Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Be Kind, Be Careful, Be Yourself

Performing New Works by:

• Elliot Cole

• Quinn Collins

• Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade

• Viet Cuong

• Cenk Ergün

• Andrew Lovett

• Chris Rogerson

Performed by:

• Be Kind, Be Careful, Be Yourself

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

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PSK presents BE KIND, BE CAREFUL, BE YOURSELF, a concert of new works by Princeton composers Elliot Cole, Quinn Collins, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Viet Cuong, Cenk Ergün, Andrew Lovett, and Chris Rogerson at Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall on Tuesday, December 02, 2014, at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Fidelio Trio

Performing New Works by:

• Quinn Collins

• Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade

• Amanda Feery

• Emma O'Halloran

• Jason Treuting

Performed by:

• Fidelio Trio

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

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PSK presents Fidelio Trio performing new works by Princeton composers Quinn Collins, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Amanda Feery, Emma O'Halloran, and Jason Treuting at Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall on Tuesday, November 18, 2014, at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

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.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Black Box Project

Performed by:

• Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade

• Florent Ghys

• Wally Gunn

• Dave Molk

• Josh Quillen

• Jason Treuting

Location: Class of 1970 Theater, Whitman College
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

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PSK presents composers Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Florent Ghys, Wally Gunn, Dave Molk, Josh Quillen and Jason Treuting showing newly devised performance works in a black box theater with director Laura Sheedy on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

THE BLACK BOX PROJECT

Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Florent Ghys, Wally Gunn, Dave Molk, Josh Quillen and Jason Treuting showing newly devised performance works in a black box theater.

Director: Laura Sheedy

Producer Manager, Princeton Sound Kitchen: Wally Gunn

Production Manager, Department of Music: Henry Valoris

PROGRAM

NINFEA CRUTTWELL-READE

Marionettes

Spencer Evans, performer

SPENCER EVANS, WALLY GUNN & LAURA SHEEDY

It’s me, me, pistol optional

Spencer Evans, performer

Wally Gunn, composer

Laura Sheedy, performer

Sō Percussion

FLORENT GHYS

Brandi Loves Todd

Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, cello

Florent Ghys, double bass

Wally Gunn, voice

Dave Molk, guitar

DAVE MOLK

More Time For Coffee

Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, performer

Spencer Evans, performer

Florent Ghys, performer

Wally Gunn, performer

Dave Molk, performer

Ryan Sarno, performer

Sō Percussion

JOSH QUILLEN

Redacted Interludes 1, 2, 3

Sō Percussion

DANIELLE AUBERT, KATY DIDDEN & JASON TREUTING

BASED ON DOUBLE MUSIC BY JOHN CAGE & LOU HARRISON

Continuously Festive

Katy Didden, text

Danielle Aubert, images

Sō Percussion

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Danielle Aubert is a graphic designer and a Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the Lewis Center

Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade is a second-year graduate student in Composition at Princeton University. She studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where she produced music for theater, and later completed postgraduate studies in cello performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Spencer Evans is very pleased to be a part of the Princeton Black Box Project. As a company member of Nothing To See Here, he very much enjoys creating work with Ms. Sheedy and Mr. Gunn. He was recently seen in San Francisco based BrickaBrack’s production of Never Fall So Heavily Again.

Florent Ghys is a French composer and double bass player from Bordeaux, France. His music has been described as “post-minimal chamber music” by John Schaefer. The label Cantaloupe has released two albums of Florent’s music, and a third one Télévision is in the works for November 14. Florent likes collecting hair dryers and would like to be a weather man.

Wally Gunn is from a rural town in Australia’s southeast. He first began making music in his early teens, writing on a Casiotone for his electronic dance band, which never played a gig. After high school, he moved to Melbourne to join rock bands, and spent several years writing songs and gigging around the country, then enrolled in the Victorian College of the Arts composition program. After graduating, Wally worked with friends and fellow composers Kate Neal and Biddy Connor in Dead Horse Productions to stage concerts of their own and other composers’ new music in warehouses, underground parking lots, cinemas, and other unusual spaces. He also composed original music for several Melbourne theatre companies, including The Eleventh Hour, The Shrimp Company, Itch Productions and Platform Youth Theatre, and contributed songs to cabaret star Wes Snelling’s autobiographical show Kiosk. Wally moved to New York in 2008 to begin a masters degree in composition at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Julia Wolfe. Since relocating, Wally has composed original music for Manhattan company The Actors Company Theatre and has become a company member of the Brooklyn-based Nothing To See Here, under the artistic direction of Laura Sheedy. Wally’s concert music has been performed in Australia by Atticus String Quartet, The Dead Horse Ensemble, Silo String Quartet, Speak Percussion, and Three Shades Black, and in the US by Mobius Percussion, Red Shift, Roomful of Teeth, and Sō Percussion. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University. www.wallygunn.com

Dave Molk is in his 4th year at Princeton. He writes mainly for pitched and non-pitched percussion, combining an energized rhythmic propulsion, sinuous chromaticism, and a love of glitch. His current research efforts are in software coding and EDM. He previously studied composition at Berklee College of Music under John Bavicchi and at Tufts University under John McDonald.

Josh Quillen has forged a unique identity in the contemporary music world as all-around percussionist, expert steel drum performer (lauded as “softly sophisticated” by the New York Times), and composer. His collaborations with other composers frequently incorporate the steel drums as a core element. A member of the acclaimed ensemble Sō Percussion since 2006, Josh has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Lincoln Center Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, and dozens of other venues in the United States. In that time, Sō Percussion has toured Russia, Spain, Australia, Italy, Germany, and Scotland. He has had the opportunity to work closely with Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, David Lang, Matmos, Dan Deacon, and many others. Josh started performing on the steel drums at Dover High School in Ohio, an interest that continued at the University of Akron, where Dr. Larry Snider founded one of the first collegiate steel bands in the United States. He traveled to Trinidad & Tobago in 2002, performing with the Phase II Pan Groove ensemble under Len “Boogsie” Sharpe. This interest in the traditional steel drum music of Trinidad ran in parallel with Josh’s education in western music, first at Akron, and then at the Yale School of Music with marimba soloist Robert Van Sice, where he received his Masters degree in 2006. These parallel interests led Josh to break ground in the use of the steel drums in contemporary classical music. To date, he has commissioned over a dozen pieces for steel drums from composers such as Stuart Saunders Smith, Roger Zahab, Dan Trueman, and Paul Lansky. In 2010, Steven Mackey’s quartet It Is Time—commissioned for Sō Percussion by Carnegie Hall and Chamber Music America—featured Josh on a new microtonal lead pan in its Carnegie Hall premiere, receiving rave reviews in the New York Times. Josh’s compositions for Sō Percussion are featured in Imaginary City, an evening length work that appeared on the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2009 Next Wave Festival, as well as the site-specific Music for Trains in Southern Vermont. Other ensembles to play his pieces and arrangements include Matmos, PLork, The Janus Trio, Adele Meyers and Dancers, The University of Akron Steel Band, and the New York University Steel Band. An avid educator, Josh is co-director of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive workshop for college-aged percussionists on the campus of Princeton University. He is also co-director of a new percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where Sō Percussion is ensemble in residence beginning fall of 2011, and is the director of the New York University Steel Band.

Ryan Sarno is a musician, DJ, and more famously, a coffee maker at Small World in Princeton. You can follow his projects on Ananalog Records’ bandcamp and tumblr pages.

For over a decade, Sō Percussion has redefined the modern percussion ensemble as a flexible, omnivorous entity, pushing its voice to the forefront of American musical culture. Praised by The New Yorker for their “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam,” Sō’s adventurous spirit is written into the DNA passed down from composers like John Cage and Steve Reich, as well as from pioneering ensembles like the Kronos Quartet and Nexus Percussion. Sō Percussion’s career now encompasses 13 albums, touring throughout the USA and around the world, a dizzying array of collaborative projects, several ambitious educational programs, and a steady output of their own music. When the founding members of Sō Percussion convened as graduate students at the Yale School of Music, their initial goal was to present an exciting repertoire of pieces by 20th century luminaries such as Cage, Reich, and Iannis Xenakis. An encounter with David Lang, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and co-founder of New York’s Bang on a Can organization, yielded their first commissioned piece: the 36 minute, three movement the so-called laws of nature. Since that first major new work, Sō has commissioned some of the greatest American composers of our time to build a new repertoire, including Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, Martin Bresnick, and many others. Over time, an appetite for boundless creativity led the group to branch out beyond the composer/interpreter paradigm. Since 2006 with group member Jason Treuting’s amid the noise, the members of Sō Percussion have been composing in their own right within the group and for others. In 2012 their third evening-length work Where (we) Live premieres at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, travelling to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 30th Next Wave Festival and the Myrna Loy Center in Helena, MT. Where (we) Live follows on the heels of 2009’s Imaginary City, a fully staged sonic meditation on urban soundscapes. In 2011, Sō was commissioned by Shen Wei Dance Arts to compose Undivided Divided, a 30-minute work conceived for Manhattan’s massive Park Avenue Armory. Sō Percussion’s artistic circle extends beyond their contemporary classical roots. They first expanded this boundary with the prolific duo Matmos, whom The New York Times called “ideal collaborators” on their 2010 combined album Treasure State. Further projects and appearances with Wham City shaman Dan Deacon, legendary drummer Bobby Previte, jam band kings Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche drew the circle even wider. In 2011, the rock band The National invited Sō to open one of their sold-out shows at New York’s Beacon Theater. Sō’s recording of the so-called laws of nature became the cornerstone of their self-titled debut album on Cantaloupe Music (the record label from the founders of Bang on a Can) in 2004. In subsequent years, this relationship blossomed into a growing catalogue of exciting records. In 2011, Sō released six new albums, ranging from their definitive recording of Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet¾composed for them in 2009¾on Nonesuch Records, to Steve Mackey’s epic quartet It Is Time on Cantaloupe, to their collaborative album Bad Mango with jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas on Greenleaf Music. The BBC raved of Sō’s performance of Mallet Quartet that they “have it nailed, finding both the inner glow and the outer edge, and never letting the tapestry lapse into the flat or routine.” Sō Percussion is heavily involved in mentoring young musicians. Its members are co-directors of a new percussion department at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. This top-flight undergraduate program enrolls each student in a double-degree (Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts) course in the Conservatory and Bard College, equipping them with elite conservatory training and a broad liberal arts education. In 2009, they created the annual Sō Percussion Summer Institute on the campus of Princeton University. The Institute is an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for college-age percussionists featuring the four members of Sō as faculty in rehearsal, performance, and discussion of contemporary music for students from around the world. During the 2011-2012 academic year, Sō was an ensemble-in-residence at Princeton University, teaching seminars and collaborating extensively with talented student composers. Sō has been featured at many of the major venues in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Stanford Lively Arts, Texas Performing Arts, and many others. In addition, a recent residency at London’s Barbican Centre, as well as tours to Western Europe, South America, Russia, and Australia have brought them international acclaim.

