Department of Music

The Unviersity of Virginia McIntire Department of Music presents Uncanny Valley on Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 at 8pm in Old Cabell Hall.  The concert is free and open to the public.

In this program (a newly-commissioned concert-length piece by composerJohn Gibson), the piano performance of Oni Buchanan joins and reflects the spoken text of the poem “Uncanny Valley” as performed by its author, poet Jon Woodward. “Uncanny Valley” is a long serial poem in 16 sections, meant to be read out loud, with numerous optional repeats throughout the text. These repetitions act as accumulations of sound, maddening as well as hypnotic, and Gibson’s piece provides a sonic environment in which they can truly blossom. Although the pacing is determined by the two performers, the musical specificity of each section (from Morse code to sine waves to jazz to a brief quote of Schumann) reflects the poem text in ever-different ways. Digital samples triggered by the reader enmesh the piano and spoken text, haunting the music with echoes of itself. Extending outward from the phenomenon of “semantic satiation” (whereby a single word loses all apparent meaning and identity when repeated for even a short duration), this program investigates whether or not the same satiation is possible with phrases, sentences, pairs of verse lines, or musical forms.

In 1970, roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term “uncanny valley” to describe the emotional and empathic chasm between humans and imperfect human simulacra, a gap created by their imperfection. This program searches out what is most uncanny, and most human, in both language and music. 

Piano works to be performed on UNCANNY VALLEY program include:

John Gibson, concert-length commission for piano, reader, and electronic samples
Jon Woodward, "Uncanny Valley" poem text.

Concert pianist Oni Buchanan brings grace, agility, and intensity to an incredible range of piano literature. She specializes in music by women composers of the 21st century, with particular focus on the music of Cindy Cox, Mei-Fang Lin, Annie Gosfield, Missy Mazzoli, and Carolyn Yarnell, among many others. In addition, Ms. Buchanan is a natural interpreter of French music, and her gorgeous performance projects span several centuries, from the miniature keyboard works of François Couperin to the lush expanses of Ravel to the jubilant textures of Messiaen. She also finds exceptional affinity with the polyphonic genius of Bach and Schumann, as well as with the lyrical and percussive mastery of such composers as Prokofiev, Bartók, Stravinsky, and Villa-Lobos.

Ms. Buchanan has performed solo recitals in major cities throughout the U.S. She has performed internationally in major South American cities including Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, São Paulo, Porto Alegre, and Montevideo, as well as in Canadian cities including Guelph, Waterloo, Thunder Bay, and Charlottetown. Ms. Buchanan received her Master’s degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, her Bachelor’s degree in music (as well as English) from the University of Virginia, and conducted three years of her music studies at the University of Iowa School of Music while pursuing her M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her teachers have included Russell Sherman, Stephen Drury, Daniel Epstein, Patricia Zander, Uriel Tsachor, and Mimi Tung. Her discography includes three solo piano CDs on the independent Velvet Ear Records label, with a fourth CD scheduled for release in November 2012.

Oni is also an award-winning poet. Her third poetry book, Must a Violence, will be published by the University of Iowa Press in October 2012 as part of its celebrated Kuhl House Poets series, curated by poet/editor Mark Levine. Her second book of poetry, Spring (University of Illinois Press, 2008), was selected by Mark Doty as a winner of the National Poetry Series, and also received the 2009 Massachusetts Book Award. Her first book, What Animal(UGA Press, 2003), was chosen by Fanny Howe as winner of the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series competition. Ms. Buchanan’s poems are featured in many anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2004 and have been published in numerous journals across the country.

John Gibson’s acoustic and electroacoustic music has been presented in the US, Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia. His instrumental compositions have been performed by many groups, including the London Sinfonietta, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Seattle Symphony, the Music Today Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, Ekko!, and at the Tanglewood, Marlboro and June in Buffalo festivals. Presentations of his electroacoustic music include concerts at the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, the Bourges Synthèse Festival, the Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music, the International Biennial for Electroacoustic Music of Sao Paulo, Keio University in Japan, the Third Practice Festival, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, and several ICMC and SEAMUS conferences. Among his grants and awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Foundation Grants, and the Paul Jacobs Memorial Fund Commission from the Tanglewood Music Center. Recordings of his music appear on the Centaur, Everglade, and SEAMUS labels. Gibson holds a Ph.D. in music from Princeton University, where he studied with Milton Babbitt, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, and others. He writes sound processing and synthesis software, and has taught composition and computer music at the University of Virginia, Duke University, and the University of Louisville. He is now Associate Professor of Composition at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Jon Woodward was born in Wichita, KS, and has lived in Denver and Fort Collins, CO, as well as Boston and Quincy, MA. His books are Uncanny Valley (Cleveland State University Poetry Center), Rain (Wave Books), and Mister Goodbye Easter Island (Alice James Books). Other recent projects include a 40-foot-long Möbius strip poem, called "Mockingbird," which was typed on adding machine tape; a suite of time-dependent visual poems called "Poems to Stare At;" and an ongoing poem called "Copyleft," to which quatrains are added at the rate of one per day. He lives in Quincy with his wife, poet and pianist Oni Buchanan, and he works at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, where he specializes in digital imaging and a variety of other curatorial activities.

Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic Lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda.  Parking is available in the Central Grounds Parking Garage, or in the lots off University Avenue at the University Corner.  Handicapped parking is available in the C1 parking lot or in designated spaces on McCormick Avenue.

For more information please call the McIntire Department of Music at 434.924.3052.