Category Archives: composition

CMA Faculty and Students Participate in STEM in the Park

composition, education, events, faculty news, student news
CMA Professor Elainie Lillios and six BGSU graduate composers representing BGSUElectroacoustics will host a hands (and ears)-on display at  STEM in the Park, a young persons fair featuring interactive displays and activities involving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM.) Their booth’s title, “What’s that CRAZY Sound? Making Music with Technology” features a recording and sound processing station, a video tracking system that translates the human image into music, and two iPads loaded with fun sound apps. Stop by to experience the
exciting world of music technology! Saturday 07 September, 10-2pm, BGSU Perry Fieldhouse

BGSU, WGTE Public Media, WFMT Radio launch ‘new music’ radio series

composition, events, faculty news, MACCM, student news

 BOWLING GREEN, O.—The College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University, a leading institution in the study and promotion of contemporary music and technology, has announced its collaboration with WGTE Public Media and the WFMT Radio Network on a new, nationally syndicated radio series dedicated to contemporary music.

“New Music from Bowling Green” is a 13-part series of hourlong episodes drawing on live concert recordings from the BGSU New Music Festival and Music at the Forefront series, as well as commercial recordings from the Bowling Green Philharmonia and the BGSU Wind Symphony. It is the only nationally syndicated radio program in and from a university setting, and will be internationally syndicated next year.

Hosted by award-winning producer and WGTE radio personality Brad Cresswell, the series originates from the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, part of the BGSU College of Musical Arts, in northwest Ohio. Designed with the mainstream classical music listener in mind, the program features audience-friendly modern works that are introduced by their composers and the musicians who bring those works to life.

The list of composers featured on “New Music from Bowling Green” includes notable artists such as Samuel Adler, Caleb Burhans, Michael Daugherty, David Lang, Kevin Puts, Shulamit Ran, Steven Stucky, and Christopher Theofanidis. The show also features Jennifer Higdon, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music and BGSU alumna, who is one of the world’s most-performed living composers. Other highlights of the series include a program of award-winning works by student composers and a concert by the BGSU New Music Ensemble recorded live at New York City’s celebrated new-music cabaret Le Poisson Rouge.

“I’m honored to be a part of this radio program, not only because of my connection to BGSU, but because of the fantastic variety and quality of music offered,” Higdon said. “My hope is that the program will introduce listeners across the country to these vitally important works of living composers, which represent the future of our classical music industry.”

For more than 40 years, the College of Musical Arts at BGSU has been at the edge of contemporary music as an active and prolific contributor to the national and international new music scene. Its large and well-known composition faculty developed the nearly unique degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Contemporary Music, whose graduates have gone on to thriving careers in composition, conducting, and performance.

“The College of Musical Arts at BGSU of course knows that contemporary compositions are the future of classical music, and the radio series will go far in introducing them to listeners, both sophisticated and new, in a way that makes them both accessible and enjoyable,” said Dr. Jeffrey Showell, dean of the college.

Interest has been strong, with markets including Atlanta, Omaha and St. Louis carrying the series. Additionally, beginning in January 2014, the program will be marketed overseas to English-speaking countries, including Australia, England, Ireland and New Zealand.

“New Music from Bowling Green” will air locally on WGTE 91.3 FM, Sundays at 1 p.m., beginning Oct. 6. Listeners may contact their local NPR station to request the show. For more information, and to listen to a preview of the show, visit BGSU.edu/NewMusic

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About the WFMT Radio Network

The WFMT Radio Network is a premier creator of radio programs that are syndicated to hundreds ofradio stations throughout the United States and internationally, with a focus on classical music, jazz, folk, science and world culture. It is the home of prestigious classical concert series such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic; the renowned daily music appreciation series “Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin”; a national opera series; “Jazz from Lincoln Center”; Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; “The Midnight Special”(folk music with a sense of humor); hourly modular classical and jazz series (Beethoven Satellite Network and Jazz Satellite Network), and dozens of other programs that range from ongoing weekly series to one-time radio specials. The WFMT Radio Network continually travels the world to develop new programming, having produced series from places such as Austria, South Africa, Scotland, Israel and many other locations.

About WGTE Public Media (The Public Broadcasting Foundation of Northwest Ohio)

Founded as an educational institute in 1952, WGTE is a nonprofit organization and a center of learning and education for northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. From its entertaining, informative and educational programs that air on WGTE TV, FM 91, and www.Knowledgestream.org to its professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers and preschool day care providers, WGTE is committed to making its listening area a better place to live.

Lillios Premiere at 2013 Nief Norf Festival

composition, faculty news

Professor Elainie Lillios’s new composition “The Rush of the Brook Stills the Mind” for multi-percussion and live, interactive electroacoustics premiered on June 1, 2013 at the Nief Norf Festival in Greenville, South Carolina. The annual summer festival attracts percussionists, composers, and other performers who workshop and perform challenging contemporary literature and explore special topics surrounding the avant-garde. Percussionist Scott Deal, Nief Norf’s 2013 keynote speaker and featured guest, premiered the work.

Lillios to teach electracoustic performance in Greece as Fulbright scholar

composition, faculty news, MACCM, Uncategorized

BOWLING GREEN, O.—As Dr. Elainie Lillios goes about preparing for the end of the semester at Bowling Green State University, getting ready for a premiere of her work in South Carolina in June and for her commission to compose in Paris this fall, she is also spending some time each day learning Greek.

Lillios, an associate professor of composition specializing in electroacoustic music, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach a seminar and conduct research at the Municipal Conservatory at Thermi in Thessaloniki, Greece, next fall.

