THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents the
21st Biennial Festival of New Music Opening Concert (I) featuring works by
Tyson Gholston Davis • Dorothy Hindman Timothy Hoekman • Aaron Houston • Joseph Klein Timothy Kramer • Timothy Roy • Nicholas Villane • Du Yun
Thursday, February 1, 2024 7:30 p.m. | Opperman Music Hall
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All… Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers. Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance. Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five 2working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.
PROGRAM Untitled V (2021)
Dorothy Hindman Darci Wright, Kylan Bigby, Jackson Kowalcyk, and Austin Pelella, percussion
The Ocean Within (2011)
Noël Wan, harp
No Turns on New York (2020)
Audrey Rancourt, clarinet; Jeremy Hill, viola Shiyi Zhu, piano
Emily’s Words (2021)
Carla Connors, soprano; Karen Large, flute Deborah Bish, clarinet; Gregory Sauer, cello Elizabeth Avery, piano
Grey Fireworks (2022)
Gabriela da Silva Fogo, violin Yunyao Liu, piano
Der Saus und Braus—character study after Elias Canetti (2017)
Du Yun Nicholas Villane
Timothy Hoekman
Tyson Gholston Davis
Joseph Klein
Jihye Chang Sung, piano INTERMISSION Run in a Graveyard (2008) Open Borders (2018)
Mary Matthews, flute Kaitlyn Calcagino, flute; Anne Glerum, clarinet Angel Andres, violin; Marina Burguete-Diago, cello Jackie Kai Zhi Yong, piano
dans les dents de la guivre (2021) Dog Days I. Desert Dances II. Floatin’ the River III. Hot with Mustard
Noël Wan, harp
Breezeway Brass Quintet Ben Dubbert, trumpet; Schelvin Robinson, trumpet Tarre Nelson, horn; Grant Keel, trombone; Mike Anderson, tuba
Du Yun Timothy Kramer
Timothy Roy Aaron Houston
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM Dorothy Hindman: Untitled V My recent work deals with covering and uncovering the past. Can we erase the past? Atone for our mistakes? See ourselves as others see us? How do we reconcile who we were with who we are, and what we’ve learned? How do we move forward, confronted with the past in our present? The Untitled works explore these and other questions about our relationships with ourselves and with others: what we seclude, what we own, and what we reveal. In Untitled V, I digitally processed and transformed a recording of one of my past works using spectral manipulation and reverb to imply distance, attempting to “erase” the original piece, or the memory of that which I once was. Lastly, I transcribed the leftover ephemera/remnants to create a new piece from the ashes, a musical shadow of the troubled past that defines me, and that I carry with me in the present, that others do not see. Untitled V was written for the Percussion Collective in 2021. Described as “bright with energy and lilting lyricism” (New York Classical Review), “dramatic, highly strung” (Fanfare), and “utterly rich with purpose and heart” (Huffington Post), Dorothy Hindman’s music has been featured at Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, the Muziekgebouw, and around the world by new music luminaries including Bent Frequency, Empire City Men’s Chorus, Fresh Squeezed Opera, Gregg Smith Singers, Splinter Reeds, the [Switch~ Ensemble], dal niente, Robert Black, Craig Hultgren, Stuart Gerber, and more. Awards and recognition include the Mellon Foundation, Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs, American Prize, Global Music Awards, ISCM/New Music Miami, Iron Composer, NACUSA and others. Her recordings appear on innova, Albany, Capstone and Living Artist; scores available from Subito, NoteNova, and dorn/Needham. She is Associate Professor of Composition at the Frost School of Music. dorothyhindman.com
Du Yun: The Ocean Within “I open my gaze and saw nothing. I close my eyes and sit still. “Should you look closer, you will see how old that feeling is, how loud the sound is. As old as the world, as loud as the ocean.” the lamp enclosed in a glass the glass a brilliant star
– Takashi Murakami
