[Voxnovus] NM421> December 27, 2013 - Review of Hard Eight - Happy New Year wishes!

[Robert Voisey (Vox Novus)]

	 <http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421> New Music for the 21st Century

	
	
	
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< <http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/issue/13-12-20.htm> 	 December 27, 2013
<http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/issue/14-01-03.htm> >	 
		

VOX NOVUS NEWSLETTER - New Music for the 21st Century	

> REVIEW: Composer's Voice - Hard Eight	

> POSTCARD: Best Friends	

OPPORTUNITIES	

> Fifteen Minutes of Fame - call for works for Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon



> Composer's Site - new opportunities	

> Composer's Site - expiring opportunities	

NM421 ARCHIVES 	
	
	
	
	


Best Friends

 Best Friends
<http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/issue/postcard/13-12-27-Best_Friends.jpg> 

The four trumpet players of the Honningsvag Philharmonic in northernmost
Norway were initially stymied when they discovered that the orchestra's
practical joking timpanist had hocked their instruments. But then Oodmar,
the oft dipsomaniacal second chair, fashioned a solution out of four of her
"best friends," as she called them. Hence, the brass players were able to
accord themselves very well indeed in Ein Heldenleben's clamorous fanfare on
the Saturday afternoon concert. 

 <http://www.davidgunn.org> David Gunn 

 <http://www.davidgunn.org> David Gunn
www.DavidGunn.org 

 Composer's Voice
<http://www.voxnovus.com/img/Composers_Voice_logo_2012.jpg>  Hard Eight
<http://www.voxnovus.com/img/Hard_Eight.gif> 


REVIEW: Composer's Voice Hard Eight
<http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/program/13-12-08.htm> 


Composer's Voice December 8 Reviewed by Jack Crager 

 Robert Voisey <http://www.voxnovus.com/composer/pic/Robert_Voisey_044.jpg> 

The final 2013 performance of the Composers Voice Series at New York's Jan
Hus Church is significant for several reasons - not least being the birthday
of series founder and creative spirit Robert Voisey. Sporting a full beard
and with his trademark ponytail unfurled, Voisey welcomes the full-house
audience to an equally unfettered show. The program's theme, "Hard Eight,"
is a gambling term having to do with high returns due to a unlikely
combination - an apt title for this lineup. 

The program gets of with a bang in the staccato opening chords of Voisey's
own composition, "run rabbit run," featuring a lively interplay between
Roberta Michel's flute and Yumi Suehiro's piano. Underpinning this is
tightly synched choreography by Callie Hatchett performed by a trio of
dancers: Caloline Dietz, Stanton Jacinto, and Lee Katherine. When the score
shifts into intricate melodies, with flute and piano lines trading lead
positions and weaving around each other, the dancing becomes more fluid,
switching from unison forms to darting counterpoints and back again. As the
music crescendos in a final flurry, the dancers thrust into skyward,
arms-out backward stretches, as if looking to the heavens, before suddenly
exiting the stage in three directions on the final chord. It's an
avant-garde mix with a surprise ending. 

 run rabbit run
<http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/img/13-12-27-run_rabbit_run.jpg> 

The following piece is even more unconventional. Entitled "INNERTERP," by TJ
Hospodar, it features ASL performer Lisa Reynolds doing sign-language in
front of a video camera, her back to the audience but her image on a
television monitor (an old-time model with a jerky picture) set up behind
her chair. She's accompanied by electronic ambient music and free-form
singing by Phillip Guelley and Ellen O'Meara. Unfortunately, as they're
getting started, a stage helper takes a cellphone call and chats away while
walking toward the back of Jun Hus Church. Just as it seems he'll leave, he
wanders back, rudely talking and making several audience members visibly
annoyed (one woman tries to shut him up). Soon it's clear that this
interloper is a performer: Matthew Gantt, who is, it turns out, telling a
shaggy-dog story about a visit to a gambling casino into his phone. Tensions
rise as the ambient noise gets more dissonant - all interfering with the
sign-language performance, which most viewers can't understand anyway (but
which, it turns out, is an interpretation of Gantt's gambling story). A few
minutes in, the eerie chaos makes the rude phone guy seem rather "normal."
This amusing, disconcerting piece illustrates the disconnect of modern life
- as electronics, language barriers, and fragmented signals (not to mention
gambling) separate us more than ever. 