Laura Sheedy is a director from Melbourne, Australia, now living in New York. Laura has directed work for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Melbourne Fringe and Adelaide Fringe, La Trobe and Princeton Universities and Manhattan School of Music. Laura has directed solo works by Miss Behave, Captain Frodo, Amy G and Kurt Braunohler. She has been a directorial advisor to such companies as Circus Oz, La Clique, Suitcase Royale and composers Kate Neal and Wally Gunn. In February 2012, along with SITI Company’s Barney O’Hanlon, she presented a creative development showing of a new work, The Weight of Distance, for the World Theatre Festival, Australia. Most recently, Laura directed Charles Mee Jr’s, Big Love, was Anne Bogart’s Assistant Director on the SITI Company’s Steel Hammer for the Humana Festival of New American Plays, and created two new works for the Princeton Sound Kitchen with her theatre company, Nothing To See Here.

Jason Treuting is a performer and composer. He plays with and writes most often for his quartet Sō Percussion and now lives in Princeton as one of two inaugural Lewis Center Fellows in the Arts.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Physical Geography: New works by Princeton composers

Performing New Works by:

• Gilad Cohen

• Elliot Cole

• Quinn Collins

• Wally Gunn

• Noah Kaplan

• Emma O’Halloran

• Gabriella Smith

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

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PSK presents PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY: New works by Princeton composers Gilad Cohen, Elliot Cole, Quinn Collins, Wally Gunn, Noah Kaplan, Emma O’Halloran, and Gabriella Smith on Tuesday, May 20th, 2014 at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

Stream this concert live

on Tuesday, May 20th, 2014 at 8:00pm EDT, GMT - 4:00

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Decoda

Performing New Works by:

• Leila Adu-Gilmore

• Gilad Cohen

• Elliot Cole

• Cenk Ergun

• David Molk

Performed by:

• Decoda

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

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PSK presents Decoda performing new works by Princeton composers Leila Adu-Gilmore, Gilad Cohen, Elliot Cole, Cenk Ergun, and David Molk on Tuesday, May 13th, 2014 at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

Stream this concert live
on Tuesday, May 13th, 2014 at 8:00pm EDT, GMT - 4:00

PROGRAM

GILAD COHEN
Noonieland

ERGÜN
Obbligati

ELLIOT COLE
Three Wells

—INTERMISSION—

EDWARD T. CONE
Duo for Violin and ’Cello

LEILA ADU-GILMORE
Freedom Suite

DAVE MOLK
you can headbang, if you want

GILAD COHEN
Noonieland

Miranda Cuckson, violin
Decoda Ensemble

A kid is going through a literal and metaphorical journey in the Land of Noonie, during which she encounters a series of adventures, before facing the NoonieMaster for a final showdown. The piece is dedicated to my wife Erin, who has been introducing me to numerous Noonie Tunes over the last two years (especially in the mornings, preferably before I’m having my morning Chaga tea). I am grateful that instead of celebrating her birthday today out and about, she is yet again here at Taplin for some good ol’ 21st-century music. If you want to hear more of my music, please come to the Princeton Sound Kitchen concert next week (Tuesday, May 20) and check out new musical theatre songs I wrote with my collaborator Caleb Damschroder as part of the Advanced Class at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

CENK ERGÜN
Obbligati

What were we
We were where
Where we were

Decoda Ensemble

Appearing, disappearing, reappearing.

ELLIOT COLE
Three Wells

Well of Wishes
Well of Wheels
Well of Whales

Charlotte Mundy, soprano
Decoda Ensemble

i. Well of Wishes

ii. Well of Wheels

And all the while she stood vpon the ground,
The wakefull dogs did neuer cease to bay,
As giuing warning of th’vnwonted sound,
With which her yron wheeles did them affray,
And her darke griesly looke them much dismay;
The messenger of death, the ghastly Owle
With drearie shriekes did also her bewray;
And hungry Wolues continually did howle,
At her abhorred face, so filthy and so fowle.
– Edmund Spenser, from The Faerie Queene

iii. Well of Whales

o shard of bread
o rind of glass
o cup of rust
o bloom of brass

o well of whales
o open dome
o bed of scales
o bell of stones

EDWARD T. CONE
Duo for Violin and ’Cello

Anna Elashvili, violin
Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, cello

Edward T. Cone’s notes from the 1997 recording of Duo for Violin and ’Cello on Composers Recordings, Incorporated:

Writing music gives me special satisfaction when I have been asked to produce a composition for a performer or group. (I don’t say commissioned, because that implies a fee—which, I fear, is very rarely involved.) Most of the works on this disc owe their inceptions to such requests. Unfortunately, the expected performance doesn’t always take place. The Duo for Violin and ’Cello is a case in point. The idea was suggested to me by Felix Greissle back in 1963, when he was directing a radio program devoted to new music. Speaking frankly, he told me that he would like to do a chamber work of mine, but that for financial reasons I should keep the instrumentation to a minimum. So I produced the Duo—and his program promptly disappeared from the air. (That was not, I trust, an example of post hoc, propter hoc). Consequently the Duo was not played until 1966, at the American Academy in Rome.

It is in one roughly quadripartite movement, a free rhapsody based melodically and harmonically on a collection of related three-note cells. Each of these consists of two intervals differing by a half-tone, a perfect fourth plus a tritone, or a minor plus a major second. Both of those cells, in fact, can be heard in the opening octave statement, which acts as a kind of recurring motto. In the opening section, contrapuntal treatments of the motto sandwich a central passage featuring a quasi-improvisatory melody for each instrument in turn, punctuated by its partner’s pizzicato interjections. After a brief pause the second section attempts to be Tranquillo but is persistently interrupted by a Doppio movimento. That tempo takes over to produce an energetic duet in which a martellato theme (based on the “Fifth Symphony” rhythm) assumes control, leading to a big climax. The movement gradually subsides, and a transition leads to the third main section, a ruminative Adagio. It is followed by what might be termed a double interlude: first a dreamy Moderato that attempts twice to come to rest, once on a D-major and once on a C-major triad; then a tentative return to the motto, which gradually becomes more agitated until it opens into the finale, Allegro molto. When its dancing is ultimately broken by march-like presentation of the motto, the end is near. One last lyrical reminiscence is answered by a brief return to the Allegro to effect a decisive conclusion. (Incidentally, but probably not coincidentally, the final E flat completes a three-note cell initiated by the two previous cadences on D and C).

LEILA ADU-GILMORE
Freedom Suite

Different States
Ghost Lullaby
Negative Space

Lelia Adu-Gilmore, soprano
Decoda Ensemble

For over half of my life, I have written, performed and recorded songs and improvisations for piano and voice. At times the accompaniment is very simple. In Freedom Suite, I have arranged three songs in different ways, with a goal of capturing their initial simplicity in different ways for each song.

These three songs are on themes of America: The first, Different States, I wrote when I first visited the US for first time in 2007: it is my initial impression, told through a voice of “other”; a man, perhaps an African American or an immigrant from Latin America, who has lived, worked and gone to war for this country. The second, Ghost Lullaby, is a song I wrote when I came to the town of Princeton and realized that only a couple of people mentioned Native Americans and that no one spoke of the tribe of people who inhabited the actual space that we lived on while I was there. The third, Negative Space, is a song that I wrote upon hearing of the murder of Trayvon Martin and speaks to the vacuum created for many black people through continued effects of colonialism, slavery, prison and the justice system.

With the skills that I have been expanding through writing more instrumental music recently, I have found the attempt to capture this music a totally new and different challenge, especially to maintain the simplicity of the songs for such a large ensemble, and I am interested to see which techniques work the best. This project is especially helpful for the orchestral song cycle that I am to write next for Orchestra Wellington’s emerging-composer-in-residence (New Zealand). Thanks to Decoda for being kind enough to let me to sing along with them tonight.