“I’m a composer, but I’ll be exploring a new area of instruction,” she said. “I’ll be teaching performers how to perform with technology.”

A prolific composer, Lillios is well known in the electroacoustic world. In 2009 she won first prize in the “music with instruments” section at the 36th annual Bourges International Competition in France for her composition “Veiled Resonance,” written for soprano saxophone and live electronics. Last year she became only the second American composer in the history of the prestigious Groupe de Recherches Musicales musical research group in Paris to be awarded a commission. Lillios’s new work will be premiered in October as a featured piece on the group’s “Multiphonies” concert series. She will perform it at La maison de Radio France in the Salle Olivier Messiaen, on the organization’s famous “Acousmonium,” an orchestra of 80-plus loudspeakers arranged throughout the concert space.

In her invitation to Lillios to come to Thermi, Artistic Director Erato Alakiozidou said the conservatory was interested in “your expertise on integration of new technology in composition, performance and repertoire selection. Quite recently, our conservatory started a contemporary music and music technology department and there are already 20 students interested in attending such a seminar.”

“The conservatory students who attend the seminar play traditional instruments, but want to learn to integrate technology into performance,” said Lillios. “We’ll investigate performers who specialize in technology, and I’ll show them how to use microphones, how to prepare pieces employing technology, and how to work with sound systems. The seminar’s capstone event will be a concert where students will perform technology-mediated pieces they select and rehearse in collaboration with their studio instructor.”

Integrating technology calls for a specific type of composition, and one of Lillios’ goals is “to leave the conservatory with the beginnings of a technology-mediated score repository so that they have the resources to continue after I’m gone.

“Many contemporary composers create music combining live and acoustic instruments with technology,” she said. “It could be saxophone with fixed media (what we used to call tape), or flute with computer – which listens to the music and reacts to it.”

To gather the necessary materials, she will put out a call for scores, and all submissions will go to Greece for student and faculty use.

In many ways, the trip to Greece is a reconnection for Lillios, whose father was Greek and who still has family in the Thessaloniki area. She taught in a weeklong electroacoustic composition workshop in Corfu during a 2007 sabbatical.

The connection with the Thermi conservatory, though, is with a BGSU alumnus from Greece, Theofilios Sotiriades, who was a graduate student in Distinguished Artist Professor John Sampen’s saxophone program. Sotiriades now teaches at the conservatory.

“When he (Sotiriades) was at Bowling Green, he took the music technology class and loved it. He’s been championing me to come to Greece ever since,” Lillios said, adding that while there is a lot of electronic music in the country as a whole, “I’m bringing something new to the conservatory, and I hope to get the students and the faculty excited about it.”

In addition to teaching and composing, “I plan to travel and lecture in various parts of the country,” Lillios said. “With the Fulbright, I will be a diplomat to build bridges in my field between creative people in Greece and creative people here.”

She plans to renew her connections with the Corfu faculty and arrange to lecture there as well. “I want to recruit for our program and build connections. I want to collaborate with Theofilios (Sotiriades) and compose a piece for the resident faculty ensemble.

“I’m looking forward to working with students and faculty at the Municipal Conservatory, connecting with family and immersing myself in Greek culture,” she said.

BGSU issues call for young musician applicants for “From the Top”

alumni, composition, education, events, keyboard, student news, Uncategorized, voice

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.

Hosted by pianist Christopher O’Riley, the show is heard locally Sundays on WGTE-FM and features the performances and personal stories of extraordinary young classical musicians from across the country.

Regional musicians can submit an application and recording by mail. Applications can be downloaded at www.fromthetop.org and are due by June 28 to be considered for the BGSU taping.

Classical musicians ages 8-18 who have not yet graduated from high school are eligible for the program. Young performers can audition as soloists (including vocalists), instrumental or vocal ensembles, or as composers who have a piece they wish to have performed. While the show focuses mostly on classical repertoire, from time to time it will feature other genres, especially if the piece connects with the heritage of the regional taping.

There is a $50 application fee which can be paid online or by check. The fee is waived for students with financial need who are also applying for the show’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award scholarship.

In addition to being a radio program, From the Top is an independent, Boston-based nonprofit. Each year, it partners with the Cooke Foundation to award about 20 scholarships of up to $10,000 to pre-collegiate classical musicians who appear on the show. Students must demonstrate high levels of artistic achievement as well as financial need to be eligible for the award. Interested applicants apply for the scholarship in tandem with their application to appear on the radio program. More information about the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award can be found on the “From the Top” website.

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 nearly 700,000 listeners each week, “From the Top” has been described by the Boston Globe as “an entertaining, accessible and inspirational mix of outstanding musical performances, informal interviews, skits and games; the show is a celebration of extraordinary musicians who happen to be teenagers leading fairly normal lives.”

Annually, the program’s live tapings reach more than 20,000 audience members of all ages. In conjunction with its national tour, From the Top offers leadership training to young artists and conducts classroom and community programs leveraging the power of its performers as role models for younger students. Through the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the program has invested more than $1.6 million in support of pre-college students since 2005. Learn more at www.fromthetop.org.

Prof. Broman presents a paper at Harvard

composition, faculty news, theory-musicology-ethnomusicology

Per F. Broman, Associate Professor of Music Theory and Associate Dean, will present his paper “Mute the Bereaved Memories Speak: ‘Vulgar! Rough! Tasteless!—A major music event! Brilliant critique of civilization’,” a paper dealing with the first Requiem by composer Sven-David Sandström, at the Society for Word-Music Relations 7th Annual Lyrica Dialogues at Harvard University on May 3.