Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents
Obsession: new works by Princeton composers
Performing New Works by:
N. Cameron Britt
Elliot Cole
Viet Cuong
Alex Dowling
Cenk Ergun
Emma O'Halloran
Chris Rogerson
Jason Treuting
Performed by:
Obsession
Location: Solley Theater, Paul Robeson Center for the Arts
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Start time: 8:00 pm
____
Princeton Sound Kitchen presents OBSESSION: new works by N. Cameron Britt, Elliot Cole, Viet Cuong, Alex Dowling, Cenk Ergun, Emma O'Halloran, Chris Rogerson and Jason Treuting on Tuesday, November 19, 2013 at 8:00pm.
Dan Trueman, Director
Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor
PROGRAM
BRITT Sleight
12 mins
N. Cameron Britt, EMvibe
O’HALLORAN Drip
5 mins
Kendra Emery, tenor saxophone, voice and effects pedal
DOWLING Alphabetics
5 mins
Kendra Emery, tenor saxophone, voice and effects pedal
ROGERSON once, for violin and piano
18 mins
Keir GoGwilt, violin and Nathaniel LaNasa, piano
Total: 40 mins
- INTERMISSION -
CUONG Obsession
9 mins
Krystin O'Mara, solo guitar
COLE Vocalise
10 mins
Tema Watstein, solo violin
TREUTING Drone and Drums (from Diorama)
15 mins
Jason Treuting, solo percussion
ERGÜN Dolce far niente
6 mins
Miranda Cuckson, violin, and Ning Yu, piano
Total: 40 mins
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson is highly acclaimed for her performances of a wide range of repertoire, from early eras to the most current creations. In demand as a soloist and chamber musician, she appears in major concert halls, as well as at universities, galleries and informal spaces. She performs at such venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Miller Theatre, the 92nd Street Y, Guggenheim Museum, Austrian Cultural Forum, Bargemusic, Museum of Modern Art,Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, and the Marlboro, Bard, Lincoln Center, Bridgehampton, Portland and Bodensee festivals. She made her recent Carnegie Hall debut in Walter Piston’s concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra and Leon Botstein. Her first CD recording was a disk of concertos by Erich Korngold and Manuel Ponce with the Czech National Symphony, on Centaur Records. She subsequently made recital discs of music by Ralph Shapey, Donald Martino and Ross Lee Finney. In 2010, Vanguard Classics released her CD the wreckage of flowers, comprising music by Michael Hersch with pianist Blair McMillen. Upcoming releases include solo and duo works by Anna Weesner (Albany Records); Melting the Darkness, a disc of solo microtonal and electronics pieces by Iannis Xenakis, Georg Friedrich Haas, Oscar Bianchi and others; and a CD comprising Roger Sessions’ Sonata for solo violin, Elliott Carter’s Duo and a commissioned duo by Jason Eckardt (Urlicht). Her CD of Luigi Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura for violin and electronics (Urlicht), with Christopher Burns, was named a Best Classical Recording of 2012 by the New York Times. Miranda has in recent years earned a reputation as one of the foremost performer-interpreters of contemporary music. She has collaborated with such composers as Henri Dutilleux, Elliott Carter, Thomas Adès, Salvatore Sciarrino, John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Lee Hyla, Steven Mackey, George Crumb, Michael Hersch, Helmut Lachenmann, Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg, Mario Davidovsky, Phillipe Hurel, Derek Bermel, Yehudi Wyner, Georg Friedrich Haas, Jason Eckardt, Tristan Murail, Charles Wuorinen and Sebastian Currier. In 2012, she performed a new work by Harold Meltzer that was commissioned for her by the McKim Fund, at the Library of Congress. A particular champion of Ralph Shapey’s music, she has curated concerts of his music on Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series and the Contempo series at the University of Chicago. She is active performing with many organizations including counter)induction, Sequitur, Talea Ensemble and others. She is director of the not-for-profit organization Nunc, which she founded in 2007. Miranda studied at The Juilliard School, beginning at age 9 and continuing into the college for her BM, MM and DMA degrees. She graduated with the Richard F. French Prize for best doctoral dissertation. As winner of Juilliard’s Presser Music Award, she made her recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall. Her violin teachers included Felix Galimir, Robert Mann, Dorothy DeLay, Shirley Givens and Nathan Milstein, and for chamber music, Fred Sherry and members of the Juilliard String Quartet. She was recently appointed to the violin faculty at Mannes College.
