Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents
Prism Saxophone Quartet
Performing New Works by:
Viet Cuong
Alex Dowling
Noah Kaplan
Steve Mackey
Emma O'Halloran
Chris Rogerson
Gabriella Smith
Performed by:
Prism Saxophone Quartet
Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm
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PSK presents Prism performing new works by Princeton composers Viet Cuong, Alex Dowling, Noah Kaplan, Steve Mackey, Emma O'Halloran, Chris Rogerson and Gabriella Smith at Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall on Friday, October 10, 2014, at 8:00pm.
Dan Trueman, Director
Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor
PROGRAM
VIET CUONG
Prized Possessions
ALEX DOWLING
Twisting the Rope
NOAH KAPLAN
Saxophone Quartet No. 1
STEVE MACKEY
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
EMMA O’HALLORAN
Night Music
CHRIS ROGERSON
Canzonetta
GABRIELLA SMITH
Spring/Neap
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Intriguing programs of great beauty and breadth have distinguished the PRISM Quartet as one of America’s foremost chamber ensembles. Two-time winners of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, PRISM has performed in Carnegie Hall on the Making Music Series, in Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and throughout Latin America and China under the auspices of the United States Information Agency and USArtists International, respectively. PRISM has also been presented to critical acclaim as soloists with the Detroit Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra, and conducted residencies at the nation’s leading conservatories, including the Curtis Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory. Champions of new music, PRISM has commissioned over 200 works, many by internationally celebrated composers, including Pulitzer Prize-winners William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Zhou Long, and Bernard Rands; Guggenheim Fellows William Albright, Martin Bresnick, Chen Yi, Lee Hyla, and Steven Mackey; MacArthur “Genius” Award recipients Bright Sheng and Miguel Zenón; and jazz masters Greg Osby, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Steve Lehman, and Dave Liebman. In 1997, PRISM initiated its own concert series in Philadelphia and New York City, presenting the newest compositions created for their ensemble by composers from around the world. The series has featured an eclectic range of guest artists, including Ethel, Talujon Percussion, Music From China, Miro Dance Theatre, Cantori New York, and top jazz artists, including guitarist Ben Monder, saxophonist Rick Margitza, and drummers Gerald Cleaver, Mark Ferber, and John Riley. PRISM has also joined forces with the New York Consort of Viols, Opera Colorado, and the Chilean rock band Inti-Illimani in touring engagements. PRISM’s discography is extensive, documenting more than sixty works commissioned by the Quartet on Albany, innova, Koch, Naxos, New Dynamic, and New Focus. PRISM most recent CD, People’s Emergency Center, features guest artists Jason Moran, Tim Ries, Bill Stewart, and Jay Anderson performing music by Quartet member Matthew Levy. PRISM may also be heard on the soundtrack of the film Two Plus One, by Emmy nominee Eugene Martin, also scored by Levy, and has been featured in the theme music to the weekly PBS news magazine NOW. PRISM performs exclusively on Selmer saxophones and mouthpieces.
Hailed as “a master of his instrument” (Audiophile Audition) known for “evocative and bravura playing” (The Classical Review), Timothy McAllister serves as Associate Professor of Saxophone and Co-Director of the Institute for New Music at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music. Additionally, he spends his summers as distinguished artist faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp (MI), and regularly performs at the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, CA each August. He has recently been featured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Tokyo Wind Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony, and United States Navy Band, among others. He holds degrees and honors from The University of Michigan, including the Doctor of Musical Arts and the Albert A. Stanley Medal. McAllister’s work can be heard on the Deutsche Grammophone, Naxos, OMM, Stradivarius, Centaur, AUR, Albany, New Dynamic, Equilibrium, New Focus, and innova record labels.
Taimur Sullivan enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. His performances have taken him from the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to engagements in Russia, Germany, and throughout Latin America. The New York Times praised him as “outstanding… his melodies phrased as if this were an old and cherished classic, his virtuosity supreme.” The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote that Taimur is “talented, fearless and sensitive… the sounds he made were fully and deliciously drawn.” He appears on over twenty-five recordings for the New World, Mode, Albany, innova, Capstone, Mastersound, Bonk, and Zuma labels, and has most recently recorded James Aikman’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone with Russia’s St. Petersburg Symphony. In honor of his distinguished record of promoting and presenting new works for the saxophone, including over 150 premieres, Meet The Composer named him one of eight “Soloist Champions” in the United States. Mr. Sullivan is the Artist/Professor of Saxophone at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Matthew Levy has been hailed by the Saxophone Journal as “a complete virtuoso of the tenor saxophone” and by The New York Times for his “energetic and enlivening” performances. A recipient of composition fellowships from the Independence Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, he has scored four motion pictures, including PBS’s Diary of a City Priest, featured at the Sundance Film Festival. His music is highlighted on four PRISM recordings on Koch and innova; he has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Tzadik, and Grammavision; collaborated with a host of choreographers/dance companies, among them Peter Sparling and Scrap; and appeared as a guest artist with the Detroit Symphony, Dolce Suono Ensemble, and counter)induction. He holds three degrees from the University of Michigan, where he was a recipient of the Lawrence Teal Award, and has served on the faculties of the Universities of Michigan, Redlands, and Toledo. From 2000-2011, he served as Director of the Philadelphia Music Project at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Zachary Shemon is Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. Additionally, he serves on the music faculties at the Interlochen Arts Camp and Interlochen Saxophone Summer Institute. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan (BM, BSE, MM) and Indiana University (Performer Diploma). He also studied at the Université Européenne de Saxophone in Gap, France and the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he held the saxophone fellowship. His primary teachers are Donald Sinta and Otis Murphy. As a soloist, Shemon was awarded first prize at the inaugural International Saxophone Symposium and Competition in Columbus, GA and was the winner of the Indiana University Concerto Competition. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Indiana University Philharmonic and Michigan Philharmonic orchestras, as well as with the University of Michigan Concert and Symphony Bands. Shemon is a D’Addario performing artist, performing on Reserve Classic reeds and aiding in product research and design.
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
A young composer described as a “dazzler” (Broad Street Review), Viet Cuong has had works performed worldwide at Carnegie Hall, the Aspen Music Festival, International Double Reed Society Conference, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music at the Bowdoin Music Festival, the US Navy Band International Sax Symposium, Midwest Clinic, and several CBDNA conferences, among others. Viet’s wind band work, Sound and Smoke, won the 2012 Walter Beeler Memorial Prize and has received over thirty performances worldwide since its premiere. In addition to many university and music conservatory wind ensembles, his music has been performed by a number of soloists and chamber musicians, including clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Lisa Moore, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Trio La Milpa, Lunar Ensemble, Nash Ensemble of London, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and the Great Noise Ensemble, among others. Viet is a Naumburg and Roger Sessions Fellow at Princeton, where he is currently a PhD Candidate. Viet holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Oscar Bettison and Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts. He was a scholarship student at the Aspen and Bowdoin music festivals, and was recently a fellow at the Copland House’s CULTIVATE emerging composers workshop. Additionally, Viet is among the youngest group of composers to receive artist residencies from the Atlantic Center for the Arts (under Melinda Wagner and Christopher Theofanidis), the Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo. Viet was a winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Dolce Suono Ensemble Young Composers Competition, Boston GuitarFest Composition Competition, Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association Grant, National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project, Theodore Presser Award, Gustav Klemm Award, Prix d’Été Competition, and the Trio La Milpa Composition Competition. In addition, he received honorable mentions in the 2013 Harvey Gaul Composition Competition and the 2010 and 2012 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prizes.
Alex Dowling makes music for real and imaginary instruments.
Noah Kaplan is a second year graduate student at Princeton. Upcoming projects include an opera, an art rock album, and works for various new music ensembles. The Noah Kaplan Quartet’s new album Cluster Swerve will be released on HatHut Records later this year.
Steven Mackey was born in 1956, to American parents stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. He is regarded as one of the leading composers of his generation and has composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles, dance and opera. His first musical passion was playing the electric guitar, in rock bands based in northern California and he regularly performs his own work, including two electric guitar concertos and numerous solo and chamber works. He is also active as an improvising musician and performs with his band Big Farm.
Emma O’Halloran is a composer and musician from Ireland.
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 Atlanta Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony, among others. His music has been heard in venues including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Symphony Center in Chicago. As Composer-in-Residence of the Amarillo Symphony, he will compose two new works over the next two years for the orchestra; he also serves as the Composer-in-Residence for the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival in Florida. Chris’s 2014-2015 season also includes performances by the Charlotte Symphony, Spokane Symphony, and Opus One Piano Quartet. In 2012, Chris received 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 doctoral fellow at Princeton University. Chris is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc.
Gabriella Smith is a composer from the San Francisco Bay Area and a second-year graduate student at Princeton University. She previously attended the Curtis Institute of Music. When she is not composing, she can be found backpacking, brewing beer, or making crepes.