Du Yun, born and raised in Shanghai, China, and currently based in New York City, works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise. Her body of work is championed by some of today’s finest performing groups and organizations around the world. Known for her “relentless originality and unflinching social conscience” (The New Yorker), Du Yun’s second opera, Angel’s Bone (libretto by Royce Vavrek), won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Composition category for her work Air Glow. Her collaborative opera, Sweet Land with Raven Chacon (for opera company The Industry), was the 2021 Best New Opera by the North America Critics Association. Four of her feature studio albums were named The New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of the Year, in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. Her latest monodrama opera In Our Daughter’s Eyes was a notable performance of the year in 2022 by The New Yorker. A community champion, Du Yun was a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble; served as the Artistic Director of MATA Festival (2014-2018); conceived the Pan Asia Sounding Festival (National Sawdust); and founded FutureTradition, a global initiative that illuminates the provenance lineages of folk art and uses these structures to build crossregional collaborations from the ground up. Du Yun was named one of 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation (2018), “Artist of the Year” by the Beijing Music Festival (2019). In 2022, she was granted a Creative Capital Award for an AR inter-
generational Kun-opera project. Asia Society Hong Kong has honored her for her continued contribution in the performing arts field. Other notable awards include Guggenheim, American Academy Berlin Prize, Fromm Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The Carnegie Foundation and the Vilcek Prize in Music have honored her as an immigrant who have made lasting contributions to the American society. In 2023 Harvard University honored her as centennial medalist, the highest recognition for its alumni. As an avid performer and bandleader (Ok Miss), her onstage persona has been described by the New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge.” Du Yun is Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her concert music is published worldwide by G. Schirmer.
Nicholas Villane: No Turns on New York In DeLand, FL, home to my alma mater, Stetson University, is the intersection of Woodland Blvd. and New York Ave. All four directions of this intersection have signs that read, “NO TURNS.” Members of the community started the slogan “No Turns on New York” as a way to help bring awareness of these signs and help alleviate traffic in the area. This has affectionately been turned into a beloved joke and motto of locals and students alike as a form of local pride. For the programmatic listener, one could imagine this piece being like driving on the roads of Central Florida surrounded by stereotypically aggressive drivers, in an area that has constantly deemed the most dangerous place to drive in the country. Nicholas Villane’s works strive to achieve energetic and goal-oriented musical journeys. Born in 1996 in California, Nicholas has resided in Florida for the past decade with both states providing inspiration and experiences for his works. Growing up in a musical household, his studies elevated when he began learning clarinet at the age of 10, and shortly after began to write his first melodies. Villane’s music is broadly influenced, shaped by the belief that music is a shared human experience, welcoming audiences regardless of musical background and knowledge. Nicholas has had works read and recorded by members of Ensemble C Barré, Talea Ensemble, Ekmeles, Icarus Quartet, ~Nois Sax Quartet, Momenta, and Polymorphia. Nicholas is entering his third year of DMA studies at Florida State University studying under Dr. Lilya Ugay. He holds the M.M. from Ithaca College studying with Dr. Evis Sammoutis and Dr. Jorge Grossmann, and the B.M. from Stetson University under Dr. Sydney Hodkinson.
Timothy Hoekman: Emily’s Words Emily’s Words includes 4 of Emily Dickinson’s poems about words. Themes include the inadequacy of words to encapsulate an abstract concept such as beauty; the importance and heaviness of words; the beauty of unspoken words; and the life of words, which, for the poet, begins when they are spoken—or sung. The singing Emily of this piece delivers her words in 4 ways: singing, Sprechgesang, speaking in rhythm, and speaking without specified pitches or rhythm. The first section is playful, with the instruments tossing around various motives. The flute introduces the main melody of section 2, followed by the same melody in canon at a minor ninth between clarinet and cello, then another canon between flute and clarinet. The lyrical third section includes many cross-rhythms, ending with exuberant 16th-note runs, leading to a couple of static bars with trills, which serve as a backdrop for the recitation of the fourth poem. That poem is then sung with a return of the playful music from section 1.
