Primavera

Festival of Contemporary Arts and Digital Media

March 8–April 13, 2011, UCSB

Featured Composers

• Clarence Barlow
• Joann Cho
• Arthur Gottschalk
• Jeremy Haladyna
• Leslie Hogan
• Seth Horvitz
• Joel Hunt
• Kaffe Matthews
• Geoffrey Smith
• Stephen Wilcox

Clarence Barlow

Pianomatic Springs I — Monday, April 4

Professor Clarence Barlow is the Corwin Endowed Chair of Composition at the University of California-Santa Barbara. From its inception, the Corwin Chair has been an important post for promoting the creation and performance of contemporary music, for making regional, national, and international connections with other composition programs, for bringing noted composers to UCSB as guests to broaden students' horizons, and for attracting students to UCSB. Barlow's career achievements fulfill the Corwin's vision of fostering a link between continuing excellence in traditional approaches to composition while also recognizing the emerging role of music in the media arts and technology. Barlow's past and current teaching posts include twelve years as Professor of Composition and Computer Music at the renowned biennial Summer Courses of the International Music Institute at Darmstadt (1982-1994); over twenty years as Lecturer in Computer Music at the Cologne Musikhochschule (1984-2005); four years as Artistic Director of the Institute of Sonology at The Hague 's Royal Conservatory (1990-1994); and twelve years as Professor of Composition and Sonology at the Royal Conservatory (1994-2006). Other posts include Visiting Professor of Composition and Acoustic Art at the Folkwang University in Essen, Germany (1990-1991), and Visiting Professor of Composition at the ESMAE School of Music and Dramatic Arts in Porto, Portugal (2005-2006). Barlow, who studied composition under Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1968-1970) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (1971-1973), is a universally acknowledged pioneer and celebrated composer in the field of electroacoustic and computer music. He has made groundbreaking advancements in interdisciplinary composition that unite mathematics, computer science, visual arts, and literature. While he has been a driving force in interdisciplinary and technological advances, his music is nevertheless firmly grounded in tradition and thus incorporates much inherited from the past. His works, primarily for traditional instruments, feature a vocabulary that ranges from pretonal to tonal, nontonal, or microtonal idioms, and, further, may incorporate elements derived from non-western cultures.

 

Joann Cho

ECM — Wednesday, April 6

The compositions of Joann Cho (b. 1985, Orange, CA) have been premiered in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Santa Barbara, Portugal, and Spain. Her recent work, "Things Left Behind" for viola and electronics, was premiered by Rachel Galvin during the "New Works for Viola Festival" on the campus of the University of California-Santa Barbara on February 26, 2011. Joann is currently a PhD student in composition at UCSB studying with Clarence Barlow. Throughout her time at UCSB she has also worked closely with JoAnn Kuchera-Morin and Matthew Wright in completing acoustic and electroacoustic projects. At Northwestern University between 2003 and 2007, she studied composition with Jay Alan Yim, Reynold Tharp, and Augusta Read Thomas, while studying piano performance with Alan Chow. As a pianist she has performed in and around Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Chicago, and most recently Ghent, Belgium. Joann continues to perform her own compositions as well as other music written in the last 50 years with UCSB's Ensemble for Contemporary Music; she is also an advocate and performer of free improvisation and free jazz music.

Arthur Gottschalk

Lecture: Profile, Residue, and Allusion: My Approach to Composing Music — Tuesday, April 5

ECM — Wednesday, April 6

Lecture: Copyright and the Origins of Our Music Economy — Thursday, April 7

Arthur Gottschalk was born in California, but raised in the Northeastern United States. He attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, receiving a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition, a Master of Arts degree in Music Composition and English Literature, and his Doctorate in Music Composition, studying with William Bolcom, Ross Lee Finney, and Leslie Bassett. He is currently a Professor at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, in Music Theory and Composition, and where he chaired the department until 2010. In 1986 he co-founded Modern Music Ventures, Inc., a company which held a recording studio complex, a record production division, four publishing firms, and an artist management division, and for whom he produced records for PolyGram and Capitol. Gottschalk's teaching specialties include music business and law, film music, music theory, music composition, and counterpoint. As a film and television composer he numbers six feature films, twelve television scores, and numerous industrial films and commercials among his credits. Among other awards, he is a recipient of the Charles Ives Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, annual ASCAP Awards since 1980, and has been a Composer-in-Residence at the famed Columbia/Princeton Electronic Music Center and for the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. He has recently been honored with the First Prize of the Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Originale of Corciano, Italy for his Concerto for Violin and Symphonic Winds, a First Prize from the Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition, and a First Prize from the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra. With his catalog approaching two hundred compositions, his music is performed regularly in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, is recorded on New Ariel, Crystal, Summit, Capstone, Beauport Classical, ERMMedia, Golden Crest, MSR Classics, Delage Music (France), and AURecordings, and is published by Subito Music, Shawnee Press, European American Music Distributors, Alea Publishing, TrevCo Music, and The Spectrum Press (ASCAP). His book, Functional Hearing, is published by Scarecrow Press, a division of Rowman & Littlefield.