DAVE MOLK
you can headbang, if you want

Decoda Ensemble

Not my best title, but feel free to headbang to the loud bits. I had to take a break in the middle of this piece to write my Pink Floyd medley and while I don’t deliberately quote any of the Floyd, influences from them and from co-organizing a conference at the same time are no doubt present. Catherine, Henry, Gilad, Erin, and Carolina, you are all best suited to pick out these moments. Thanks again for the substantial help.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Decoda is a chamber ensemble comprised of virtuoso musicians, entrepreneurs, and passionate advocates of the arts. Based in New York City, Decoda creates residencies, innovative performances, and engaging projects with partners around the world. The artists of Decoda have a background of shared training and experience as fellows in the two-year program known as Ensemble ACJW—The Academy, a program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. Since its inception in 2011, Decoda’s residencies have reached audiences in schools, hospitals, and prisons, as well as in renowned concert halls across the globe. Recent travels have taken Decoda to Abu Dhabi, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Germany, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. In the 2013–14 season, Decoda will present residencies in the United Kingdom and Denmark, along with return engagements in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Decoda is the resident ensemble at Greenwich House Music School in NYC’s historic West Village, and its first season included engagements at the Mainly Mozart Festival (San Diego), Bay Chamber Concerts (Maine), Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), Chelsea Music Festival (NYC), Carnegie Kids @ Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Festival (UAE), Við Djúpið Festival (Iceland), Programa de Educación Musical Fomento Cultural Banamex & Carnegie Hall (Mexico), and the Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase. Since 2011, Decoda has participated in Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections Program, undertaking creative projects at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Beth Abraham Hospital and Valley Lodge Shelter. Decoda’s NYC offerings this season include a four-concert series at Trinity Wall Street, the Bulgarian Concert Evenings, the Kosciuszko Foundation, Lyrica Chamber Music Series, DROM, and a debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to return engagements in Abu Dhabi and Mexico, new international partnerships bring Decoda to Copenhagen to collaborate with the Danish String Quartet, as well as to the United Kingdom for residencies at the Southbank Centre, the Barbican, the Guildhall School of Music, and in Cornwall. Decoda was recently awarded grants from Chamber Music America and the Hootie and the Blowfish Foundation for an extended residency in Camden, South Carolina, presenting Interactive Performances at eleven middle and high schools and a creative songwriting workshop with members of the Young Offenders Program at Wateree Correctional Facility. To learn more about Decoda, please visit www.decodamusic.org.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Generals Concert

Performing New Works by:

• Viet Cuong

• Alex Dowling

• Amanda Feery

• Chris Rogerson

Performed by:

• Veil Composition Generals Concert

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

____

PSK presents VEIL: Composition Generals Concert. Various artists and ensembles perform new works by Princeton 2nd year graduate student composers Viet Cuong, Alex Dowling, Amanda Feery and Chris Rogerson in response to challenging and provocative works from a range of repertoire, including Morton Feldman, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach and Norwegian folk dances.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

VEIL COMPOSITION GENERALS CONCERT

Various artists and ensembles performing new works by 2nd Year Graduate Student composers

PROGRAM

CHRIS ROGERSON
Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello

Prelude
Sarabande
Capriccio
Minuet
Canto
Gigue

Brook Speltz, cello

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BMV 1007

Prélude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Menuett I & II
Gigue

Brook Speltz, cello

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, “Pathétique”

Adgio cantabile

Isabelle O’Connell, piano

ALEX DOWLING
Line Drawing

Mivos String Quartet
Olivia De Prato, violin
Joshua Modney, violin
Victor Lowrie, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello

—INTERMISSION—

MORTON FELDMAN
King of Denmark

Jason Treuting, percussion

VIET CUONG
Remarks on Colors

Eric Beach, percussion

TRADITIONAL
Norwegian springar tunes

Kivlemøyane I
Kivlemøyane II

Dan Trueman, hardanger fiddle

AMANDA FEERY
Three Sisters

Some Pig
Bluebottle’s Farm

Mivos String Quartet

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Viet Cuong is a young composer who has had works performed across the United States, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, and Japan. He has appeared at the Aspen Music Festival, International Double Reed Society Conference, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, Midwest Clinic, GAMMA-UT Conference, and multiple CBDNA conferences, among others. He is a winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Award, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize from Ithaca College, Dolce Suono Ensemble Young Composers Competition, Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association Grant, Peabody Alumni Award, Gustav Klemm Award, Prix d’Été Competition, and National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project. Additionally, he received honorable mentions in the 2013 Harvey Gaul Composition Competition and the 2010 and 2012 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prizes. Viet has held artist residencies at Yaddo, Ucross, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and was a scholarship student at the Aspen and Bowdoin music festivals. He will be a fellow at the Copland House’s CULTIVATE workshop this summer. Viet is currently a Naumburg and Roger Sessions Doctoral Fellow at Princeton University. He holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Kevin Puts and Oscar Bettison.

Alex Dowling makes music for real and imaginary instruments. He has worked with groups such as the Irish RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, and orkest de ereprijs, and his music has been featured at festivals including Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, U.S.A. and the International Young Composers’ Meeting, Netherlands.

Amanda Feery works with acoustic, electronic, and improvised music. Through her music-making she has worked with inspiring teachers and peers in the realms of composition, improvisation, theatre, and film. Her work has been performed by Con Tempo String Quartet, Dither Quartet, Lisa Moore, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and Orkest de Ereprijs. She has participated as a composition fellow at Ostrava Days Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, and the International Young Composers Meeting.

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 Kansas City Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Brentano Quartet, and the JACK Quartet, and his music has been performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Symphony Center in Chicago. 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 doctoral fellow at Princeton University. Chris is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

A member of the ensemble Sō Percussion since 2007, Eric Beach has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Barbican Centre, and dozens of other venues around the world. Together with Sō he has worked closely with Steve Reich, David Lang, Paul Lansky, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Bobby Previte, Fred Frith, Martin Bresnick, Bryce Dessner, Glenn Kotche, Matmos, Dan Deacon, Buke and Gase, Dave Douglas, Tristan Perich, Daniel Wohl, Cenk Ergün, Grey McMurray, and many others. As a composer, Eric has written music for Sō Percussion, Shen Wei Dance, Q2 Internet Radio, KT Niehoff/Lingo Dance, Make Music Winter, Bring to Light/Nuit Blanche New York, the 2wice ‘Fifth Wall’ iPad app, and the Look and Listen Festival. Eric is Co-Director of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute as well as the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Studying with Robert van Sice, Eric received his Bachelor of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory and his Master of Music at the Yale School of Music. He also received a Fulbright fellowship and pursued additional study with Bernhard Wulff in Freiburg, Germany.

The Mivos Quartet, “one of America’s most daring and ferocious new-music ensembles” (The Chicago Reader), is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers, presenting new music to diverse audiences. Since the quartet’s beginnings in 2008 they have performed the works of emerging and established international composers who represent varied aesthetics of contemporary classical composition. Mivos is invested in commissioning and premiering new music for string quartet, particularly in a context of close collaboration with composers over extended time-periods. In the 2013–2014 season, Mivos has collaborated on new works with Sam Pluta (Lucerne Festival Commission), Dan Blake (Jerome Commission), Mark Barden (Wien Modern Festival Commission), Scott Wollschleger, and Patrick Higgins (ZS), and in early 2014 will develop new work with Richard Carrick (Fromm Commission), Eric Wubbels (CMA commission), Kate Soper, and poet/musician Saul Williams. Mivos is also committed to working with guest artists, exploring multi-media projects involving live video and electronics, creating original compositions and arrangements for the quartet, and performing improvised music. Mivos has appeared on concert series including Wien Modern (Veinna, Austria), Asphalt Festival (Düsseldorf, Germany), Concerti Aperitivo (Udine, Italy), HellHOT! New Music Festival (Hong Kong), Edgefest (Ann Arbor, MI), and Aldeburgh Music (UK), where Mivos was invited to work with the Arditti Quartet and Helmut Lachenmann. Mivos was one of five groups selected for the Young Ensembles Fellowship at the 2012 Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, where they were awarded a Fellowship Prize for Interpretation. They look forward to returning to Darmstadt in August 2014, where they will present a concert of new American compositions and work closely with Clemens Gadenstätter and Helmut Lachenmann. More information about the Quartet is available at www.mivosquartet.com.

Described by The New Yorker as “the young Irish piano phenom,” pianist Isabelle O’Connell has performed across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and Ireland. Her debut solo album, RESERVOIR, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim and features solo piano music by nine contemporary Irish composers. Isabelle is co-founder of GrandBand, New York’s new music piano sextet, described by the New York Times as: “six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene.” As a chamber musician, Isabelle often performs with the CRASH ensemble, appearing at the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival, Sydney Conservatoire, Kennedy Center, Le Poisson Rouge in New York and the Reich Effect Festival, Ireland. She has also played with Alarm Will Sound at Duke University and in Denver, Colorado, and with Ergodos ensemble at Issue Project Room in New York. She has performed with John Adams at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, with Meredith Monk at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, and with the New Zealand String Quartet at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Isabelle has a reputation for being a dynamic interpreter and energetic advocate of music by 20th- and 21st-century composers, regularly commissioning and premiering new works. In 2007, she was Co-Artistic Director of “New Music, New Ireland, New York,” a concert that showcased contemporary Irish composers at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Isabelle also has a particular interest in music involving extended piano techniques and is often invited to give masterclasses and workshops on the topic. Her performances have been broadcast on radio and television on both sides of the Atlantic, including WNYC, WQXR, WFMT Chicago, BBC3, RTE, TV3, and Lyric FM. For more information check out www.isabelleoconnell.com.

A regular performer with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony, Brook Speltz has built an enthusiastic fan base across the United States. Mr. Speltz has received top prizes in numerous major competitions. He is the recent grand prizewinner of the prestigious Ima Hogg Competition, which led to his highly anticipated debut with the Houston Symphony. He has also claimed top prizes at the ASTA National Competition and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Bronislaw Kaper Awards. As a soloist, Mr. Speltz has performed concertos with the Curtis Institute of Music Chamber Orchestra, the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, the Brentwood-Westwood Symphony, and the Mozart Orchestra of Laguna Beach, among others. He has appeared as recitalist throughout the country, including guest appearances at the Montecito Music Festival, Pacific Serenades, Pasadena Restoration Series, the New Music New Haven series, and the Idyllwild Arts Festival. He has performed at many of the most prestigious music festivals, including the Marlboro Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and the Oregon Bach festivals. As a member of the Vuilliaume String and Ares String quartets, Brook has been a resident artist the BRAVO Vail Valley Music Festival and Music from Angel Fire. Born in Los Angeles, Brook graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2009, following studies with Peter Wiley and Carter Brey. He is currently pursuing a diploma at the Juilliard School, studying with Joel Krosnick.

Jason Treuting has performed and recorded in venues as diverse as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, the Knitting Factory, the Andy Warhol Museum, Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center, DOM (Moscow) and Le National (Montreal). As a member of Sō Percussion, he has collaborated with artists and composers including Steve Reich, David Lang, John Zorn, Dan Trueman, tabla master Zakir Hussain, the electronic music duo Matmos, and choreographer Eliot Feld. In addition to his work with Sō, Jason performs improvised music with Simpl, a group with laptop artist/composer Cenk Ergün; Alligator Eats Fish with guitarist Grey McMurray; Little Farm, with guitarist/composer Steve Mackey; QQQ (a quartet consisting of hardanger fiddle, viola, guitar and drums); and Big Farm (a foursome led by Rinde Eckert and Steve Mackey). Jason also composes music. His many compositions for Sō Percussion include Sō’s third album, Amid the Noise, and contributions to Imaginary City, an evening length work that appeared on the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2009 Next Wave Festival. Recent commissions for other ensembles have included Oblique Music for 4 Plus (Blank), a concerto for Sō Percussion and string orchestra for the League of Composers Orchestra; Circus of One, music for a video installation in collaboration with Alison Crocetta; and Diorama, an evening length collaboration with the French choreographers in Projet Situ. Jason is Co-Director of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an annual intensive course on the campus of Princeton University for college-aged percussionists. He is also Co-Director of a new percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where Sō Percussion has been ensemble-in-residence since Fall 2011, and has taught percussion both in masterclass and privately at more than 80 conservatories and universities in the USA and internationally. Jason received his Bachelors in Music and the Performer’s Certificate from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music where he studied percussion with John Beck and drum set and improvisation with Steve Gadd, Ralph Alessi, and Michael Cain. He received his Masters in Music along with an Artist Diploma from Yale University, where he studied percussion with Robert Van Sice. Jason has also traveled to Japan to study marimba with Keiko Abe and to Bali to study gamelan with Pac I Nyoman Suadin.

Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddler and electronic musician.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Jack Quartet

Performing New Works by:

• Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade

• Troy Herion

• Dave Molk

• Jonathan Russell

• Caroline Shaw

Performed by:

• Jack Quartet

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

____

PSK presents JACK Quartet performing new works by Princeton composers Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Troy Herion, Dave Molk, Jonathan Russell and Caroline Shaw on Tuesday, April 15th, 2014 at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

PROGRAM

JONATHAN RUSSELL
Déjà vu

DAVE MOLK
Ether

TROY HERION
Quartet

CAROLINE SHAW
Ritornello 2.sq.2.j

NINFEA CRUTTWELL-READE
“Ich ewiges Kind”

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

The JACK Quartet electrifies audiences worldwide with “explosive virtuosity” (Boston Globe) and “viscerally exciting performances” (New York Times). David Patrick Stearns (Philadelphia Inquirer) proclaimed their performance as being “among the most stimulating new-music concerts of my experience.” The Washington Post commented, “The string quartet may be a 250-year-old contraption, but young, brilliant groups like the JACK Quartet are keeping it thrillingly vital.” Alex Ross (New Yorker) hailed their performance of Iannis Xenakis’ complete string quartets as being “exceptional” and “beautifully harsh,” and Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times) called their sold-out performances of Georg Friedrich Haas’ String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct. “mind-blowingly good.” The recipient of New Music USA’s 2013 Trailblazer Award, the quartet has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Suntory Hall (Japan), Salle Pleyel (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (Netherlands), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Reykjavik Arts Festival (Iceland), Festival Internacional Cervatino (Mexico), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Germany), and Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany). Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland, JACK is focused on the commissioning and performance of new works, leading them to work closely with composers Derek Bermel, Chaya Czernowin, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Beat Furrer, Georg Friedrich Haas, Vijay Iyer, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Mackey, Matthias Pintscher, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, and John Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Toby Twining, Georg Friedrich Haas, Simon Holt, Kevin Ernste, and Simon Bainbridge. JACK has led workshops with young performers and composers at Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, New York University, Columbia University, the Eastman School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, June in Buffalo, New Music on the Point, and at the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. In addition to working with composers and performers, JACK seeks to broaden and diversify the potential audience for new music through educational presentations designed for a variety of ages, backgrounds, and levels of musical experience. The members of the quartet met while attending the Eastman School of Music and studied closely with the Arditti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, Muir String Quartet, and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade is a first-year composition graduate student at Princeton University. She studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where she produced music for theater, and later received postgraduate tuition in cello performance at the Royal Academy of Music, London. As a cellist at the Academy she performed many new works, and designed Playing with Rituals—a concert project that saw her present her own electroacoustic composition alongside pieces by Kaija Saariaho and Benjamin Britten. Her recent projects have included Visions of Nature’s Grace, a large-scale choral setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins texts commissioned by More House School, and a collection of preludes tracing the decay of a damaged piano.

Troy Herion is a composer and filmmaker whose works unite contemporary music with visual arts through chamber and orchestral music, opera, theater, dance, and film. Compositions have been performed by American Composers Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Crash Ensemble, Nash Ensemble of London, and Brentano Quartet. His visual-music compositions including Baroque Suite and New York: A City Symphony have been called “marvelous” by New Yorker critic Alex Ross and were featured on MTV, The New York Times, and performed at Carnegie Hall. Most recently he completed a film score for The Dog which premiered at SXSW and will be in wide theatrical release in 2015. He is currently in pre-production on A Period of Animate Existence, a new music and theater work commissioned by Pig Iron Theatre for two choirs, instruments, and actors. A choir of children and a choir of adults sing to each other about planetary cycles, reproduction, and inheritance. www.troyherion.com

Dave Molk is in his 3rd year at Princeton. He writes mainly for pitched and non-pitched percussion, combining an energized rhythmic propulsion, sinuous chromaticism, and a love of glitch. His current research efforts are in software coding and EDM. He previously studied composition at Berklee College of Music under John Bavicchi and at Tufts University under John McDonald.

Jonathan Russell is a composer, bass clarinetist, conductor, and educator, whose work has been hailed as “incredibly virtuosic, rocking, and musical” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “a fantastically distorted perpetual motion of awesome” (I Care If You Listen). He has received commissions from ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, Imani Winds, Empyrean Ensemble, ADORNO Ensemble, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Wild Rumpus, and the Great Noise Ensemble, and performances from numerous other ensembles and performers, including the Berkeley Symphony, Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Third Coast Percussion, Yarn/Wire, the NakedEye Ensemble, Ensemble Pi, The Living Earth Show, DZ4, the BluePrint Project, REDSHIFT, Roomful of Teeth, Ensemble Avalon, Twiolins, the new music bands FIREWORKS, Capital M, and Oogog, pianist-percussionist Danny Holt, and pianists Sarah Cahill, Lisa Moore, Lara Downes, Matthew McCright, Kate Campbell, and Regina Schaffer. His works are published by Potenza Music Publishing, BCP Music, and Peer Music, and his music has been recorded by the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, the Kairos Consort, pianist Jeffrey Jacob, The Living Earth show, Imani Winds, and the Twiolins. As a performer, Jonathan is a member of two ground-breaking bass clarinet chamber ensembles: the heavy metal-inspired Edmund Welles Bass Clarinet Quartet and the Sqwonk Bass Clarinet Duo, which is commissioning and recording new works by established and emerging composers to create a new repertoire of bass clarinet duo music. He has appeared as soloist with the Peninsula Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, West Point Military Academy Band, Harvard’s Bach Society Orchestra, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, the Great Noise Ensemble, the NakedEye Ensemble, and the Omaha Symphonic Winds. He is also a co-founder of San Francisco’s Switchboard Music Festival. He holds degrees from Harvard University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Composition program at Princeton University.