Timothy Hoekman has written in many genres, but most of his works include voice: over 60 songs for voice and keyboard, vocal chamber works, orchestral songs, anthems, an opera, and an oratorio. He has also written pieces for orchestra, piano, organ, harpsichord, trumpet, and concert band. His compositions have been published by Theodore Presser, Colla Voce, Plymouth Music Company, Recital Publications, and Classical Vocal Reprints. He was named the 2002 MTNA-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year for his song cycle To Make a Prairie. His music has been recorded for Albany Records, Azica Records, and Mark Records. Hoekman is Professor Emeritus of Vocal Coaching and Collaborative Piano at Florida State University. He has served as coach and pianist for Glimmerglass Opera (1988-2011), Florida Grand Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Grand Rapids. He currently spends summers as a lieder coach for the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.
Tyson Gholston Davis: Grey Fireworks Grey Fireworks is a work that is a response to a painting of the same name by the American abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler. The composition, like the painting, moves quickly through various moods, colors, and gestures. The immense motion, choice of colors, and seemingly improvisational burst of bright hues of the painting enabled the composition’s structure and capricious quality that certain gestures have in the work. Grey Fireworks was commissioned by the I & I Foundation for Samuel Nebyu (violin) and Charles Abramovic (piano) as part of the Summer Festival of Lucerne Festival 2022. Tyson Gholston Davis is an American composer in his senior year at The Juilliard School where is a recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship studying with Robert Beaser. Davis began composing at the age of eight years old and entered the University North Carolina School of the Arts a high school freshman, studying with Lawrence Dillon. In the summer of 2019, Davis worked with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA) and Antonio Pappano to premiere his work, Delicate Tension, a piece that was commissioned by the American Embassy in Berlin for the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The work was performed in Berlin, Edinburgh, and Hamburg. Since then, Davis has been a leading desired composer to be performed and commissioned by leading ensembles. He has been the recipient of more than 22 commissions by organizations such as The Juilliard String Quartet, the Albany Symphony, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird and other ensembles.
Joseph Klein: Der Saus und Braus Der Saus und Braus (The Fun-runner) is the sixteenth in a series of short works for solo instrument based upon characters in Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere (Earwitness: Fifty Characters), written in 1974 by the Bulgarianborn British-Austrian novelist Elias Canetti (1905-1994). This collection of works, begun in 1997, was inspired by the vividly surreal depictions of Canetti’s characters, and includes twenty-three works to date. In Canetti’s depiction of this character, “the fun-runner would once have come with the wind, now he comes faster… [He] lives in the tempest of towns... [and] has his own language. It consists of names of cities and currencies, exotic specialties and clothes, hotels, beaches, temples, and nightclubs.... Doddery old men may dream of calm ocean voyages... but that’s nothing for him, he’s in a hurry.” Der Saus und Braus was composed in 2017 for pianist Redi Llupa, who premiered the work on 29 April 2018 at the New World Center in Miami, Florida. Joseph Klein is a composer of instrumental, vocal, electroacoustic, and intermedia works, whose music has been described as “a dizzying euphoria... like a sonic tickling with counterpoint gone awry” (NewMusicBox), exhibiting a “confident polyvalence [that] heightens its very real excitement” (The Wire). His work reflects an ongoing interest in processes drawn from such sources as fractal geometry, chaos, and systems theory, often inspired by natural phenomena, and frequently incorporating theatrical
elements as a component of the extra-musical narrative or as an organic outgrowth of the musical process itself. Literature is another important influence on his work, with recent compositions based on the writings of Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti, and Alice Fulton, among others. Klein holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of California, San Diego, and currently serves as Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair of Composition Studies at the University of North Texas.
