The University of Michigan’s final student composers’ concert of 2010 took place this last Monday, November 29, in Stamps Auditorium, part of the University’s Walgreen Drama Center. This collection of performances was unexpected; so many composers submitted material for November 15’s composers’ concert, a brief third concert of the term was necessary. Whereas the concert earlier this month was unique with its multiple composer-performers, Monday’s event possessed a more subtle distinction: a strong stylistic dichotomy emerged among the works, essentially pitting modernist and traditional forces in opposition to each other. From a qualitative standpoint, I found this duality inconsequential because
Read moreThe University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance’s second Student Composers’ concert of the year took place this last Monday, November 15. A hefty buffet of close to two hours of music, I found the evening passed by quickly and satisfactorily because each work was strikingly self-confident and virtually every moment of music was significant such that it never seemed like the pieces were treading water. Beyond this, the concert was particularly remarkable because of the prevalent display of composition students’ performing abilities. Only three of the night’s eight pieces lacked a composer-performer, and two among the other
Read moreAlthough Ann Arbor’s ONCE. MORE. festival, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ONCE Group composers, does not end until tonight, the events with the surviving founders of the groundbreaking concert series – Roger Reynolds, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma and Donald Scavarda – concluded Thursday evening. That night’s ONCE. NOW. concert featured more recent works by these four composers. Robert Ashley’s Van Cao’s Meditation (1991), for piano, opened the evening. The piece was resonant, repetitive, and reminded me of Satie’s Ogives in spirit. Essentially, Van Cao’s Meditation milled about one confined group of a few notes which covered all registers of
Read moreLast night, Rackham Auditorium on Washington Street in Ann Arbor, MI became a sort of communal time machine. Complete with a vintage magnetic tape reel, electronic synthesizer and “public disturbance”, performed by students from the University of Michigan School of Music’s Composition Department, the hall carried its occupants back to the revolutionary decade of the 1960s when a group of young, local composers called the ONCE Group started a groundbreaking and historic contemporary music festival. These composers were Roger Reynolds, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Donald Scavarda (pictured to the right) and the late George Cacioppo, and the music they created
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Chamber Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, Music Events
Tomorrow and Thursday are two special nights for contemporary music in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This week, the University Musical Society is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the ONCE composers, a group of University of Michigan student composers whose 1960s new music festivals gained worldwide acclaim. The surviving members of the group, which was founded by Roger Reynolds, Robert Ashley, Donald Scavarda, Gordon Mumma, and the late George Cacioppo, have come back to Ann Arbor to revisit the revolutionary spirit that inspired them and recognize what they’ve achieved in the years since they left Michigan. The local media here in southeast
Read moreThe University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) proudly hosted last weekend’s meeting of the MidWest Composers Symposium, a consortium currently made up of the composition departments from CCM, Indiana University and the Universities of Iowa and Michigan. The Symposium dates back to the 1960s, and, according to University of Michigan Professor of Composition Evan Chambers, arose dually from the prevailing sentiment that American contemporary music was not respected globally and the fact that, at that time, it was exceptionally challenging for student composers to get their works performed. “Each of the [charter] schools was known for different kinds of
Read moreThe first University of Michigan Composers’ Forum concert of the 2010-2011 season took place in the evening on Monday, October 11. Earmarked by the department as a preview for the upcoming Midwest Composers Symposium in Cincinnati, I had been looking forward to this event for over a month as my first opportunity to experience the creativity of my colleagues here in Michigan. Like most music schools, our Composers’ Forum is organized and performed by students and viewed as an arena in which the composers studying here may test concepts and solidify their ideas before moving on to a more professional
Read moreWhen Christopher James Lees (pictured to the right), conductor of the University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble (CDE), challenged the literal meaning of “contemporary” before the group’s concert last Wednesday, he imbued the performance with special significance. The concert, dubbed “homage to the masters”, aimed to explore certain works’ and composers’ relevance, chronology notwithstanding, and featured Morton Feldman’s Madame Press Died Last Week at 90 (1970), Toru Takemitsu’s Air (1995), George Perle’s Six Celebratory Inventions (1995), Benjamin Lees’s Piano Trio no. 2 (1998) and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto (1970) (additionally, Elliott Carter’s Gra (1975) was supposed to be played but
Read moreLast week at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance saw a visit from renowned band composer John Mackey. Accurately described as a young hotshot, Mackey’s transformation from an unknown dance-music composer in New York to a wildly successful creator of band music began with the 2004 wind ensemble arrangement of his orchestral work, Redline Tango. Since then he has received countless performances from high school, college and professional groups and has earned stunning national popularity best illustrated by his estimable total of 5,000 Facebook friends. Though he came to Michigan for the October 1 performance of
Read moreThere are few institutions in America with a richer history than the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance and the composition department there has a particularly impressive tradition. With past and present faculty and students including Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, William Bolcom and George Crumb, UM composers have had a hand in much of contemporary American music history including the homegrown Once Festival and other movements such as Bang on a Can. Moreover, with alumni currently holding faculty positions at premiere music schools across the country (including UM), it seems safe to say that – despite the
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