Saxophonist Kendra Emery is a passionate and enthusiastic performer, educator, and collaborator. Kendra has an interest in creative and unique concert planning; some of her past productions include a 4-course dinner concert with original compositions written to accompany each dish, a new film score screening, and she loves hosting house concerts. She proactively works with composers to try to expand the saxophone and mixed chamber repertoire. She has performed at a variety of festivals including EMM, NASA, and the Westfield New Music Festival. As a member of the Vagus Trio she was a national finalist at the MTNA Chamber Music Competition in 2011 and the Arriaga Chamber Music Competition in 2012. In the spring of 2012 Ms. Emery was awarded the Hartford Arts and Heritage Jobs Grant for the purchase of a baritone saxophone. Kendra earned her BM at the University of Arizona and attended the Hartt School to obtain her MM and a GPD. Her primary teachers were Brian Sacawa, Timothy McAllister, Kelland Thomas, and Carrie Koffman. The summer of 2013 she was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival. Kendra currently maintains a private saxophone and clarinet studio in CT. For more information visit kendraemery.com.
Keir GoGwilt was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and grew up in New York City. Notable performances include the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Bowdoin International Music Festival Orchestra, Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard, the Berg Concerto and Aucoin's This Same Light with the Encounters Ensemble at the Peabody Essex Museum, recitals at the Canadian Opera Company, the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and a collaboration with Robert Levin on the world premiere of Levin's completion of a Mozart piano trio at the Sarasota Opera House. He has recorded some of Tobias Picker's violin and chamber music for Tzadik records, to be released in 2013. Keir graduated from Harvard University with high honors in 2013 and was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. Devoted to showing the manner in which the practice of music performance has relevance in a trans-disciplinary discourse, he continues to program and perform events combining music, poetry, and critical theory at venues such as the Scottish Poetry Library, the Peabody Essex Museum, and Fordham University.
Nathaniel LaNasa
Classical guitarist Krystin O'Mara's performances have been praised by audiences for displaying "wonderful energy, expressiveness, and a gorgeous tone." A 2013 prizewinner at the James Stroud Classical Guitar Competition and finalist at the Southern Guitar Competition, Krystin was the recipient of the Rosalia Alban Prize in Guitar and the Harold Randolph Prize in Performance. Highlights of recent seasons feature solo performances and chamber music collaborations throughout the United States. An active advocate of new music, Krystin performed Martin Herchenroder’s Landschaften, a concerto for two guitars and orchestra, at Bowling Green State University’s New Music Festival. The work was then recorded for a 2013 release on Albany records. Krystin's first CD, OBSESSION was released in Fall 2013 and features the first recording of two works: Viet Cuong's eponymously titled work, and Trois Tableaux d'Anderson by Ian Krouse, which is a set of three tone poems based on Hans Christian Andersen stories. Krystin performs in collaboration with saxophonist Ethan Miller in Duende, a unique duo representing a fresh, new direction in contemporary classical music. Duende performs a mixture of traditional classical repertoire, spanish and flamenco influences, jazz, brazilian, world music, as well as commissioned works. Their first CD is expected to be released in the upcoming season. Believing strongly in community outreach, Krystin acted as a site coordinator for The Creative Access – Peabody Conservatory’s student outreach initiative – while in Baltimore. In Cleveland, she is regularly seen performing community concerts. A passionate and dedicated teacher, Krystin maintains a large studio throughout Cleveland’s West Side. Krystin is a student of Jason Vieaux, where she is currently pursuing a Postgraduate Studies Certificate at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degree simultaneously from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, where she studied with Julian Gray.
Tema Watstein is a violinist in New York's premier post-classical quartet, ETHEL, resident ensemble of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hailed for her "sweeping and bristling" sound by the New York Times, she performs frequently at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to Le Poisson Rouge as a member of the Grammy-nominated Metropolis Ensemble, as well as the Novus, Tactus, and Mimesis Ensembles. She has also appeared with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Argento Ensemble, Ensemble ACJW, and Red Light New Music. She has worked with numerous composers, including John Zorn, Charles Wuorinen, Chen Yi, Paul Moravec, John Corigliano, Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, and Timo Andres, and regularly commissions and premiers works by her peers. She was also the violinist in Gabriel Kahane's musical February House at the Public Theater. In the summer of 2011, Tema was first violinist of the New Fromm Quartet at Tanglewood, where she has served twice as concertmaster under Robert Spano and Kurt Mazur; she has also performed under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival. Tema is also a committed music educator, focusing on improvisation and the narrative art of music. Recent international appearances have included performances in Holland, Greece, Israel and Tanzania. www.temawatstein.com
New York based pianist Ning Yu brings virtuosity and adventurous spirit to a wide range of music, both in solo performances and in collaborations with some of today's most distinguished creative artists. Ning has performed dozens of world premieres including the works of Terry Riley, Michael Gordon, Tristan Perich, and Cenk Ergün among others. She has appeared on stages worldwide including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and also the United States. As a chamber musician, Ning has performed with leading new music ensembles such as Bang on A Can All-Stars, Signal Ensemble, and theater groups Mabou Mines and the Tectonic Theater Project. Ning is a member of the New York based percussion and piano ensemble Yarn/Wire and chamber music group counter)induction. A native of Shenyang, China, Ning has been living and working in New York City since 2004. www.ningyupiano.com
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
N. Cameron Britt is a percussionist, composer, and instrument builder. As a percussionist he has performed with many orchestras throughout the Southeast including the North Carolina Symphony, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and Alabama Symphony Orchestra. He is active as a creator and interpreter of new music and performs with cellist Tom Kraines in the free improvisation duo Dithyramb. His works have been performed by the Brentano String Quartet, So Percussion, Ensemble Klang, janus, NOW Ensemble, and the electronica duo Matmos. He has worked with the laptop ensembles Sideband and PLOrk and is interested in creating performable electronic instruments in both hardware and software. The EMvibe (an electromagnetically actuated vibraphone), combines his interests in composition, electronic music, instrument design and performance. He is currently teaching percussion at Duke University. If all goes according to plan, he will complete his Ph.D. in Composition here at Princeton tomorrow!
