TUTTI Festival 2024

TUTTI 2024 | MARCH 18-23

MONDAY, MARCH 18

7 P.M. | IMMERSION!

Integrative interdisciplinary session with Hanif Abdurraqib, ETHEL, Denison’s Jazz Combo, Hanna Hurwitz, and Denison student musicians, visual artists, and writers

BURKE REHEARSAL ROOM - EISNER CENTER

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20

7 P.M. | CONCERT I

Rituals, Featuring Wild Up

SHARON MARTIN HALL - EISNER CENTER

THURSDAY, MARCH 21

11:30 A.M. | ARTIST TALK

With Raven Chacon

BRYANT ARTS CENTER - ROOM 413

3 P.M. | CONCERT II

Chamber Music and More

With ETHEL, Denison’s American Roots

Ensemble and Denison faculty

BURKE RECITAL HALL - EISNER CENTER

7:30 P.M. | CONCERT III

Denison University Symphony Orchestra with ETHEL and Jeremy Kittel

SHARON MARTIN HALL - EISNER CENTER

For ticketing information, visit denison.edu/series/tutti

FRIDAY, MARCH 22

10:30 A.M | ROUNDTABLE

Open discussion for all TUTTI artists and composers

EISNER 144 - EISNER CENTER

1:30 P.M. | CONCERT IV

Chamber Music and More II with ETHEL and Denison faculty

BURKE RECITAL HALL - EISNER CENTER

3:30 P.M. | PHILOSOPHY COFFEE

‘Noise, Music, and Noise Music’ with ETHEL and Raven Chacon

ROOM 238 - EISNER CENTER

7:30 P.M. | CONCERT V

‘Mareas/Tides’ Dance Performance

SHARON MARTIN HALL - EISNER CENTER

SATURDAY, MARCH 23

10:30 A.M. | CONCERT VI

ETHEL, Dance, and Chamber Music

THORSEN DANCE STUDIO - EISNER CENTER

1 P.M. | CONCERT VII

Denison University Chamber Singers and More

BURKE RECITAL HALL - EISNER CENTER

3 P.M. | CONCERT VIII

UCelli, a quartet of virtuoso cellists

SHARON MARTIN HALL - EISNER CENTER

7 P.M. | CONCERT IX

Wild Up, a Vail Series concert

SWASEY CHAPEL

WELCOME TO DENISON’S TUTTI FESTIVAL 2024!

Back in 2004, we started with a weekend festival that I called TUTTI. The name is a muscal term, which means “all,” as I had hoped we could involve everyone. Twenty years later, we’re embarking on our eleventh TUTTI. We have programmed over 350 works and have been fortunate to work with so many amazing artists around the world and colleagues in our own backyard.

This year we are so lucky to have with us Raven Chacon as our featured composer. Raven is the frst Native American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and recent MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow, and has spent the week impacting not only our department with his work with our student composers, but also with Studio Art and Philosophy. You see, Raven’s music touches all corners of our life experiences, his graphic scores are beautiful, and the way he brings music to the world connects all of us.

Our frst featured ensemble is the incredible Wild Up, “a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant … fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family” according to Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times. Wild Up has been lauded as one of classical music’s most exciting groups by virtually every signifcant institution and critic within earshot and we’re excited that they’re performing twice this week both opening and closing our concerts.

TUTTI wouldn’t be TUTTI without ETHEL, performing in their sixth TUTTI Festival. They are versatile, passionate, and engage with our students multiple times every year as one of our Ensembles-in-Residence. Their longstanding collaborative ties with Raven Chacon make them a perfect ensemble for the week.

UCelli, Columbus’ own cello quartet, brings a ferce energy and exuberance to all their performances. We are so thrilled to have them join us this year with a concert of their own on Saturday.

Ojeya Cruz Banks and Marion Ramírez, brilliant choreographers and performers, enhance TUTTI with their dance performance on Friday night, collaborating with our colleagues Pete Mills, Timothy Carpenter, Ryan Hamilton, Matthew Dixon, and Dean Hulett.

If you walk through Eisner, be sure to check out the amazing visual art of Ron Abram’s student artists. They took the selected works of TUTTI 2024 and used them as inspiration for their art.

If we’ve learned anything over the past few years, it is that the arts are a vital component of all of our lives and a necessity for society to function, thrive, empathize, celebrate, mourn, and create. Art matters.

On behalf of all the artists you will encounter this week, art is us. Explore our beautiful new spaces at the Michael D. Eisner Center for the Performing Arts and see how art comes together in our halls.

Ching-chu Hu, host

Director, Denison Vail Series

Professor of Music, Denison University

It is a pleasure to welcome you to Denison University’s TUTTI 2024 New Arts Festival.

Every two years something special takes place at Denison. We host the fabulous TUTTI festival. This year is our 10th anniversary of TUTTI!

Why do we host TUTTI and why are we so proud of TUTTI? Denison has a long and proud tradition across the arts. We believe the arts are a foundational element to educating and inspiring our students to lead meaningful lives, to achieve professional success, and to be the citizens the world needs. We fnd our humanity through the arts.

TUTTI is also part of a larger institutional commitment at Denison to deepen our commitment to the arts and to position Denison as a top liberal arts college for arts oriented students who are seeking an alternative to a conservatory. Students can go deep into an artistic passion, or they can go deep and wide across the arts, or they can combine a passion for the arts with any other academic interest.

As always, I am awed by the scope of TUTTI. This year, the people and performances span a range of fne arts and beyond. I am also deeply grateful to the faculty, staf, students, community members, friends of the college and others who have put so much work into making this happen. As we emerge from two years of Covid, we all need the opportunity to experience the arts and to do so together.

While lots of people deserve thanks, I want to give a loud and grateful shout-out to Professor Ching-chu Hu. Without his vision, leadership, persistence, intellect, talents and grace, TUTTI does not happen. I am proud to call him a Denison faculty member (and a friend!).

We are pleased that you are participating in TUTTI and hope you will enjoy the artistic gifts we will receive this week from our performers.

Adam Weinberg President Denison University

I’m delighted to welcome you to Denison’s TUTTI 2024 New Arts Festival.

TUTTI is an interdisciplinary festival, reaching across divisional boundaries to immerse us in a celebration of new music and the arts. I fnd the defnition of “TUTTI,” a musical term taken from Italian meaning “all together,” to be an apt expression to describe the unusual depth and breadth of the artistic oferings of this event. From a Pulitzer Prize winning composer and GRAMMY-award winning artists to creative work involving our own faculty and students, this celebration will feature guest artists, faculty, and students who will showcase their work in new and exciting ways.

The TUTTI festival will span many disciplines across campus and showcase much of what we strive to achieve at Denison University. Through our innovative and inclusive curriculum, our students can learn, create, and collaborate with others across the college. No matter what major our students pursue, Denison challenges students to think across division and across diferences to explore the depth and breadth of their interests both within their majors and outside. This multi-disciplinary approach focusing on the whole person prepares students to leave Denison as autonomous thinkers and active citizens who have learned the skills to be successful in life. The TUTTI Festival and the work that you will see exemplifes this approach.

I hope that you will take time to experience all that TUTTI brings to Denison. Enjoy!

Kim Coplin Provost Denison University

FEATURED GUEST ARTISTS

RAVEN

CHACON

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, Chacon has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at LACMA, The Renaissance Society, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, REDCAT, Vancouver Art Gallery, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Borealis Festival, SITE Santa Fe, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, and The Kennedy Center. As a member of Postcommodity from 20092018, he co-created artworks presented at the Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, Carnegie International 57, as well as the 2-mile long land art installation Repellent Fence.

A recording artist over the span of 22 years, Chacon has appeared on more than eighty releases on various national and international labels. In 2022, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Voiceless Mass. His 2020 Manifest Destiny opera Sweet Land, cocomposed with Du Yun, received critical acclaim from The LA Times, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, and was named 2021 Opera of the Year by the Music Critics Association of North America.

Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). Chacon is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition, the Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2022), the Pew Fellow-in-Residence (2022), and is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.

His solo artworks are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and National Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, and various private collections.

WILD UP

Called “a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant … fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family” by Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times, Wild Up has been lauded as one of classical music’s most exciting groups by virtually every signifcant institution and critic within earshot.

Since 2004, he has mentored over 300 high school Native composers in the writing of new string quartets for the

The GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble was started by Artistic Director Christopher Rountree, his vision of a group of young musicians that rejected outdated traditions and threw classical repertoire into the context of pop culture, new music, and performance art. In 2020, the group celebrates 10 years of bringing people together

around the belief that no music is of limits, that classical music concerts can defy convention and address the need for heart-wrenching, mind-bending experiences.

Over the past decade the group: accompanied Björk at Goldenvoice’s FYF Fest; premiered David Lang and Mark Dion’s “anatomy theater” at LA Opera; played the scores to “Under the Skin” by Mica Levi and “Punch Drunk Love” by Jon Brion live with the flms at L.A.’s Regent Theater and Ace Hotel; premiered hundreds of new works including: a new opera by Julia Holter at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, new pieces from avantpop icon Scott Walker and celestial loop-maker Juliana Barwick at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the West Coast premiere of Ragnar Kjartansson’s “Bliss” a 12-hour epic at REDCAT during the LA Phil Fluxus festival. They played a noise concert as fanfare for the groundbreaking of Frank Gehry’s new building on Grand Avenue and First Street in downtown L.A.; toured the country with their original projects “Future Folk,” and ”We the People;” championed the music of Julius Eastman; and founded the solstice series “darkness sounding.” They held residencies at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Colburn School, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, National Sawdust, and the Hammer Museum, and taught at dozens of educational institutions across the U.S.

Wild Up is a contemporary music ensemble. We are committed to creating visceral, thought-provoking concerts and happenings. Our programs are eclectic studies of people, places, and ideas. We believe that music is a catalyst for shared experiences and that a concert is a place for challenging, exciting, and igniting the community around us.

UCELLI

The violoncello is many peoples’ favorite instrument, so what could be better than one cello? Four cellos, of course!

UCelli is a quartet of virtuoso cellists that has appeared to enthusiastic audiences around Columbus including performances for City Music, TV 10, Medicine and the Arts, St. John’s Concert Series, Granville’s Music 4U chamber music series, Garden Theatre and full recitals at the MAC, Newark’s Urban Art Space, Ohio Wesleyan University, The Refectory and Bexley Public Library. UCelli expands their repertoire through ongoing commissioning projects, forging not only new music, but a new type of music for cello quartets. In deep collaboration with a wide range of composers and with the support of the Johnstones, UCelli is building a signifcant and continuously growing repertoire of cello quartets.

UCelli is devoted to performing original repertoire written for cello quartets over the last 300 years and beyond!!. We are also devoted to creating beauty and community with passionate curiosity, contagious enthusiasm with deep gratitude.

UCelli members Pei-An Chao, Mary Davis, Cora Kuyvenhoven, and Wendy Morton are also members of the Columbus Symphony and ProMusica Chamber Orchestras. Each of these four artists is a cello soloist and chamber musician in her own right, bringing a strong musical philosophy and relationship to cello repertoire and pedagogy. The individual artistry and the combined chemistry of these four cellists results in an exciting, unique, and vibrant concert experience.

ETHEL

Established in New York City in 1998, the string quartet

ETHEL sets the contemporary concert standard: “indefatigable and eclectic” (The New York Times), “vital and brilliant” (The New Yorker). Composer performers—Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin)— fuse uptown panache with downtown genre mashup. ETHEL has performed across the United States and worldwide; released 9 feature albums; guested on 40+ recordings; won a GRAMMY® with jazz legend Kurt Elling; and toured with Todd Rundgren & Joe Jackson. ETHEL champions the art and music of today, forging human connections across sound and style.

At the heart of ETHEL is a collaborative ethos — a quest for common creative expression, forged in listening and community. The quartet designs productions that inspire engagement, such as The River, featuring Taos Pueblo futist Robert Mirabal, and Signature Sessions, a supercharged survey of the quartet’s 25 years of inspired music-making.

ETHEL has premiered over 250 works, many of them commissioned by the quartet; ETHEL members have themselves been commissioned by The Ringling Museum of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Georgia Tech, and the NEA. The quartet regularly performs music by such celebrated composers as Julia Wolfe, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Jessie Montgomery, Andy Akiho, and Marcelo Zarvos. Other collaborators include Bang on a Can All-Stars, Vijay Iyer, Stewart Copeland, Raven

Chacon, David Byrne, Annie-B Parson, Gina Gibney, Grant McDonald, Steve Cosson, and Annie Dorsen.

Recent and upcoming appearances include the Kennedy Center, Charleston Literary Festival, High Line Greenway Park, Dumbarton Oaks, and Taos Chamber Music Group. The 2022/23 season also features a premiere at Brooklyn Public Library, of the ffth chapter of ETHEL’s HomeBaked project, a commissioning initiative showcasing emerging composers. This concert also features the premiere of a commission of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, futist Allison Loggins-Hull.

ETHEL has been featured at TED Conferences; on ABC Radio Australia, SiriusXM, Conan O’Brien, John Schaefer’s New Sounds, Fred Child’s Performance Today, Randy Cohen’s Person Place Thing, NPR’s Weekend Edition; and on the soundtracks of Dan In Real Life and HBO’s Deadwood. From mid-2020 to early ‘22, ETHEL curated and produced Balcony Bar from Home, a virtual series hosted on The Metropolitan Museum’s Facebook page which has garnered nearly 2 million views.

ETHEL is Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University, and Resident Ensemble at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Petrie Court Café.

