 Northwest Conference. During the performance, audiences will hear the sounds of the wine glass, although the performer doesn’t actually strike the glass. Instead, a “feather mallet” — a feather mounted on a Wii Remote game controller — transmits the performer’s gestures to the computer. The computer transforms, develops, and distorts the glass sounds, leading audiences into a colorful world. |
Faculty News |
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Freund’s Recital Streaming Hits Global Targets Don Freund’s beginning of the semester Bach & Freund Faculty Composition/Piano Recital drew kudos from as far away as Kota Kinabula, North Borneo, as it was streamed on IUMusicLive! Included was the premiere of Freund’s Piano Prelude 2022 — “raggedy”. |
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Larry Groupé Completes Score for New Film “The Senior” Larry Groupé has recently finished his new score “The Senior,” a true-life story of a college football star who was expelled for being a hot head and fighting too much. Then decades later at age 59, he goes back to school, re-enrolls to complete his missing senior year, tries out for the football team and miraculously gets on! A big themed story and score of long-awaited redemption, directed by Rod Lurie. Larry will be recording final portions of the score here in Bloomington with a mix of JSoM faculty and student players. |
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Premiere of New Organ Work by Aaron Travers Aaron Travers will have his new work for solo organ, Midnight Toccatas, premiered by organists David Briggs and Stephen Tharp on February 12, 6pm, at St. James Church in Los Angeles, CA. The piece was the winner of the Ruth and Clarence Mader Composition Competition in 2022. It is slated to be published by Selah Publishing Co., with printed copies available by the premiere date. |
Upcoming Events |
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(* Starred events are REQUIRED for IU composition students) |