New Music Ensemble directed by I-Jen Fang
The University of Virginia McIntire Department of Music presents the New Music Ensemble in concert on Thursday, April 21st, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.
The New Music Ensemble, directed by I-Jen Fang, presents a concert of text-centric compositions. In Tape Music, by UVa Prof. Judith Shatin, performers are guided by text instructions on cue cards as they manipulate adhesive tape in various ways to create sonic textures. These textures are blended with pre-recorded sounds that have been digitally layered and transformed. The piece was inspired by the sounds of exploited Nigerian workers in China and is a meditation on the role of tape in our culture, both as a part of our throwaway culture and a means to mend items that would otherwise be thrown away. Max Tfirn's Cherry Tree & Blood is a spectral composition for mixed ensemble and electronics that explores timbres and relationships taken from images. The images are interpolated into sound and then analyzed for frequency content and duration. The frequencies are then grouped into chord clusters that the ensemble improvises with.
Frederic Rzewski's Coming Together is a minimalist-style composition for narrator and indeterminate ensemble that explores the the psychological effects of the atrocities (including 43 deaths) that took place during 1971 Attica Prison Riot. The text of the more aggressive first movement derives from a letter written by inmate Sam Melville, who was killed in the riot. In the reflective and relatively calmer second movement, the text, "Attica is in front of me now,” was a response from inmate Richard X. Clark (one of a group of peaceful Muslim prisoners who protected prison staff) when asked what it felt like to put Attica behind him.
Current members of the ensemble are Jon Bellona, Kevin Davis, Oliver Dubon, David Joo, Jackson Patton-Smith, Connor Reilly, Maxwell Tfirn, Paul Turowski, Kristina Warren and Madeline Zehnder.
I-Jen Fang is on the faculty of the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia and is the Principal Timpanist and Percussionist of the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia. She directs the UVA New Music Ensemble, the Percussion Ensemble and co-directs the Lunchbox Recitals. She received her B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University, M.M. from Northwestern University and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Texas.
Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic Lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. Parking is available in at the Central Grounds Parking Garage, or in the Corner parking lots off University Avenue. For more information pleae call the McIntire Department of Music at 434.924.3052.