HANIF ABDURRAQIB

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His frst full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button

Poetry. It was named a fnalist for the Eric Hofer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His frst collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a fnalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House, which was a fnalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the The PEN/DiamonsteinSpielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

JEREMY KITTEL

Jeremy Kittel is an American violinist, fddler, and composer. He received a Grammy nomination for “Best Instrumental Composition” in 2019 alongside prevalent composers such as John Williams and Terence Blanchard. Fluent in multiple musical genres, he composes original music that draws from a wide variety of infuences including folk, jazz, celtic, classical, electronic, and more.

Jeremy performs with his group Kittel & Co., as a soloist with orchestras, and in collaborative and supporting roles with many of today’s leading artists. In demand as a composer and arranger, he has worked with Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck, My Morning Jacket, Aoife O’Donovan, Theo Katzman, Jars of Clay, Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Laura Veirs, Sara Watkins, and the Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet (of which he was a member for fve years). He has also recorded with artists such as Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Fleet Foxes, and Esperanza Spalding.

Kittel & Co. (“Kid-dle and Koh”) inhabits the space between classical and acoustic roots, Celtic and bluegrass aesthetics, folk and jazz sensibilities, and has performed at venues such as Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Celtic Connections, and A Prairie Home Companion. The group released its debut album, Whorls, in 2018, to critical acclaim; the current lineup features Kittel along with mandolin phenom Josh Pinkham (named “the future of the mandolin” by Mandolin Magazine), transcendent bassist Jacob Warren, guitarist Quinn Bachand (called “Canada’s top Celtic guitarist” by Ashley MacIsaac), and hammer-dulcimer wizard Simon Chrisman (acclaimed for bringing a new tonal fexibility to the instrument). Bluegrass Situation calls Whorls “a feat of new acoustic, string band-rooted chamber music…. whimsical, alluring, and magnifcent,” while Earmilk says Whorls is “...a devastatingly beautiful album… a stunning melting pot of classical and folk music, featuring some of the greatest musicians in the genre.”

Recently, Jeremy produced, composed, and performed for frequent collaborator Aoife O’Donovan’s latest strings-centered album, Bull Frogs Croon. Atwood Magazine calls Bull Frogs Croon “a stunning addition to O’Donovan’s repertoire, and a further example of her incredible collaborative powers.”

In February 2020, he premiered a new orchestral piece, Stones River, commissioned and performed by the Orlando Philharmonic with Jeremy as soloist. Called “haunting… beautiful… a moving and uniquely American composition” by the Orlando Sentinel, Stones River draws from the deep well of multicultural American Revolutionary and Civil War music.

Believing passionately that music and the arts are central to the human experience, Kittel enjoys teaching music through workshops and clinics at diverse programs such as Berklee College of Music, Belmont University, The New School, International Music Academy of Pilsen, Zurich University of the Arts, Mark O’Connor Strings Camps, the Swannanoa Gathering, Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School, and the University of Michigan.

Kittel has a master’s degree in jazz performance from the Manhattan School of Music and received the 2010 Emerging Artist Award from U of M (his alma mater). He is the recipient of awards including the US National Scottish Fiddle Championship and six Detroit Music Awards, and has contributed to many Grammy-nominated recordings. He was also the frst recipient of the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin.

Jeremy proudly endorses Pirastro strings.

OJEYA CRUZ BANKS

Dr. Ojeya Cruz Banks is Associate Professor and cochair of Dance and faculty of Black Studies at Denison University. For over a decade, Ojeya served as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Otago in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where I developed

an interest in Black Pacifc dance intersections. As a dancer-scholar-choreographer, she engages in topics such as African diasporic dance, West African dance (Guinea & Senegal), Māori and Pacifc Island dance as critical decolonial pedagogies and performances. Cruz Banks was a keynote and artist for the Pacifc Dance Choreographic Laboratory (Aotearoa), BlakDance festival in Australia, and the quadrennial Pacifc Arts Festival. In 2017 my project called Africa in Aotearoa was nominated for best dance performance in the Dunedin Fringe Festival, and in 2018 she was a featured dancer on the flm, Original Spaces: Black Pacifc Dance Intersections that was selected for the Gibney center in New York City. In 2023, she performed a keynote address for the Christena Lindborg Schlundt Lecture Series at UC Riverside called Dancing Black Atlantic Blue Pacifc: Weaving the Indigenous and Diaspora. Her forthcoming book is titled Indigenous and Diaspora Dance Evolution: Choreographies of the Black Pacifc.

Cruz Banks has carried out dance research in Guinea, Senegal, Cuba, Uganda, Guam/Guåhan, Aotearoa and with Black/African diasporic communities in the United States. She has studied, taught and performed dance in locations such as Australia, Bali, Fiji, Kenya, and Zanzibar. African diaspora and Indigenous approaches of dance pedagogies, choreography and dance-making is a research focus. She is a member of the Studies in Dance History editorial board and will dance with FlyGround Dance Company in Brazil this summer.

MARION RAMÍREZ

Marion Ramírez is a Puerto Rican dance artist, immersed in the practice and pedagogy of somatics, collaborative art making and improvisational dance as a tool for experiencing bodily agency, empathy, and community building. Her movement research is rooted in her cultural sensibility as a Caribbean artist and performance experiences in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Europe, South Korea, and the US. Marion received a BFA from the Laban Center in London, UK, and an MFA in Dance and Community Arts from Temple University. She is now an Assistant Professor of Dance at Denison University, and an artistic director of the Denison Dance Company.

She was awarded the Refection: Response Choreographic Commission 2019 for the multi-disciplinary project kNots and Nests in Philadelphia. In 2023, she curated and co-created the music and dance performance project Mareas/Tides with Ojeya Cruz- Banks, and some members of the Denison music faculty. It was presented at Collegium of African Diasporic Dance Conference, currently on TUTTI New Arts festival and will tour to University of Richmond in Virginia next fall. She is certifed in Somatic Movement Therapy and a founder of the intergenerational somatic project caracola.

As a dancer she has been a long-time collaborator of choreographer Merián Soto, and has performed for Elaine Summers with Pauline Olivers live music collaboration, Yvonne Maier, Antonio Ramos, Petra Bravo, Myrna Renaud, Viveca Vazquez, Rosario Galan Flamenco, and her sister Noemi Segarra, among others. She collaborated for 15 years with choreographer Jungwoong

Kim, researching contact improvisation performance infused by their personal cultural sensitivities. They performed in numerous festivals and venues, across South Korea, NY and Philadelphia. Currently Marion is leading an embodied archival research of four women choreographers, pioneers of the Puerto Rican experimental dance. This project has been commissioned by ‘Escuelita Fenomenal’ a project of PRAI (Puerto Rican Arts Initiative) funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Marion will premiere this solo evening performance of this project in June 2025.

GRAPHIC SCORES EXHIBITION

Through weeklong workshops with WILD UP and inspired by the scores of Raven Chacon, Visual Arts

Professor Ron Abram’s Visual Arts Making and Meaning students created a series of mixed media graphic scores on wooden board.

Students: Helen Breen, Lauren Brown, Grace Cadham, Caroline Johnson, Kaitlyn Karrenbauer, Duc Le, Ellie Martin, Kaitlyn McKenna, Mark Moore, Minh Anh Nguyen, Parker Nolan, Emma Piatt, Derek Siriboe, Grace Vap and Tra Vo

The works will be on display starting Thursday, March 22 in the Gay Reese Lobby in the Eisner Center.

IMMERSION!

INTEGRATIVE INTERDISCIPLINARY SESSION

Monday, March 18 7:00 p.m.

Burke Rehearsal Room - Eisner Center

Hanif Abdurraqib, ETHEL, Denison’s Jazz Combo, and Hanna Hurwitz with Violin Studio members

Mirror Quintet Raven Chacon

Hanna Hurwitz, Asha Jha, Kip Jones, Takuto Kametsu, Corin Lee, violin

ARTIST ROSTERS

ETHEL Visual Artists

Kip Jones, violin Micaela Vivero and Corin Lee, violin Keith Spencer, coordinators

Ralph Farris, viola

Anna Jones, Lauren Dyer, Lily Thomas, and Dorothy Lawson, cello Mason Allen, student participants

Denison Jazz Combo Members

Pete Mills, director

Claire Anderson, saxophone

Writers

Margot Singer, coordinator

Mary Hodgkins, Rebecca Hurtado, Malina Phoebe Beckwith, vocals

Infante, Sofa Miller, Ikera (Kee) Olandesca, Jasper Kurtz, guitar

Alexis Radhakrishnan, and Estan Rodriguez, Josh Eppenauer and Kate Ngo, piano student participants

Colin Angstrom and William Murphy, bass

Tara Sefchick, drumset

CONCERT I

RITUALS

FEATURING WILD UP

Wednesday, March 20 | 7:00 p.m.

Sharon Martin Hall - Eisner Center

Whistle Quartet Raven Chacon

Buddha Julius Eastman

form the fabric inti fggis-vizueta

talamh inti fggis-vizueta

Gay Guerrilla Julius Eastman

WILD UP ROSTER

Christopher Rountree, conductor

Rachel Beetz, fute

Archie Carey, bassoon

Pat Posey, saxophone

Mona Tian, violin

Andrew Tholl, violin

Andrew McIntosh, viola

Derek Stein, cello

Adam Tendler, piano

PROGRAM NOTES

WILD UP | Ritual

The music of Raven Chacon, inti fggis-vizueta, and Julius Eastman

For as long as we can remember, at Wild Up, we’ve been obsessed with rituals. We want a concert to feel like a convening of energies, a stream of sound that takes whoever hears it somewhere. Like entering a dark room, not knowing what you’ll fnd there and then fnding simply sound moving around you. When we think of the concerts that move us most, and have moved us to become ourselves musicians, they all share that one magical enveloping feeling. Something unknown, something unknowable, something diferent every time, something innate and so foundational that it couldn’t possibly ever change. Ritual comes from this questioning, this desire for magic, this yearning for the unknown in the cosmos and ourselves.

Excerpt from Raven Chacon’s Whistle Quartet

CONCERT II

CHAMBER MUSIC AND MORE WITH ETHEL

Thursday, March 21 | 3:00 p.m.

Burke Recital Hall - Eisner Center

Heroic

Once the River Was

ETHEL

Corin Lee and Kip Jones, violin

Ralph Farris, viola

Dorothy Lawson, cello

Carolyn Redman, soprano

San Sung Aum, piano

Improvisation III

Rondo Noir

San Sung Aum, piano

Evan Lynch, clarinet

San Sung Aum, piano

Solo for Guitar

I Lost My Luggage

Brett Burleson, guitar

Sun Min Kim, piano

Evan Lynch, clarinet

grandpa, who was your frst love?

Kevin N. Wines, tenor

Hana Chu, piano

Andelena G. Jackson

Thomas J. Johnson

Peter Vukmirovic Stevens

Debra Dyko

Raven Chacon

Alexander Hu

Victor Cui

PROGRAM NOTES

ANDELENA G. JACKSON | Heroic

My frst experiences in composing were writing themes for my original characters, telling stories about extraordinary people in fantastical worlds. This melody, in particular, tells the story of a destined heroine prophesied to sacrifce her life for the fate of the world. However, the heroine wanted to live, thus choosing to explore the world until she eventually found something she would be willing to die for. In a sense, it’s a story about discovery, fnding your way in a world that may not always be on your side. It’s a piece about hope.

THOMAS J. JOHNSON | Once the River Was

Once the River Was started as a poem I wrote for a poetry contest in Vigo County that was part of eforts to conserve and sustain, as well as develop, the local areas on both sides of the Wabash River. Part of the inspiration was having seen historic 19th and early 20th photographs of industry along the river. While indigenous views of nature may have at times been over romanticized, there are cultural diferences in views of how humans can relate to nature. Given the current state of the planet, we may all beneft from considering concepts such as sustainability and valuing/preserving rather than dominating/using nature. This was the frst piece I wrote as a graduate student in the Butler Masters in Music Composition program.

PETER VUKMIROVIC STEVENS | Improvisation III

Composer/pianist Peter Vukmirovic Stevens and visual artist Constantin Rusu present their collaborative project combining new works for piano with visual art.

The piano works feature a combination of fxed musical notation that integrates visual art as a template for improvisation within a performance. The graphic notation

lines move from left to right, suggesting musical textures, intervallic range, sequences, expression, and tempo.

The improvised section incorporates ideas from the fxednote material into the graphic/improvised section. Once the performer feels they have expressed their ideas, they will lead back into a new fxed-note section.

The improvised sections may be performed for any duration of time.

DEBRA DYKO | Rondo Noir

Rondo Noir is a playful look back at the “MAD” magazine’s comic strip “White vs. Black”. It portrays two spies trying to annihilate each other. After fnishing the mayhem, they both dust themselves of, and try in the next comic strip to do it again.

RAVEN CHACON | Solo for Guitar

Solo for Guitar is a prolonged song, with silences between each event necessary for the preparation and decay of its sounding. The piece is from a series of works, in which the performer is the intended sole audience and listener of this music.

ALEXANDER HU | I Lost My Luggage

The inspiration for this piece is quite simple- while I was attending Interlochen’s Arts Camp for their 6-week music composition program, I Lost My Luggage. I spent one long, sweat-flled, painful week living of of a couple jackets, my Intelochen uniforms, and two extra pairs of underwear and socks. No toiletries, extra clothes, or even bedding beyond what my counselor could scrounge up until my box of stuf was found. It kinda sucked.

I hope you enjoy, and please, keep an eye on your luggage.

VICTOR CUI | grandpa, who was your frst love?