Elliot Cole is a composer, singer, programmer and producer who lives in Newark, NJ and is a doctoral candidate at Princeton University. His musical activities are wide-ranging. As a singer, he has performed at Merkin Hall, in the premiere of Sarah Snider's Unremembered, at the Berkshire Fringe Festival, as soloist with the Princeton Chamber Choir, and with his book-club-band Oracle Hysterical in tours across Germany and Texas. This winter he will sing his bardic epic Hanuman's Leap with percussion ensembles across the midwest. As a rapper, he has performed his hip-hop history of the world De Rerum with the Chicago Composers Orchestra and at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, where he was Spotlight Artist in 2011. Deeply interested in the music of the past, he was a member of the Princeton Georgian Choir and sings regularly in a working group devoted to 14th and 15th century repertoire from original notation. His chamber music has been performed by So Percussion, Roomful of Teeth, FLUX Quartet with Logan Coale, Metropolis Ensemble, Chicago Composers Orchestra, MATA festival, Brentano Quartet, operacabal, Solar Winds, the Princeton Glee Club and shakuhachi master Riley Lee. Postludes, a book of quartets for bowed vibraphone, is quickly becoming a staple of percussion repertoire with over fifty performances around the world in their first season alone, including at Lincoln Center. His software projects employ formal abstraction of pattern and content to create novel composition environments. His studio work has been called "meticulously balanced" (NY Times), and he has produced albums of avant hip hop, chamber pop and, most recently, Morton Feldman's masterpiece Three Voices.
Viet Cuong, a young composer described as “show-stealing” (Baltimore City Paper) and a “dazzler” (Broad Street Review), has had works performed in venues across the United States, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, and Japan. Viet is currently a Naumburg and Roger Sessions Fellow in Princeton University's Ph.D. program. He holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Oscar Bettison and Kevin Puts. Viet received scholarships to study at the Aspen and Bowdoin music festivals, and has held artist residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo Corporation. Viet’s music has been performed previously at the Aspen Music Festival, International Double Reed Society Conference, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music at the Bowdoin Music Festival, the US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, Midwest Clinic, CBDNA conferences, and the GAMMA-UT Conference. He was a winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize from Ithaca College, Dolce Suono Ensemble Young Composers Competition, Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association Grant, National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project, the Prix d'Été Composition Competition, and the Trio La Milpa Composition Competition.
Alex Dowling makes music for real and imaginary instruments.
Cenk Ergün is a composer and improviser based in New York. As a composer, he has worked with artists such as So Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Laboratorium, Yarn/Wire, and Joan Jeanrenaud. As an improviser, he performs electronics in groups with Alvin Curran, Jason Treuting, and Jeff Snyder. Some venues that have featured Ergün's music are New York's Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, The Roulette, The Stone, Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw, Zurich's Tonhalle, and Istanbul's Babylon. Some events Ergün has participated in are Gaudeamus Music Week, MATA Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon, WNYC's New Sounds Live, Peak Performances at Montclair University, Stanford Lively Arts, and San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. Some records Ergün appears on are The Art Of The Fluke with Alvin Curran (Tear), So Percussion's Cage 100 Bootleg Series (Cantaloupe), and Chris Brown's Rogue Wave (Tzadik).
Emma O'Halloran is an Irish composer who writes music for electronic and acoustic instruments.
Hailed as a “confident, fully-grown composing talent” (The Washington Post), Chris Rogerson’s music has been praised for its “virtuosic exuberance” and “haunting beauty” (The New York Times). He has received commissions and performances from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the New World Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Brentano Quartet, and the JACK Quartet. His music has been performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Merkin Hall. Recently, Chris was honored with a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also won awards from ASCAP, BMI, the Theodore Presser Foundation, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the National Association for Music Education, the New York Art Ensemble, and the Aspen Music Festival (Jacob Druckman Award). Chris has been in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Ucross Foundation. He has also been Composer-in-Residence for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, Young Composer-in-Residence at Music from Angel Fire, and a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, the Cabrillo Festival, and the Norfolk New Music Workshop. Born in 1988, he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music with Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Martin Bresnick, and is currently a graduate fellow at Princeton University. Chris is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc.