Illinois Wesleyan University School ofMusic PRESENTS
SYMPOSIUM OF
David Vayo, Director
Featured Guests
Chi nary Ung, composer Susan Ung, violist Adam Greene, composer/scholar
September 18-19,2012
ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
Symposium of Contemporary Music 2012-13 SEPTEMBER 18, 2012
8:00 PM
Westbrook Auditorium
Music of Chinary Ung Remarks by Dr. Ung KhseBuon Michael Hall, viola After Rising Light Stacey Fraser, soprano Jocelyn Chang, piano Suppose a thousand suns should rise together in the sky: such is the glory of the shape of Infinite God... Universal Form, I see you without limit See, and find no end, midst, or beginning. I see all gods within your body; Each in his degree, the multitude of creatures See Lord Brahma throned upon the lotus; Crowned with diadems, Shining every way - the eyes shrink from your splendor Brilliant like the sun; like fire, blazing, boundless beyond measure. -Bhagavad-Gita from Seven Mirrors
2. Dotted Path 3.... Roar, lion of the heart ... 7. Flying Mirrors Nancy Pounds, piano Rising Spirals Mark Anderson, guitar -Intermission-
Remarks by Dr. Ung Spiral VI David Gresham, clarinet Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin Adriana La Rosa Ransom, violoncello John Orfe, piano Mario J. Pelusi, conductor Cinnabar Heart Amanda Legner, marimba and voice Spiral XI (Mother and Child) Susan Ung, viola and voice This program is funded in part by the Anna McGrosso Visiting Artists Fund. Following the program, the audience is invited to a reception in the Presser Hall reception room, courtesy of Sigma Alpha Iota. This program is presented as part of the IWU New Music Series. To receive notifications of Series events via email, contact David Vayo, Series director: dvayo@iwu.edu.
SEPTEMBER 19,2012
11:00 AM School of Music room 258
Still Life After Death: Transcendent Spiritualism in the Music of Chinary Ung Adam Greene, lecturer This talk explores Ung's use of ritual, metaphor, and imagery to produce a music of vivid dramatic impact. Works to be discussed are Aura (2005), Spiral XI, "Mother and Child" (2009), Rain of Tears (2006), and Still Life After Death (1995).
A Note from the Symposium Director Before coming to IWU in 1991, I spent a few years teaching at Connecticut College. When I arrived fresh out of grad school, several of my colleagues told me about a wonderful composer from Cambodia who had taught there several years before. Not long after, an article was posted on the Department of Music's bulletin board, and I recognized the name of the former faculty member in the headline: Chinary Ung had just won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Funded by the estate of a Louisville industrialist, the Grawemeyer Award is among the world's largest monetary awards in the field of music composition, and on a similar level of prestige to the Pulitzer Prize. Chinary's 1989 award marked a turning point in the Grawemeyer's history; whereas previously it had only been given to famous distinguished elders of the composition world, it could now also be awarded to, as Down Beat magazine's readers' poll puts it, "talent deserving of wider recognition." He was indeed deserving, and the Grawemeyer provided a welcome boost to Chinary's profile. It helped lead to his current position at the University of California at San Diego and his reputation as one of the world's most original and profound musical voices. Around the time that he received the Grawemeyer, my Connecticut colleagues were kind enough to alert me to the fact that Chinary would be in New York to receive another award, and perhaps the two of us would like to meet. It was a pleasure to make the acquaintance of this gracious, gregarious and wise man; we have since crossed paths numerous times under professional and personal circumstances, and I have treasured our friendship over the years. Chinary's music brilliantly weds elements of Western contemporary concert music to sounds rooted in the music of his homeland. Just as important as the musical ideas are the philosophical and spiritual- particularly Buddhistunderpinnings of his music, as Chinary's former student Adam Greene will explain to us in detail in Wednesday's lecture. Chinary's ability to stay focused on the wellsprings of creativity has profoundly influenced many of those lucky enough to have met him. I once heard a talk by his former student Brent Michael Davids, who is part Mohawk but before studying with Chinary knew nothing about that side of his background. Chinary encouraged him to look into his heritage, and it transformed Davids' music and life, leading not only to his writing music grounded in Native American musical and cultural concepts but also to inventing and performing on a variety of instruments based on Native American models; he is now considered one of the most important Native American composers. I also recall a conversation I had with Chinary when he was teaching at Arizona State University and I went there to speak to one of his classes. At the time, he and his family lived at the very edge of the
