Newsletter 04-2015

On Wednesday 1st April, the Korean Symphony Orchestra is going to premiere Texu Kim’s Spin-Flip, one of two pieces he wrote for the same orchestra while serving as its composer-in-residence. The piece is programmed as the opener of the opening concert of 2015 SAC (Seoul Arts Center) Orchestra Festival, which is one of the biggest festivals in Classical music of South Korea. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, KSO is doing a European tour in October, where they will premiere Texu’s another piece for them, Ko-Oh for solo viola and orchestra.

Additionally, three pieces by three IU composers – Tape Recorder by Gordon Williamson, Through the Cumberland by Carlo Vincetti (Vini) Frizzo, and Stre—–tch!! by Texu Kim – will be premiered by NYC-based ensemble C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, as the winners’ celebration of the 2014 C4 Commissioning Competition. The concerts took place in the Church of the Transfiguration in Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space (both in New York City), respectively on Thursday and Saturday March 5th and 7th.

Finally, New York-based Ensemble 212 launched a concert series for young audiences. As its pilot, they presented seven pieces by living composers including Sudoku Divertimento and Shake It!! by Texu Kim, its 2014-15 composer-in-residence. It took place in Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church on Saturday March 7th.

Established in 1979 with funding from the Jack and Amy Norworth Fund, The ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Awards program grants cash prizes to Concert Music composers up to 30 years of age whose works are selected through a juried national competition. This year, IU’s Jay Hurst and Chen Yihan were awarded Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.

Congratulating the Award winners, ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams said, “These gifted young composers ranging in age from 13 to 30 represent the exciting talent in our country, highlighting a great future for American concert music. We express our thanks to the dedicated panel of ASCAP members who selected the winners from over 600 submissions.”

The young composers will be recognized at the annual ASCAP Concert Music Awards at Merkin Concert Hall in New York on May 21, 2015. Read more…

Phillip Sink’s Frayed Cities, a work for video and electronics, was selected for numerous national festivals including the 2014 Electroacoustic Barn Dance, 2015 National Student Electroacoustic Music Event (N_SEME), and the 2015 Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) national conference. In addition, his most recent work for video, No. 2, will be presented at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF) this coming June.

First-year M.M. student, Kimberly Osberg, will have her 35-minute operetta Thump (based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart) premiered on May 8th at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre in Bloomington, Indiana. Her work will be produced by the New Voices Opera Company, and will be premiered alongside D.M. student Melody Eötvös’s new opera, The King in Yellow. Read More…

Chen Yihan’s Shui Guang Lian Yan (Ripples Glisten Away…) for SATB chorus was published by Edition Peters in its choral collection “Half Moon Rising – Choral Music from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.”

Ari Fisher’s arrangement of a traditional Korean folk song, Springtime in My Hometown, was premiered twice as an encore during Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Chamber Orchestra’s tour to Seoul, South Korea. The first performance was on March 18th at Seoul National University and the second performance was on March 21st in IBK Hall at the Seoul Arts Center. Both performances were well received with standing ovations and even moved people to tears. Read more…

On March 31st, the IU Symphonic Band will perform Joni’s latest work for wind ensemble, The Moon Glistens. IU was one of 13 universities to commission the work in 2014, and The Moon Glistens will be available through Naxos in 2016. Dr. Paul Popiel will conduct and produce the album with the University of Kansas Wind Ensemble. Joni currently works in residence with university and high school band programs across the United States. As part of each residency, Joni actively engages with students through rehearsals, lectures, and private lessons.

Joni is also currently working on an opera with professor and librettist, Robert Hatten. Immediate upcoming commissions include: a work for tuba ensemble to be premiered at the 2016 International Tuba Euphonium Conference at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; a euphonium duet, and concert opener for band. Joni was recently awarded publication by Manhattan Beach Music for her prize winning work for concert band, Cameron’s Dream. When not composing or in residence, Joni exhibits her wind band works at conferences such as the Midwest Clinic, TMEA, and TBA. In addition to running the Manhattan Beach Booth at the 2015 Midwest Clinic, Joni will participate in a panel presentation on the collaborative process of commissioned works. Joni’s music is available at this link.

George Mason University has recently approved a minor in Music and Wellness, of which Glenn Smith is the director. The minor focuses on the power of music and vibration in regards to psychoenergetic healing, and offers such courses as “Music as a Healing Art”, and “Music and Consciousness”. To supplement the coursework, Glenn will also direct the new Healing Arts Ensemble at George Mason.

Through its First Music program, the New York Youth Symphony (NYYS) has selected Tonia Ko and Brendan Faegre among five other composers under age 30 to write commissions for the NYYS’ 53rd Season. The works will be premiered by NYYS student musicians on their performances at Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Called “invaluable” by The New York Times, First Music has been widely acknowledged as one of the leading forces in the United States for bringing the work of gifted young composers to the public’s attention for the past 32 years. Read more…

Rob’s music has recently been released on two albums: Musica Sacra, an album of Rob’s choral work, and Powerhouse Pianists II. Coinciding with the release of Rob’s choral music was a premiere of his Lux Aeterna at a sold out concert on March 4th. Another premiere of Rob’s work took place recently in Washington DC with the performance of a new chamber opera, The Whole Truth, set to libretto by Mark Campbell and commissioned by Urban Arias.

Additionally, Rob has been appointed as the director of the composition program at the Atlantic Music Festival. In the meantime, he is working on a commission from the American Brass Quintet to be performed at Aspen in the summer and Juilliard in the fall, as well as a commission from the Claremont Trio, Moon Trio, to take place in the coming fall.

In November, Don Freund spent 2 weeks in residence at Seoul’s Yonsei University as a guest of their composition department which includes IU Alum Beomseok Yoo and is headed by IU alum Jiesun Lim. November also saw the performance of Freund’s Soft Cells by the UT Austin NME.

Prof. Freund’s spring 2015 has included three performances of Mixed Blood (“What is Noise” at the Florida State New Music Festival, Ensemble/Concept 21 at IU South Bend, and the Cleveland Institute of Music NME conducted by IU alum Keith Fitch). The CIM NME also performed Freund’s Crunch Time and Hard Cells during his residency there. Other performances included Hell’s Handbasket (Bryan Symphony Orchestra, conducted by IU Alum Dan Allcott), Departing Flights (Remiken Piano Trio, including IU Alum Martin Kennedy at Central Washington U.), Earthdance Concerto (Lawrence U. Wind Ensemble), and A Middle Quartet at Webster University’s Community Music School in St. Louis.

Prof. Freund presented two recitals in Auer Hall this semester: a January piano recital of 8 Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s WTC Books 1 & 2, and a February Faculty Composition Recital which included premieres of Hearing in 3V for 3 violins and Songs with Words, as well as Stephen Brew’s performance of Stirrings for solo guitar, and a faculty sinfonietta ensemble performing Quilt Horizon with video.