Text based on a TikTok interview.

“grandpa who was your frst love”

“her name was eve.”

“why did you fall in love with her?”

“she was smarter and prettier than i was, and i was wicked smart and good looking.”

“did you ask her out?”

“no she asked me. i was dying to ask her, but i was too shy.”

“how long did you and eve go out?”

“all four years of college.”

“what happened after those four years?”

“i married her, of course.”

“so how long were you married?”

“not long enough: 7 years. she died of ovarian cancer.”

“i am so sorry.”

“no it’s alright. it was a long time ago.”

must there be a good reason for all these drooping clouds to gather they congregate, all intimate blocking the sun

it was raining down the hazy valley droplets pouring, caressing leaves falling their tears, their tears, all chilly and helpless pecking at one heart

a thousand cloudlets traverse rainbow all shining, fragments scintillating they snuggle closer, above a silent cathedral milking for response

Excerpt from Raven Chacon’s American Ledger No. 1

CONCERT III

DENISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND ETHEL

Thursday, March 21 | 7:30 p.m.

Sharon Martin Hall - Eisner Center

Double Weaving

ETHEL

Corin Lee and Kip Jones, violin Ralph Farris, viola

Dorothy Lawson, cello

Raven Chacon

American Ledger No. 1

Stones River Concerto

Sinfonietta No. 2 “Polonia”

Jeremy Kittel, violin

Raven Chacon

Jeremy Kittel

Movable Borders

Hymn Balkan(“Gitanjali”) Dance

Denison University Symphony Orchestra

Dr. Philip Rudd, conductor

Maciej Bałenkowski

Douglas Hedwig

PROGRAM NOTES

RAVEN CHACON | Double Weaving

The ETHEL Quartet commissioned Double Weaving in 2014, during the quartet’s tenth and fnal year working with Chacon with the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project. Chacon describes Double Weaving as an accumulation of techniques he learned from both ETHEL and his students during their workshops together. The piece sees the resolution of these sounds as they’ve been fltered though the young composers from rural Arizona reservations and the ensemble, from New York City.

RAVEN CHACON | American Ledger No. 1

American Ledger No. 1 is a narrative score for performance, telling the creation story of the founding of the United States of America. In chronological descending order, moments of contact, enactment of laws, events of violence and enslavement, the building of cities, and erasure of land and Indigenous worldview are mediated through graphic notation, and realized by sustaining and percussive instruments, coins, axe and wood, a police whistle, and a match. The score is to only exist as a fag, a wall, a blanket, a billboard, or a door.

JEREMY KITTEL | Stones River Concerto

Stones River intertwines eleven early American melodies from both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War eras. Its title refers to the Battle of Stones River in 1862, at which, the night before the battle, military bands from both sides were camped close enough as to be able to engage in a kind of battle of the bands. The two musical groups eventually even joined together, across battle lines, in a rendition of then-popular nostalgic song “Home Sweet Home.”

The eleven melodies of Stones River are, in chronological order:

Polly on the Shore

Sung by American soldiers during the Revolutionary War, this originally-English ballad warns prospective soldiers of the dangers of war.

The Green Mountaineer

A song (set here as a jig) named in honor of the soldiers, of the formerly independent militia from what is now Vermont, who served in the Revolutionary war.

Battle of Bull Run

An old-time fddle tune from West Virginia that commemorates the Battle of Bull Run in 1861.

Motherless Child

An African-American spiritual song, dating back to the slavery era.

Nearer My God to Thee

The classic 19th-century hymn by Sarah Flower Adams was played by military bands during the Civil War.

Free America

Actually composed to the tune of “British Grenadiers,” the lyrics were used to draw forth courage in American soldiers.

Soldier’s Joy

An American old-time fddle tune with Scottish origins, the title refers to the mix of whiskey, beer, and morphine used by Civil War soldiers.

Stony Point

An American old-time fddle tune referring to the Battle of Stony Point, NY in 1779.

Battle Cry of Freedom (George Frederick Root) and Battle Hymn of the Republic (Traditional / Julia Ward Howe)

Both of these melodies were coopted with diferent lyrics by Northern and Southern forces (a common practice). I was also struck by how well the two melodies, supposedly not related, interfold into one another; in Stones River they are heard simultaneously.

MACIEJ BAŁENKOWSKI | Sinfonietta No. 2 “Polonia”

Sinfonietta No. 2 is a motoric piece derived from a single motive. The composer’s intention was to create the entire form based on a singular musical idea, which undergoes various transformations throughout the work’s narrative, including changes in harmony within the accompanying voices of the theme. An important aspect of the composition is the sphere of rhythm and its irregularities, achieved through frequent changes in time signature and numerous accents. Individual musical threads are irregularly interrupted, intertwining with one another. Sinfonietta is an apotheosis of vitalism, energy, and dynamism. The composition could not have come into being without the composer’s admiration and fascination with the music of Wojciech Kilar. In his work “Orawa”’ Kilar constructed an entire musical world from a single short theme. Bałenkowski aimed to challenge this concept, constructing a complete musical form based on limited musical material, paying tribute to one of the most inspiring Polish composers.

DOUGLAS HEDWIG | Hymn (“Gitanjali”) & Balkan Dance

Hymn (“Gitanjali”) & Balkan Dance comprise the fnal two movements of the three-movement work entitled Movable Borders. Inspired by the composer’s world travels, and by the personal growth that often accompanies such journeys, “Hymn” was composed following a trip to India, and “Dance” is inspired by the dance music of Eastern Europe. Stylistic “fusion” is

central to the conception of the work, with the intent to evoke a “borderless” aural sense of transnational culture, color and favor.

“Hymn” has the subtitle of “Gitanjali.” Gitanjali, is derived from a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore’s epic poem of the same name, published in 1912. The composition is inspired by the classical and folk music of India and South Asia. The double-bass solo in the middle section is reminiscent of Sanskrit chant and Indian vocal style. The opening, folk-like melody is transformed into a more Western sounding hymn at the end of the movement.

“Balkan Dance” draws upon the energetic and spirited folk music associated with the Balkan Peninsula. This movement is especially infuenced by the late 20th century American jazz-fusion style.

Alex Fragiskatos, percussion

Evan Lynch, clarinet

Cora

Kuyvenhoven, cello

Hanna Hurwitz, violin

[Will] Never Find Me

Raven Chacon

(Bury Me) Where the Lightning

Dorothy Lawson, cello

Ralph Farris, viola

Corin Lee and Kip Jones, violin

ETHEL

Orientalism

Sami Seif

Hana Chu, piano

Hanna Hurwitz, violin

Northampton’s Little Chilango

Fixed Media

Spirits and Spectra

Quiver

CONCERT IV

Cora

Kuyvenhoven, cello

Burke Recital Hall

Eisner Center

Friday, March 22 | 1:30 p.m.

CHAMBER

MUSIC AND MORE II

Eric Estrada Valadez

Chris Arrell

Raven Chacon

PROGRAM NOTES

RAVEN CHACON | Quiver

Following Taago Dez’a (2007) commissioned by Dawn Avery and Invisible Arc (2016) written for Rhonda Rider, Quiver, commissioned by Michelle Kesler, is the third part in a trilogy of conceptual works for solo cellist on the subject of hunting and traditional protocols associated with. This fnal section of the larger work examines patience and waiting, precision of technique, and navigations around the will of nature.

CHRIS ARRELL | Spirits and Spectra

Spirits and Spectra is a computer music composition for 2-8 channel playback coded in Csound and Open Music. The piece takes inspiration from the chaconne, a musical form organized around a series of repeating chords. In my composition, fve harmonies follow a spiral pattern based on permutations of the number series 3-5-1-4-2. Aleatoric processes complement the fxed number sequence by providing continuous variation in frequency density, waveform, amplitude, spatialization, and delay.

ERIC ESTRADA VALADEZ

Northampton’s Little Chilango

During the summer of 2023, I made a trip to Northampton, a small town an hour away from London, to visit my sister and nephew while simultaneously working on a commissioned piece for the Joel Hofman’s and KISA Summer Composition Program. Working outside my usual studio setting posed several challenges, such as the absence of a piano, composing in hotel rooms and airports, and attempting to concentrate amid the playful interruptions of a 3-year-old toddler who constantly yelled a mix of English and Spanish (people of Mexico City are called chilangos, and my nephew is the child of a British-Mexican marriage, hence the title of the piece). In response to these experiences, I chose to compose a lighthearted and

innocent piece for him, capturing the essence of his energetic nature, occasionally bordering on the chaotic, before reaching its conclusion. The composition can be seen as a mosaic of the locations and people that surrounded both my physical and aural environment during those weeks. This piece is a heartfelt dedication to my nephew.

SAMI SEIF | Orientalism

Orientalism derives its name from the eponymous book by the Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said. My interest in orientalism started with the constant disparity I felt between my experience of being an Arab, and the representations of Arabs which I saw in art, media, and what even claimed to be scientifc literature. Those representations of “the Orient” had very little to do with what I know about my own background, my lived experiences, and everything that I have read in Arabic. This piece is a result of my refections, it is a commentary as well as an artistic response to that phenomenon.

Another interest of mine has been the passage of time, especially the passage of musical time, as opposed to chronometric time. Unlike a traditional string quartet, which seeks to blend the individual player with the quartet, my piece seeks to identify the individual in opposition to the ensemble.

RAVEN CHACON | (BURY ME)

WHERE

THE LIGHTNING [WILL] NEVER FIND ME (2019) (Bury Me) Where the Lightning [Will] Never Find Me, commissioned by Arraymusic, draws its title from a chapter in the book, How Early American Sounded, by Richard Cullen Rath, where he considers the diferences in traditional beliefs of whether it was the thunder or the lightning that killed you. The piece is a continuation of an earlier work of Raven’s, Atsiniltlish’ iye (2004) (Navajo translation: the shape(s) of lightning), where all parameters of the music replicated a zig-zag formation.

CONCERT V

MAREAS / TIDES

Friday, March 22 | 7:30 p.m.

Sharon Martin Hall - Eisner Center

Mareas/Tides, a dance performance by Denison dance and music faculty that traces island cosmologies and diaspora geographies of the Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacifc seas and gravitational power of the moon through storytelling, song and improvisation.

Curated by Marion Ramírez

Choreographic collaboration by Ojeya Cruz-Banks and Marion Ramírez

Live music by Pete Mills (Sax), Timothy Carpenter (Piano), Matthew Dixon (Drums), and Dean Hulett (Bass and Berimbao)

Projections by Chris Faur

Mareas/Tides is done in solidarity with the activist movements Campamento Carey and Las Playas son del Pueblo, and their continuous eforts to protect the shores and natural resources of the Puertorican archipelago from privatization and illegal construction that endanger the natural resources and communities of the islands.

CONCERT VI

Lats’aadah

ETHEL, DANCE, AND CHAMBER MUSIC

Saturday, March 23 | 10:30 a.m.

Thorsen Dance Studio - Eisner Center

Hanna Hurwitz, violin

Coacervate

Life Well Spent

What Could’ve Been

Andrew Tholl, violin Electronics

Emily Klepinger, bassoon

Zachery Meier, fute

Steve Rosenberg, english horn

Evan Lynch, clarinet

Emily Klepinger, bassoon

the becomer

Imágenes de Cuba

Fixed Media

ETHEL

Corin Lee and Kip Jones, violin

Ralph Farris, viola

Dorothy Lawson, cello

Marion Ramírez, dance

Raven Chacon

Rodney DuPlessis

Cruz Stock

Tyler Mazone

Steven Hixson

Arthur Gottschalk

PROGRAM NOTES

RAVEN CHACON | Lats’aadah

Lats’aadah is a song where pitch is the least important instruction, yet still notated. The violin is to be bowed in the shape of specifc petroglyphs found in the volcanic rocks on the westside of Albuquerque, NM.

RODNEY DUPLESSIS | Coacervate

Certain mixtures of polyelectrolytes in water can spontaneously form dense liquid droplets flled with complex molecules (coacervate phase) suspended in the water (dilute phase). Coacervation has been suggested as a possible mechanism through which the frst simple cells formed on earth (Abiogenesis). In Coacervate, the resonant acoustics of the complex molecules are sonifed through Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Together with the violin, distinct musical motives are inserted into and foat within dilute textures, compartmentalize, chain like polymers, and erupt into the beginnings of life.

CRUZ STOCK | Life Well Spent

Take a journey through your life - the awkward and quirky developmental stage we’d all rather forget - remember all the joy you felt at something new when you were younger - remember the heartbreak at the frst person you lost that was too close to home - the realization of mortality and the desire to search for your identity - and know that we all eventually return back to the Earth.

TYLER MAZONE | What Could’ve Been

What Could’ve Been is a meditation on bittersweetness; specifcally, the kind that results from reconciling with an old friend. One begins to wonder what it could’ve been like had they not lost contact with that person and the memories that could have existed, represented by

the frst half of the piece moving from that bittersweet feeling to a jovial and contrapuntal section. Mournful and broad music, ushered in by an English Horn solo, shows the pain felt from what was missed out on. The climax of this mournful music leads into a sweet melody that says: “Maybe things went wrong before, but now here’s a chance to start anew and create more memories.”

STEVEN HIXSON | the becomer

the becomer is a fxed media electroacoustic work for four independent audio channels. The work was created using CataRT, a real-time system for corpusbased concatenative sound synthesis. The entirety of the piece consists of digitally manipulated harmonica sounds. The system groups these sounds by timbral characteristics, creating gradually shifting felds of timbre. Programmatically, “the becomer” seeks simply to immortalize the will of people to become what they truly wish to be. From the wistful opening refrains to the tumultuous depths, this piece tells their story.