desert. While we took a walk through that magical landscape, Chinary told me that creative people need such things to recharge us and keep our art fresh. As a youngish, struggling composer trying to juggle way too many responsibilities, it was important for me to hear this from a high-prome, in-demand older colleague. Meditating, improvising, reading poetry and encounters with the natural world have more and more become my daily bread, feeding those parts of me that speak through art. I'm grateful to Chinary for helping me make them priorities. This year's Symposium is also distinguished by a record number of guest performers, who are sharing the stage with a number of Illinois Wesleyan's faculty artists. Chinary's wife Susan, a masterful and spellbinding violist, will play an extended composition written for her. From a little farther north in California come soprano Stacey Fraser and pianist Jocelyn Chang. School of Music director Mario Pelusi will conduct an all-star group of performers based at our neighbor schools Bradley University and Illinois State University. We welcome this opportunity for composers, performers and members of the audience to share connections with each other on many levels. - David Vayo
Guest Artists Chinary Ung
was born in Cambodia in 1942 and came to the United States in 1964 to further his studies in music. He received training in New York City, where he was a clarinet student of Charles Russo at the Manhattan School of Music. A few years later he became a composition student of Chou Wen-chung, at first, privately, and later as a doctoral student at Columbia University. In the 1980's, he was the President of the Khmer Studies Institute. He obtained a Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in music composition with distinction, from Columbia University in 1974. He is a master Roneat Ek performer, the native Cambodian xylophone of the Pinpeat tradition, which often accompanies the court dance, dance drama, and ritual ceremonies. He is presently Professor of Composition at the University of California at San Diego. Ung has received many honors including those from the Koussevitzky, John F. Kennedy/Friedheim Award, National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and, he was the first American to receive the coveted international Grawemeyer Award (1989), sometimes called the Nobel Prize for composers. He has received three Cultural Preservation Awards from numerous Cambodian-American communities and is currently an advisor of the Killing Fields Memorial and Cambodian-American Heritage Museum in Chicago. An international Cambodian Studies Conference,
IMAGINE CAMBODIA, is honoring Ung with an evening program of his music, in September, 2012, at Northern Illinois University. The New Juilliard Ensemble will perform a large ensemble version of his chamber orchestra work, Rain of Tears later in September. He is currently a music advisor of the Season of Cambodia, a festival of Cambodian Arts and Culture, New York City, April/May, 2013. Ung will be a guest of honor for Thailand Asian Composers League, Thailand, in July, 2013, at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Recently, Ung and his wife, Susan received a joint fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council to establish a Composers Institute in Cambodia, a project which will begin next year. Recent commissions include AURA for Southwest Chamber Music, ORACLE from the Da Capo Chamber Players, RAIN OF TEARS for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra funded by a grant from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago, Spiral XIV: "Nimitta", for a Minneapolis based ensemble, Zeitgeist. He has written several works in collaboration with his wife, Susan Ung who specializes in viola with vocalization. Spiral IX is for baritone, viola and percussion, Spiral XI, for viola/voice solo and Spiral XII is for a large ensemble with Cambodian dancers, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and was premiered at Disney Hall in November, 2008. His work AKASA, for viola, cello, pipa, percussion and piano was premiered at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and La Jolla Summerfest in 2011. His viola concerto will be premiered this February by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. During his 70th birthday year, 2012/13, numerous ensembles/institutions will offer celebratory concerts in cities on Southeast Asia and US, including a performance by the New York New Music Ensemble of his epic work, AURA, for two sopranos and ten instrumentalists, which Ung will conduct at Le Poisson Rouge, in NYC this April. This October Ung will be a distinguished guest composer at the Chengdu Contemporary Music Festival at Sichuan Conservatory of Music, China, where his works will be performed by artists from various countries. Bridge Records has released three volumes of his works. Volume 1 is a new recording of older, revised works and in 2009 was cited by The New York Times to be in the top 10 classical music recordings of that year. Volume 2 was recorded by Da Capo Chamber Players, cited to be the top 5 CD's by National Public Radio. the recently released Volume 3 includes Spiral IX and Spiral XI, two ambitious works with extensive vocalization by instrumentalists. His works are also recorded on New World Records, CRl, Oodiscs, Norton Recordings, Koch International, Mark Custom, Argo, Cambria, ALM Records, Naxos (Canada), Atoll (New Zealand), and Klein Records (Germany). The music of Chinary Ung is published exclusively by C. F. Peters Corporation.
