Recent Awards (list from the past decade)
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December 2020 Newsletter
Department News |
| 48 Hours and Pianist Jihye Chang provide Performances of Brand-New Pieces by Jacobs Composition Students
On November 6 to 8, ten Jacobs composition students had the opportunity to write short pieces within the space of 48 hours and have them performed by members of the Wet Ink Ensemble. The event, titled “48 Hours,” featured composers Chase Fox, Oliver Kwapis, Matthew Levin, Anne Liao, Daniel Nieberg, Benjamin Rieke, Yuseok Seol, Walker Smith, Alex Tedrow and Anton von Sehrwald. The performing members of Wet Ink were Josh Modney (violin), Carrie Frey (viola), Mariel Roberts (cello), Eric Wubbels (piano) and Russell Greenberg (percussion). The performance was livestreamed on YouTube on November 8. Later that month, pianist Jihye Chang, a staunch advocate of contemporary music, collaborated with seven Jacobs student composers to create seven new works for solo piano. The seven featured composers were Hippocrates Cheng, Patrick Lenz, Kolten Heeren, Daniel Nieberg, Anne Liao, Daixuan Ai and Walker Smith. The performance was livestreamed on YouTube on November 18. |
Alumni News |
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New Works and a Guest Lecture Invitation for Jason Bahr (MM ‘98, DM ‘03) Jason Bahr has been invited to give a guest lecture at the International Exchanges on Music Theory and Performance where his topic will be Composer as Choreographer: Understanding Music Composition as Kinesthetic Direction. He is also the subject of an article by William Barnett as a part of his Creative Conversations series. In June Bahr’s work for choir and orchestra Praise Ye the Lord, a setting of Psalm 150, received a virtual premiere as a part of a fund raiser for the Harry Chapin Food Bank. |
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David DeBoor Canfield (MM ’77, DM ’83) finishes a commissioned work in tribute to David N. Baker David DeBoor Canfield received a commission from IU grad James Farrell Vernon this past summer to write a work in his “After” series in tribute to the late IU Professor of Jazz Studies, David N. Baker. The work, Le Chat qui nages après Baker (The Cat who Swims after Baker, a take-off on Baker’s own work, Le Chat qui Pêche) is scored from sopranino saxophone (Vernon’s instrument), cello (Baker’s instrument), bass, vibraphone, and piano. Its premiere will be scheduled at Purdue University Fort Wayne shortly after in-person concerts resume there, and it will be given by Farrell and his faculty colleagues. This is the composer’s first work written in a completely jazz idiom, seeking to imitate the style of Baker’s own third-stream music. Canfield was also asked to participate in a Living Composers concert given at Campbell University in North Carolina on October 29th. His Sonate d’après Poulenc was performed there by principal clarinetist in the North Carolina SO, Michael Cyzewski and pianist Alexander Bernstein, faculty member of Shenandoah University in Virginia. |
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New CD Recording for David P. Jones (DM ‘95), and More Updates David P. Jones will have a composition, Sketches from Middle Earth (1990), on the next CD by the New England Conservatory Symphonic Winds, conducted by William Drury (Mark label) to be released in June, 2021. In 2019, his Mass Transit became the title track for a CD by the Orion Saxophone Quartet (from LA) on the Centaur label. In March, 2020, the 10th Wave Collective (Ashley Ng-vln and Eri Isomura-mar) performed Dr. Jones’ Legal Highs in a LiveStream “Corona-Concert” from their apartment in Minneapolis. In the very last concert given at Peninsula College (March 10) before the state shutdown was ordered, his Kingston Road and Si Bon were premiered by the Peninsula College Jazz Ensemble (David Jones, conductor).Other recent performances of his work include: Into the Woods (flute, oboe + piano) premiered by Pacific Coast Trio (2/11/20) and Triology (flute, clarinet + bassoon) premiered by Pacific Northwest Trio (4/23/19), both on the Maier Hall Concert Series, Port Angeles, WA. Also, on 5/4/19, the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra (Jonathan Pasternak, cond) premiered A Lark in Gustav’s Garden. Dr. Jones is in his 13th year on the faculty of Peninsula College and his 3rd year as Chair of the Humanities Division. |
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Miggy Torres (MM’19) On The Fractured Identity of the Millennial to be exhibited at Soaring Gardens: the Second Decade in Scranton, PA. Torres’s groundbreaking work for eight amplified voices, On The Fractured Identity of the Millennial (And New Hierophanies Therein), has been selected for inclusion at Soaring Gardens: the Second Decade, a juried exhibition of innovative works of various media, ranging from music and fiction to poetry and visual art, by six Soaring Gardens Artists’ Retreat fellows. The exhibition will be held at the Hope Horn Gallery at The University of Scranton in Scranton, PA, February 5 through March 21, 2021. |