ARTHUR GOTTSCHALK | Imágenes de Cuba

Literally translated as Images of Cuba, this work was commissioned by the Apollo String Quartet. Inspired by my many visits to Cuba, and redolent with the memories of my time as a youthful trombonist in salsa bands, the work is in three movements: Manisero, a playful examination of an ancient peanut vendor’s cry heard to this day in the plazas of old Havana; Guajira, a typically slow movement which deconstructs the unofcial national anthem of Cuba and, hopefully depicts some of the yearning and sadness in the Cuban soul after so many years of misunderstandings and oppression; and, lastly, Timba, a boisterous colloquy between the members of the group displaying a panoply of salsa and pachanga motifs and rhythms, illustrating the inseparable alignment of music with dance throughout Cuban history. ¡Viva Cuba! ¡Cuba Libre!

CONCERT VII

DENISON UNIVERSITY CHAMBER SINGERS AND MORE

Saturday, March 23 | 1:00 p.m.

Burke Recital Hall - Eisner Center

i. the gate (from “Two Letters to Self”)

Shane Scott Cook

La ciudad sumergida Adrienne Inglis

Denison University Chamber Singers

Ella Llora

Megan Barker, soloist

I Could Not See to See

Denison University Chamber Singers

Whisper Trio

Light the World

Isaac Appel, Zacch Greene, Olivia Jump, soloists

Raven Chacon

Saman Shahi

Raven Chacon

Ingrid Stölzel

Denison University Chamber Singers

PAUSE

Sonata for Bassoon and Piano Alexander Schmidt

Emily Klepinger, bassoon

Sun Min Kim, piano

String Quartet No. 6

ETHEL

Corin Lee and Kip Jones, violin

Ralph Farris, viola

Dorothy Lawson, cello

Jeremy Beck

PROGRAM NOTES

SHANE SCOTT COOK | i. the gate (from “Two Letters to Self”)

Two Letters to Self (2023) sets texts that explore our relationship to our past selves through the clear lens of retrospect. Each poem takes a diferent approach to this idea. “the gate” mourns realities and opportunities lost to decisions we didn’t realize the cost of at the time. The visual spacing of the words in the formatting of the poems echoed in the uneven rhythm of the setting. There was something quite striking about the democratization of the words through the physical spacing, and I wanted to make sure that element would be apparent from the listener’s perspective.

I’ve worked with poet Leela Srinivasan on previous projects, and so enjoy her exquisite poetry. A hallmark of her work is quiet introspection and exploration of internal emotion, brought into the visceral world through colorful, evocative, and unusual word choices and descriptions. When I frst read these poems, I couldn’t stop imagining them set for choir, precious words echoing through the rich texture of many voices together. I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do so now.

ADRIENNE INGLIS | La ciudad sumergida

Commissioned for Dr. Ramona M. Wis and the North Central College Women’s Chorale of Naperville, Illinois, La ciudad sumergida (The Submerged City) by Adrienne Inglis for four-part treble chorus with nature soundtrack captures the mood of a river, a city, the cloudy sky, and the poet’s own profound melancholy. The sound of rain creates both the ambiance of a misty day on the river and the sensation of cathartic crying from great sadness and pain. The city’s refection on the river’s surface gives the illusion that the city is submerged in the water. The

refection of the clouds hovering low over Río de La Plata looks like gray heliotrope fowers. The apocalyptic images of a submerged city and of tears overfowing from the chalice-sky eerily foreshadow rising sea levels due to anthropogenic global warming.

RAVEN CHACON | Ella Llora

The origins of this composition are a found cassette on the streets of Albuquerque of a woman giving recorded court testimony or deposition. A large portion of the audio recording contains the woman in a state of sorrowful crying. The crying was transcribed into standard Western music notation for a singer to perform. The original audio cassette has since been destroyed.

SAMAN SHAHI | I Could Not See to See

I Could Not See to See sets Emily Dickinson’s famous “I heard a Fly Buzz when I died” poem for SATB chorus.The poem depicts the moment of death. Instead of portraying with the usual brush hyper-Romanticism and spirituality, it emphasizes the mundane such as a fy buzzing around or describing signing their livelihood away in their Will. In the fnal stanza, the buzz of the fy comes back, as a reminder that the moment of departure is near, “and then the windows failed – and then I could not see to see”. The speaker succumbs to death in the end, without any grandiose pageantry. The “Buzz” motif as well as silence are ever-present throughout this short work.

RAVEN CHACON | Whisper Trio

In Whisper Trio, three performers are presented with the same poem in Diné Bizaad (Navajo language), written as syllables with phonetic spellings, and are prompted to enunciate them as whispers. As it is likely (and preferred) that the performers will not have familiarity with the Navajo words, Whisper Trio encourages performers to the attempts of the vocalists by way of its slow pace and quiet deliveries, with confdence emerging as musical variation throughout the performance.

INGRID STÖLZEL | Light the World

Light the World was commissioned by Te Deum, Matthew Christopher Shepard, conductor, for the 10th Anniversary Season in Kansas City, Missouri. Robert Bode wrote this beautiful poem for the occasion, which made composing this blessing to commemorate Te Deum’s anniversary an even greater honor for me.

A Prayer for Blessing

Text by Robert Bode

May the Mother in us comfort us

And the Father in us protect us;

May the Daughter in us bring us Hope And the Son within us increase our Joy.

May the Dancer in us move us

And the Poet inspire our Song.

May the Explorer embolden us

And the Artist honor the Beauty that holds us.

May we all be Creators and Priests and Nurses and Heroes, And may our Song lift beyond these walls

To light the world.

ALEXANDER SCHMIDT | Sonata for Bassoon and Piano

Sonata for Bassoon and Piano is a multi-movement piece focused entirely on variations of its main theme and the materials held within. Its frst movement acts akin to a prelude containing two contrasting themes buried within, the frst held aloft in uncertainty and the second jauntier and more animated. Immediately afterwards comes the second movement, a more somber afair that gradually transitions into lighter territory. A cadenza for bassoon caps of its end before the third and fnal movement settles. It is by far the fastest movement in the whole piece, and it utilizes material from every part of the prior

movements. It begins in a similarly jaunty fashion, but overtime, it returns back to the darkness and uncertainty of the opening movement before ending in an almost march-like fashion.

JEREMY BECK | String Quartet No. 6

String Quartet No. 6 is in two binary movements; both begin with lyrical material and then progress to music that is fast and agitated. In addition to the relationship of their formal structures, the second movement refects certain relationships to the frst movement’s melodic, motivic, and harmonic ideas. For example, the sostenuto passage that begins the second movement is derived from the closing pizzicato of the frst.

String Quartet No. 6 was completed 24 February 2018 in Louisville, Kentucky. Recorded by the Frosch String Quartet in 2021 in Sofa, Bulgaria, and released in 2023 on my most recent recording “remember” (neuma-183), this performance is the live concert world premiere.

CONCERT VIII

UCELLI

Pei-An Chao, Mary Davis, Cora Kuyvenhoven, Wendy Morton

Saturday, March 23 | 3:00 p.m.

Sharon Martin Hall - Eisner Center

tangled, in surge and swell

Subsonic Pulse

Summer Night, Windows Open

Warriors

And Rooks Soar

Shimmer!

Jeong

I cavalieri

Robert McClure

Wenbin Lyu

Matthew C. Saunders

Ching-chu Hu

Jacob Reed

Jaylin Vinson

HyeKyung Lee

Sean Penzo

PROGRAM NOTES

ROBERT MCCLURE | tangled, in surge and swell tangled, in surge and swell was commissioned by the Johnstone Fund for New Music as part of their Ten SCORE Project with the UCelli (Columbus, OH) cello quartet. The conceptual starting point for the piece was my own sense memories of foating in the ocean, past where waves begin to break. The feeling of being pushed and pulled by water, tangled by rogue currents and surprising surges. Then calm, before the next wave approaches.

WENBIN LYU | Subsonic Pulse

Subsonic Pulse was originally composed for a low wind quartet (2 bass clarinets & 2 bassoons) in the spring of 2023. In October, I arranged it for a cello quartet. In this piece, I utilized the low register of each instrument to craft a captivating and vibrating low-frequency soundscape. As I delved into the process of composing this piece, my fascination with the low-frequency sound became an all-encompassing obsession. There is something profoundly primal and evocative about the earthy resonance that emanates from the depths of the cellos.

MATTHEW SAUNDERS | Summer Night, Windows Open

Summer Night, Windows Open had its genesis in a hot summer night, as I lay in bed, having a fairly rare bout of insomnia. I don’t know that I didn’t sleep that night, but it certainly felt like I was awake far more than usual. At one point, in the dark, with my eyes closed, I began to focus on two sounds: the sounds of insects outside, and the sound of the oscillating fan across the room. As the fan switched directions, a quirk of acoustics (which I haven’t been able to duplicate since) caused me to

hear two pitches about a whole tone apart. This strange efect gave me the kernel that any composer needs to start writing. The result is also the latest in my series of like-instrument ensemble pieces that use a palindromic form. While not strictly the same forwards or backwards, Summer Night, Windows Open features a very highly symmetrical structure, beginning and ending with the oscillating fan relieving the aestival and creative heat on a long, dark night of the soul.

CHING-CHU HU | Warriors

Warriors, composed for UCelli as part of a Johnstone Foundation Commissioning Project, celebrates the strength and the power of women - of mothers, of daughters, of sisters, of friends. In a time when fundamental rights of women are being attacked and taken away, it is time to shout, to rally, to fght. Women will prevail.

JACOB REED | And Rooks Soar

Birds in general factor heavily into the myth and legends of many cultures. Rooks have a long and complex relationship both with people and art. The lore around rooks throughout time fascinates me. They are harbingers of death and trickery, often because of their intelligence. But they are also welcomed by farmers as the sentinels of the land due to their habit of eating insects and other pests. They are social, and usually monogamous, but their call is harsh and creates a deafening ruckus in large groups. Their fight is beautiful to watch. They begin with what initially appears to be pure chaos until the whole group coalesces and they rise, dive, and turn as one. And Rooks Soar begins at frst light when the sun breaks over the cold dark horizon and rises majestically, washing felds of wheat with a golden warmth. A gregarious clamor of rooks takes fight, circling, diving and riding the wind until the fock soars into the distance.

JAYLIN VINSON | Shimmer!

The inspiration of Shimmer! comes from a fascination with the natural behaviors of light. Physicists have observed the nature of light to function as a particle and a wave for hundreds of years. This wave-particle duality of light allows for some spectacular displays in nature, from the stars painted atop our night sky to the gradient wonders we receive before dawn. I chose to capture these breathtaking moments using the spectrum of sound colors from four cellos. Shimmer! refects my optimism that has continuously been a beacon of light during trying times. Shimmer! reminds me that positivity can be a light in our life in the most natural form. I hope that this work will ofer listeners a moment of refection to consider what truly makes them shimmer!

HYEKYUNG LEE | Jeong

Jeong was commissioned by U-Celli and Johnstone Funds for New Music. The commission was given to ten Ohio composers to write a 5-minute-long composition. I was honored to be one of ten composers who received the commission.

The word, “Jeong”, is Korean that cannot be translated properly in English because it has the complex meaning of combined feeling or emotions, such as sentiment, afection, heart, sympathy, love, sensitivity, sensibility, companionship, empathy, etc. It’s known that most couples in Korea stay in marriage because of “jeong” (not because of “love” :). The piece is based on pentatonic scale using only fve notes. It tries to capture the emotions of “jeong” within various rhythmic patterns.

SEAN PENZO | I cavalieri

This piece was written in the summer of 2021 for the Italian cello quartet, Quartetto Zuena. The piece features a rhythmic ricochet technique that mimics the sound of a horse galloping. It attempts to create the imagery of a group of fearless riders traveling from one adventure to the next. The title translates to, “the riders” or “the knights”.

CONCERT IX

Compass

WILD UP

Saturday, March 23 | 7:00 p.m.

Swasey Chapel

Raven Chacon outside Swasey Chapel, weather permitting

Billow Alicia Castillo

Butler-Barrett Distributions

Horse Notations

Ben Zucker

Raven Chacon

Pining Daniel Cui

Silent Cage Mansoor Hosseini

Skylark Nick Virzi

Within Stillness: Vignette No.3

Zachery S. Meier 希望

program order to be announced from stage

being in service of the arm choreography. This is to

shifting and hybridization of relational hierarchies into

unknown confgurations of time and space, and the

of Earthseed, opened up especially moving through

latter for the emphasis on radical change and emergence

of self-knowledge crucial to an improvising subject; the

ideas of “Giving An Account Of Oneself” and the limits

and Octavia Butler--the former with reference to the

The frst part of this piece is named for both Judith

composed for their visual aspect, the rhythmic

the score largely guides only the transformations of.

performers are allowed to devise their material, which

to create responsive situations for performers. Here,

works structuring attention and parametric listening

This work is part of my “Distributions” series, text-based

BEN ZUCKER |

Butler-Barrett Distributions

amplitude of a billow.

by starting and ending the piece at the climax and highest

explore a non-traditional form to challenge expectations

intended to capture this experience in Billow as well as

other times steadier with only subtle ripples of change. I

unpredictable swellssometimes overwhelming and at

masses. Emotions and thoughts can also come and go in

waves continuously retreating and returning in surging

various elements; billowing grass and clouds, or swells of

instruments inspired by the comings and goings of

Billow is an open score work for any 4 or more pitched

ALICIA CASTILLO

Billow

the course of musical decisions.

shadows, wind, insects, clouds, and more to determine

Performed outdoors, the performer takes cues from

Commissioned by United States Artists.