Susan Ung has performed in major venues in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as at the Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival and La Jolla Summerfest. Her international experience includes residencies in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia. Her approach to the viola is informed by an interest in traditional music from several Asian cultures, and study of the ehr-hu and Javanese gamelan which she studied at Northern Illinois University under Dr. Han Kuo-Han. She received undergraduate and graduate degrees in viola performance at Northern Illinois University and at Stony Brook University in New York, where her major teachers were Nobuko Imai and John Graham. The fruit of these studies and a commitment tothe music of her time have blossomed in a long collaboration with her husband Chinary Ung. Their work together has led her to develop a repertoire of unorthodox skills, particularly the use of complex vocalizations while simultaneously playing the viola. Susan Ung appears on recordings on the Bridge, CR!, Cambria, and Koch labels.
Adam Greene is a composer of instrumental works intended to re-explore the nature of engagement between composer and performer. His compositions have been commissioned and presented by performers and institutions committed to the promotion of new and innovative musical experiences, including SONaR, Ensemble Resonanz, the Formalist Quartet, Janos Negyesy, and Speculum Musicae. His collaborations with adventurous and generous soloists have been vital in forging an approach towards the musical score that places extreme physical and technical demands in a meaningful dramatic and expressive context. While several of his compositions are extended from concepts where no particular text exists, many works have emerged from an encounter with writings, such as those by Calvino, Beckett, Joyce, and Lewis Carroll. His orchestral work In Winter takes as a point of departure a haiku from Basho. Recently he has been engrossed in Classical texts, which have formed the basis for several ongoing projects. An occasional poet, his own words have found their way into musical projects as well, often as a means of offering an alternate, poetic commentary to musical figures that simultaneously aids and complicates the performer's interpretation. Adam Greene's music has been performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia. He has participated in several festivals and residency programs that have featured his works, such as UCROSS, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the International Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik (Darmstadt), the Composers Conference at Wellesley, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance (at the New England Conservatory of Music), and the
Long Beach Summer Arts program. As a student of Franco Donatoni in the mid-1990's he, was enrolled in courses in composition and contemporary music at the Civica Scuola, Milan. His awards include a commission grant from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard, as well as prizes from ASCAP, American Composers Forum, and NACUSA. Recordings of his music can be found on Aucourant Records.
