Sound in Sculpture
Landmarks, Texas Performing Arts, and The Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music present
Sound in Sculpture Thursday, April 21, 2022 7:30pm Anna Hiss Gymnasium Courtyard 2501 Wichita Street Austin, TX 78712 Now in its seventh year, Sound in Sculpture showcases original music composed and performed by UT students in response to works from the Landmarks public art collection. Simone Leigh’s Sentinel IV, a ten-foot bronze sculpture sited in the courtyard of the Anna Hiss Gymnasium, and Jennifer Steinkamp’s EON, an immersive digital installation exhibited within Welch Hall, serve as the source of inspiration for this year’s compositions.
Works of Art
Simone Leigh American, born 1967
SENTINEL IV 2020
Bronze Purchase, Landmarks, The University of Texas at Austin, 2021 Photo by Christina Murrey
Simone Leigh uses sculpture, video, installation, and performance art to explore representations of Black feminine forms. Her work draws upon the African diaspora—cultures and people that originated in the African continent and circulated either through forced or voluntary means around the world. Within this framework, Leigh appropriates visual traditions from Africa, the American south, and the Caribbean to create works that reflect the many histories, identities, and experiences that compose the diaspora.
Sited in the central courtyard of the Anna Hiss Gymnasium, Sentinel IV honors Black femininity while also investigating historical and intersecting ideas of race, beauty, and the association of Black women’s bodies with work. It is modeled after a Zulu ceremonial spoon, a utensil that conveys status among the Zulu people and symbolizes women’s labor. The work extends the artist’s interest in neglected objects that are shaped by use and imbued with power and meaning
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Works of Art
Jennifer Steinkamp American, born 1958
EON 2020
2:07 min, looped, video installation Commission, Landmarks, The University of Texas at Austin, 2020 Photo by Christina Murrey
Jennifer Steinkamp is considered a pioneer of digital artmaking and one of the medium’s most celebrated practitioners. She takes her inspiration from the natural world, using digital technology to create largescale, hypnotic installations that pulse with recognizable life. Her scenes transform architectural spaces into hyperreal environments that blur the line between the animate and virtual. The panoramic world of EON reveals biomorphic shapes that undulate across
the screen, punctuating an aqueous background with bursts of pink, yellow, and multicolored fragments. It draws inspiration from the concept of symbiosis, which explains the mutual cooperation and interdependence of unlike organisms as essential to the evolution of life forms. While Steinkamp considers EON a vision of a primordial ecology, it also presents an imagined future—an optimistic alternative to the catastrophe of climate change.
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by Josiah Garza Katherine Jeoung, Soprano Vilasini Nayar, Mezzo-Soprano Gabreauna Nash, Alto Audrey Garza, Alto Ellie Sievers, Violin About the Composer Josiah Garza (b. 2001) is a composer, percussionist, and recorder player hailing from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. He currently attends The University of Texas at Austin’s Butler School of Music studying composition with Dr. Russell Podgorsek. Garza previously studied with Dr. Michael Mikulka, and he is an intern for the composer, Dr. Melissa Dunphy, at Mormolyke Press. Rooted in collaboration, Garza seeks to foster a narrative in each of his works. He nestles meaning in idiomatic music in an attempt to broaden the standards of classical music while communicating with his audience. Composer Remarks ‘Sentinels’ is a celebration of women. It was composed in collaboration with five vocalists of different ethnicities and honors differences in culture and heritage. To pay tribute to Simone Leigh’s symbolic edification of a Zulu wedding spoon in Sentinel IV, I have sewn together an anthology of text with the words Lobola, Izibizo, Umbondo, and Umabo - four major steps of a traditional Zulu wedding. This work will feature four vocal solos with fixed media accompaniment while setting excerpts of the poem ‘Sentinel Songs’ by Father Abrahm Joseph Ryan alongside texts personal to the soloists. Each vocalist will share a bit of their culture through music before culminating in a final group segment. Vilasini Nayar will highlight the world of Hindustani Classical music by having the title of the Bollywood song ‘Dil Hoom Hoom Kare’ inform a small improvisation in Raag Bhoopali. Audrey Garza will sing
‘Mortal’ from Laura Riding’s ‘The Close Chaplet’ in Spanish with Hispanic rhythm and drama underlying her solo. This will be followed by Gabreauna Nash who will sing a setting of Philis Wheatley’s poem ‘On Being Brought from Africa to America’ followed by an interpretation of Arirang, the unofficial Korean national anthem, by Katherine Jeoung. Finally, composer Dr. Melissa Dunphy’s ‘change [y]our Country’ from her N-400 Erasure songs highlights the differences in perspective of immigration across centuries of women from various nationalities. This final segment will end in a participatory drone from the audience to recap all of the music being shared to honor women who’ve come before and who are striving worldwide to this day.