 Christos Marinos and Isabel Perez Dobarro
<http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/img/13-12-27-Christos_Marinos-Isabel_Perez_Do
barro.jpg> 

At this point in the program, it's time for something different . ragtime,
anyone? Performing music by the late great New York composer Douglas
Townsend, pianists Christons Marinos and Maria Isabel Perez Dobarro bring a
much more conventional march-meets-jazz sound to the mix. In "The Ridgefield
Rag," the pair trades robust bass patterns with treble flourishes; in
Townsend's interpretation of the traditional "Il Est Ne," they wander the
keys in both directions like four-handed Siamese twins. 

During an equipment-setup interlude, the creative team behind the Composer's
Voice series offers an impromptu performance of their piece "Whale Cage." In
the ensemble EMR, Douglas DaSilva (electric guitar) joins Robert Voisey
(impressionistic vocals), with David Moneau's iPhone sound effects, in an
abstract melange that sounds like a cross between the whale voices in
"Finding Nemo" and a voyage into outer space. This entertains the audience
as instruments are set up for the next piece - which is even wilder. 

 run rabbit run <http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/img/13-12-27-Hard_Eight.jpg> 

The show's centerpiece and the trademark Composer's Voice feature, Fifteen
Minutes of Fame, is entitled "HARD EIGHT - Graphic Notation" and curated by
composer Nate Trier. It's based on one-minute works by 15 artists that are
written in graphic scores - abstract to the layman - which the musicians
interpret sonically. (These scores are included in the YouTube video of the
performance.) The four players - Trier, Istvan Peter B'Racz, Bill Beckett,
and Brendan Randall-Myers - play conventional instruments (two electric
guitars, piano and keyboard) in such amorphous ways that they don't sound
familiar. Trier explains one approach used in his own piece called "Seis
Six," notated by a series of geometric shapes: "Our pianist played the red
long triangles as a cluster of notes and held them down so they would slowly
decay, which parallels the fading red. The guitarist and I each played one
triangle in each pair of brackets (one of us was blue, one of us was
green)." 

Thus the interpretation lies very much with the musicians - and the
audience. The results range from the scatter-shot staccato dots and droning
lines of Shawn David Bounkim's "Sketch" to the playful cacophony of
Elizabeth Jigalin's "toy box"; from the shadowy figures and "smeared echoes"
of Paul Elwood's "Taos Junction" to the outright campiness of Daniel Mihai's
"Lucky Dice" - which sends up the rituals of craps games in spoken segments,
interspersed with bizarre instrumental exchanges. By the end of these 15
minutes, the musical envelope has been pushed to its limits! 

 dance <http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/img/13-12-27-JorEl_JuJu.jpg> 

The afternoon's finale is "Jor-El's Juju: An Abiotic Evolution," by
Composer's Voice Series Artistic Director Douglas DaSilva, with choreography
by Erin Bomboy. This adventurous suite seems a study in seasonal mood
swings: It begins with buoyant clarinet lines by Diego Vasquez playing
hide-and-seek with cello parts by Jennifer Shaw, then segues into a playful
exchange between Nicholas Handahl's flute and Josh Henderson's violin. Soon
the spritely tempo gives way to slow, melancholy lines, as the dancers - D
Pace Short, Meghann Bronson, Ali Berg Nocola, and Samantha Parsons -
downshift accordingly. Before long the tempo picks up again, with two
dancers springing into action as the other two seem groggy. By the time they
reawaken, the musical tone is woeful again . but picks back up as all
players and dancers revive, like a springtime wake-up call - which then ends
on a note of suspended uncertainty. 

It's a suitable finish to a widely diverse program, closing out an eventful
year for the Composer's Voice Series. Stay tuned! The series resumes in 2014
with a performance on the second Sunday January 12, 2014. 

