Brightwork newmusic and HEX Vocal Ensemble with new works by The Art of Song Seminar Projects and CSUF Composers
6:00-9:00pm • Tuesday, May 13, 2025 • Recital Hall
Welcome to the College of the Arts Spring 2025 Season. As we come together to enjoy incredible art, dance, music and theatre programming from across the college, I know we are all still reeling from the recent fires that tore through the communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. In many ways, we are all Angelenos and when our city breaks, we break. Many of our students, faculty, and staff are finding comfort in processing complex thoughts and emotions the only way we know how: through the arts. It is our calling and what ties us to our community. Through our programming, we hope to provide a bit of respite to all of you during this time of regrouping and rebuilding.
In the College of the Arts, every note, every movement, and every word spoken on stage brings opportunity for discovery and connection. Whether you are a fellow Titan, family member, or community supporter, we are thrilled to have you here. You are now part of something much larger than this single performance. You are joining a vibrant and diverse collective of artists and technicians working together to push the boundaries of their craft.
Spring 2025 brings us a season of fresh programming to challenge our perceptions and immerse us in new perspectives. Later this month, the School of Music presents “Hajar,” a contemporary opera synthesizing ancient Jewish and Islamic stories into a modern immigration tale. Theatre begins their season with “Significant Other,” a heartfelt tale of love and longing in 21st century New York City. If you haven’t yet seen our spectacular new gallery building, make time to see “Chris O’Leary: Gravity Well” – an exploration of the cosmic phenomena of gravitational waves using video, sound, and images. In May, our dancers and choreographers return to the intimate Hallberg Theatre in “Spring Dance Theatre: From All Sides,” where viewers will experience a variety of dance forms from every angle of the stage.
It takes more than just the emotional support of friends, family, professors, and mentors to enable students to take creative risks of expression. As a college, we remain committed to providing these aspiring arts professionals with scholarships, financial assistance, and the industry-ready equipment, facilities, and opportunities to further develop their skills outside the classroom. Our resolve is steadfast, but we need your continued support to sustain and expand our educational mission, ensuring our students have the tools necessary to succeed. Please consider a donation of any amount to the Dean’s Fund for Excellence today.
I thank you for being here, for your ongoing support, and for your conviction in the power of the arts. Together, we can accomplish the extraordinary.
Sincerely,
Arnold Holland, EdD Dean, College of the Arts
INTERARTS COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS SYMPOSIUM
Pamela Madsen, director
Interstitial Projects featuring Brightwork newmusic and HEX Vocal Ensemble with new works by The Art of Song Seminar Projects and CSUF Composers
Los Angeles is a magnet for diverse individuals who embrace, explore, and celebrate their unique and intersectional identities. For Interstitial: A Book of (Musical) Stories, noted composers and librettists are teaming up to create six original pieces inspired by and amplifying the in-between cultures of the city, which will be performed by the nationally recognized chamber ensemble Brightwork newmusic and renowned vocal sextet HEX. Topics of this extraordinary, multi-part concert will include migration, gentrification, community, and more.
Featuring Interstitial Projects by CSUF InterArts Collaborative Projects Graduate Students in The Art of Song Seminar and works by CSUF students composers: Julia Craft, Scott Dilbeck, Lucas Edwards, Janae Harabedian, Emerson Kimble, Alejandro Matamoros, Ivan Parga-Renteria, Luke Templeman, and faculty composer Pamela Madsen
PROGRAM NOTES
Art of Song Class Interstitial Projects
Ocean Litany-El Sendero del Alma
Ivan Parga-Renteria, Composer/Librettist
This piece is a guided improvisation based on deep listening, textual response, and unpredictable texture. It mimics the ocean’s randomness, with moments of stillness, turbulence, layering and silence. The ensemble is collaborative. Music arises from the text, environment and spontaneous reaction among players. There is no fixed tempo, key or meter. The speakers/vocalists determine the form of the piece, base upon additional notations/markings made on the text for the reader to perform.