Caroline Shaw is a fourth-year graduate student in composition in the Department of Music.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Movie Night

Performing New Works by:

• Quinn Collins

• Amanda Feery

• Troy Herion

• Paul Lansky

• Kate Neal

• Jeff Snyder

Performed by:

• Movie Night

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

____

PSK presents MOVIE NIGHT: an evening of video works and multi-channel audio works by Princeton composers Quinn Collins, Amanda Feery, Troy Herion, Paul Lansky, Kate Neal, and Jeff Snyder on Tuesday, March 25th, 2014 at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

MOVIE NIGHT

An evening of video works and multi-channel audio works by Princeton composers

PROGRAM

KATE NEAL, composer
TROY HERION, video artist
Drive In
1 min

TROY HERION, composer and video artist
New York: A City Symphony
15 mins

QUINN COLLINS, composer

TYLER KINNEY, video artist
Stylus
4 mins

PAUL LANSKY
Patterns
7 mins

JEFF SNYDER, composer
CAROLINE JIN KEY, video artist
Sunspots IV
10 min

Sunspots 4-8 are part of a series of pieces that seek to create unusual sonic worlds, something like field recordings of imaginary environments. The pieces in this series heard tonight were all created using a Buchla 200 analog synthesizer during a residency at the Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm, Sweden in the summer of 2013.

PAUL LANSKY
Ride
19 min

Ride (2000) also has a predecessor in Night Traffic (1990), (Bridge CD 9035, Homebrew). The latter was based on a recording of a local four-lane highway in Princeton Junction, New Jersey. Ride is based on a new recording of the same road, but now this material is embedded in a richer and more complex texture. The work attempts to capture the sensation of being on a ride through various landscapes, towns and villages, rather than the experience of watching traffic pass by. Its grand orchestral manner is not unlike that of its elder sibling, which a friend of mine once described as “Tod und Verklärung on wheels.”

TROY HERION, composer and video artist
Baroque Suite
15 min

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

John Blacklow and Jennifer Frautschi

Performing New Works by:

• Steve Mackey

• Barbara White

Performed by:

• John Blacklow

• Jennifer Frautschi

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

____

PSK presents Jennifer Frautschi and John Blacklow performing a program of works including Princeton composers Steve Mackey and Barbara White on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

JENNIFER FRAUTSCHI, violin

JOHN BLACKLOW, piano

PROGRAM

BARBARA WHITE
Before I was released I was in many things

STEPHEN HARTKE
Netsuke

- INTERMISSION -

ELENA RUEHR
Rumengling

DAN COLEMAN
Sad and Ancient Phrases

STEVEN MACKEY
Sonata for Violin and Piano

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Hailed for his "powerful and eloquent" playing (New York Times), as “a brilliant performer—a gifted musical presence with a high sense of pianistic fantasy” (Salzburger Nachrichten), John Blacklow is a pianist of unusual versatility, as a soloist, as a collaborator with many ensembles and recital partners, and as an interpreter of repertoire both past and current. He has been presented in many prestigious venues and concert series throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

As soloist, Blacklow has been presented in venues such as Alice Tully Hall and Merkin Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2009, EDI Records released a solo piano CD Prism, featuring works by Berg, J.S. Bach, Schumann, and Chopin. Blacklow has performed in several capacities with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As keyboardist, he worked under conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pierre Boulez, Leonard Slatkin, and Marin Alsop, and performed in the world premiere of Soundings by John Williams at the gala opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Blacklow has also participated frequently in the LA Philharmonic's Chamber Music Society, on the Green Umbrella New Music Series, and appears on the orchestra's Deutsche Grammophon/iTunes recordings.

In 2004, Blacklow was selected with violinist Jennifer Frautschi by Carnegie Hall and the European Concert Hall Organization for their Rising Stars program, and the duo was received with high acclaim at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Wigmore Hall in London, and Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, as well as on Carnegie’s own Distinctive Debuts series. They have since appeared in Symphony Hall in Detroit, the Windham Music Festival in New York, the Wilson Center for the Arts in Wisconsin, Harvard Musical Association, Wellesley College, as well as on NPR’s Performance Today and BBC 3 in the United Kingdom. Blacklow and violinist Hahn-Bin first performed together for the Grammy Awards in 2000, honoring Isaac Stern. In addition to highly acclaimed recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Carnegie's Zankel Hall, they have performed throughout the U.S., at the Louvre in Paris, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and recorded the album HAZE for Universal Music, Ltd., which was praised for its "great intensity and energy" (The Gramophone).

A Steinway Artist, Blacklow was born in Boston and studied piano with Tatiana Yampolsky, graduating from both Harvard University and The Juilliard School. He has also worked with Bella Davidovich and Leonard Shure. He is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Notre Dame, and has served as jury member for national and international competitions.

Two-time Grammy nominee and Avery Fisher career grant winner Jennifer Frautschi has garnered worldwide acclaim as an adventurous musician with a remarkably wide-ranging repertoire. As the Chicago Tribune noted, "violinist Jennifer Frautschi is molding a career with smart interpretations of both warhorses and rarities." Equally at home in the classic and contemporary repertoire, her recent seasons have featured innumerable performances and recordings of works ranging from Brahms and Schumann to Berg and Schoenberg. She has also had the privilege of premiering several new works composed for her by prominent composers of today.

Ms. Frautschi has appeared as soloist with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christoph Eschenbach and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, and at Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made her New York recital debut in 2004. As part of the European Concert Hall Organization's Rising Stars series, Ms. Frautschi also made debuts that year at ten of Europe's most celebrated concert venues, including the Salzburg Mozarteum, Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, and Brussels’ Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. She has also been heard in recital at the Ravinia Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Washington's Phillips Collection, Boston's Gardner Museum, Beijing's Imperial Garden, Monnaie Opera in Brussels, La Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico.

Highlights of Ms. Frautschi’s 2013 - 2014 season include performances with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Tucson Symphony, as well as return engagements with the Alabama, Arkansas, Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Chattanooga, Phoenix, and Toledo Symphonies and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She will return to DaCamera of Houston and the Helicon Foundation in New York for concerts on all-gut strings with period instruments. Recent seasons include the world premiere of James Stephenson’s Violin Concerto, a piece written for her, with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä; Barber Concerto with the orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo Opera House in Naples, James Conlon conducting; and performances with the Eugene, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, and Utah Symphonies, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. She has also soloed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Kansas City Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, San Diego Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, and toured the United States with the Czech Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Frautschi has appeared annually at the Caramoor Center for the Arts since the age of 18, when she was first invited by André Previn to perform there as a Rising Star during her freshman year at Harvard. As a chamber artist she appears frequently at the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest (in Portland, OR), and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Formerly a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, she has also appeared at the Charlottesville, La Jolla Summerfest, La Musica (Sarasota), Moab, Music@Menlo, Newport, Seattle, and Spoleto USA Chamber Music Festivals, as well as at New York’s Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums of Art, the 92nd Street Y, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Mainly Mozart in San Diego. Internationally, she has performed at the Cartagena International Music Festival in Columbia, the Spoleto Festival of the Two Worlds and Rome Chamber Music Festival in Italy, Pharo’s Trust in Cyprus, Kutna Hora Festival in the Czech Republic, St. Barth's Music Festival in the French West Indies, and toured England with musicians from Prussia Cove, culminating in a concert in London’s Wigmore Hall. She has premiered important new works by Barbara White, Mason Bates, Oliver Knussen, Krzysztof Penderecki, Michael Hersch, and others, and has appeared at New York's George Crumb Festival and Stefan Wolpe Centenary Concerts.

Her discography includes three widely-praised CDs for Artek: an orchestral recording of the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, and highly-acclaimed discs of music of Ravel and Stravinsky, and of 20th century works for solo violin. She has also recorded several discs for Naxos, including the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two Grammy-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (nominated for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra) in 2006) and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet (nominated for Best Chamber Music Performance in 2011). Her most recent releases are a recording of Romantic horn trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk. With pianist John Blacklow she will soon release two discs on Albany Records: the first devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann, including the rarely performed posthumous sonata; the second an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, and Stephen Hartke.

Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi began the violin at age three. She was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. She also attended Harvard, the New England Conservatory of Music, and The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the ‘ex-Cadiz,’ on generous loan to her from a private American foundation.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

Dither and Mivos

Performing New Works by:

• Leila Adu

• Andy Akiho

• Quinn Collins

• Cenk Ergun

• Amanda Feery

• Wally Gunn

• Jeff Snyder

Performed by:

• Dither Guitar Quartet

• Mivos String Quartet

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

____

PSK presents Dither Guitar Quartet and Mivos String Quartet, with guests, performing works by Princeton composers Leila Adu, Andy Akiho, Quinn Collins, Cenk Ergun, Amanda Feery, Wally Gunn, and Jeff Snyder on Tuesday, February 18th, 2014 at 8:00pm. Streaming here.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

DITHER GUITAR QUARTET
MIVOS STRING QUARTET
YUMI TAMASHIRO, marimba
IAN ROSENBAUM, marimba
SUSAN ALCORN, pedal steel guitar
SIGAN MAGEN, harp

PROGRAM

JEFF SNYDER
Substratum
Mivos Quartet with Susan Alcorn, pedal steel

LEILA ADU-GILMORE
Alyssum
Mivos Quartet with Sivan Magen, harp

CENK ERGÜN
8 Voices
Mivos Quartet

ANDY AKIHO
LIgNEouS 1, 2 & 3
Mivos Quartet with Yumi Tamashiro, marimba, and Ian David Rosenbaum, marimba