Michael Hall
lives in Chicago and has performed and taught across Europe, Asia and the United States. Described by the New Music Connoisseur as "utterly masterful," and Chamber Music Today as having "superb technique," he recently presented to critical acclaim the North American premiere of the first viola concerto written by a Chinese composer, Chen Yi's, Xian Shi, with the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Hall has been a featured performer at the Thailand International Composition Festival, Positano Chamber Music Festival in Italy, Vianden International Chamber Music Festival in Luxembourg and New York University's Composer's Concordance. Twice he has presented world premieres at International Viola Congresses at Minneapolis and Reykjavik, Iceland. Compositions written for Michael Hall include two recently released commercial recordings: Narong Prangcharoen's Antahkarana, and Mara Gibson's Canopy. Other notable solo premieres have included works by Marta Ptaszynska, Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, Christian Ellenwood, Jean-David Caillouet, David Vayo and Yu Pengfei. In addition to presenting the Asian premieres of works by Elliott Carter, Zhou Long, Shulamit Ran and Nico Muhly, Hall has championed the music of Alfred Schnittke, Stephen Paulus and Kee Yong Chong. Commercial recordings can be found on the Delos, Centaur, Acoma, Clarion, Vienna Modem Masters, and Albany Records labels. Michael believes strongly in the expressive power of collaborating with diverse disciplines in the arts. Collaborations with dancers and visual artists led to guest recitals and lectures at the Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City Art Institute, Chicago Renaissance Society, Musical Bridges Program and the Experimental Sound Studio. Cross-curricular interests naturally led to Michael's Young Composers Project, funded by the City of Chicago with a Neighborhood Arts Grant. The project used music to teach math and creative writing to elementary school students on the South Side. Other awards include grants from USArtists International and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. Hall has performed on Thailand's PBS-TV, National Public Radio's "Live From Studio A" and WFMT's new music program Relevant Tones. Hall regularly performs with the Chicago Philharmonic, Joffrey Ballet, Ravinia Festival, Chicago Bach Ensemble and Chicago Composers Orchestras. Future solo performances include the Sonict New Music Series, Philadelphia Salon
Series, CUBE New Music Series and UMKC Composition Workshop. Hall served on the faculties of Illinois Wesleyan University, VanderCook College of Music, and the Chicago Academy for the Arts, a Kennedy Center Award recipient. He is a graduate of Ball State University, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He plays a viola made by Ferruccio Varagnolo. michaelhallviola.com Canadian soprano Stacey Fraser's eclectic musical interests have led her to sing on international operatic, concert and theatre stages across the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist for the San Diego Opera, the Tony Award winning La Jolla Playhouse, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan, the Musicasa Concert Hall in Tokyo, Japan, the Thailand Composition Festival, the Americke Jaro Festival in Prednasek, Czech Republic, Red Square Gallery in Hong Kong, Vancouver Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, La Jolla Symphony, San Bernardino Symphony, Banff Centre, Tanglewood Music Center, Asia Society NYC, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and the world renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York City. As an avid performer of contemporary music, her debut performance of Sequenza III was described as an "amusing, virtuosic rendering of Mr. Berio's stream of unconventional vocalizations" by Allan Kozinn of the The New York Times. Her 2009 performance of Seven Songs from the Unknown Kurt Weill was described by the San Diego Union Tribune as "marvelously edgy" and "showed delicious physicality and intelligent restraint". Stacey is dedicated to the performance of vocal works by modem AsianAmerican composers and is a long-time collaborator ofJapanese composer Koji Nakano, grand prize winner of the 2008 S & R Foundation award. Ms. Fraser has recorded Nakano's Ancient Songs (2007) for solo voice as well as his chamber piece Time Song II, Howling through time for soprano, percussion and flute (2006). Fraser most recently gave the world premiere of Nakano's new work for soprano entitled Arigatoo from the opera Spiritual Forest at the Kennedy Center. She performed the Asian premiere of Arigatoo ten days later' on March 1,2011 to a sold out house at the Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan. Ms. Fraser's articles on Nakano's vocal music have been published by Cambridge Scholar Press (2009) and the College Music Symposium (2011). Operatic roles include Despina in Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte, Pamina in The Magic Flute for the San Diego Opera Ensemble, Erste Knaben in Mozart's Die ZauberJlote, First Handmaiden in Puccini's Turandot for the San Diego Opera, Miss Silverpeal in The Impresario for South Dakota Symphony and the role of the Opera Singer in Paris Commune for La Jolla Playhouse. During her tenure at San Diego Opera as an Ensemble member, she understudied the