Compass

new forms of collectivity. The second part is for Richard Barrett, whose circular fgures in his Codex series lent

Recurrent short sections, especially from the strings, are

away or be abrupted by other sounds.

perform. It tends to become an ostinato, only to break

or fragments that for example the piano and the viola

infuence. The latter is audible with the repeated notes

John Cage’s 4’ 33” music and partly by his Zen Buddhist

string quartet and piano. The piece is inspired partly by

Silent Cage is composed for futes, clarinets, Bassoon,

MANSOOR HOSSEINI | Silent Cage

In gaze, still yearning, my thoughts ensue.

Face to face, we sit, a longing true,

Yet deems itself lowly, in heights embraced.

Upon the lofty peaks, a temple graces,

DANIEL CUI | Pining

shared human and animal history.

throughout one’s life, and a view of the momentum of

is a look at the speed of the day, a perspective of tempo

instruments that learn from the drum. Horse Notations

appear in the score as notations for the drum(s) and any

volume arcs. Graphic representations from the article

material for rhythms, drum patterns, bow pressures, and

horse gaits--the walk, trot, canter, and gallop--as source

PROGRAM NOTES

article titled “The Paces of the Horse” and its analysis of

The composition utilizes a 1874 Popular Science Journal

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

East Symphony to be premiered in the homelands of the

Notations was written as a commission by the Oregon

Commissioned by Oregon East Symphony. Horse

RAVEN CHACON |

Horse Notations

inspiration.

these ones a great deal of conscious and subconscious

highlight the notion of 4’ 33” while keeping the fow of the piece we have here. In a way, these sections tease our memory and our imagination. They tease us about what might come next.

NICK VIRZI | Skylark

Skylark was composed before, during, and after a road trip from California to New York. After living in California for ten years, I made the long journey back to my hometown in February 2024. Traveling across the shifting landscape of the continent, I refected on my time spent in California and composed this piece as a farewell to the state. The electronics are based on a feld recording I made in Yosemite National Park. In October 2017, I hiked to Mirror Lake in the Yosemite Valley and followed a fock of Black American Ducks as they drifted down Tenaya Creek. The sound of the ducks feeding in the still water produced the illusion of a fowing stream. As a plane passed over, the texture became more frantic as the ducks sensed a looming presence. The music characterizes this fgure as a large, prehistoric bird that interacts with the natural soundscape.

ZACHERY S. MEIER | Within Stillness:

Vignette No.3

Within Stillness: Vignette No.3 is the most recent addition to my “within stillness” series of works inspired by watercolor paintings. While viewing a painting, the physical canvas is stationary and lacks literal physical movement, but the watercolors on the canvas are bursting with texture and energetic activity. Each installment of this series aims to emulate that exploration of color, texture, and movement through various elements of timbre and performance techniques through graphic or text scoring. Here, I explore how text and performance can create composite textures and sonorities that emulate the efect of “glazing” in watercolor technique.

CHING-CHU HU | 希望 Xī Wàng (Hope)

Chinese characters fascinate me, as the characters themselves have such a rich history. The word, 望 (wàng), has many meanings, including hope, to gaze, to look of in a distance. In early forms, one thought is that it was made up of three components, a watchful eye, the moon, and a person standing on tiptoe. It paints a romantic picture of a person longing, hoping to see the moon.

In Xī Wàng, the music refects the components of the character 望 (wàng) in the order the written strokes would occur: the top left (big, watchful eye), then top right (moon), and then the bottom (person on tiptoes). As such, there are three sections to the piece, with the clarinet and then the cello serving as the eye, the center of the musical line. The piano ushers in the moon for a contemplative middle section, followed by the fnal section, where all the instruments frst individually, then growing in strength, reach skyward in hope.

COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS

CHRIS ARRELL

Chris Arrell is a composer from Portland, Oregon. His music, praised for its nuance and unconventional beauty (New Music Box, Boston Music Intelligencer, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution), has received accolades from Underscore (Bent Frequency), the Ettelson Composer Award, Ossia Music, the League of Composers/ISCM, the Salvatore Martirano Competition, the MacDowell and ACA colonies, and the Fulbright Hays Foundation. Commissions for new works include those from the Alte Schmiede (Austria), Boston Musica Viva, Music at the Anthology, Spivey Hall, and the Fromm Foundation of Harvard University. Publications of Arrell’s music are available through Beauport Classical, Electroshock Records, Navona, Parma Recordings, SCI, and Trevco Music. Arrell is an associate professor at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit: www. chrisarrell.com.

SAN SUNG AUM

San Sung Aum has appeared in venues such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, the Chamber Hall at Sejong Art Center, and the Grand Theater at Seogwipo Art Center as well as in Europe, including Italy and Germany. She has won numerous competitions such as American Protégé International Piano Competition in New York, International Florestano Rossomandi Piano Competition in Italy, the United States International Duo Piano Competition in Colorado, OHIO International Piano Duo Competition, Korea-Germany Brahms Association Music Competition, and CBS broadcast Competition. She earned degrees from Seoul National University, Eastman School of Music, and College- Conservatory of Music.

MACIEJ BAŁENKOWSKI

Maciej Bałenkowski – polish composer, currently based in Cracow, last student of Krzysztof Penderecki. Currently, he is continuing to work on his doctoral thesis at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. Graduate of the Academy of Music in Wrocław, Academy of Music in Cracow, Hochschule der Künste Bern as well Conservatorio superior de música in Valencia.

Maciej is a laureate and fnalist of over 30 composition prizes. His works have been performed and awarded in the USA, Canada, the UK, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of New York, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Polish Radio Orchestra, in signifcant concert halls including: Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Wiener Musikverein, Jordan Hall in Boston, Blackheath Halls in London, Moscow Conservatory Concert Hall, Di Menna Center for Classical Music.

JEREMY BECK

American composer Jeremy Beck “knows the importance of embracing the past while also going his own way. … [In] Beck’s forceful and expressive sound world … the writing is concise in structure and generous in tonal language, savouring both the dramatic and the poetic.” (Gramophone). A frst-prize winner in the 2021 The King’s Singers New Music Prize, Beck’s music has been presented by the American Composers Orchestra, New York City Opera, the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, Center for Contemporary Opera, Yale Opera, and the Louisville Orchestra, among others. A graduate of the Mannes College of Music, Duke University, and the Yale School of Music, recordings of Beck’s orchestral, chamber, and vocal music are available on the Neuma, Innova, and Ablaze labels. A practicing attorney, he is on the faculty of The Gabriela Ortiz Composing Studio by OAcademy. www.BeckMusic.org

BRETT BURLESON

Guitarist Brett Burleson has recorded and performed in a wide array of musical situations. He has played with jazz groups that range from big band to bebop to contemporary jazz as well as rock and blues bands. Brett has been on faculty at Denison University since 2009 and has been the coordinator of guitar studies since 2018. In 2022 Brett took over as director of the Denison University Jazz Guitar Festival after the retirement of festival founder Tom Carroll. He has also taught guitar at Capital University, Ohio Wesleyan University, Kenyon College and the Ohio State University and maintains an active performing schedule in Central Ohio. Brett’s album Songs For My Friends which features his original compositions with his quartet is available on streaming platforms as well as through Scioto Records (www.sciotorecords.com).

TIMOTHY CARPENTER

Timothy Carpenter began playing piano at the age of three. He received formal classical training at age four and continued his studies resulting in a piano scholarship to The University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music. While studying classical piano he continued his love for Gospel music. He has worked with many of the legendary gospel artist including, Pastor Marvin Winans, Vicki Winans, Donnie McClurkin, Walter Hawkins, Tramaine Hawkins, Donald Lawrence, Fred Hammond, Commissioned and the Clark Sisters. ``Rev”, (as he is afectionately known), was a staf writer for Sparrow Records penning songs recorded by Bishop Norman L. Wagner and The Mt. Calvary Concert Choir, which gave him his frst Stellar Award nomination. His song, “I Still Want You”, appears on Tramaine Hawkin’s Grammy winning album, “Tramaine…LIVE”! His work on Fred Hammond’s “Lift Up Your Heads” landed his name on the Grammy winning album, “Handel’s Soulful Messiah”, produced by Quincy Jones. Tim has scored for major orchestras including the Columbus, Birmingham Symphonies, and the world renowned Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg (Potsdam, Germany) where he also performed as a guest conductor. Tim’s love for theatre provided him the opportunity to serve as Musical Director for two plays at the Cincy Playhouse in the Park that garnered two

Tony awards. He was also nominated for a “Kelvin Klein Award” for his music direction of “Crowns” at the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. Rev’s music has taken him to many countries including, England, Scotland, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Jamaica, Switzerland, France and Spain and currently he is the Pastor of God’s Way Ministries International and serves Denison in diferent capacities.

ALICIA CASTILLO

Alicia Castillo (b.1997) is a composer and performer of acoustic and electroacoustic music based in Arizona. She enjoys collaborating closely with performers and crafting narrative driven music that explores auditory perception, sound morphology, and relationships between sound and speech. Her music has been performed at the EDME New Music Festival, PRISMS New Music Festival, and Ben Verdery’s Masterclass in Maui, where she was invited to perform original guitar compositions. Alicia has also premiered new guitar works by Gabriel Bolaños, Carlos Zárate, and Sofía Matus Cancino. In 2021 she received frst place in the Arizona State University Mykytyn Composition Competition and served as the 20222023 Composer in Residence for the ASU Wind Ensemble.

Alicia holds dual master’s degrees in Composition and Guitar Performance from Arizona State University. She is an active music educator throughout the Valley as a faculty associate at ASU and adjunct faculty at Glendale Community College.

HANA CHU

Dr. Hana Chu, a distinguished pianist, has performed globally, including North and South America, the Middle East, and her native Korea. Her artistic versatility is showcased in her extensive work as a chamber musician, making her a soughtafter collaborator. Committed to nurturing talent, Dr. Chu performed concerts in Jordan in 2015 and 2017, aiding the development of the country’s frst generation of classical musicians. In 2017, she also performed in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as part of a cultural exchange. A strong advocate for contemporary music, Dr. Chu premiered “Blue Pacifc” by Michael Torke and has been featured on U.S. classical radio

stations via a release from Ecstatic Records. Dr. Chu received her education at the Juilliard School under Matti Raekallio and Jerome Lowenthal, and at the Eastman School of Music with Nelita True and Jean Barr. She currently serves on the piano faculty at Denison University.

SHANE SCOTT COOK

Shane Scott Cook (b. 1994) is a composer and performer, whose work focuses on community and connection. A compelling up-and-coming voice in new music, his work draws from his eclectic musical upbringing as a classical percussionist, jazz singer, folk enthusiast and musical theater afcionado. A Chicago-area native, currently Shane is Teaching Artist-in Residence with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music in Boonville, California, developing new curriculums in percussion, piano, composing and songwriting for public school students. Current creative projects include a new work for Del Sol Quartet’s 2024-25 season, a cycle for violin and mezzo soprano for Duo Cortona, the premiere of his cycle for high voice and chamber orchestra, The Distance Between, by soprano Lindsay Kesselman and UT Austin’s New Music Ensemble, as well an EP of his solo singer-songwriter project, expected for release in late 2024.

DANIEL CUI

Daniel (Jingyang) Cui is a Chinese-born composer who draws inspirations mostly from his Chinese background which includes culture, history, and current social issues. As a person who spent a long time aboard his home country, it has been his passion to share his perspectives on China through music. However, he is also often inspired by little things such as the cuteness of animals or a fun anecdote. His compositions range from chamber pieces to orchestral works. He is currently pursuing his master’s degree in composition at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music, where he is working with David Dzubay and Aaron Travers.

Sydney Conservatorium Orchestra and Sydney Conservatorium Clarinet Ensemble who had commissioned and premiered his works.

VICTOR CUI

Composer Victor Cui fnds inspiration from literatures, histories, linguistics, zoologies, and sounds in nature, and seeks to balance freedom and control, poetics and logic. Victor’s music captures his unique expression through his sensibility of motion and the physicality of sound.

Praised as “fundamentally musical” by the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation at the University of Chicago, Victor’s music has been performed in both America and Europe. Victor’s piece Poltergeist of Kayaköy for fute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, was premiered at the 2023 soundSCAPE Festival in Blonay Switzerland. Excerpts of Victor’s chamber opera, Shadow Stretches Long and White, based on the story of Otto Warmbier, was premiered during the Opera Etude workshop at the Peabody Institute in 2023.

Victor is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) student at the Shepherd School of Music of Rice University. He also holds degrees from the Peabody Institute and the University of Chicago.

MATTHEW PEYTON DIXON

Matthew Peyton Dixon has been performing and writing music professionally since the age of16, getting his start playing percussion with the Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps from 2001-2003. He received a B.A. in Percussion Performance at the acclaimed school of music, the University of North Texas in 2009. While attending undergrad Mr. Dixon studied everything he could ranging from jazz, classical, drumline, world percussion, and anything else percussive that he could get his hands on. From 2007-2016 he accompanied and composed for dance under the tutelage of Claudia Howard Queen at the University of North Texas and from 2010-2016 at Texas Woman’s University with Keith Fleming. Since 2016 he has been the resident He has collaborated with various professional ensembles world- accompanist and composer at Denison University and in 2018 wide such as Tacet(i) Ensemble, Hub New Music, Prism Quartet, was hired at The Ohio State University accompanying and

composing for the dance department. Matthew has also been a resident accompanist at the world-famous American Dance Festival since 2016 and has played for the Jofrey Ballet and David Dorfman dance intensives. Matthew Peyton Dixon has composed over 40 works for dance, has 7 solo albums, many album recordings with bands, toured extensively throughout the U.S., and has 4 volumes of poetry. Currently, Mr. Dixon lives in Columbus, Ohio working with Denison University and The Ohio State University dance departments as well as playing percussion with many diferent local and national artists.