- INTERMISSION -

WALLY GUNN
Archaean Eon
Dither with Jason Treuting, drum set

AMANDA FEERY
The Little Woman Wanted Noise
Dither

QUINN COLLINS
Near the Knuckle
Dither

JEFF SNYDER

Substratum
Mivos Quartet with Susan Alcorn, pedal steel

Substratum (2013) came to be through my association with Susan Alcorn, for whom the piece was written. She performed as the pedal steel guitarist in my electro-country band, Owen Lake and Tragic Loves, and we started talking about how interesting it would be to write a concert music piece that features this unique instrument. Almost exclusively associated with the country and western genre, the pedal steel guitar dates from the mid 1950s, when slide guitarists began to add pedals (similar to those on a harp) to adjust the tuning of their open strings. The instrument that Susan plays is a descendant of this tradition, expanded from 10 strings to 12, and from a small handful of pedals to 8 foot pedals and 5 levers operated by the knees, giving an unusual amount of control over pitch for a slide guitar. It’s one of my favorite instruments, and Susan is an incredible player who took on the challenge of learning a difficult piece and basically trying something that has never been done before. The instrumentation is something of a reference to the traditional country music pairing of the pedal steel guitar with twin fiddles, often trading back and forth between who embellishes the verses of a song. It also reflects my desire to write a piece for the Mivos Quartet, who have been playing the crap out of beautiful and challenging music for several years. The piece itself evokes a kind of non-human internal logic. It aims at a structure that belies an anthropomorphic or emotional characterization. I imagine capturing the thoughts of tree roots finding their way in the earth, winding around their siblings and the natural impediments to their path, searching for water. Or possibly the hive mind of an ant colony busily creating a network of tunnels. The piece seeks to look under the surface at those natural processes, tensions and harmonies in the systems that surround us or exist wholly indifferent to us.

LEILA ADU-GILMORE
Alyssum
Mivos Quartet with Sivan Magen, harp

for my mother, Alison

If anyone was ever deserving of a piece of being written in her honor, it is my mum. Alyssum is the starry, white plant that grows in rocky beds: it sounds like her name, moreover, hardy and beautiful are qualities that suit her. Of course, like most mothers, she took care of my needs and went through, in our case, a particularly horrid birth process. Aside from that, my mother seems to have befallen many a tragedy; her spirit, however, rather than being dampened by this, has remained strong, calm and relatively light-hearted! In the past few years, an earthquake destroyed the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, in which she still lives and we found that she has had increasing brain damage, due to Alzheimer’s. Mum’s darkly sharp wit interpreted me writing this piece for her now, as being whilst she was still compos mentis (Latin: of sound mind). In fact, she is right, I wanted to write Alyssum while she could fully appreciate it¾though she stays in touch with new arts and loves music so much that I imagine she will get a good bit of enjoyment out of it yet. Mum recently sent me an email with a YouTube video of the scene from Pedro Almaldovar’s film Talk To Her, where Caetano Veloso sings Cucurrucucú Paloma: I had been really getting into Antonio Jobim around the same time. Therefore, upon finding our shared love of bossanova, I decided to add the theme of common tones to my cantus firmus, as well as harmonies descending by semi-tone and bossa rhythms, especially in the final section. The high A could show my mother’s enduring spirit, and her initials - Alison Barbara Gilmore - are heard as a theme. She loves nature and the sea, which she lives by; accordingly, there are themes and expression directions of waves, pools and waterfalls. Finally, thanks to Sivan Magen and Mivos String Quartet for indulging me in this gift to my mum!

CENK ERGÜN

8 Voices
Mivos Quartet

8 Voices was originally composed for the vocal ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, and was premiered in Princeton last year. The music is a series of reiterations of a single chord, interrupted by silences. As I was listening to the rehearsal recordings of the vocal version, I heard people talking, coughing, and walking around in the rehearsal space. These sounds were especially pronounced during the silences, and I liked the effect they created. For the string quartet version, I wanted to see what happened if I replaced the silences with a kind of composed “noise.”

ANDY AKIHO

LIgNEouS 1, 2 & 3
Mivos Quartet with Yumi Tamashiro, marimba, and Ian David Rosenbaum, marimba

LIgNEouS, adjective: of the nature of or resembling wood (from the Oxford Dictionary).Ingredients: string quartet, 5 octave marimba, extremely large rubber band, moleskin-tipped birch mallets, & perseverance.Disclaimer: NO MARIMBAS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS COMPOSITION.

LIgNEouS 1 was commissioned by John and Astrid Baumgardner for the 2010 Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and LIgNEouS 2 was commissioned by Yumi Tamashiro in 2012. These works are dedicated to Ian Rosenbaum, Yumi Tamashiro, and all of my inspiring friends of the Yale Percussion Group and the Manhattan School Percussion Department who inspired me to write for marimba. Tonight’s performance is a world premiere of the LIgNEouS Suite. Movements 2 and 3 are world premieres, and Movement 1 has been shortened and modified from the original version to work with the entire piece. The order in which the pieces are played can vary: tonight, the suite will be performed in reverse order. In the spring of 2010, I attended an exhibit of composer and architect Iannis Xenakis’s original architecture sketches at The Drawing Center in NYC. When I left, I was inspired to sketch out a pitch world with color-penciled “LI-NE—S” by connecting vertical rows of chromatic pitches, expanding the full range of the 5-octave marimba, with geometric diagonal lines and collapsing triangles. These visually linear note combinations became the foundational scales for the piece. Then, I intuitively worked at the marimba, improvising on these scales, and these improvisations became the fundamental building blocks, or rhythmic and melodic cells, of this work. “LIgNEouS” means “made, consisting of, or resembling wood.” This title was chosen because the marimba, violin, viola, and cello are all primarily made of wood. Also, the sticks/mallet shafts really bring out the wooden sound world that I was striving for in the marimba. I decided to only use marimba mallet shafts, without the mallet heads, in order to capture an extremely woody sound and to articulate the highest overtones. I also wanted to use industrial timbres in addition to the melodic bars, accomplished through glissandos and strikes to the metallic resonators. To mimic snap (‘Bartók’) pizzicatos, a string technique produced by vertically snapping/plucking a string to rebound off the fingerboard, I used an extremely large rubber band on the low D of the 5-octave marimba. Finally, the string parts feature non-pitched scratch tones, a technique adopted from Xenakis's string quartets.

- INTERMISSION -

WALLY GUNN
Archaean Eon
Dither with Jason Treuting, drum set

The Archaeon Eon began 4,000 million years ago and ended 2,500 million years ago. That’s 1,500 million years. This piece is only 6 minutes, but hopes to illustrate a glimpse of explosive volcanism and exponential reproduction of single-celled organisms; events which define that time. Many thanks to Dither and Jason Treuting for premiering this piece tonight.

AMANDA FEERY
The Little Woman Wanted Noise
Dither

The title of the piece comes from a children’s story book of the same name. A woman, who lives in a cacophonous city between a shoemakers and a printers, then inherits a farm and moves there, but cannot sleep for the silence. So she buys a pig, a dog, a rooster, and a “rattley bang car with a loud horn”, which she drives to the loudest place she can find; an orphanage, where she adopts two boys … that sort of thing. “And the little woman had no rest. But she had peace of mind.” I can relate to the headcase protagonist of our story, not in the sense of adopting loud orphans, but in the sense of the peace of mind ‘not silence’ brings me. In a relatively silent environment I tend to latch onto sounds that are constant, but come in and out of aural focus¾anything from a refrigerator motor to a humming streetlight bulb. The idea around this piece was to establish little “constants,” little refrigerator motors at work, sometimes in the foreground or background, but always chattering away, smoothing over any dead air.

QUINN COLLINS
Near the Knuckle
Dither

Near the Knuckle is about acoustic beating, fuzzy points of focus, and hazy memories. It was written for Dither in 2013, and this evening’s performance is the premiere.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Susan Alcorn is a Baltimore, Maryland-based composer and musician who has received international recognition as an innovator of the pedal steel guitar, an instrument whose sound is commonly associated with country and western music. Having absorbed the technique of C&W pedal steel and refined it to a virtuosic level, her original music reveals the influence of free jazz, 20th Century classical music, Indian ragas, folk and indigenous traditions, as well as other musics of the world. The UK Guardian describes her music as “beautiful, glassy and liquid, however far she strays from pulse and conventional harmony.” In addition to frequent tours throughout North America and Europe, Susan has performed in the UK at the London Festival of Experimental Music, the On The Outside Festival in Newcastle, and the Glasgow Improvisors Orchestra Improvisation Festival; Cafe Oto and The Vortex in London; in France at the Musique Action Festival in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, Ateliers Tampon and Instants Chavires in Paris; in Germany at the Leipzig JazzTage and with the ICI Ensemble in Munich; The Stone, New York at CBGBs, and Issue Project Room ; Rome at Il Continiere; Israel at Levontin 7 and Uganda; and at Arsenic and Cave 12 in Switzerland. Though mostly a solo performer, she has collaborated with numerous artists including Pauline Oliveros, Eugene Chadbourne, the late Peter Kowald, Chris Cutler, Fred Frith, Maggie Nicols, Joe Giardullo, Joe McPhee, Mike Cooper, Lê Quan Ninh, Ellen Fullman, Evan Parker, Michael Formanek, Ellery Eskelin, and John Butcher. New releases include the solo album Touch This Moment (Uma Sounds) and Mirage with Ellery Eskelin and Michael Formanek (Clean Feed).