Jeremy Haladyna

ECM — April 6

Jeremy Haladyna holds prizes and academic qualifications from three countries. He is a diplòmè of the history-rich Schola Cantorum on Left Bank. He also holds the s degree with Distinction from the University of Surrey (U.K.). He has taught undergraduate composition at UCSB since 1991 and was awarded the Ph.D. in composition in 1993. In addition to his responsibilities with ECM, he teaches orchestration and is on the faculty of the College of Creative Studies, UCSB. As pianist, composer, conductor and organist, he has long been committed to the espousal of new music. Prizes from the Friends of Lili Boulanger and s MCPS Ltd. bear witness to his creativity, and his own music has recently been heard at St. s Smith Square, London; South Bank Centre, London; St. s Cathedral, London; BMIC, London; and the National Museum of Art, Mexico City. His On The Mat of The Jaquar Priest, written for Jill Felber, appears on Neuma records. PaulJohnBritainMasterParis)

Leslie Hogan

ECM — April 6

Leslie A. Hogan (b. 1964) studied composition at the University of Kansas, the University of Michigan, the Sandpoint Festival, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Bloch Composers' Symposium. She worked principally with Leslie Bassett and William Albright. Her music increasingly reflects a longtime fascination with other art forms and with the potential of music to reflect or respond to visual stimuli from the natural world, resulting in works such as Flight (1997), String Quartet #3: Dolphin (1996), Sonata for alto saxophone and piano: 'Thoughts that fit like air' (2000), and Praise (1992), an orchestral work based on some poetry of Robert Hass. Recent works include Sonata for violoncello and piano (2002), written for Virginia Kron, Questions of Travel (2003), a setting of the Elizabeth Bishop poem for mezzo-soprano and large chamber ensemble, Splinter of Hope (2004) and Matisse (2005) for solo cello, and Graffiti (2008) for mixed chamber ensemble. The last composition is the first segment of a large-scale collaboration with choreographer Valerie Huston on a new work for contemporary ballet. Some of her music is featured on the Lyric Media documentary, Villa Montalvo: The Evolution of an Arts Center, released in the fall of 2008.

In 1999, she co-founded Current Sounds, a new music consortium based in Santa Barbara, California, and also serves on the board of the Chamber Music Society of Santa Barbara, an organization which promotes the performance and appreciation of chamber music repertory through sponsoring workshops, concerts, and outreach activities. She has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Charles Ives Fellowship, 2002; Charles Ives Scholarship, 1993), the American Music Center, ASCAP, and the Chicago Civic Orchestra, among others.

Hogan's work has been performed throughout the United States and in Chile by performers including the Rackham String Quartet, the Onyx String Quartet, Alaska Pro Musica, the St. Clair Trio, Alternate Currents Performance Ensemble, the Robin Cox Ensemble, the Empyrean Ensemble, the California State University-Fresno Wind Ensemble, the University of Wyoming-Laramie Wind Ensemble, UCSB’s Ensemble for Contemporary Music, the University of Texas New Music Ensemble, Arizona State University’s New Music Ensemble, the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Civic Orchestra. Dr. Hogan has taught composition in the College of Creative Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara since 1995.

Seth Horvitz

Lecture and Pianomatic Springs I — April 4

Seth Horvitz (b. 1973, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and designer whose work revolves around the perception of sound and the idiosyncratic behavior of machines. Since the mid-1990s, he has created experimental electronic dance music under the name Sutekh for dozens of record labels and performed extensively throughout the world. He is also one half of the spastic dance-theater-self-help duo Pigeon Funk with Joshua Kit Clayton. Though he began his musical adventures as a self-taught misuser of electronics, in recent years he has gravitated towards a more studied approach to composition and sound art. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley (1995) and an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College (2010). For more info, please visit http://www.context.fm

Joel Hunt

ECM — Wednesday, April 6

Joel Hunt is a composer and saxophonist currently studying music theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds degrees in saxophone performance and composition from the State University of New York at Fredonia. While at Fredonia, Joel served as vice president of the Ethos New Music Society and directed the Fredonia Jazz Ensemble. Joel has studied composition with Donald Bohlen and Rob Deemer, electronic music with Keith Peterson, classical saxophone with Wildy Zumwalt, and jazz saxophone with Bruce Johnstone.

Kaffe Matthews

CREATE — April 7

Kaffe Matthews was born in Essex, England and lives and works in London. 