RODNEY DUPLESSIS

Rodney DuPlessis is a Canadian composer and programmer exploring intersections of science, nature, technology, and music. He studies processes and patterns from natural and human-made systems to extract latent musicality and visceral sonic narratives. His music has been performed and recognized internationally. He develops innovative sound processing and synthesis software including EmissionControl2 and QHOSYN, a quantum synthesizer. He promotes new art through organizing festivals and concerts, and as Programs and Development Director of Nomadic Soundsters. He holds an MA in composition, MSc in Media Arts and Technology, and PhD in composition. He is an Assistant Professor at WPI in the Interactive Media and Game Development program.

DEBRA DYKO

Debra Dyko’s music uses rhythmic expressiveness within a tonal palette, using contrapuntal preciseness to blend multiple lines into one unifed vision. Debra Dyko is Director of Liturgical Music at St Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana. She studied composition with Dr William Schirmer. Her organ teachers include Dr Timothy Howard and the late Carl Swanson. She is a Colleague of the American Guild of Organists. In the Fall of 2022, she received First place in Organ Composition sponsored by the American Center of Church music, and also the Emerging Composers Competition sponsored by Canticle Singers of Baltimore.

CHRISTIAN FAUR

Christian Faur serves as the Director of Collaborative Technologies for the Fine Arts at Denison University. Over the past twenty years, Faur has been an integral part of the university’s creative endeavors, playing a pivotal role in enriching music, theater, and dance productions through his expertise in video projections and multimedia installations. In addition to his directorial role, he teaches class across a range of subjects, including New Media, Graphic Design, and Animation.

Faur’s educational background is a testament to his interdisciplinary approach, holding a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Northridge, California, and a Master of Fine Arts in New Media from the University of Danube, Kerns, Austria. The blending of science and art in his education has been a cornerstone in his contributions to his new media projects.

His projection work have garnered recognition within the arts community. In 2010, his stage design for Available Light Theater won the “Best Stage Design” from Columbus Alive. He collaborated with composer HyeKyung Lee on “Dreaming in Colours,” a VJ-projection exhibited at the Columbus Museum of Art in 2015. His work reached another milestone in 2019 when his animated paintings were featured alongside a live orchestra performance of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”. Most recently, in 2023, his projection design for the Terpsicorps Ballet’s production of “Cleopatra” received critical acclaim.

Faur’s artistic achievements have also gained international acclaim. His works have been exhibited in renowned museums and galleries across the United States, Korea, and Europe. He is a two-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, in 2013 and 2021, underscoring his signifcant contributions to the visual arts.

ALEXANDROS FRAGISKATOS

Dr. Alexandros Fragiskatos is a percussionist, educator, composer, and arranger who specializes in music ranging from classical and contemporary to steel pan and musical theater. He has performed and been invited as an artist-in-residence across the U.S. and

in Europe. Dr. Fragiskatos is heavily involved in the Percussive Arts Society, both as a member of the New Music/Research Committee and Diversity Alliance, and as a performer at their annual international convention. He has many published compositions and arrangements, particularly for steel band. He has been performing on steel pan for over ffteen years and been invited as a guest artist in both the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Fragiskatos teaches percussion and music theory at Denison University. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music from the University of Akron, and Doctor of Musical Arts in percussion from Arizona State University.

ARTHUR GOTTSCHALK

Arthur Gottschalk’s music has been described as “rapturous, argumentative, and prickly” (Gramophone Magazine), and “fascinatingly strange” (BBC Music Magazine). He is Professor of Music at Rice University, a recipient of the Charles Ives Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, annual ASCAP Awards since 1980, a Composer-in-Residence at the famed Columbia/ Princeton Electronic Music Center, the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. He was a featured composer for the Thailand International Composition Festival and the China-ASEAN Music Festival, won First Prize in the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Competition for Upon Whose Shoulders We Stand, held both Bogliasco and MacDowell Fellowships, and received the First Prize in the Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Originale, for his Concerto for Violin and Symphonic Winds. He likes to explore the interstices between popular and art music, and between the Sacred and Profane.

DOUGLAS HEDWIG

The music of Douglas Hedwig has been performed throughout the U.S., Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, Belgium, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. Praised for the “coherent, yet adventurous character of his compositions” [Opus Klassiek, Netherlands), his music embraces “a wide range of musical styles…and showcases the eloquent sincerity of a contemporary American

voice” [International Center for American Music].

Winner of both the Gaetano Amadeo Prize (Italy) and The American Prize in composition, Hedwig is recipient of awards and honors from the Siena Art Institute (Italy), Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Prior to turning his full creative attention to composition in 2012, he was a trumpet player with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 27 years.

Dr. Hedwig is Professor Emeritus at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, and was formerly on the faculty of The Juilliard School (NYC).

STEVEN HIXSON

Steven Hixson seeks to create forwardlooking musical work with roots frmly planted in the present day. His ethereal, otherworldly sonic creations invariably engage with the digital world, making frequent use of live signal processing and spatialization. Hixson’s work pays extreme attention to timbre, mood, and atmosphere and is characterized by supersaturated textures, eclectic microtonality, and harmonic beauty. Hailing from Zanesville, Ohio, Hixson holds a B.M. in Music Composition from Baldwin Wallace University and an M.F.A. in Music Technology from CalArts. He has composed for several acclaimed musicians, including banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, string quartet Brooklyn Rider, and clarinet/percussion duo Transient Canvas, and his work has been showcased at venues across the United States and beyond, including the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Conservatorio Bruno Maderna in Cesena, Italy, and Point CounterPoint in Vermont.

MANSOOR HOSSEINI

Mansoor Hosseini is a Swedish composer, script writer and flm maker. He has studied composition at Conservatories in Paris, Brussels and Gothenburg. Later he studied scriptwriting and flm music at Gothenburg University. Mansoor’s research and studies with the composer Georges Aperghis encouraged him to compose for theatrical music, inspired by martial arts, contemporary dance and theater.

Mansoor has collaborated with dancers, flm makers, poets, video artists, ensembles and theater productions. He has been awarded several prizes for his compositions and art flms, by the Swedish Art Council, the Nordic Culture Foundation, Swedish Arts Grants, Swedish Composer’s Association, West Region Culture Prize, Gothenburg City Culture prize and more. Currently, Mansoor is working on a commission by Levande Musik in Sweden, and an art flm about the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, in collaboration with Sinfonia Varsovia and the Polish Composer’s Association.

ALEXANDER HU

Alex Hu is a composer from Marietta, Georgia, a short drive from Atlanta. He has played violin since 2016, and started composing in 2021, after the pandemic somehow led him to appreciate music enough to write it. He is currently a freshman at KSU, Kennesaw State, not Kansas, and is entering his frst semester as a music composition major. He is infuenced by a wide spread of work, from Mahler’s symphonies to Shostakovich’s small ensemble work, from contemporary composers such as Stacy Garrop and Jennifer Higdon to many of his friends. His greatest wish is to simply continue composing and stepping closer to perfecting his craft, and maybe also to aford good cofee.

CHING-CHU HU

Ching-chu Hu, Director of the Vail Series and Professor of Music, loves to bring people together through TUTTI. The camaraderie among artists and the creative energy is one he hopes everyone will absorb and treasure. In addition to composing (for almost as long as he’s played with Legos), he’s also chaufeur to four amazing kids - X, M, E, N- who think they are the center of his universe, which they are. They also are great reminders for what is important in his life: family, music, teaching — it’s all good. The music he’s composing now are messages to them: about life, love, and the world we all live in. He feels fortunate that he has been performed around the world, has won awards, been recorded on CDs and he loves going to artist colonies. Check out: chingchuhu.com, his website (that needs updating) or go to: soundcloud.com/chingchuhu

DEAN HULETT

Dean Hulett comes from a family of musicians and at the age of 8 began playing the double bass. In high school, he performed in the Cleveland Youth Orchestra and the Tri-C All-Star Big Band. He has studied music at both Cuyahoga Community College and, The Ohio State University and as a professional musician, he has recorded and performed with a diverse group of musicians including Mark Lomax, Bobby Floyd, Delfeayo Marsalis, Derek Gardner, Wyclife Gordon, Azar Lawrence, and others. For over ten years he was a mainstay on the southern California jazz scene and in 2020, moved back to Columbus. Dean has been a member of the Denison Music Department since the fall of 2022.

HANNA HURWITZ

Playing with “live-wire splendor” (The New York Times) violinist, Hanna Hurwitz, is a musician who equally enjoys performing classics of the repertoire as well as new music of our time. She is a member of the acclaimed Grossman Ensemble and Ensemble Dal Niente, two leading new-music ensembles based in Chicago. She also serves as co-director and violinist of Zohn Collective, an ensemble interested in interdisciplinary exchange. Hanna also enjoys an active and varied teaching career. She holds the position of Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of String Studies at Denison University. Her recent guest engagements include masterclasses and performances at Conservatorio G.B. Martini, University of Ljubljana, Lawrence Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory, and Vanderbilt University. Hanna holds a BM and Performer’s Certifcate from the Eastman School of Music, an MM from The University of Texas at Austin, and a DMA with a minor in Performance Psychology from the Eastman School of Music.

ADRIENNE INGLIS

Founder, award-winning composer, and singer with Inversion Ensemble of Austin, Texas, Adrienne Inglis also serves as principal fute with the Central Texas Philharmonic and futist with fute/harp duo Chaski. She has

music degrees from Lewis and Clark College and the University of Texas at Austin. Frequently drawing on her family history and Ojibwe, Venezuelan, and Scottish ethnicities, Inglis composes choral, chamber, and orchestral music. An avid birder and environmentalist, she lives in the rural hill country of Central Texas. https://adrienneinglis.com

HARRIS IPOCK

Harris Ipock serves as Assistant Professor and Director of Choral Activities at Denison University. He has previously conducted ensembles at Harvard University, Shenandoah University, Boston University, Clayton State University, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. As a soloist and chorister, he regularly performs with professional ensembles across the country, including Conspirare, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Kinnara Ensemble, Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, and Yale Choral Artists. He appears on two Grammy-nominated albums House of Belonging (Delos, 2023) and The Singing Guitar (Delos, 2021) and the Grammy-winning recording The Sacred Spirit of Russia (Harmonia Mundi, 2015). He has conducted performances in Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall (Boston), and Kioi Hall (Tokyo), and the Taipei National Concert Hall. He served as choirmaster for Odyssey Opera’s debut performance of Wagner’s Rienzi and has guest conducted for professional ensembles such as the Virginia Chorale. Harris is currently R&R chair for Universities with the Ohio Choral Directors Association. He holds a DMA from Eastman School of Music, an MM from East Carolina University, and a BM in vocal performance and a BA in economics from UNC – Chapel Hill.

ANDELENA G. JACKSON

Andelena G. Jackson is an aspiring American composer hailing from Hagerstown, Maryland. She completed her B.A. in composition at Shepherd University in May of 2021. Her experiences in music performance and music composition began at the age of two. However, she didn’t start pursuing a career as a composer until her Junior year of high school. She particularly enjoys writing for symphony orchestra, but she has also written for solo instruments, chorus, chamber ensembles, concert band, and other settings. She was also the winner of the CATF 30th

Season Opening Fanfare Competition at Shepherd University, the 2023 Hervoice Choral Competition, and the 2023 IAWM Search For New Music Competition, as well as a fnalist in the Lowell Chamber Orchestra 2023 Call for Scores. She participated in the 2023 SCI VIII Regional Conference and 2023 Tonal Composers Festival held in Brasilia, Brazil.

THOMAS J. JOHNSON

Dr. Tom Johnson is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Indiana State University and a graduate student in the Masters in Music Composition program at Butler University in Indianapolis, where he studies with Michael Schelle and Frank Felice. He previously studied with Bill Adam, Dominic Spera, and Brent Wallarab of Indiana University, Joel Nauman at the University of Wisconsin, and Daniel Powers of Indiana State University. Tom’s compositions include jazz and art music as well as jingles, choral works, and music and lyrics for two musicals. His jazz combo piece, “Stealing Silver” was performed at the 2022 Tutti Festival at Denison University. Later this year he will be releasing his second CD of compositions for Jazz Orchestra. Tom continues to perform on jazz piano in several Terre Haute based jazz groups and conducts research on why people listen to sad music and what happens when they do.

SUN MIN KIM

South Korean-born American pianist Sun Min Kim is the Coordinator of Keyboard Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Denison University. He has been a prizewinner at national and international competitions, including the Maria Canals International Piano Competition, the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, the International Crescendo Music Awards, Brevard Music Center Solo Piano Competition, the Competition of the Society for American Musicians, and the Lee Biennial Piano Competition.

In 2008, the professional music fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon awarded Kim the Sterling Achievement Award, the highest honor that the fraternity bestows upon its collegiate members. He has debuted at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and other prestigious venues across the United States and abroad.

EMILY KLEPINGER

Dr. Emily Klepinger is the instructor of bassoon at Denison University. She maintains a private studio of middle and high school students in Grove City. Her students have been members of OMEA All-State ensembles, the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestras, the Columbus Youth Symphonic Band, regional orchestras, honor bands, have won concerto competitions, and are frequently accepted into university music programs.