10 FT 6
by Jingchao Wang Lite Pei, Double Bass About the Composer Jingchao Wang (b. 1994) is a USbased composer who has lived in China, Germany, and the US. Her music is influenced by Eclecticism with multiple Eastern elements. She has won numerous competitions and her music is published by the Italian publisher Diaphonia Edizioni. Wang is active in many conferences and music festivals, and collaborates with famous soloists and ensembles such as the Grammy winning soprano Hila Plitmann, Boss Street Brass Band, and Quince Ensemble. Her pieces have been performed in Austria, Germany, Italy, the United States, and China, and in concerts and conferences including The Navy International Saxophone Symposium, Chamber Music Days in Vareler Port, and Golden Key Music Festival. After finishing her Bachelor of Arts in Composition in Central Conservatory
Musical Program
SENTINELS
Musical Program
of Music in China, with a one-year exchange program in Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, Germany, Jingchao pursued her Master’s degree in Composition at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She is currently an Assistant Instructor at The University of Texas at Austin, while pursuing her DMA degree in Composition.
transformation is most directly shown through the range of the double bass, starting on its lowest pitch and ending on the highest note possible.
Composer Remarks 10ft 6 is a double bass solo piece, with fixed soundtracks, written in response to Simone Leigh’s Sentinel IV. My first impression of the work, which was modeled after a Zulu ceremonial spoon, was that it was very symmetrical—not only the sculpture itself but also the architecture of the space in which it stands. Thus, I created a unique score for this piece:
Kevin Charoensri, Synthesizer
“SYM”
by Kevin Charoensri
About the Composer Kevin Charoensri (b. 2003) is a composer, conductor, producer, keyboardist, and synthesizer player from San Diego, California, now based in Austin Texas, studying at The University of Texas at Austin. With a basis in classical orchestral chamber music, love for jazz piano, and skill with synths and electronics, Charoensri has created a peculiar style and voice. His background includes chamber music, jazz and classical piano, film scoring, writing and performing EDM, producing, and electronic keyboard programming.
Reflecting both the design of Leigh’s sculpture and the courtyard where it is sited, the piece starts on the bottom left, goes through the round rings and ends on the bottom right. With the round rings on the top, it’s easier to connect different passages together and repeat anything whenever needed.
Composer Remarks Inspired by Jennifer Steinkamp’s EON, “SYM”, is a piece that seeks to portray the value of humans in preserving their home, Earth. It highlights stories of the ocean, while portraying the negative possibilities of climate change. However, it also shows the beauty of the ocean, and humans working together to save it. Using electronics and synthesizers, the piece breathes life into the issue of preserving nature, similar to the way the electronic screen pushes the negative effects of harm on the ocean.
This composition also touches on the theme of “transformation”, which Simone Leigh exhibits in this sculpture. The original form, a spoon, has been transformed into an aesthetic object to be looked at and admired, rather than touched or used. Musically, this
As a native of San Diego, California, often visiting the beaches, I couldn’t help but address the negative possibility of polluting our oceans beyond recovery. However, I also wanted to explore the way humans can come together, just like animals and organisms in the
INVISIBLE WALLS by Maxwell Franko
Josh Liu, Violin Ellie Sievers, Violin Casey Boyer, Viola Hudson Schill, Cello About the Composer Maxwell Franko (b. 1998) is a composer, sound designer, and instrumentalist from Youngstown, Ohio. Now living in Austin, Texas, he composes for performing ensembles, film, stage theater, and audio-based media. As a composer, Franko’s focus is in electroacoustic music. He incorporates live instruments and augmented sounds into his film and theater scores as well as his recent works for performance ensembles. Some of his techniques for combining recorded sounds and live instruments can be heard in tonight’s
performance of Invisible Walls. Composer Remarks Invisible Walls is a through-composed piece for string quartet and 5-channel electronics written in response to Jennifer Steinkamp’s EON. My immediate reaction to EON was that it was a peek into a vast system of individual objects, forming one whole. While composing, the form of this piece slowly began to match what I saw in EON—a collection of small moments pieced together to form a whole. This piece is an exploration of sound peripherals and focuses attention on specific points in a sound array. The speakers surrounding the ensemble are meant to extend the reach of live instruments further out onto the stage. Electronically, the sounds are arranged to merge with and reemerge out of the ensemble at different points. While composing this piece, the phrase “invisible walls” took on a double meaning for me. Though I considered including that other meaning, I began to think about the many other meanings of “invisible walls.” Rather than share, I wonder what it could mean to you.
Musical Program
ocean, to solve climate change through symbiosis. Swimming in the ocean in San Diego, I saw many oil spills, but I also saw people coming together and cleaning the beach after these catastrophes. Both of these experiences inspired me to write this piece.
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