Orchard
Scott Dilbeck, composer, Dominic Preston, librettist
“’Orchard’ is the first of a multimovement work that focuses primarily on my own musical journey as it relates to identity and my experiences as a first-generation Asian American. The work combines elements of melodrama and American Art Song to tell the story of my childhood through music, vignettes, and song. Paralleling my own musical journey, the work uses violin, piano, and organ to represent my experiences in music as a child. It begins with a solo violin playing a musical theme that symbolizes a heartbeat, with the piano layering in before the final addition of the singer. Nostalgic vignettes of my childhood are placed in between the different sections of the work, adding to the tenderness and warmth that encompasses the work. The piece concludes with an organ arrangement of the hymn, “Here I Am, Lord,” a hymn that I fondly remember singing all over the house as a child. This piece reminds me of the innocence of childhood and the captivating effect of music.”
-Kevin Phan
My mother crossed in quiet dusk Luke Templeman, composer Natalie Saucedo, librettist
A tale of sacrifice and endurance, a daughter reflects on her parents’ sacrificial choices to emigrate to the United States of America. As she reflects on her upbringing, the daughter describes in depth the everyday sacrifices and realities that her parents faced in order to give her a better life. While experiencing intense emotion and turmoil, she wrestles with her success and comes to the brutal realization that her parents’ dreams were the chance that she could live out her dreams. This piece is a love letter and a dedication of gratitude to the sacrifices that our immigrant families gave us in order to pursue our dreams and the guilt we feel in realizing that they will never experience the dreams they wanted for themselves.
Everyday (2025)
Alejandro Matamoros, composer/librettist
This piece is a small collection of my time in California. As a music student, I have spent the majority of my time in California inside the walls of the practice room, on the third floor of the music building, in a corner of a large state university. I am from El Paso, Texas and moving to California, in the eyes of my friends and family, was supposed to be a big change for me. To us California is the land of palm trees and prosperity. Instead of going to the beach or walking down Hollywood Boulevard I have spent my time time practicing Bach alone. This isn’t to say it without its joys.
PROGRAM NOTES
is already implicate in our experience. We hope this encourages the listener to either de-value “authenticity” as a valuable aesthetic in regards to recorded sound & past time, or alternatively, find an equal degree of authenticity in recorded sound & past time.
Works performed by HEX and Brightwork newmusic
Ave Maris Stella / I Saw a Distant Flame
Scott Dilbeck, composer/librettist
This piece serves as a snapshot of my high school experience, capturing a transformative period when I felt caught between two very different musical worlds. Each morning, I would sit outside the choir room with my headphones on, immersing myself in metal bands like Tool, System of a Down, Godsmack, and Evanescence—music that resonated deeply with my adolescent angst, complicated feelings about the world, and questions about religion. Moments later, stepping into the choir room, I found myself singing Renaissance music by composers such as Josquin, Palestrina, Byrd, and Tallis. These pieces were beautiful, human, and calming—quite the opposite of the emotional turmoil captured by my metal playlist. Only in hindsight did I realize how formative both these musical experiences were for me, shaping not only my musical tastes but my emotional and personal identity. Surprisingly, I’ve come to see that metal and Renaissance music share more common ground than initially meets the eye: both are modal, emotionally intense, and complex in their own distinctive ways. Metal achieves complexity primarily through rhythm, while Renaissance music achieves it through textural intricacy and imitation. In combining these influences, this composition emerges as a kind of metal motet—a symbolic reaection rather than a literal depiction of my personal journey. The selected texts, “Ave Maris Stella” and my original metal-inspired lyrics, are chosen not to tell my story
explicitly but to evoke themes of identity, authenticity, and the coexistence of contrasting emotions and styles.
-Scott Dilbeck
What if There Was an Edge and We Fell Right Off (2024) 5. lost to the whirl Janae Rose Harabedian, composer Trianne Harabedian-Flores, text
A setting of a poem by the same name who’s vivid imagery takes your imagination on a captivating journey. The poem is by Trianne Harabedian-Flores (1995-), who holds a MA and a MFA in creative writing. Her pieces have been featured in literary publications such as West Trade Review, The Ear, and Transfer.