roles of Marzelline in Fidelio, Suzanne in Tobias Picker's Therese Raquin and Leila in Bizet's Les Fecheurs des Perles. Oratorio highlights include the soprano soloist in Handel's Messiah with Vancouver Symphony, Eva in Haydn's Die Schiipfungwith La Jolla Symphony, and soprano soloist in both Mendelssohn's Lobgesange and the Stravinsky Mass with the San Bernardino Symphony. Stacey can be heard in the role of Lisinga on the premiere recording of Manuel del Populo Vicente Garcia's opera Le Cinesi for Harmonicorde Recordings and on the University of California San Diego Sound Check series singing Webern's Opus 18. She holds a Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance from University of California, San Diego, Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Toronto. She is currently an Associate Professor of Music at California State University, San Bernardino where she is the Director of Opera Theatre. She is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists and Actors Equity Association. Pianist Jocelyn Hua-Chen Chang, an award winning pianist, is consistently praised as "a pianist of virtuoso caliber" whose "artistry is very unique and communicative with wonderful attention to detail, texture, color, and style." Her performances are "filled with energy, flair and conviction"; her "performance ability is first-rate while still playing with charm and sensibility." Chang holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance with Distinction from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she majored in Piano Performance with concentrations in Keyboard Collaborative Arts, Double Bass Performance, and Music Education. She received her Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the Peabody Conservatory ofJohns Hopkins University; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the National Taiwan Normal University, where she majored in Piano Performance with a minor in Double Bass Performance. Chang was enrolled in Taiwan's prestigious government program for musically gifted children in the city of Taipei beginning in elementary school and through high school. Additionally, she has also studied at the Belarusian State Academy of Music in Minsk, Belarus. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Jocelyn enjoys a versatile musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, adjudicator, and educator. She made her piano concerto debut with the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra in 1998 and later with the Taipei Century Symphony Orchestra in the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She has garnered numerous accolades and top prizes from the Taiwan National Piano Competition, the SinoPac Young Artist Piano Competition, the Taipei Piano Competition, the National Taiwan Normal University Piano Concerto Competition, the Taiwan Pace Young Musician Awards, the Taiwan National Chamber Music Competition, the Taipei Double
Bass Competition, and the Taiwan National Double Bass Competition. While completing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree, Dr. Chang served on the faculty at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. For her accomplishments and effectiveness as an educator, USC has distinguished her as a Model Teacher. Dr. Chang has also taught master classes through the Riverside branch and the San Bernardino branch of the Music Teachers Association of California(MTAC). She has also been frequently invited to serve as judge for the piano competitions which include the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artist Piano Competition, United States Open Music Competition, Southwestern Youth Music Festival Competition, Liana Cohen Music Festival Competition, La Sierra University Concerto Competition, and Diamond Bar Performing Arts Challenge Competition. She has worked extensively with the internationally renowned concert pianist Daniel Pollack, who is a pupil of the legendary Rosina Lhevinne and Josef Lhevinne. Through her academic journey, she has also been under the tutelage of distinguished artists and educators Stewart Gordon, Boris Slutsky, Kevin Fitz-Gerald, Zoia Kocharskaya, Dennis Thurmond, Dennis Trembly, En Wang and Ren-Jen Wang. Jocelyn Hua-Chen Chang is on the faculty and serves as Director of Keyboard Studies of the Music Department at California State University, San Bernardino. Dr. Chang is Founder and Faculty Advisor of Piano Society at California State University, San