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Composer Felipe Tovar-Henao (DM ’20) to Receive Two Premiere Performances this Month During the month of December, Colombian composer Felipe Tovar-Henao will receive two separate premiere performances by members of Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellín: On December 1, his piece «Ruido, ceniza» (2020) for amplified string instrument will receive its Colombian premiere at the Teatro Pablo Tobón Uribe. On December 18, his newly commissioned work, «Introducción a la esquizofrenia» (2020) praeludium for string quartet, will be recorded and receive an online premiere. Both performances will be streamed on social media. For more info, visit FilarMed’s facebook page. |
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Fall Updates from Texu Kim (DM’15)
In Seoul, South Korea, where in-person performances have resumed with much caution, there have been several premieres and performances of works by Texu Kim (DM 2015). On Sun, 11/1, his “Sonata Amabile” for violin and piano was premiered by Ju-young Baek and Ilya Rashkovskiy, at Seoul International Music Festival, which commissioned the piece. On Wed 11/25, the National Orchestra of Korea performed the revised version of “Academic Ritual.” On Tue 12/1, “Five Short Pieces” for woodwind quintet and piano will be premiered as a part of the Ilshin Composition Prize awards ceremony. Earlier in the fall, “Pali-Pali!!” was performed online by Hyeyung Yoon and Gregory Beaver at an Open Space Music concert and New York Classical Players released videos of “Homage to Anonymous Fiddlers” on their monthly spotlight page. Additionally, Texu served as the curator of the New Music Symposium hosted by the Korean Cultural Society of Boston.
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Student News |
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Hippocrates Cheng Newest Production: an Ongoing Virtual Pandemic Opera
Hippocrates Cheng, a second year DM student in music composition, will direct, compose for and produce his forthcoming virtual pandemic opera In The Midst Of《在…….之中》.Coined by Hippocrates Cheng, pandemic opera is a new format of opera due to the pandemic that began in 2019 which will be presented online without geographical and time constraints. The opera shares the same format as a TV series with episodes. The music is written for voices (Western opera, Cantonese opera, overtone singing and more), chamber ensemble (Western instruments, Chinese instruments, and more), and electronics (poets’ voice), with singing in mainly Cantonese and English. It will receive its online premiere in Hong Kong, the United States and Germany in late December. Recently, he was interviewed by IDS twice as a composer and producer and collaborated with TwoSet Violin for his overtone singing. His work Apliu Street and Technology, written for yangqin and chamber Western-Chinese mixed ensemble, was premiered on 13th November 2020 by the Hong Kong Legends in Sha Tin Town Hall Auditorium of Hong Kong. His ling4-ling4-ling4, winner of the “HK Contemporary Music Festival: Asian Delights” call for scores, was written for dizi, sheng, guzheng, pipa and erhu and premiered on 21st November 2020 by the Chai Found Music Workshop (Taiwan), conducted by Mr.Huang Cheng-ming via online virtual concert. Additionally, he had also arranged 2 medley of Japanese animation music and were premiered on 21st November 2020 by Sync 5 and Hippocrates Cheng (Piano) in Hong Kong City Hall Theatre. |
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Patrick Holcomb Selected for White Snake Projects’ Sing Out Strong: Essential Voices
Patrick Holcomb, a current double-MM student in composition and music scoring for visual media, was recently selected for White Snake Projects’ Sing Out Strong: Essential Voices Call for Artists. White Snake Projects is an activist opera company led by Cerise Lim Jacobs, the librettist of Zhou Long’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Madame White Snake. The SOS: Essential Voices performance will feature new vocal works composed on texts written by essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The text of Holcomb’s piece, What Will Happen to the Children?, was adapted from a statement for The New York Times by flight nurse Felino Taruc on his experience treating COVID-19 patients. The work will be performed live over Zoom on December 19 at 7:30pm ET by Sarah Coit, mezzo-soprano; Agnes Kim, cello; and Nathan Ben-Yehuda, piano. To attend the performance, look out for a livestream link closer to the concert on White Snake Projects’ website or social media. |
Upcoming Events |
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