Du Yun: Run in a Graveyard Imagine, one afternoon you go into a graveyard, any graveyard in total silence and stillness, you start to run, run so fast that your feet almost lifted… a beating heart hot blood in the veins moving through the air, with the feet arching over the earth after a while the motion and the stillness are inseparable and incongruous the presence of stillness at the heart of movement of repose at the heart of the race of respect within transgression the flying objects the inseparable, you are the dead, the dead is you, you feel the long-gone intimacy, you love each other at that moment. Timothy Kramer: Open Border Open borders create interesting languages, intriguing cuisine, and rich artistic cultures. They also invite crosscollaboration and help create friends and allies. Open Borders was written for the Onix Ensemble of Mexico and in response to the political solutions of closing borders. It presents different musical ideas that seem to come from different origins. The piece starts with a ritornello - a short melodic pattern that repeats throughout the work – that regularly recurs in the piano. This singular idea is the core “DNA” of the work and all the music in the piece is cut from it. Through a variety of contrapuntal treatments on this line, a rich tapestry of music unfolds: an odd, exotic tune; a jagged blues progression; a Latin groove; a small minimalist whirlpool; a soft, tender melody; a flashy piano cadenza; and an angular, lively presto. On the return of the opening material, the different types of music find their shared origin. Timothy Kramer’s works have been performed by major orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the U.S., and in Europe and Asia. He has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the MacDowell Colony, Meet the Composer, BMI, ASCAP, and the AGO, and commissions from the Midwest Clinic, the Utah Arts Festival, and the Detroit Chamber Winds, among others. He was Composer-Not-in-Residence with the San Francisco Choral Artists from 2019-2022. His degrees are from Pacific Lutheran University (B.M.) and the University of Michigan (M.M., D.M.A.), and he was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany. Originally from Washington State, he taught at Trinity University in San Antonio for 19 years, where he also founded CASA (Composers Alliance of San Antonio). In 2010 he moved to Illinois College as Chair of Music and named the Edward Capps Professor of Humanities in 2013, and Professor Emeritus in 2020. More information may be found at timothykramer.com.
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Timothy Roy: dans les dents de la guivre Dans les dents de la guivre is the opening movement of Valentina V., an in-progress monodrama for harp, multichannel electronics, and lighting. In this work, the harpist adopts the persona of 14th-century noblewoman Valentina Visconti, whose life ended in tragedy and exile. Valentina V. presents an imagined scene near the end of her life in which she is confined to her chamber with only her harp to confide in. Musical materials are in part derived from the medieval song “La harpe de melodie,” which was likely composed as a gift for Valentina to sing and play herself. The song is at times referenced directly; at other times, it emerges in a fragmented or distorted form, representing Valentina’s reminiscences as they are filtered through her fractured psyche. Drawn from Victor Hugo’s poem “Canaris,” the opening movement’s title, “dans les dents de la guivre” (“in the teeth of the viper”), refers to the Visconti family’s coat of arms: a serpentine creature devouring an infant. Timothy Roy composes music steeped in imagery and allusion, which often seeks to elicit a sense of time, place, and feeling. His music has been presented at such venues and events as the National Theater of Taipei, Music Biennale Zagreb, ZKM Karlsruhe, Birmingham Electro-Acoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST), Bowling Green New Music Festival, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, International Computer Music Cconference, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Chile, “Aimaako.” He has received honors from the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (1st Prize), ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Award (1st Prize), Giga-Hertz Production Prize from ZKM (Honorable Mention), Prix Destellos (1st Prize), Città di Udine (Finalist), among others. Roy has taught composition, theory, and electroacoustic music at Western Michigan University and Rice University. He is currently completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University.
Houston: Dog Days Summers are getting hotter, and summers in Texas weren’t exactly cool to begin with. Dog Days is a collection of scenes for brass quintet depicting the grueling days so many people long for – when the days are longer and the sounds of nature seem to be calling our names – but maybe not in the way you would expect. Conjuring up the images of someone dancing through the heatstroke of the West Texas desert or floating serenely down a river in an inner tube, this collection of short scenes snaps back to the reality that so many of us more frequently experience: being stuck in a traffic jam downtown while eating a hot dog and trying not to get mustard on your shirt. With a “strong voice in composition” (Ellen Taaffe Zwilich), the music of Aaron Houston (b. 1991) lives where the energetic soul of rock, folk music, and more collides with his classical training in unexpected ways that the Tallahassee Democrat said “[feels] alive and tangible to the audience.” As a composer, Aaron has been recognized as an award nominee from the Academy of Arts & Letters, a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, winner of the Dallas Winds 2020 Fanfare Contest, and winner of the Civitasolis Quintet 2020 Call for Scores, among others. His music has been performed by the Albany Symphony (NY), Dallas Winds, the Baltimore Choral Arts Center and more throughout the United States, Germany, and Brazil. Aaron holds degrees in composition from Baylor University and Florida State University where he was the recipient of the 20172018 Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Fellowship for orchestral composition.
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