Bernardino. She is also on the faculty at Pasadena City College. In addition to her performing and teaching schedule, Dr. Chang teaches and directs a highly selective piano studio in Pasadena, California. She makes her home in Pasadena, California and Taipei, Taiwan. To learn more about Jocelyn Hua-Chen Chang, please visit her websites: www.JocelynChang.com. Clarinetist David Gresham, Associate Professor of Music at Illinois State University, maintains and active and varied performing life in addition to his teaching activities. He has given solo concerts all over the world, including a four-recital tour ofJapan, a nine-concert recital tour of South America as an Artistic Ambassador sponsored by the U. S. Information Service, solo performances in England, Italy and Canada, five recitals at Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium in New York City, and recitals at other venues in New York City such as the 92nd Street Y Art Gallery and the Great Hall at Cooper Union. As soloist with orchestra/band he has appeared in Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Ukraine, Portugal, and the United States. Dr. Gresham's recording of the Mozart clarinet concerto is available on the Troppo Note/Cambria label, and his recording of David Maslanka's concerto for clarinet and band, Desert
Roads, is available on the Albany Records label. From 1992 to 2005 he worked with the respected New York based new music group, Continuum, with which he performed frequently in New York City, throughout North and South America, Eastern and Western Europe, and Central Asia. He also recorded several CDs of contemporary music with Continuum. Currently Dr. Gresham performs with the Illinois State University faculty woodwind quintet, Sonneries, and with flutist Kimberly Risinger in the duo ensemble Difference Tones, and appears with other chamber musicians around the country. He also plays bass clarinet with both the Peoria Symphony and the Heartland Chamber Orchestra.
Marcia Henry Liebenow, Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, is professor of Violin, Viola, and Chamber Music at Bradley University. Her work has been recognized with the Outstanding Studio Teacher Award from Illinois American String Teachers' Association, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Ohio University, 25 Women in Leadership Award by the Peoria Chamber of Commerce, and by Arts Partners of Illinois for her work in the community. She leads an active career as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist. This spring she was the soloist on Shirish Korde's Svara-Yantra Concerto for Violin and Tabla. The Grieg Violin Sonata CD she recorded with pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi was released by Centaur Records, and her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today. She is a member of the Concordia String Trio and the River City String Quartet. In the summers, Marcia is a faculty artist at the Red Lodge Music Festival in Montana, Birch Creek Music Festival in Wisconsin, Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival in Vermont, and the Affetti Music Festival in Alaska. She has appeared as soloist with the Samara Philharmonic Symphony in Russia, served as Primo Violino at Orvieto Musica in Italy, and performed in Germany, Ireland, and Wales. Marcia earned her Graduate Diploma in Violin Performance from the New England Conservatory, studying with James Buswell and serving as his teaching assistant, and her Master and Bachelor degrees with Highest Honors from Ohio University, where she studied with Howard Beebe.
Dr. Adriana La Rosa Ransom is Associate Professor of Cello and Director of String Project and the Community School of the Arts at Illinois State University. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Missouri where she studied with Nina Gordon. She earned Master and Doctorate degrees from the University of Minnesota, studying cello with Tanya Remenikova and chamber music with Jorja
Fleezanis and Lydia Artymiw. As a soloist, Ms. La Rosa Ransom is the recipient of numerous awards, including winning top prizes at the W AMSO Young Artist Competition, the Naftzger Young Artist Competition, the Schubert Club Young Artist Competition, and the Thursday Musical Society Competition. She has appeared as a guest artist on notable solo and chamber music recital series, including the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago. Currently Principal Cellist of the Peoria Symphony, she has held positions with numerous professional orchestras and ensembles, including the Minnesota Opera Orchestra (Minneapolis), Sinfonia da Camera (Urbana), the European Musical Festival Orchestra (Stuttgart), and New Ear Contemporary Ensemble (Kansas City). Ms. La Rosa Ransom formerly served on the faculties of Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Cloud State University, and the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis.