Dither, a New York based electric guitar quartet, is dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire which spans composed music, improvisation, and electronic manipulation. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed across the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, improvisations, multimedia works, and large guitar ensemble pieces. The quartet’s members are Taylor Levine, Joshua Lopes, James Moore and Gyan Riley. Dither has worked with a wide range of artists, including Eve Beglarian, Elliott Sharp, David Lang, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Lois V. Vierk, Larry Polansky and Phill Niblock. Past performances include the Performa Biennial, The MATA Festival, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Amsterdam Electric Guitar Heaven Festival, Hong Kong’s Fringe Theater, and the Bang on a Can Marathon. Dither produces their annual Extravaganza, a raucous festival of creative music and art, which has been called an “official concert on the edge” by The New Yorker. Their critically acclaimed debut album was released on Henceforth Records in 2010.

Praised by the press as “a magician” (New York’s WQXR), of “unheard of depth of colors, range of expression and rhetorical flow” (American Record Guide), Sivan Magen is the only Israeli to have ever won the International Harp Contest in Israel, a recent winner of the Pro Musicis International Award and the 2012 Award Winner of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. Recent performances include recitals in NY (Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall), London (Wigmore Hall), Amsterdam (Musiekgebouw) and solo appearances in the US, South America, Europe and Israel including the world premiere of Haim Permont's Aviv concerto with the Israel Philharmonic. Debut performances for the 2013-2014 season will include concerto appearances with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony, and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra at the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has also been invited by Carnegie Hall to return for a recital in fall 2014 to celebrate the American release of his new solo CD for Linn records, Fantasien. This recital will also include the world premiere of the Carnegie Hall commissioned Fantasy for Solo Harp by emerging American composer Sean Shepherd. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Magen has appeared throughout Europe, Israel and the US, at the Marlboro, Kuhmo, Giverny, and Jerusalem International Chamber Music festivals, and with Musicians from Marlboro. He is a founding member of the award winning Israeli Chamber Project and of Trio Tre Voci with flutist Marina Piccinini and violist Kim Kashkashian, and has collaborated with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Tatjana Masurenko, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Gary Hoffman, Michel Letiec, Charles Neidich, Emmanuel Pahud, and members of the Guarneri and Juilliard Quartets. This past season he released his new CD with the Israeli Chamber Project for Azica Records as well as an all-Britten CD Still Falls the Rain with tenor Nicholas Phan for Avie (listed in The New York Times’ “Best recordings of 2012”); both to great critical acclaim. Next season will see the release of his second solo CD for Linn Records as well as a recording with Tre Voci for ECM. His performance of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro is featured on Marlboro’s 60th Anniversary CD.

The Mivos Quartet, an “accomplished, admirably broad-minded young string quartet” (The New York Times), is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers, presenting new music to diverse audiences. Since the quartet’s beginnings in 2008 they have performed the works of emerging and established international composers who represent varied aesthetics of contemporary classical composition. Mivos is invested in commissioning and premiering new music for string quartet, particularly in a context of close collaboration with composers over extended time-periods. In the upcoming 2013-2014 season, Mivos will collaborate on new works with Sam Pluta (Lucerne Festival Commission), Dan Blake (Jerome Commission), Mark Barden (Wien Modern Festival Commission), Richard Carrick (Fromm Commission), Eric Wubbels (CMA commission) and Kate Soper. Mivos also regularly performs the works of composers including Alex Mincek, Helmut Lachenmann, Anna Clyne, Wolfgang Rihm, Samson Young, Luke DuBois, Philip Glass, Felipe Lara, Mario Diaz de Leon, and Tristan Perich. Mivos has appeared at venues including The Guggenheim Museum, Kennedy Center, Zankel Hall, MoMA, The Stone, Issue Project Room, and Roulette, and on concert series including Wien Modern (Vienna, Austria), Asphalt Festival (Düsseldorf, Germany), Concerti Aperitivo (Udine, Italy), HellHOT! New Music Festival (Hong Kong), Shanghai New Music Week (China), Edgefest (Ann Arbor,MI), and Aldeburgh Music (UK), where Mivos was invited to work with the Arditti Quartet and Helmut Lachenmann. Mivos returned to Aldeburgh Music in January 2013 for a two-week residency, where they performed two concerts and recorded their debut solo album, Reappearances, featuring works by Alex Mincek, David Franzson, Felipe Lara, and Wolfgang Rihm (Carrier Records, Nov. 2013 release). Mivos was one of five groups selected for the Young Ensembles Fellowship at the 2012 Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Darmstadt, DE), where they were awarded a Fellowship Prize for Interpretation and invited back for the next Darmstadt Festival in 2014. In addition to their work as interpreters, Mivos is committed to collaborating with guest artists, exploring multi-media projects involving live video and electronics, creating original compositions and arrangements for the quartet, and performing improvised music. Mivos’ work as improvisers has led to collaborations with artists including Dan Blake, Ned Rothenberg, Chris Speed, Timucin Sahin and Nate Wooley. Mivos has made several recordings in the free-jazz/improv realm, including Ned Rothenberg’s acclaimed Quintet for Clarinet and Strings on John Zorn’s Tzadik label (“played with spontaneity and dexterity” -The Strad Magazine), and Bojan Vuletic’s Atemwende, with trumpeter Nate Wooley. Mivos is also active in education, and looks forward to upcoming residencies at Princeton University and the Shanghai Conservatory. Past engagements have included workshops at CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, SUNY Fredonia, Royal Northern College of Music (UK), Shanghai Conservatory (China), University Malaya (Malaysia), Yong Siew Toh Conservatory (Singapore), the Hong Kong Art Center, and MIAM University in Istanbul (Turkey). The quartet also runs the annual Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize, established to support the work of emerging and mid-career composers and to encourage continued interest in new compositions for string quartet. The winning composer, selected from over one hundred and fifty applicants, receives a performance of their work in New York City on the Mivos Quartet concert season and a cash prize. In 2013, Mivos initiated a second competition in a similiar format for composers of Chinese descent, called the ICreation Prize. The members of Mivos are: violinists Olivia De Prato and Joshua Modney, violist Victor Lowrie, and cellist Mariel Roberts, each of whom are recognized individually as extraordinary voices in contemporary music.

Praised for his “excellent” and “precisely attuned” performances by The New York Times, percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth far beyond his years. He made his Kennedy Center debut in 2009 and later that year garnered a special prize created for him at the Salzburg International Marimba Competition. Last season, Mr. Rosenbaum joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program as only the second percussionist they have selected in their history. Mr. Rosenbaum has performed with the acclaimed Sō Percussion group and has appeared at the Norfolk, Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest and Music@Menlo festivals. Highlights of the 2013-2014 season include a tour of Southern California performing Christopher Cerrone’s Memory Palace, a recital at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. and a solo performance on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse series. Continuing his passionate advocacy for contemporary music, this season Mr. Rosenbaum will premiere new works for percussion by Andy Akiho, David Crowell, Tawnie Olson and Paola Prestini. Mr. Rosenbaum is a member of Sandbox Percussion, Le Train Bleu, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Novus NY and Time Travelers. He has recorded for the Bridge, Innova and Naxos labels and is on the faculty of the Dwight School in Manhattan. Mr. Rosenbaum endorses Vic Firth sticks and mallets.

Yumi Tamashiro trained as a pianist but was “converted” to percussion, drawn by the allure of teaching high school drumline. And it was her undergraduate 20th Century Music History class that turned her on to contemporary music. Soon after participating in a masterclass with Sō Percussion, a group based in Brooklyn, NY, she fell in love. Ms. Tamashiro has performed at the Banff Center of Arts, The Kennedy Center, Symphony Space, The Stone, The Bohemian National Hall, and Le Poisson Rouge among others. She has performed with a range of projects including Carnegie Neighborhood Series, Ecstatic Music Festival and Make Music New York. Her repertoire includes works by Elliot Carter, Steve Reich, Jacob Druckman, Karlheintz Stockhausen, Andy Akiho, Roshanne Etezady, Iannis Xenakis, Michio Kitazume, and Jason Treuting. Yumi has had the privilege of performing with groups such as Nexus, Opera Moderne, and Sō Percussion. Rooted in New York City, Yumi has become a member of many ensembles: Mobius Percussion Quartet, Ensemble sans Maître, and Tempus Continuum Ensemble. With Mobius Percussion Quartet, a NYC based percussion quartet, she is commissioning a new work from composer Jason Treuting.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Leila Adu-Gilmore is the Wellington Orchestra’s Composer in Residence for 2014. Based in New York, she will write a large-scale piece for a touring orchestral performance in September 2015. Leila has released four acclaimed albums and performed her original songs and improvisations of voice accompanied by piano alongside international artists, at festivals and venues in the UK, mainland Europe, the US, Australasia, Russia and Indonesia. Her latest releases were recorded for RAI/Tracce, the Italian National Radio label. Leila has been voted as MTV Iggy’s Artist of the Week, performed on the BBC World Service, composed and produced a documentary soundtrack for the BBC Knowledge TV channel and the NZ Film Festival. Leila completed post-graduate studies in composition at Victoria University of Wellington, where she wrote pieces for gamelan and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. She is currently a doctoral fellow in music composition at Princeton University and has recently composed for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Brentano String Quartet and Sō Percussion.