Program and video of the concert can be found at the following link:
 <http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/program/13-12-08.htm>
http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/program/13-12-08.htm 

  Jack Crager <http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/img/Jack_Crager.jpg> 

Jack Crager 




Vox Novus Projects 

 <http://www.voxnovus.com> Vox Novus	  <http://www.60x60.com> 60x60	
 <http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/> Composer's Voice
<http://www.voxnovus.com/15_Minutes_of_Fame/> Fifteen Minutes of Fame	
 <http://www.voxnovus.com/resources/American_Composer_Timeline.htm> American
Composer Timeline	 
 <http://www.composerssite.com/> Composer's Site	
 <http://www.voxnovus.com/NM421/> NM421 - New Music for the 21st Century



Opportunities 

 Fifteen Minutes of Fame
<http://www.voxnovus.com/img/Fifteen_Minutes_of_Fame_logo.jpg> 


 <http://www.voxnovus.com/15_Minutes_of_Fame/calls/> 
Fifteen Minutes of Fame 

CALL FOR SCORES


Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: West Winds 


Deadline: January 25, 2014


Vox Novus is calling for one-minute pieces for Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon
composed for Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: West Winds to be performed in
conjunction with Living Arts in Tulsa for May 22, 2014. 


  <http://www.voxnovus.com/member/pic/West_Winds.jpg> 


This Fifteen Minutes of Fame call for "West Winds" is looking for works
inspired by the folk music of the composer's current country of residence or
his/her nationality. The one-minute pieces are to be written specifically
for this project, which will be performed by West winds 

The selected pieces will be announced Spring of 2014 and the selected
composers will be contacted via email. The results will be posted on the Vox
Novus website: www.voxnovus.com and through the NM421 newsletter. 

Dayna Smith holds a Bachelor of Music and a Masters in Business
Administration degrees from Oklahoma City University , and continued her
study in bassoon performance at Baylor University . A native of Lawton ,
Oklahoma , she has played the bassoon for over 25 years, performing in
chamber groups, orchestras and professional bands. In addition to performing
with the West Winds, Dayna also performs with Chamber Music of Tulsa,
Starlight Bands, and Bartlesville Symphony Orchestra. Other recent
performances include concerts with the Jackson Bay Quintet, Signature
Symphony and the Tulsa Community College Orchestra. Dayna studied under
Betty Johnson, Eric Arbiter and Dr. Kent Moore. Dayna also teaches bassoon
privately in the Tulsa area. 

Kristi Sturgeon holds a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of
Tulsa and a Master of Music from the University of Oklahoma where she
studied with Dr. David Etheridge. During her career, she has performed with
many area ensembles, including the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Signature
Symphony, the Starlight Band, and in various venues in the Tulsa area as a
freelance musician. Since 1993, Kristi has maintained a private studio at
Owasso High School . In 2000, she joined the Ft. Smith Symphony in Ft. Smith
, Arkansas as the group's bass clarinetist and can be heard playing on three
of the cds the orchestra has recorded on the NAXOS label. Kristi joined the
faculty of the University of Tulsa as clarinet professor in 2010. When not
playing, she can be found knitting or spinning yarn, arranging and
composing, gardening, or enjoying life with her husband and two sons. 

For over forty year, Mark Watson has been an active horn player in the Tulsa
Area. He has been a member of the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Signature Symphony
and the Starlight Band. Additionally, he has performed in the pit for Tulsa
Opera, Tulsa Ballet Theatre, and many Broadway shows. Other musical
activities have included numerous chamber music performances, church
services and the occasional big band or solo performance. When he is not
playing the horn, Mark is an information systems analyst support Maintenance
and Engineering Systems at the American Airlines Maintenance Base in Tulsa .
He enjoys fishing and camping and his life with his wife, Margaret, and
their West highland Terriers 

Click here for more details
 <http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/calls/#14-01-25>
http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/calls/ 

 <http://www.composerssite.com/new_opp> Composer's Site 


Click Here for New Opportunities <http://www.composerssite.com/new_opp> 

 <http://www.composerssite.com/expiring_opp> Composer's Site 


Click Here for Expiring Opportunities
<http://www.composerssite.com/expiring_opp> 

Tweets by @VoxNovus <https://twitter.com/VoxNovus>  	


NM421 Archives 


2013	 
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2012	 
December	 
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November	 
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