John Orfe
has fulfilled commissions for Duo Montagnard, Dez Cordas, Alarm Will Sound, the NOVUS Trombone Quartet, the Two Rivers Chorale and the Northwestern College Choir, Ludovico, the Music Institute of Chicago, the Champaign-Urbana¡ Symphony Orchestra, the Diocese of Peoria, the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Lila Muni Gamelan Ensemble. He is a winner of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Tanglewood Fellowship, the William Schuman and Boudleaux Bryant Prizes from BMI, and eleven Standard Awards and the Morton Gould Award from ASCAP. His works for solo, chamber, choral and orchestral ensembles have been performed in Russia, Denmark, Canada, Germany, the Baltics, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Thailand, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica and throughout the US, earning praise from The New York Times, LAWeekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Die Welt, and Hamburger Abendblatt. He is an alum of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute and Reading Sessions and the winner of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Yale School of Music awarded him the Doctorate of Musical Arts in 2009. In 2011-12 he won national competitions held by the Pacific Chorale, the Choral Arts Ensemble and the Eastern Trombone Workshop. As piano soloist and collaborative artist he has earned critical acclaim for his interpretations of five centuries of keyboard repertoire ranging from the canonic to the arcane. As the core pianist and founding member of critically-acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, he has performed in Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Roulette, the World Financial Center, and Symphony Space in N ew York; Disney Hall, Mondavi Hall, and Hertz Hall in California; and across the United States and Europe. Forthcoming engagenients for 2012-2013 include Carnegie Hall, Harvard University,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Cork, and Krakow. Dr. Orfe lives in Peoria, IL, where he is Temporary Assistant Professor of Music at Bradley University, Organist at University United Methodist Church, and Composer-in-Residence of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.
IWU Facuhy Artists Nancy Pounds is an Adjunct Professor of Piano and Staff Accompanist at IWU. She has been an active accompanist, chamber musician, and soloist in Central Illinois for over twenty five years and performs regularly with faculty and students from all over the country.
"Mark plays with poetry and clearly defined melodic and interpretive ideas." -Lawrence Ferrara
Mark Anderson's
playing has also been described as "solid and expressive" by David Tanenbaum. Mark began to play the guitar at age 13, having already begun his musical studies on piano since the age of 8. At 17 Mark turned towards classical guitar under the tutelage of Steve Suvada, whom he continued his studies with at Elmhurst College, where he received his B.A. in music. From there, Mark went on to complete his M.M. in classical guitar with Marc Teicholz at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As a performer, Mark has been heard at venues such as The Freight and Salvage, the Davis Art Center, UC Hayward, the Hot Air Music Festival, Illinois Wesleyan University, and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He has also premiered several works by up and coming bay area composers. Recently, Mark was a semi-finalist in the 2012 Sierra Nevada guitar competition. Mark plays a guitar built by Glenn Canin.
Mario J. Pelusi,
Director of the School of Music and Professor of Composition and Theory, is a composer, theorist, conductor, pianist, and music executive. He has composed numerous chamber and orchestral works, many of which were commissioned and performed by some of this country's most accomplished ensembles, and his music has been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Germany and has been recorded on the Crystal Records label. Pelusi is the recipient, from a variety of sources, of numerous grants,
prizes, and fellowships, and he has been a guest composer at eight universities in the United States and at one in Italy. He has been a faculty member at seven universities, and with respect to administrative work, he has served as a chair or as a director at three of those institutions for a total of twenty-three years. He also holds leadership positions in a number of national professional music organizations. Pelusi is the creator and director of the annual IWU Summer Music Composition Institute, which is a unique program for high school students interested in composition and which began in 2006. In addition to his work in composition, Pelusi's many research interests range from music analysis to music entrepreneurship. Finally, Pelusi holds the M.F.A. and Ph.D. degrees in composition from Princeton University, where his principal composition teachers were Milton Babbitt and Edward T. Cone, and the B.M. and M.M. degrees in composition from the University of Southern California. For more detailed information, visit: http://www.iwu.edu/music/faculty/pelusLhtml.
