News from the College of Musical Arts

BOWLING GREEN, O.—The College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University invites the community to “Experience the Top” during the 2013-14 Festival Series. Highlighting performances in a variety of categories, the series features artists who are rising to the top. Series tickets are available now online at the BGSU box office.

The series begins on Sept. 28 in Kobacker Hall, where guests can listen to outstanding young musicians at a live taping of the popular National Public Radio show “From the Top,” hosted by acclaimed pianist Christopher O’Riley, who also performed as a soloist in the 2012 BGSU Festival Series.

What began as a radio experiment in 2000 quickly became one of the fastest growing and most popular weekly classical music programs on public radio. Broadcast on nearly 250 stations nationwide to an audience of more than 700,000 listeners each week, “From the Top” celebrates the performances and stories of America’s best pre-college classical musicians.

“‘From the Top’ gives young musicians the stage but lets them act their age. It’s serious music but classically kids,” said The New York Times.

Continuing the series, guests will experience an extravaganza of BGSU’s top artistic talent on Dec. 6 at a special holiday concert that will be part of the annual ArtsX event. In the first ever such large-scale collaboration, the College of Musical Arts, the School of Art, and the departments of theater and film, creative writing, and dance will present an artistic showcase themed “Wonderland.” The concert will include ensembles from the University and community, as well as readings, performances and artistic expressions celebrating the season from students and faculty in theater, film, dance and fine art. This is a holiday event that encompasses all the talents among the arts at BGSU, and will be an evening for all ages.

In the spring of 2014, Festival Series will welcome one of today’s top pianists, Jeremy Denk, performing on Feb. 15. “Mr. Denk, clearly, is a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs, in whatever combination – both for his penetrating intellectual engagement with the music and for the generosity of his playing,” said the New York Times.

An American pianist with an international reach, Denk has steadily built a reputation as an unusual and compelling artist, with a broad and thought-provoking repertoire. He has appeared as soloist with many major orchestras in the United States and around the world. But beyond that, Denk is also known for his witty and personal music writing, which has appeared in The New Yorker and Newsweek, on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, on the NPR Music website and in his widely read blog.

The Festival Series concludes April 5, 2014, on a comic note with the renowned Improvised Shakespeare Company (ISC). Based on an audience suggestion, the company creates a fully improvised play in Elizabethan style. Each of the players has brushed up on his “thee’s” and “thou’s” to produce evening of off-the-cuff comedy using the language and themes of William Shakespeare. Any hour could be filled with power struggles, star-crossed lovers, sprites, kings, queens, rhyming couplets, insults, persons in disguise and all that we’ve come to expect from the pen of the Great Bard. The night could reveal a tragedy, comedy, or history. Nothing is planned out, rehearsed, or written. Each play is completely improvised, so each play is entirely new.

The Improvised Shakespeare Company, founded in 2005, has been performing its critically acclaimed show every Friday night at the world-famous iO Theater in Chicago and entertains audiences around the globe. It has been named Chicago’s best improvisation group by both the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Examiner and has received a New York Nightlife Award for “Best Comedic Performance by a Group.”

The Festival Series is one of the oldest running performance series at BGSU, and is made possible by the support of the community. Series tickets range from $58-$147 and are available online, or by calling the Arts Box Office at 419-372-8171. Individual event tickets will be available in August. Visit the Arts Box Office website for specific ticket prices and event times.

Sunday, May 5

11:00 a.m. – Church Service at First United Methodist Church, Bowling Green, OH

1506 East Wooster

Bowling Green, OH 43402

7:00 p.m. – Evening Concert at Bay United Methodist Church, Bay Village, OH

29931 Lake Rd

Bay Village, OH  44140

Monday, May 6

11:00 a.m. – Performance at Manchester Presbyterian Lodge, Erie, PA

6351 West Lake Road

Erie, PA 16505

7:00 p.m. – Evening Concert at Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo

695 Elmwood Ave.

Buffalo, NY 14222

Wednesday, May 8

7:30 p.m. – Evening Concert at Knox Presbyterian Church, Waterloo, ON

50 Erb Street West

Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 1T1

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Accomplished young classical musicians from northwest Ohio are invited to audition for a chance to appear on National Public Radio’s popular program “From the Top.” Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts will host a live taping of the preeminent showcase for young musicians, to be recorded at the Moore Musical Arts Center Sept. 28. The event will lead off the college’s 2013-14 Festival Series.

 By Elizabeth Cope

Per F. Broman, Associate Professor of Music Theory, along with three graduate students, musicologist Jane Hines, composers Michael Kasinger and Carter Rice, will present research papers at the Music and Moving Image conference at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, May 31-June 2.

Hines’s “The Enchanted Concerto: World War II, Propaganda, and Musemes” analyses the use of the Hubert Bath’s composition Cornish Rhapsody in  John Cromwell’s film The Enchanted Cottage (1945);  Rice’s “Thematic Textures in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Films” shows the transformation of traditional Leitmotifs from the early Batman (1989) to The Dark Knight (2008); Kasinger’s “Sleight of Ear: The Use of the Unexpected in Film Scores” illustrates how carefully selected music acts a barrier between the audience and the cinematic events, controlling the emotional and intellectual response, by using Joel and Ethan Coen’ Burn After Reading (2008) and Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch (2011) as case studies; Broman’s “Mute the Bereaved Memories Speak: A Pasolinian Requiem” traces the close intertextual musical relationship between the Sven-David Sandström’s Requiem (1979) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò (1975), which provides important keys to understanding the requiem.

Pop, rock, country, alt country, classical, jazz … today’s music can usually be classified by genre. But what exactly is “contemporary” or “new” music?