bumble bees in the sea rockets, clump of green stretching limbs flowering white edges at the bottom of the sand dune
how close do they fly to the foam crashed waves black wings swirl quick so quick but do they dare
I never imagine insects at the ocean at the beachin the crawling groundcover fleshy green survives on sandy hills but always far from water
how many things exist in places where they don’t belong how many glittering grains of sand turn dark sticks to my feet I run in and out of ice water
PROGRAM NOTES
Spinning was inspired by the Interstitial Project, Los Angeles, which Brightwork newmusic and HEX vocal ensemble performed at CSUF during Spring 2025. To depict this sense of the wanderer, I set the text of Lorca’s Poem of the Deep Song, and Poem of the Gypsy—for it resonated with that sense of journeying on—as in Henry Miller’s book: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch and the quote that inspired the unraveling and spinning nature of the piano part “if you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there”—the work begins with an urgent setting of an Edna St. Vincent Millay text, a recap of wandering theme from my Opera Why Women Went West and then a setting of these Lorca texts presses every forward, and along the way encounters desperation, cries of children’s voices and loss of innocence through the setting of Emily Dickinson’s Let Me Not Mar they Perfect Dream and Ezra Pound’s Empty are the Ways to arrive at the wonder and “optic of enchantment” of the setting sun, and the arrival of civil twilight—on the precipice of the earth horizon, when then stars just appear. This sense of awe and slippage of time fast unraveling is what I am seeking and perhaps I’ve found the road to take me there. The work is followed by a coda—an overlapping arrival of Ad Astra (to the stars) as an optic of enchantment--a sonic mandala composition of strategic stars mapped on a manuscript paper this spring, setting the opening the text of Mary Austin’s final novel: Starry Adventure (1931).
From To Elinor Wylie (Died 1928)
Edna St. Vincent Millay
II. (1928)
For there is no song . . . only the shaking of the voice that’s meant to sing; the sound of the strong voice breaking.
from Poem of the Deep Song
Federico Garcia Lorca
“Siguiriya’s Way”
Among black butterflies
A dark-haired girl
Walks alongside a white serpent
Of fog.
Land of light,
Sky of the earth.
She’s tied to the tremor
Of a rhythm that never arrives; She has a heart of silver
And in her right hand a dagger.
Where are you going, (Siguiriaya),
In such mindless rhythm?
Which moon will take in The white was and oleander of your pain?
Land of light
Sky of the earth.
“And Then”
The labyrinths that time creates disappear.
(Only the desert remains.)
The Illusion of dawn and of kisses disappears.
Only the desert remains.
A rippling desert.
“After Passing”
Children look into the distance.
The oil lamps are extinguished. blind young women
PROGRAM NOTES
question the moon, and spirals of crying rise into the air.
Mountains look into the distance.
“The Silence”
Can you hear the silence, My son?
A rolling silence
A silence, That leads valleys and echoes astray, And draws our foreheads To the ground.
Empty are the Ways Ezra Pound
Empty are the Ways of the land And the flowers Bend over with heavy heads, They bend in vain Empty are the ways of the land Where Ione walked once. But now does not walk. But seems like a person just gone.
Let me not mar that perfect dream 1335
Emily Dickinson
Let me know mar that perfect Dream by an Auroral Stain but so adjust my daily Night that it will come again.
Not when we know, the Power accosts--the Garment of Surprise was all out timid Mother wore at home –in Paradise
from Starry Adventure (1931)
Mary Hunter Austin
Lo, yonder, Lo Swiftly the rain rallied and blotted out the splendor, All but a thin slit through which a golden wing of light flew towards me. It came, grew visible with nearness, and took shape against the tops of the yellowing Aspens.
In the cienaga below the house, almost on a level with my wide-eyed starring, A glowing brightness like hot brass, like molten ends of rainbows, And in the midst, in the midst. . . out of this hushed wonder, I saw God.
Aron Kallay, piano
Brian Walsh, clarinet
Rachel Iba, violin
Mia Barcia-Colombo, cello
Brightwork newmusic was founded in 2013 by pianist and Pomona College faculty member Aron Kallay. The organization’s mission is to enliven and expand contemporary
classical music with a focus on West Coast composers and performers. The members of the in-house ensemble, Brightwork, are among the best chamber musicians in the world. The ensemble strives to find new and exciting ways to connect with audiences in the US and abroad by presenting friendly and exciting concerts in both traditional and non-traditional spaces. Through its educational outreach program, ProjectBeacon, they work closely with young musicians and composers across Southern California. The goal is to empower the next generation of artists through residencies with youth orchestras and universities, student composer readings, masterclasses, and workshops.