Since 1990 she has been making and performing new electro-acoustic music worldwide with a variety of things and places such as violin, theremin, Scottish weather, desert stretched wires, NASA scientists, melting ice in Quebec and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.  Currently she is researching 3D composition for outdoor enjoyment through Hammerhead sharks in Galapagos and sustainable vibratory interface design with 'music for bodies.'  Acknowledged as a pioneer in the field of electronic improvisation and live composition, Kaffe has released 6 solo CD's on the label Annette Works. 

Often collaborating, her present projects are with Mandy McIntosh to make a flexible sonic intervention for a Star Gazing Shelter in the Galloway Forest, and climate change activist fan band The Gluts.  Recently back to the stage after 4 years making sonic furniture works, Kaffe will have her long awaited seventh solo release out on Annette Works winter 2010/11. 

Recent works include Where are the Wild Ones? (2010), 12 channel composition, The Sage, AV Festival 10; In clean air we fly (2009), bicycle powered 8 channel installation for London's Gillett Sq;The Marvelo Project (2008), Folkestone Sculpture Triennial; Sonic Bed_Marfa (2008), Texas; Sonic Bench_Mexico (2007), Laboratorio Arte Alameda Mexico City, 2007; Body Abiding, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Glasgow; Sonic Bed_Shanghai (2006),Xuhui Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2006; This is for you (2005), work for chaise longue, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2005; Three Crosses of Queensbridge, work for bicycles + Radios, Drawing Room, London, 2005; No-one here but us chickens (2005), The Starr Auditorium, TATE Modern, London, UK, 2005. 

Her 2004 collaboration Weightless Animals was awarded a BAFTA, she received a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship in 2005 and an Award of Distinction, Prix Ars Electronica 2006 for the Work Sonic Bed_London.  In February 2006 she was made an Honorary Professor of Music, Shanghai Music Conservatory, China and in 2009 a patron of the Galapagos shark conservation society. 

Geoff Smith

lecture —April 13

Inventor, Composer, performer, designer, vocalist, songwriter and percussionist Geoff Smith originates from the city of Brighton in the UK. He is acknowledged both as a world-leading virtuoso and a unique innovator and pioneer in composition, technique and performance on the Hammered Dulcimer.

In what represents a genuinely revolutionary development in the history of music he is also internationally recognized as having reinvented the Piano: ‘Composer reinvents the piano’ (The Guardian, 2009)

The invention of the Fluid Piano™ enables musicians to alter each note individually and separately by precise microtonal intervals per note before or during performance. This is made possible by Geoff Smith’s patented Fluid Tuning™ mechanism, which liberates the instrument from the restrictions of ‘western’ tuning. This enables musicians to explore and experiment with an immense diversity of ‘bespoke‘ tuning layouts and ‘indigenous’ scales and modes from around the world.

The first ever ‘Fluid Piano’ was unveiled & showcased in London at the South Bank Centre on March 27^th 2010.

Geoff Smith has dedicated himself, since 1997, to exploring the possibilities of ‘Fluid Tuning’ on the Hammered Dulcimer as both research & development and the precursor to the incorporation of ‘Fluid Tuning’ into the Acoustic piano via the invention, design and construction of the ‘Fluid Piano’.

Geoff is widely known as the composer and performer of critically acclaimed live soundtracks to silent films such as ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’, ‘Faust’, ‘Haxan Witchcraft through the Ages’ and most recently ‘The Adventures of Prince Achmed". In 2001 Geoff also worked in Japan where he collaborated with Shakti and the Vasanta Mala Dance Company: he composed a score for a new contemporary ballet production based on ‘Salome' in which he explored using ‘Fluid Tuning’ with choreography.

Geoff was also the founder member of the band 'Attacco Decente' with whom he released numerous albums and toured the U.K. and Europe extensively between 1986-1996.

Geoff studied for his Masters degree in composition at the London College of Music under Adam Gorb and Martin Ellerby. He was awarded 'The Howard Goodall Prize for Composition'.

Stephen Wilcox

ECM — Wednesday, April 6

Stephen Wilcox received a B.M. in instrumental performance (tuba) and a B.M. in music theory from West Chester University, a M.M. in Composition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, his dissertation, Cho-Han, was performed by Osmo Vänska and the Minnesota Orchestra as part of the 2007 Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute. A BMI award winner and MacDowell Fellow, he attended the Summer Composition Workshop in Hoy, Scotland, where he worked with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. His other honors include awards from the Arts Fund, NACUSA, New Music Delaware, "Friends and Enemies of New Music", the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Prism Saxophone quartet.

Wilcox's work has been performed by Julia Bentley, Gregory Wiest, Joseph Bognar, Magda Adamek and members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh. SCI included his work in their CD series and in the SCI Journal, and his music has also been recorded on the Capstone label. Recently, his works have been performed at the CMS National Conference in Quebec City, the Trinity Center in Philadelphia, Symphony Space in New York, June in Buffalo and at the Musikhögskolan i Piteå in Luleå Sweden.