Described as “mold-breaking” and “vital” by The New York Times and as “a young composer to watch” by The LA Times, Andy Akiho is an eclectic and contemporary composer/performer whose interests run from steel pan to traditional classical music. Recent engagements include a commission by Carnegie Hall premiered by Ensemble ACJW, a world premiere commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, a performance with the LA Philharmonic, a tour in Taiwan, and three shows at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, featuring original compositions. His rhythmic compositions touch a wide spectrum of listeners and continue to increase in recognition: selected from an initial pool of over 500 applicants, Akiho won the grand prize for the 2011 Make Music National Composition Competition hosted by the Grammy-winning ensemble eighth blackbird. Other recent awards include the 2011 Woods Chandler Memorial Prize, a 2011 Music Alumni Award, and the 2010 Horatio Parker Award at the Yale School of Music, a 2009 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, a 2008 Brian M. Israel Prize, and three ASCAP Plus Awards. His 2011 debut CD No One To Know One on innova Records features innovative compositions that pose intricate rhythms and exotic timbres around his primary instrument, the steel pan. A graduate of the University of South Carolina (BM, performance), the Manhattan School of Music (MM, contemporary performance), and the Yale School of Music (MM, composition), Andy is currently a graduate student at Princeton University. andyakiho.com

Quinn Collins is a third year student in composition at Princeton University.

Cenk Ergün is a composer and improviser based in New York. His music has been performed by artists such as Sō Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Laboratorium, and Joan Jeanrenaud. As an improviser, he performs electronics in groups with Alvin Curran, Jason Treuting, and Jeff Snyder. Venues that have featured Ergün's music include New York's Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, 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. Records Ergün appears on include The Art Of The Fluke with Alvin Curran and Sō Percussion's Cage 100 Bootleg Series. His first solo composition record, Nana, will be released in 2014. Ergün's music has been described as “haunting”, “ominously throbbing” (The New York Times), “psychedelically meditative” (New Music Box), and showing “conceptual rigor” (The Wire).

Amanda Feery keeps fortune cookie-sized slips of paper and poorly labeled audio files around her desk and computer, which she eventually sews together to make a piece. Through her musical studies she has met and worked with inspiring teachers and peers in the realms of composition, improvisation, theatre, and film. Current work includes a vocal/multimedia work based on the diary entries of Donald Crowhurst, and Spells from the Ice Age, an EP of improvisations recorded on neglected pianos. www.amandafeery.com

Wally Gunn is an Australian composer living and working in New York. He writes concert music, rock music, and music for theater, film and visual art and is currently a doctoral fellow at Princeton University.

Jeff Snyder is a composer, improviser and instrument-designer living in Princeton, New Jersey, and active in the New York City area. As founder and lead designer of Snyderphonics, Jeff designs and builds unusual electronic musical instruments. His creations include the Manta, which is played by over 150 musicians around the world; the JD-1 Keyboard/Sequencer, which was a custom commission, and the custom analog modular synthesizer on which he regularly performs. Jeff is a member of the experimental electronic duo exclusiveOr, the avant jazz group The Federico Ughi Quartet, improvisatory noise trio The Mizries, and laptop ensemble Sideband. He fronts the band Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves as his electro-country alter-ego, Owen Lake. He also composes alternate-reality early music for an ensemble of his invented instruments. In 2009, Jeff co-founded an experimental music record label, Carrier Records, which continues to release strange and exciting experimental music. In 2011, he received a doctorate with distinction in music composition from Columbia University. He is currently an associate research scholar of electronic music at Princeton University, and the director of PLOrk , the Princeton Laptop Orchestra.

Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

So Percussion

Performing New Works by:

• Dave Molk

• Andrea Mazzariello

• Sō Percussion

• Jason Treuting

• Dan Trueman

Performed by:

• Sō Percussion

  • Eric Beach

  • Josh Quillen

  • Adam Sliwinski

  • Jason Treuting

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

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PSK presents SŌ PERCUSSION, performing works by Princeton composers Dave Molk, Andrea Mazzariello, Sō Percussion, Jason Treuting and Dan Trueman on Tuesday, February 11th, 2014 at 8:00pm.

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

PROGRAM

DAN TRUEMAN
Rink, a suite for steel pans (with kick-drum and hi-hat)
Composed for Josh Quillen
Josh Quillen, steel drums

ANDREA MAZZARIELLO
Monobot
Jason Treuting, drum kit

DAVE MOLK
Azucar y Canela
Josh Quillen, steel drums

DAN TRUEMAN
Nostalgic Synchronic Études (5 - 8)
Adam Sliwinski, Prepared Digital Piano

- INTERMISSION -

JASON TREUTING / SŌ PERCUSSION
Chorus Music
Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski and Jason Treuting, snare drums, cymbals and electronics

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS

Andrea Mazzariello is a composer, performer, writer, and teacher. His music thinks through the capabilities of the performing body, in terms of both instrumental technique and the possibilities afforded by technological intervention, and pays special attention to the treatment and setting of his own original text, spoken and sung.

He’s active as a solo performer of his own work for a novel and evolving instrumental setup, and has presented in such diverse venues as The Knitting Factory, Cakeshop, the Queens New Music Festival, and the Wassaic Festival. His concert music has been performed or read by the New Jersey Symphony, The Berkshire Symphony, Sō Percussion, NOW Ensemble, and Newspeak, among many others.

In 2011, he completed his Ph.D. in Music Composition at Princeton University, writing on the vinyl resurgence and its connection to our ideas of physicality and abstraction in music analysis. He holds an M.M. from the University of Michigan and graduated magna cum laude from Williams College, where he won a Hubbard Hutchinson Memorial Fellowship for Excellence in Music and was named to Phi Beta Kappa.

Andrea joined the faculty of the Princeton Writing Program in 2010, and currently teaches a seminar called ‘Music and Power.’

Dave Molk is in his 3rd year at Princeton. He previously studied composition at Berklee College of Music under John Bavicchi and at Tufts University under John McDonald.

For over a decade, Sō Percussion has redefined the modern percussion ensemble as a flexible, omnivorous entity, pushing its voice to the forefront of American musical culture. Praised by The New Yorker for their “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam,” Sō’s adventurous spirit is written into the DNA passed down from composers like John Cage and Steve Reich, as well as from pioneering ensembles like the Kronos Quartet and Nexus Percussion. Sō Percussion’s career now encompasses 13 albums, touring throughout the USA and around the world, a dizzying array of collaborative projects, several ambitious educational programs, and a steady output of their own music.

When the founding members of Sō Percussion convened as graduate students at the Yale School of Music, their initial goal was to present an exciting repertoire of pieces by 20th century luminaries such as Cage, Reich, and Iannis Xenakis. An encounter with David Lang, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and co-founder of New York’s Bang on a Can organization, yielded their first commissioned piece: the 36 minute, three movement the so-called laws of nature. Since that first major new work, Sō has commissioned some of the greatest American composers of our time to build a new repertoire, including Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, Martin Bresnick, and many others.

Over time, an appetite for boundless creativity led the group to branch out beyond the composer/interpreter paradigm. Since 2006 with group member Jason Treuting’s amid the noise, the members of Sō Percussion have been composing in their own right within the group and for others. In 2012 their third evening-length work Where (we) Live premieres at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, travelling to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 30th Next Wave Festival and the Myrna Loy Center in Helena, MT. Where (we) Live follows on the heels of 2009’s Imaginary City, a fully staged sonic meditation on urban soundscapes. In 2011, Sō was commissioned by Shen Wei Dance Arts to compose Undivided Divided, a 30-minute work conceived for Manhattan’s massive Park Avenue Armory.

Sō Percussion’s artistic circle extends beyond their contemporary classical roots. They first expanded this boundary with the prolific duo Matmos, whom The New York Times called “ideal collaborators” on their 2010 combined album Treasure State. Further projects and appearances with Wham City shaman Dan Deacon, legendary drummer Bobby Previte, jam band kings Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche drew the circle even wider. In 2011, the rock band The National invited Sō to open one of their sold-out shows at New York’s Beacon Theater.

Sō’s recording of the so-called laws of nature became the cornerstone of their self-titled debut album on Cantaloupe Music (the record label from the founders of Bang on a Can) in 2004. In subsequent years, this relationship blossomed into a growing catalogue of exciting records. In 2011, Sō released six new albums, ranging from their definitive recording of Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet¾composed for them in 2009¾on Nonesuch Records, to Steve Mackey’s epic quartet It Is Time on Cantaloupe, to their collaborative album Bad Mango with jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas on Greenleaf Music. The BBC raved of Sō’s performance of Mallet Quartet that they “have it nailed, finding both the inner glow and the outer edge, and never letting the tapestry lapse into the flat or routine.”

Sō Percussion is heavily involved in mentoring young musicians. Its members are co-directors of a new percussion department at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. This top-flight undergraduate program enrolls each student in a double-degree (Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts) course in the Conservatory and Bard College, equipping them with elite conservatory training and a broad liberal arts education. In 2009, they created the annual Sō Percussion Summer Institute on the campus of Princeton University. The Institute is an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for college-age percussionists featuring the four members of Sō as faculty in rehearsal, performance, and discussion of contemporary music for students from around the world. During the 2011-2012 academic year, Sō was an ensemble-in-residence at Princeton University, teaching seminars and collaborating extensively with talented student composers.

Sō has been featured at many of the major venues in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Stanford Lively Arts, Texas Performing Arts, and many others. In addition, a recent residency at London’s Barbican Centre, as well as tours to Western Europe, South America, Russia, and Australia have brought them international acclaim.

Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddler and electronic musician.