A flexible and fearless group of world-class musicians, Brightwork consists of piano, violin, soprano, cello, flute, clarinet, percussion (an instrumentation which is often called “Pierrot + percussion,” and which is to modern chamber music what the string quartet was to earlier centuries), and champions the best of the music that’s being written today, while continuing to play the classics of “new” music from the last hundred years.
We play the music we love, whether this is one of our favorite masterworks of the 20th century, or the latest dazzling score from a composer whose music we just discovered. What the listener can expect at a Brightwork concert–at the very least–is exciting, emotionally engaging music presented in state-of-the-art performances. Brightwork seeks to draw the audience into the creative process.
Molly Pease, soprano
Lindsay Abdou, alto
Fahad Siadat, tenor
James Hayden, bass
Described by the LA Times as “a luminous ensemble of singers,” HEX is an award-winning contemporary vocal sextet based in Los Angeles dedicated to performing new works that reimagine the expressive potential of the human voice. The group features critically-acclaimed singers who have been featured soloists with LA Opera, LA Philharmonic, Long Beach Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, and Industry Opera. HEX has
performed with Brightwork newmusic, theatre dybbuk, and the Resonance Collective, and at venues such as the Broadstage, Meng Concert Hall, Tuesdays@Monk Space, HEAR NOW Music Festival, Sound and Fury Concert Series, and more. In 2022, HEX was nominated for the San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Choice awards in four categories and received the award for “Best Orchestral Performance” for their premiere performance of Oratorio of the Earth.
ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Fahad SIADAT
A “fanciful and downright utopian artist and thinker” (LA Times), Fahad Siadat explores sound as spiritual practice, creating interdisciplinary pieces as a vehicle for unveiling the mystery of our interconnected world. His music is described as “evoking wonder, desire, and terror” (Off Broadway) with narratives that “border on being a spiritual journey” (LA Dance Chronicle). and has been presented by the L.A. County Museum of Art, Broadstage, and Museum of Contemporary Art. Working as a performer, composer, conductor, and curator, Fahad is the director of the Resonance Collective and the award-winning vocal ensemble HEX. His music has been performed in Europe, China, and across the United States.
Pamela MADSEN
Pamela Madsen is a composer, performer, theorist, writer and curator of new music. From massive immersive concert-length projects, solo works, chamber music to multi-media opera collaborations her work focuses on issues of social change, exploration of image, music, text and the environment. With a Ph.D. in Music Composition from UCSD, studies with Brian Ferneyhough, Mellon Foundation Doctoral Research Award in theory at Yale University, Post- Doctoral research in Music Technology at IRCAM, Paris, and Deep Listening Certificate with Pauline Oliveros, her creative projects and research focuses on the evolution of compositional thought, improvisation, electronic music, and women in music.
Madsen’s works have been commissioned and premiered world-wide by such artists as Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Brightwork newmusic, ModernMedieval, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Tony Arnold, Nicholas Isherwood, Stacey Fraser, Claire Chase, Jane Rigler, Anne LaBerge, Brian Walsh, Lisa Moore, Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay, Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, Ashley Bathgate, Trio Solisti, New York New Music Ensemble, Either/Or, yesaroun’ duo, California Ear Unit, Verdehr Trio, Zeitgeist, JACK, Ethel, Lyris, Formalist and Arditti string quartets with multi- media collaborations with visual artists Quintan Ana Wikswo, Camille Seaman, Jimena Sarno and Judy Chicago.