Currently, she plays principal bassoon with the New Albany Symphony Orchestra and in the bassoon sections of the Worthington Chamber Orchestra and the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra. She studied bassoon performance at The Ohio State University where her primary teachers were Karen Pierson and Christopher Weait. During the day, you will fnd her advising undergraduate music majors at Ohio State and in her free time, she enjoys spending time with her son, Phoenix, physicist husband, Alexander, and their dog, Yennefer, and cats, Locrian and Dorian.

CORA KUYVENHOVEN

Dr. Cora Kuyvenhoven is adjunct cello professor and co-director of chamber music at Denison University and assistant principal cellist of ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. She is one of the four awesome cellists that are UCelli: The Columbus Cello Quartet.

The Windsor Star heralded her Haydn D Major performance as expressing a great “joie de vivre.” As a member of the Toronto Symphony for seven years, she recorded and broadcast extensively, and toured in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America.

Cora obtained her A.R.C.T. licentiate from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and was a national fnalist in the Canadian Music Competition. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, a post master’s degree at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and her DMA is from the University of Iowa.

For updates please go to: UCelli.net

HYEKYUNG LEE

HyeKyung Lee’s music has been described as “virtuosic fantasy where continuous rhythmic motion smoothly joins contrasting moods and efectively propels from one section to another, showing a penchant for colorful timbres, expressive lines, and lively rhythmic interaction of instruments.”

An active composer/pianist, Lee has written works for diverse genres, from toy piano to big concertos, and to electronic music. She received 2017 Bonnie McElveen-Hunter Commission for Maestro Gerard Schwarz & Eastern Music Festival. Other commissions include Renée B. Fisher Piano Competition and Meg Quigley Vivaldi Bassoon Competition. One highlight as a pianist was a performance of Hindemith Sonata for Clarinet and Piano with Stanley Drucker at Latin American Clarinet Congressin in Lima, Peru, 2012.

Lee studied at YonSei University in Seoul and University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her MM, DMA in composition and piano performance certifcate. She is Associate Professor at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

EVAN LYNCH

Evan Lynch is the afliate instructor of clarinet at Denison University, and a freelance clarinetist in the central Ohio area. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician nationally and internationally, including performances in Belgium, China, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, and Poland. Orchestral experience includes performances with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, and he was a fnalist for the International Clarinet Association (ICA) Orchestral Audition Competition in 2014.

His master’s degree in administration has brought opportunities to serve as summer camp director for the Auburn University Band Department and executive director of the ICA. Currently, he is the executive director of the Worthington Chamber Orchestra.

Dr. Lynch holds a BM from Arizona State University, a MEd from Auburn University, and a DMA from The Ohio State University. His principal clarinet teachers are Caroline Hartig, Robert Spring, David Odom, and Jeremy Reynolds.

WENBIN LYU

Wenbin Lyu (he/him) is a Chinese composer based in Cincinnati. His compositions blend contemporary Western techniques with ancient Oriental culture, drawing inspiration from nature, science, and video games. His works have been featured at over 70 music festivals, such as Cabrillo, Tanglewood, NYCEMF, IRCAM, SEAMUS, and ICMC. He has collaborated with acclaimed ensembles, including the Bufalo Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Beijing Symphony, Eighth Blackbird, Akropolis Quintet, and Sandbox Percussion. Lyu has received one ASCAP Young Composer Award and fve The American Prize awards. Lyu (DMA) holds degrees from the China Conservatory, NEC, and CCM.

TYLER MAZONE

Tyler Mazone is a deaf and neurodivergent bass clarinetist and composer from Michigan. He is working towards a Doctorate in Composition at Michigan State University and is a graduate of there and the Crane School of Music. Tyler advocates for accessibility in music in small and large ensembles alike by molding his work for the performers and educators he composes for. Something Tyler enjoys is actively being a part of new clarinet consortiums. His commissions and performances have included The _____ Experiment, Diversify the Stand, The Royal Irish Academy of Music, the Crane Bands, Michigan State University Bands and Orchestras, Christopher Keach, Major Fifth Music, and Jen Oliverio. Tyler is also published on his website and with various publishers such as CAMCo and Randall Standridge Music. Outside of composition, you’ll fnd Tyler hiking, reading a book, listening to music, or playing video games!

ROBERT MCCLURE

Robert McClure’s music attempts to discover beauty in unconventional places using nontraditional means. His work has been featured at festivals including NYCEMF, Beijing Modern Music Festival, ISCM, TIES, SEAMUS, and ICMC. His works may be found through ADJ·ective New Music, Bachovich Music Publications, Resolute Music Publications, and

Tapspace Publications as well as on ABLAZE, Albany, and New Focus Record labels.

Robert received his doctorate from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Robert has previously held positions at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Soochow University in Suzhou, China. He serves as Associate Professor of Composition/Theory at Ohio University.

ZACHERY S. MEIER

Zachery S. Meier is a composer, collaborator, and futist who resides in central Ohio. As a composer, Meier’s work seeks to intermediate physical and sonic artforms to create sound sculptures. Much of his output resides in solo and chamber works, but has received notable performances from the JACK Quartet, ETHEL (String Quartet), United States Air Force Band, and the Ho Chi Minh Ballet Orchestra. His work has been featured at National and International conferences and festivals; National Flute Association, International Trombone Festival, and College Music Society National Conference. As a collaborator, his work focuses on interdisciplinary exchanges, with a focus on movement and music. His recent collaborations have been featured with Mad Shak Dance Company (Chicago), Macaranas Dance Company (Iowa) and the Denison Theatre Department. As a futist, Meier enjoys performing a wide range of repertoire, from experimental solo and chamber works, to musical theatre pit orchestras as a woodwind doubler.

Meier is currently serving as visiting instructor of Music Theory and Composition at Denison University in Granville, OH and pursuing a PhD in music composition at the University of Iowa.

PETE MILLS

Critics have called saxophonist Pete Mills’ playing “virtuosic” and “gorgeous” and “versatile tenor-kick-butt” (David Franklin, JazzTimes) and the Columbus Dispatch describes Mills’ compositions as being “impressive with solos that are ear opening... with a tone that is big and rich”. His discography includes 4 releases as a leader, Sweet Shadow featuring Matt Wilson, Pete McCann, Martin Wind and Erik Augis, released on the Vancouver based, Cellar Live Records, Fresh Spin featuring B3

organist Tony Monaco and Pete McCann (3½ stars Downbeat magazine) and Art and Architecture (4 stars All Music Guide) that also featured Matt Wilson, Pete McCann and the late bassist, Dennis Irwin. His frst solo release was the acclaimed, Momentum (COJAZZ Records). A native of Toronto Canada, Mills has received grants from The Canada Council and was a recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Jazz Composer’s Fellowship. As a sideman he appears on over a dozen CDs including and performs regularly throughout the U.S and Canada. In Columbus, Ohio he is a featured soloist with The Columbus Jazz Orchestra (Byron Stripling, Musical Director). Pete holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and The University of North Texas and currently teaches saxophone and coordinates jazz studies courses at Denison University.

SEAN PENZO

Born in Genova, Italy, and raised outside of Syracuse, NY, Sean Penzo is a composer, cellist, and writer known for a wide range of collaborations and compositions. He has held positions in East Zodiac and Ethos New Music Society, among others. Penzo has composed for ensembles which have performed his music internationally including Sonic Apricity, Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Quartetto Zuena.

His most recent work writing text has involved writing the libretto for Sierra Wojtczack’s, “Hero’s Awakening”, and content for his bi-weekly music blog, Musician Coop. During his undergrad at SUNY Fredonia, he studied composition with Paul Coleman, Andrew Martin Smith, Rob Deemer, and Jamie Leigh Sampson, and cello with Natasha Farny. After Fredonia, he studied with Keith Fitch and Bryan Dumm in Cleveland, and graduated with a master’s in music composition. He regularly performs, records, and premieres works written by other composers.

CAROLYN REDMAN

Carolyn Redman, mezzo-soprano, is originally from Bellevue, Ohio and received a MM and DMA in vocal performance from the Ohio State University. She has performed operatic roles as well as musical theater roles with various professional companies

including Des Moines Metro Opera, Opera/Columbus, Opera Project Columbus, Columbus Light Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Weathervane Playhouse, and Lyric Opera Cleveland. She was selected as an apprentice artist with both Des Moines Metro Opera and Cincinnati Opera Young Artists programs and was also chosen to perform in masterclasses and performances at the Instituto Superior de Arte of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has been a winner or fnalist in four competitions, including a frst place fnish in the Opera/ Columbus vocal competition. Recent roles include La Badessa in Suor Angelica, Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief, Zita in Gianni Schicchi, Gertrude in Roméo et Juliette, Martha/Ayah in The Secret Garden, Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, Jo in Mark Adamo’s Little Women, Second Lady in The Magic Flute, and Countess Charlotte Malcolm in A Little Night Music. She has also been a featured soloist in oratorios and other concert works with groups such as Cantari Singers, Denison University, Columbus Bach Ensemble, Marion Civic Chorus, Master Singers, Inc. Chorale, New Albany Symphony, Saint Joseph Cathedral, Westerville Symphony, and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. In addition to performing, she serves on the voice faculty of Denison University.

JACOB REED

Jacob Reed is a composer, jazz drummer, and music educator. He has been commissioned by the Central Ohio Symphony, The Worthington Chamber Orchestra, The OSU Department of Dance, Trinity Episcopal on Capitol Square, The Columbus Bicentennial Public Art Commission, the Ohio Music Teachers Association and Hixon Dance. He has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PNC Arts Alive, the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, The Johnston Fund for New Music, the Columbus Foundation, and the Ohio State University Global Arts and Humanities Fund. Reed is intrigued by the intersection of music with other arts and collaborates frequently with choreographers, writers, and visual artists. He writes for orchestras, choirs, chamber groups and his own jazz trio. He has studied with Augusta Read Thomas, Tom Wells, Igor Karaca, Susan Powell, and Joe Ong and holds degrees in Composition, Music Theory and Music Education.

STEVEN ROSENBERG

Steve Rosenberg is Afliate Instructor of Oboe and Chamber Music at Denison University, a position he has held since 1983. He currently performs with the NewarkGranville Symphony Orchestra and Central Ohio Symphony. For ten years he was a member of ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, and has performed with the Lancaster Festival Orchestra, Columbus Symphony, Opera Columbus Orchestra, BalletMet Orchestra, and Broadway series, among others. He played with the Lancaster Festival Orchestra in the award-winning Marquis Classics recording of works by William Bolcolm. In addition, Steve is an active chamber music performer. Principal instructors include Jerome Roth of the New York Philharmonic, James Caldwell of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and William Baker of The Ohio State University. Steve served as Artistic Director of CityMusic Columbus for 30 years and is Orchestra Manager of the Lancaster (OH) Festival.

PHILIP RUDD

Philip Rudd has served as Director of Orchestral Activities at Denison University since 2017, after completing doctoral studies in orchestral conducting at the University of Iowa. His DMA dissertation research examined the infuence of gender and class politics on the development of late-Victorian English women’s orchestras. He remains active as a conductor, violinist, clinician, and adjudicator, and was most recently named a semi-fnalist at the OCCO International Conducting Competition in Portugal. Recent scholarship examining the intersection of aesthetic philosophy and musical practice was presented at the 2022 College Orchestra Directors Association National Conference. He currently serves as Northeast Regional President of CODA. Dr. Rudd often thinks about these things and sings Bob Dylan lyrics while running unreasonably long distances on trails, especially in the Denison Biological Reserve. He has principally studied conducting with Glenn Block, William LaRue Jones, and Kevin Noe.

MATTHEW C. SAUNDERS

Dr. Matthew C. Saunders (born 1976, Austin, Texas, USA) is a Northeast Ohio composer, conductor, trombonist, husband, and father. He fnds inspiration from the vastness of space, the waterways and forests, mountains and prairies of America, the motion of atoms, and the mysteries of existence, and from collaboration with other musicians and his students. After a hard day’s work, he relaxes with his wonderful wife Becky, who is the love of his life and his teammate in the extreme sport of parenting. Dr. Saunders is a lover of solitude and camaraderie, Cincinnati-style chili and Carolina barbecue, road trips, movies, and random facts. His favorite dinosaur is the Parasaurolophus. He gets excited about music that he would never write or perform, and does what he can to share that with the world. Dr. Saunders is Professor of Music at Lakeland Community College, where he directs the Lakeland Civic Orchestra.

ALEXANDER SCHMIDT

Alexander Schmidt is a 23-year-old composer, violist, pianist, and sound engineer currently obtaining a Master’s Degree in Music Composition at Butler University. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he became gradually more interested in the art of music before obtaining a Music Production & Recording Arts degree in Elon University, North Carolina. His most recent EP project is the eclectic, multi-genre Journey to the Tip of the Spire (An Original Soundtrack for an Unmade Game) and the nineminute chamber piece Zone Rouge, inspired by the “Red Zones” marked in France in the aftermath of World War I.

SAMI SEIF

Lebanese composer and music theorist Sami Seif has been praised as “a distinctive compositional voice” who creates “intoxicating and fascinating soundworld[s]”. Described as “very tasteful and favorful” with “beautiful, sensitive writing!”, his music is inspired by the aesthetics, philosophies, paradigms, and poetry of his Middle-Eastern heritage.

