PHILADELPHIA MUSIC PROJECT Professional Development Program
New Frontiers in Music: Composer Symposium Friday, March 28, 2008 Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage 1608 Walnut Street, 18th Floor Philadelphia, PA 19103
RSVP deadline: Friday, March 21, 2008 To RSVP for this event, please call PMP at 267.350.4960 or email Willa Rohrer at wrohrer@pcah.us RSVP is required Question? Call PMP at 267.350.4960.
Featuring Terry Riley Martin Bresnick Shulamit Ran
PMP convenes a panel of three major composers whose work represents a vast range of influences and aesthetic sensibilities. Terry Riley, widely regarded as the father of minimalism, conceived a form comprised of interlocking repetitive patterns that was to change the course of 20th century music and strongly impact the works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams as well as rock groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Curved Air, Tangerine Dream and many others—and that was only the beginning. Martin Bresnick’s work has been described as “almost impossible to pigeonhole stylistically: It can be knotty and atonal at one juncture, lushly harmonic the next. Romantic melody, minimalist phase patterns and gritty rhythmic explosions coexist or make way for one another as the demands of a given work dictate” (Gramophone). Shulamit Ran’s Pulitzer Prizewinning work is noted for its “dissonant lyricism” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “bold dramatic invention” (Chicago Tribune). “Its tone of intelligence is congruent with its sense of aliveness, necessity, soul” (Boston Globe).
Moderated by Steve Smith Contributing Writer, The New York Times Associate Music Editor & Editor (Classical & Opera), Time Out New York 10:15 to 10:30 am Registration 10:30 am to 1 pm Symposium 1 to 2 pm Luncheon
Music journalist Steve Smith will conduct one-on-one interviews with Riley, Bresnick, and Ran, who will share audio/video recordings of their work, as well as discuss their influences and approaches to composition. They will also explore practical aspects of composition, such as commissioning, publishing, marketing, and career development.
This event, including the luncheon, is free and by invitation only. However, if space is available, PMP will consider public attendance requests. Please contact PMP for more information.
Interviews will be followed by a group discussion and audience-led Q+A period.
Pictured above, l to r: Terry Riley (photo by C. Felver), Martin Bresnick (photo by Mark Ostow), Shulamit Ran (photo by Edward Chick)
This event is produced by the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.
California composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic In C in 1964. In the ‘60s and ‘70s he turned his attention to solo works for electronic keyboards and soprano saxophone and pioneered the use of various kinds of tape delay in live performance resulting in another set of milestone works, A Rainbow in Curved Air, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, The Persian Surgery Dervishes, and Shri Camel. These hypnotic, multi-layered polymetric, brightly orchestrated, eastern flavored improvisations set the stage for the new age movement that was to appear a decade or so later. In 1970 Riley made his first of a series of trips to India to study with renowned North Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath. Over the years he frequently appeared with Pandit Pran Nath as vocal and tamboura accompanist. Terry taught North Indian Raga and music composition during his years at Mills College in Oakland, California, in the 1970s. It was there that he met David Harrington, the founder and first violinist of the Kronos Quartet, and began the long association that has produced 23 pieces, including 13 string quartets, a keyboard quartet, Crows Rosary, and a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, The Sands, commissioned by the Salzberg Festival in 1991. Cadenza on the Night Plain was selected by both Time and Newsweek as one of the 10 Best Classical Albums of The Year. The epic five quartet cycle, Salome Dances for Peace, was selected as the #1 Classical Album of the Year by USA Today and was nominated for a Grammy. Riley’s keyboard and piano concerts have become legendary due to his unique blending of eastern and western styles and the unusual all-night solo concerts he gave in the ‘60s. He was listed in the London Sunday Times as one of the 1000 Makers of the 20th Century. Martin Bresnick’s compositions, from chamber and symphonic music to film scores and computer music, are performed throughout the world. Bresnick delights in reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable, bringing together repetitive gestures derived from minimalism with a harmonic palette that encompasses both highly chromatic sounds and more open, consonant harmonies and a raw power reminiscent of rock. At times his musical ideas spring from hardscrabble sources, often with a very real political import. But his compositions never descend into agitprop; one gains their meaning by the way the music itself unfolds, and always on its own terms. Besides having received many prizes and commissions, the first Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Rome Prize, The Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Koussevitzky Commission, among many others, Martin Bresnick is also recognized as an influential teacher of composition. Students from every part of the globe and of virtually every musical inclination have been inspired by his critical encouragement. Martin Bresnick’s compositions are published by Carl Fischer Music Publishers, New York; Bote & Bock, Berlin; CommonMuse Music Publishers, New Haven; and have been recorded by Cantaloupe Records, New World Records, Albany Records, Bridge Records, Composers Recordings Incorporated, Centaur, and Artifact Music. Shulamit Ran, a native of Israel, began setting Hebrew poetry to music at the age of seven. By nine she was studying composition and piano with some of Israel’s most noted musicians, including composers Alexander Boskovich and Paul Ben-Haim, and within a few years she was having her works performed by professional musicians and orchestras. In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1991, Ran has been awarded most major honors given to composers in the U.S., including two fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, grants and commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Music Foundation, Chamber Music America, the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters, first prize in the Kennedy Center-Friedheim Awards competition for orchestral music, and many more. Her music has been played by leading performing organizations including the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony, the Contemporary Chamber Players of the University of Chicago, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Jerusalem Orchestra, the vocal ensemble Chanticleer, and various others. Ran’s chamber and solo works are regularly performed by leading ensembles in the U.S. and elsewhere. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where she is now beginning a 3-year term as Vice President for Music, and of the American Academy of Arts and Science. The recipient of five honorary doctorates, her works are published by Theodore Presser Company and by the Israeli Music Institute and recorded on more than a dozen different labels. Steve Smith is the Associate Music Editor for Time Out New York, a weekly lifestyle, arts and entertainment magazine in New York City, and a contributing writer for The New York Times. He has previously been employed as the classical-music industry columnist for Billboard and the assistant editor of Jazziz. His work has been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, Village Voice, Symphony, Chamber Music, Jazz Times, Down Beat, Decibel, The Wire and Signal to Noise. Night After Night, Smith’s music blog, received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Internet Award in 2006.