Major concert-length projects include Madsen’s Opera America and National Endowment for the Arts Funded Opera: Why Women Went West, National Endowment for the Arts and New Music USA supported Oratorio for the Earth; Luminous Etudes: Visions of the Black Madonna of Montserrat; Luminosity: Passions of Marie Curie multi-media opera; Melting Away: Gravity for orchestra, with Arctic photographer Camille Seaman; We are All Sibyls-Envisioning the Future Project multi-media opera installation with visual artist Judy Chicago. Selected as Huntington Library Mellon Research Fellow, Alpert Award Panelist, Creative Capital artist “on the radar” with awards from Opera America, National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, American Scandinavian Foundation, artist residency fellowships at MacDowell Colony, UCross, Wyoming, Women’s International Studies Center, New Mexico, Wurlitzer Foundation Award, with international Russia/Siberia Concert tour, featured composer at Pulsar Festival, Denmark, she is a frequent guest artist at festivals and universities worldwide. She is Director of the Annual New Music Festival, InterArts Collaborative Projects at Cal State Fullerton where she is Professor of Music Composition, Music Theory and Director of the New Music Ensemble.
ONTIVEROS SOCIETY
The Ontiveros Society includes individuals who have provided a gift for Cal State Fullerton through their estate plan. We extend our deep appreciation to the following Ontiveros Society members, whose gifts will benefit the students and mission of the College of the Arts:
ANONYMOUS
JOHN ALEXANDER
LEE & DR. NICHOLAS A.* BEGOVICH
GAIL & MICHAEL COCHRAN
MARC R. DICKEY
JOANN DRIGGERS
BETTY EVERETT
CAROL J. GEISBAUER
& JOHN* GEISBAUER
SOPHIA & CHARLES GRAY
MARYLOUISE & ED HLAVAC
GRETCHEN KANNE
DR. BURTON L. KARSON
ANNE L. KRUZIC*
LOREEN & JOHN LOFTUS
ALAN A. MANNASON*
WILLIAM J. MCGARVEY*
DR. SALLIE MITCHELL*
ELEANORE P. & JAMES L. MONROE
LYNN & ROBERT MYERS
MR. BOB & MRS. TERRI NICCUM
DWIGHT RICHARD ODLE*
SHERRY & DR. GORDON PAINE
*deceased
DR. JUNE POLLAK
& MR. GEORGE POLLAK*
DR. STEPHEN M. ROCHFORD
MR. STAN MARK RYAN ‘75
MARY K. & WILLIAM SAMPSON
LORENA SIKORSKI
DOUGLAS G. STEWART
ANDREA J. & JEFFREY E. SWARD
RICHARD J. TAYLOR
VERNE WAGNER
RICHARD WULFF
DR. JAMES D. & DOTTIE YOUNG*
The College of the Arts Proudly Recognizes the 300+ Members of Our VOLUNTEER SUPPORT GROUPS
ALLIANCE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: The Alliance for the Performing Arts (formerly MAMM) benefits performing arts students through underwriting visiting artists; special theatre, dance, and music performances; and other unique experiences for members.
SPECIAL SUPPORT AND EVENT UNDERWRITING
Judy Atwell
Drs. Voiza & Joe Arnold
Dr. Margaret Faulwell Gordon
Susan Hallman
Norma Morris Richard Odle Estate
Kerry & John Phelps
Jeanie Stockwell Verne Wagner
ART ALLIANCE: Art Alliance promotes excellence and enjoyment in the visual arts, and their fundraising efforts contribute to student scholarship, gallery exhibitions, opening receptions and sculpture acquisition on campus.
SPECIAL SUPPORT AND EVENT UNDERWRITING
Fay Colmar
John DeLoof
Joann Driggers & Steve Collier
Loraine Walkington
MUSIC ASSOCIATES: Music Associates maintains a tradition of active involvement and community support, and raises scholarship funds for School of Music students through annual fundraising events and membership dues.
SPECIAL SUPPORT AND EVENT UNDERWRITING
Marilyn Carlson
Evelyn K. Francuz
Sandy & Norm Johnson
Marti & Bill Kurschat
Karen & George Mast
Thelma & Earl Mellott
Bettina Murphy
Grace & Ujinobu Niwa
Kerry & John Phelps
Mary & Jerry Reinhart
Ann & Thad Sandford
Dodo V. Standring
Carolyn & Tom Toby
John Van Wey
MORE INFORMATION: Haley Sanford • 657-278-2663
There are many ways to support the College of the Arts, the School of Music, Department of Theatre and Dance, and Department of Visual Arts