Originally from the small town of Ashkout in Mount Lebanon, he was born to a non-musical family in Abu Dhabi and he is fuent in Arabic, French and English. He started out at the age of twelve as a self-taught musician, composing and playing on special, Arabic keyboards designed to accommodate the microtones of Arabic music. Not having had access to formal music education, Seif taught himself how to read and write music by reading theory textbooks. Following studies in composition, music theory, and piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he is currently a doctoral fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center.

PETER VUKMIROVIC STEVENS

An artist in the classical crossover genre, Peter Vukmirovic Stevens’ music intersects the spirit of punk rock into concert music and sound art. He leads Ensemble Ex Materia, a quartet joining composed and improvised music with sound art. Their 2023 EP is available on Arpaviva Recordings. His 2022 piano and spoken word album, S LENCE, featuring Penny Rimbaud (Crass), is available on Caliban/One Little Independent. He also works as a visual artist. In 2022, the score for Improvisation III was presented at the MARe Contemporary Art Museum in Bucharest for their exposition of works combining visual art and music. In 2023, Stevens’ digital artwork was included in the Réalités Nouvelles salon in Paris. His series, RATP - les parfums, is currently presented by Galerie Iconoclastes - Vendôme, Paris.

CRUZ STOCK

Cruz Stock (he/she/they) is interested in composing music close to the human soul that takes the listener on an emotional journey. His piece “Hide Away” was performed at the 2023 Scheherazade Music Festival on June 15th in Manhattan, Kansas.

Cruz is currently pursuing degrees in both Composition and Instrumental Music Education at Bowling Green State University. Her teachers include Christopher Dietz & Piyawat Louilarpprasert in composition and Susan Nelson, Emily Klepinger, and Mariah Stadel in bassoon.

ANDREW THOLL

Andrew Tholl is a composer, violinist, and improvisor. Hailed by the LA Times as “vigorously virtuosic,” his work has been heard across the US and Europe. As a composer, Tholl’s interest lies in the passage of time, the physicality of performance, noise, nostalgia, and memory. His work is heavily informed by a synthesis of musical infuences, the integration of improvisation, and a practice-led approach. As a performer, he is dedicated to new music and the collaborative process between composers and performers. Tholl is a member of Grammy-nominated new music ensemble Wild Up, as well as the Formalist Quartet—a string quartet dedicated to presenting challenging new repertoire. Aside from his work as a “classical” musician, Tholl maintains a second musical life, writing and performing pop, noise, ambient, and improvisational music. Additionally, he has worked extensively in scoring for flm, dance, and theater. He teaches at UC Santa Barbara and Ventura College and lives in Los Angeles.

ERIC ESTRADA VALADEZ

The music of Eric Estrada Valadez has been performed in Korea, México, Canada, USA, and Germany, and has received numerous awards, like the Arturo Márquez Composition Award (2019), the International Composers Competition New Symphony Vienna (2020), the National Composition Competition for Percussion Quartet SAFA (2019), and MUSIQA’s Emergent Composer’s Competition (2022). He has been the recipient of grants from the Young Creators Program of the Fine Arts Institute of Mexico (2021), and the Institute of Fine Arts-Conacyt (2022). He holds a bachelor and master degrees in the feld of composition by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and is currently pursuing a fully funded Doctoral Degree in composition at the University of Houston Moores School of Music with Rob Smith.

JAYLIN VINSON

Jaylin Vinson is an African-American composer who explores the intrinsic beauty in human connection. His work, often collaborative in nature, focuses on narrative story-telling, the complexities of identity, and embracing a sense of unadulterated joy. With performances at prominent venues such as Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center, Vinson has collaborated with various organizations across the country. Some of his recent collaborators include the Brevard Music Center, Columbia Civic Orchestra, Heifetz International Music Institute, and the US Navy Band. Including a distinction from Brevard Music Center as a Fromm Foundation Fellow, Vinson has earned awards from the International Tribeca New Music Ensemble and the Texas New Music Ensemble Composition Competition. Currently, Vinson is pursuing a BM in composition from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

NICK VIRZI

Nick Virzi is a composer from NYC whose work includes acoustic, electronic, and electroacoustic music, as well as intermedia pieces and multichannel installations. His recent pieces explore the relationships between humans and the natural world, numerology and rhythmic structure, and ethnography and identity. Nick’s music has been performed around the world by leading artists including Séverine Ballon, Tony Arnold, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, the JACK Quartet, the Spektral Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Ensemble Liminar, Distractfold, the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, the TAK Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Line Upon Line Percussion. He has been a featured composer at international festivals and venues including Gaudeamus Muziekweek, the Impuls Academy, the Juilliard School, and the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus (DK). Dr. Virzi completed his DMA in Composition at Stanford University, where he also served as a Lecturer in the Department of Music.

KEVIN N. WINES

Kevin N. Wines teaches private voice lessons and music theatre. Kevin has served in many roles for Singers’ Theatre Workshop for more than 20 year: Music Director, Director, Conductor and Accompanist. He also has music directed several productions for the Denison Theatre Department. Serving as Resident Music Director for Weathervane Playhouse in Newark, he has music directed more than 30 productions for the semi-professional regional theatre company.

BEN ZUCKER

Ben Zucker engages in acts of creative juxtaposition and speculation as a composer, audiovisual artist, and multi-instrumentalist. Acclaimed as a “master of improvisation” (IMPOSE Magazine), and “more than a little bit remarkable” (Free Jazz Blog), they have contributed to experimental music scenes across North America and the UK with “stirring compositions…built on a lifetime of musical curiosity” (Chicago Reader), as well as albums, multimedia situations, and frequent performances on vibraphone, brass, voice, and electronics. Following studies at Wesleyan University (BA), Brunel University London (MA), and Northwestern University (PhD), they currently live in Chicago, working as a freelance musician, lecturer, President of New Music Chicago, and curator for Elastic Arts’ Improvised Music Series.

ENSEMBLE ROSTERS

DENISON UNIVERSITY CHAMBER SINGERS ROSTER

Dr. Harris Ipock, conductor

Philip Everingham, rehearsal pianist

SOPRANO ALTO

Micaela Amato

Megan Barker

Monica Bradford

Aliya Brennan

Norah Carter

Frances Goodwin

Brooke Halaby

Julia Hughes

Olivia Jump

Ava Oberle

Erin Oberle

Holly Bowden

Anna Buescher

Natalie Casa

Faye Desarro

Maddie Geschke

Shelby McNeal

Alex Orphanos

Sydney Orrison

Taila Raider-Roth

Alexis Spangler BASS

Maya Sutte

TENOR

Isaac Appel

Sam Bilus

Andrew Hanson

Liam Kaznelson

Max Wisnefski

Zacch Greene

Aaron Bachman

Gabe Donnelly

Will Drew

Noah Estevez-Curtis

Michael Maguire

Luke Martinucci

Hayden Mong

Ian Schneider

DENISON JAZZ COMBO ROSTER

Pete Mills, director

Claire Anderson, saxophone

Phoebe Beckwith, vocals

Jasper Kurtz, guitar

Josh Eppenauer and Kate Ngo, piano

Colin Angstrom and William Murphy, bass

Tara Sefchick, drumset

DENISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ROSTER

Dr. Philip Rudd, conductor

VIOLIN I BASS

Sara Jarecke, concertmaster Colin Angstrom. principal

Takuto Kametsu

Maaike Snider

Asha Jha

Charles Ziegert

Donald Keough

VIOLIN II

KT Amrine, principal

Rainer Yeager

Sophia Paolillo

Raine Brickan

Kenton Kern

Eliza Kurtz

Wenyi Shi

Hadiya El-Maraghi

Emily Yunk

VIOLA

Meredith Shepherd, principal

Duncan Jones

Elliot Grenier

Estan Rodriguez

Jenavier Tejada

Elsa Pfrenger

CELLO

Zoe Pettersen, principal

Alex Kolb

William Murphy

FLUTE

Isabel Chen

Esther Zhang

Carrie Emerman

Antonio Baldovinos

OBOE

Gigi Yakes

CLARINET

Max Bishop

Alex Carlton

Emma Baum

BASSOON

Emily Klepinger**

Scott Hanratty*

HORN

Tifany Damicone**

Mitchell McCrady*

TRUMPET

Eli Lishack

Colin Nguyen

Austen Puglise

Alex VanLaven PERCUSSION

Jack Holland

Cade McCallen

Daniel Ziabicki

Grant Snyde

Erica Elefson

Alex Fragiskatos**

Tara Sefchick*

HARP

Ni

CELEBRATING ELEVEN SEASONS OF TUTTI HISTORY

FEATURED GUEST COMPOSER

FEATURED ARTIST/ENSEMBLE

David Felder, 2004 Sebastian Berwick, 2004

Evan Chambers, 2006 Kalistos, 2006

Derek Bermel, 2009 Brooklyn Rider, 2009

Chen Yi, 2011 Brave New Works, 2011

Gabriela Frank, 2013 Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, 2013

Mary Ellen Childs, 2015

Augusta Read Thomas, 2017

ETHEL, 2015

NOW Ensemble, 2017

Adam Schoenberg, 2019 Third Coast Percussion, 2019

Daniel Roumain, 2020 Sybarite Five, 2020

Julia Wolfe, 2022 Fifth House Ensemble, 2022

Raven Chacon, 2024 Wild Up, 2024

ADDITIONAL GUEST ARTISTS/ENSEMBLES

2006 2017 2022

Avendo

2009

Brave New Works

Kojiro Umezaki

Dwight Adams

2011

Chris Froh

Columbus Childrens’ Choir

Chamber Music Columbus

2013

Kia-Hui Tan

Mayumi Hama

Chris Froh

Minju Choi

2015

Miwa Matreyek

Ian Rosenbaum

Sandra Mathern

Mad Mohre

David Baker

River Song Quintet

ETHEL

Minju Choi

Ron Coulter

Alison Crocetta

Berry & Nance Dance Project

Mark Lomax

Patrick Burke

Emily Pinkerton

2019

ETHEL

Natalie Miebach

Michael Lockwood Crouch

Tara Booth

Columbus Symphony String Quartet

2020

ETHEL

Miwa Matreyek

Columbus Symphony Wind Quintet

Cameron Leach

Bobbie Selvaggio

Jennifer Hambrick

ETHEL

Cameron Leach

Michael Lockwood Crouch

Quenna Lené Barret

Logan Moore

2024

ETHEL

UCelli

Hanif Abdurraqib

Jeremy Kittel

Ojeya Cruz Banks

Marion Ramírez

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANKS!

TO President Adam Weinberg and Provost Kim Coplin for their support of our fne arts division;

TO Zachery Meier, an amazing organizer, colleague, composer, friend and co-host;

TO Elizabeth Dauterman, who kept the trains running and everyone safe and sound;

TO Kathy Peter, Marla Krak, Tess Webster, Chris Montgomery, Owen Beamer, and the amazing EISNER team that makes sure we can do what we want to do;

TO Margot Singer, for advocating the mission of the arts far and wide;

TO Christian Faur, and his support for our division and our activities;

TO Dan Blim, for his continued support of TUTTI as Chair of the Music Department;

TO Robin Pickenpaugh, providing amazing audio support for our concerts;

TO Kristi Matthews and Cristina Dorda Soriano, for their support day in and out of our department;

TO James Weaver, for including us in an amazing week of residency with Hanif Abduraqqib;

TO Dylan Price and Bon Appétit, for all the food and receptions;

TO Phil Meyer and Front of House staf, for keeping our concerts running and guests welcomed;

TO Mike McFerron and Tony Reimer, the good folks at New Music Engine for helping our entire festival by setting up our submission needs;

TO the Department Fellows, you are true ambassadors to our department;

TO the student artists and writers, thank you for your voice to kick of TUTTI 2024;

TO all the student composers who helped throughout the festival, this festival is for you and by you - thank you;

TO Deaf Services Center, Inc., who helped make our concerts even more accessible;

TO OUR ARTISTS:

TO Raven Chacon, your presence and music lifts TUTTI with your energy and spirit; you open up our eyes, our ears, and minds;

TO Wild Up, brilliant artists, thank you for your willingness, your feedback, and openness to go along for this crazy TUTTI ride;

TO Christopher Rountree, for your collaborative spirit, artistry, and willingness to jump into TUTTI and all that we wished to do;

TO UCELLI - Cora, Mary, Wendy, and Pei-An, we’re so lucky to have you all in the Columbus area and are so grateful that you could share your artistry with us;

TO ETHEL - our family, our Ensemble-in-Residence, we treasure every visit, every collaboration, and we appreciate you more and more with each visit—thank you for your adventurous spirit and amazing artistry;

TO Ojeya Cruz Banks and Marion Ramírez, amazing artists and colleagues, for your spectacular Friday night performance;

TO Hanif Abduraqqib, thank you for bringing your energy to kick of TUTTI week;

TO Ron Abram and Jonathan Maskit, for collaborating with us, your Artist Talk and Philosophy Cofee enhances TUTTI in more meaningful ways than we can even predict;

TO Philip Rudd, Harris Ipock, Hanna Hurwitz, and Pete Mills, for bringing TUTTI to your students, and supporting TUTTI with fantastic performances and experiences;

TO Sun Min Kim, Hana Chu, and San Sung Aum, our rockstar piano area, whose amazing energy and artistry are the epitome \ of professionalism.

AND TO OUR PERFORMERS:

A big thank you to all who performed. Without you, we would be sitting in an empty hall, waiting to be flled with music. Thank you for your hard work, dedication, and adding more performances to your already full schedules.

THANK YOU!

CHING-CHU

COVER: 刮, 2011, BY HU HUNG-SHU

49’’ X 49’’ OIL ON CANVAS