Amanda Legner
holds a bachelor degree in Music Business from Millikin University and a Masters Degree in Music Performance from the Boston Conservatory. Her private teachers have included James Moyer and Brian Justison, instructors at MU; Pat Hollenbeck and Dean Anderson of the Boston Pops; Nancy Zeltsman, renown marimbist; and Joe Galeota and Abass Camara, renown African Percussionists, among others. Ms. Legner's performing experience includes the Boston Civic Orchestra, The New England Philharmonic, The Berklee Percussion Group, The Berklee African Percussion Ensemble (Music of Ghana), The illinois Symphony, The Heartland Philharmonic, The Peoria Symphony, The Chicago Percussion Group (percussion trio), The Chicago Composer's Orchestra, The Little Star Music Group (movement and music troupe), Patience Gloria Project (drumset), and the Midwest Hackers (commercial percussion). In addition, Ms. Legner is an avid arranger and composer for percussion and has compositions pending publication for marimba and multiple percussion. Her credits also include arranging for and teaching various marching pits and drum lines throughout central illinois. She performs numerous solo recitals, master classes, and weddings throughout the year. Ms. Legner has been teaching private and group percussion since 1994 and joined the faculty of illinois Wesleyan University in August 2003.
eS-ymposium
06 C(jontempoz:az:y ~u.sic
Guest Composers • Performers • Scholars 1952-2012 1952: Earl George, Grant Fletcher, Burrill Phillips 1953: Anthony Donato, Homer Keller 1954: Normand Lockwood, Robert Palmer 1955: Wallingford Riegger, Peter Mennin 1956: Hunter Johnson, Ulysses Kay 1957: Ernst Krenek, William Bergsma 1958: Aaron Copland 1959: Paul Pisk, George Rochberg 1960: Roy Harris 1962: Robert Erickson, George Rochberg, Glenn Glasow 1963: Robert Wykes, Alabama String Quartet 1964: Robert Wykes, E. J. Ulrich, Salvatore Martirano, Herbert Briin, Ben Johnston 1966: Louis Coyner, Edwin Harkins, Philip Winsor, Edwin London 1967: Frederick Tillis, George Crumb 1968: lain Hamilton 1969: The Loop Group, DePaul University 1970: Halim EI-Dabh, OIly Wilson 1971: Edward J. Miller 1972: Stravinsky Memorial Concert 1973: Courtney Cox, Phil Wilson 1974: Scott Huston 1975: David Ward-Steinman 1976: DonaldErb 1977: Lou Harrison, Ezra Sims 1978: M. William Karlins 1979: Leonard B. Meyer 1981: Walter S. Hartley 1982: David Ward-Steinman 1983: George Crumb Concert 1984: Robert Bankert, Abram M. Plum, R. Bedford Watkins
1985: 1986: 1987: 1988: 1989: 1990: 1991: 1993: 1993:
1995: 1996: 1997: 1998: 1999: 2000: 2001: 2002: 2003: 2004:
2005: 2006: 2007: 2008: 2008: 2009: 2011:
2012: 2012:
Michael Schelle Jean Eichelberger Ivey Jan Bach John Beall Hale Smith Karel Husa Alice Parker (Spring) Alexander Aslamazov (Fall) Leslie Bassett, John Crawford (Society of Composers, Inc. Region 5 Conference) David Diamond Morton Gould Memorial Concert Joseph Schwantner Arvo Part John Corigliano Libby Larsen William Bolcom, Joan Morris Present Music Mario Lavista, Carmen Helena Tellez Louis Andriessen, James Quandt, Monica Germino,Cristina Zavalloni Vince Mendoza New York New Music Ensemble Stephen Paulus (Spring) Roderik de Man, Annelie de Man (Amsterdam) (Fall) John Sharpley, Orchid Ensemble ONIX (Mexico City) Yang Xiaozhong, Song Mingzhu, Zhou Tianli (Sichuan Conservatory of Music) (Spring) Shulamit Ran (Fall) Chinary Ung, Susan Ung, Adam Greene