Defying musical definition, contemporary music composers often write pieces for classical instruments but take advantage of the technological advancements of today, creating sounds that can both emotionally move and challenge audience perceptions of what music can and should be.

New music is also currently enjoying a resurgence driven by younger composers and younger audiences looking for something new, said Kurt Doles, director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music (MACCM) at Bowling Green State University.

For more than 40 years, BGSU’s College of Musical Arts has been at the leading edge of new music. As home to MACCM, an award-winning organization devoted to the study and promotion of contemporary music and technology, the University has been an active and prolific contributor to the national and international new music scene.

Faculty and graduate students from the University’s renowned contemporary music program will be taking that musical style from the Midwest to the Big Apple when they perform on April 3 at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City’s Greenwich Village, presenting a program of varied and challenging new music. The music club is a venue for both nontraditional music and interactive media, which often go together.

The New York performance is a continuation of BGSU’s tradition. The program will include works by composers such as Sebastian Currier, Iannis Xenakis, Jon Christopher Nelson, Leroux, Jonathan Harvey, BGSU faculty composer Christopher Dietz and BGSU alumna Jennifer Higdon, winner of Pulitzer and Grammy awards. The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m.

“The mix we’re bringing is a broad range of music that showcases the versatility of the genre and the strength of the performers,” Doles said. “We have a good mix of both accessible and challenging works.”

Creating and performing new music requires a distinct musical skill set – the technical and creative demands are beyond typical classical music. In many ways, it is tied to the indie-rock movement, and while there has always been a small but loyal audience, the people finding it now are a younger, thoughtful, educated crowd interested in something unique, Doles said.

BGSU has developed one of the top programs in the country. Along with MACMM, Bowling Green maintains a robust composition program, a vibrant new-music-focused Doctor of Musical Arts in Contemporary Music curriculum, and hosts the annual Bowling Green New Music Festival, now in its 34th year, which has brought some of the leading lights of the new music world to campus. The New York performance represents the beginning of a greater outreach for the program.

Tickets to the show are $10, and are available at Le Poisson Rouge’s box office website, http://www.lepoissonrouge.com. LPR is located at 158 Bleecker St., on the site of the former Village Gate nightclub.

For more information, contact the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at 419-372-2685.

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Celebrate one remarkably romantic night in Paris in June of 1914 with “The Merry Widow,” performed March 22 and 24 in the Wolfe Center for the Arts at Bowling Green State University.

Performances of the operetta are at 8 p.m. Friday, March 22, and 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 24, in the Thomas B. and Kathleen M. Donnell Theatre.

Those who are interested in learning more about the popular hit are invited to a Director’s Forum, one hour before curtain, at 7 p.m. on March 22 and 2 p.m. on March 24, in the Eva Marie Saint Theatre. BGSU musicologist Dr. Eftychia Papanikolaou and Christopher Scholl, an associate professor of voice and opera studies, will provide commentary on the music and stage history of Franz Lehar’s operetta, with musical examples prepared especially for the forum. Dr. Ron Shields, a professor of theater and film, will also share insights into his role as stage director for the production.

Set within the walls of the humble Pontevedrian Embassy, yet within sight of the newly electrified Eiffel Tower, provincial and urbane worlds gently collide through flirtations and stolen kisses. The plot follows the intrigues of the characters as they amusingly waltz to delightful conclusions in this musical comedy of manners.

Widely believed to be the most popular operetta of all time, Lehar’s “The Merry Widow” has been presented over 500,000 times since it first won audience applause at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna in 1905. Both a popular cultural phenomena and a stage sensation, the operetta prompted distinctive marketing ploys, including cocktails, songbooks in multiple languages, hats and shoes, and even a “Merry Widow” cigar.

The production is a collaboration among the BGSU Department of Theatre and Film, BGSU Opera Theater and the College of Musical Arts.

For ticket information, visit the BGSU Box Office online at http://BGSU.edu/Arts, or call 419-372-8171.

The Falcon Marching Band, Carol Hayward, director,  has been selected for a video performance at the 2013 conference of the College Band Directors National Conference at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Falcon Marching Band was one of 10 bands selected from nationwide applicants through a peer-review process. The selected bands will be featured at the conference on Mar. 21, 2013.

The show to be presented at the conference, performed by the 280 member Falcon Marching Band in collaboration with the BGSU Men’s Chorus, Timothy Cloeter, director, is titled “I Hear America Singing.”  Performed on Sept. 10, 2011, the show is a medley of patriotic selections, selected to honor those who gave their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the survivors, first responders, and members of the military who assisted in the recovery and rescue efforts. The musical arrangements are by Falcon Marching Band staff arranger, Ryan Nowlin, and the visual design is by Carol Hayward.

32 pianists, chosen from the region’s schools (Univ of Michigan, BGSU, Michigan State, Central Michigan University, Wayne State Univ, Interlochen, etc.), performed all the Beethoven piano sonatas at the DSO’s Max Fisher Music Center.   Six of the 32 participants were selected to have their performances broadcast on WRCJ.  Two of those six chosen were  BGSU pianists Xueli Liu, who performed the Sonata in E-flat, Op. 31, No. 3, “The Hunt,” and Jianhong Hu, who played the Sonata in F-minor, Op. 57, the “Appassionata.”

BGSU graduate Andrew Selle (BMus 2012) has taken a big bite out of the Big Apple! He was selected from numerous applicants to compose music and serve as musical director for “Circle of Haunts”, a ghost opera/dance theater event based on Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw.” Selle composed all the opera’s music, which includes nine performers singing numerous a capella arias and recitatives, along with assorted hand-held instruments the performers use on stage. The opera was staged seven times in February, and reviewed by nytheater.com, which hails Selle’s music as “most striking.” http://www.nytheatre.com/Review/martin-denton-2013-2-12-circle-of-haunts