Department of Music

• Friday, September 14, 2012
  Saturday, September 15, 2012
  
  
• Old Cabell Hall
  Open Grounds
  
• 8:00pm
  8:00pm

Featuring Guest Composers Mara Helmuth and Christopher Adler
Support for this festival is provided by the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts: fostering access + innovation.

Friday, September 14, 2012

• 2:00 pm: Composer Masterclass at Open Grounds with
  guest composers Mara Helmuth and Christopher Adler
• 7:00 pm:  Pre-concert Panel in Old Cabell Hall with
  guest composer Mara Helmuth, UVA's Judith Shatin, and other guests to be announced.
• 8:00 pm: Concert in Old Cabell Hall featuring music by Christopher Adler, Matthew Burtner, Ted Coffey, Mara Helmuth, and Judith Shatin.  Guest Performers include Morris Palter (percussion) Christopher Adler (piano), Mark Menzies (violin) and the Rivanna String Quartet.  The concert will include Coffey's Lullabies and Protest Songs, Suite #3; Burtner's dis(Sensus), Helmuth's Where is My Voice, and Shatin's Respecting the First, for amplified string quartet and electronics made from readings of and about the first amendment.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

• 2:00 pm:  "Music Resource Center Student Hip Hop Showcase" at The Bridge.
• 7:00 pm:  Music and Politics, a Pre-concert Panel at Open Grounds on the UVA Corner.  Led by UVA's Chris Peck and Ted Coffey.
• 8:00 pm:  Concert at Open Grounds featuring music by Christopher Adler, Jolie Sphinx, and UVA Graduate Student Composers.
  
  

This weekend, the University of Virginia's Virginia Center for Computer Music will present two days of events exploring the intersection of music and politics, and will partner with the Music Resource Center and the Bridge for a special student hip-hop showcase on Saturday.

"TechnoSonics XIII: Music and Politics" features guest composer Mara Helmuth, and Christopher Adler, and guest performers Mark Menzies, Morris Palter, and members of UVa's Rivanna String Quartet. The events on Friday and Saturday will be both on and off Grounds. TechnoSonics XIII is supported by the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts fostering access + innovation.

The action begins Friday at 2 p.m. with a master class at Open Grounds presented by Helmuth, a composer who frequently uses computers, multimedia and software in her composition and improvisation.

At 7 p.m., Helmuth and Shatin, joined by UVA Professor Bonnie Gordon and MRC Outreach Coordinator Damani Harrison, will participate in a pre-concert panel in Old Cabell Hall. The panel discussion will be followed at 8 p.m. by a concert that includes Adler's "Epilogue for a Dark Day," Burtner's "(dis)Sensus," Coffey's "Lullabies and Protest Songs, Suite #3," Helmuth's "Where is My Voice," and Shatin's "Respecting the First," for amplified string quartet and electronics made from readings of and about the First Amendment.

"My inspiration for that piece came from looking around at our political landscape and thinking of the importance of our Constitutional guarantees, particularly the freedom of speech," Shatin said.

Shatin said her piece is dedicated to Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman shot in January 2011. It includes an excerpt of Giffords reading the First Amendment.

TechnoSonics continues Saturday at 2 p.m. with a hip-hop showcase at The Bridge PAI, a Charlottesville arts organization. That performance will feature students and alumni of after-school programs at the Music Resource Center, a Charlottesville-based organization where area middle- and high-school students hone their musical skills. The performance is also part of a month-long festival at the Bridge called Audio September, organized by UVA composition graduate students Chris Peck, Kevin Davis, Erik DeLuca, Emily Gale and UVA alum Victoria Long. DeLuca said the idea for the hip-hop showcase grew in part from an observation that hip-hop performance is rarely a part of presentations from academic music departments.

"There are so many awesome types of music in this small town of Charlottesville. But often, we're only exposed to the music that's in our immediate spheres," DeLuca said. "We wanted to host a hip-hop event that showcases the work of students working at the Music Resource Center."

As a genre, hip-hop is loaded with political and cultural implications that make it an appropriate addition to the theme of this year's TechnoSonics, he said.

TechnoSonics continues Saturday with a 7 p.m. panel on Music and Politics at Open Grounds featuring composers Matthew Burtner, Chris Peck, ethnomusicologist Michelle Kisliuk and local businesswoman and folklorist Joan Fenton. It will be followed at 8 p.m. by a concert featuring Adler's "Jolie Sphinx," Applebaum's "Aphasia," Peck's "Transparency Happening," Globokar's "Corpel," and Tfirn's "Dystopia."

Link to an article by Rob Seal in Inside UVA about TechnoSonics XIII.

Locations:
Old Cabell Hall: On the historic Lawn at UVA. #31 on the UVA Map
Open Grounds: On University Avenue at the intersection with 14th street. http://opengrounds.virginia.edu/contact.html
The Bridge: 209 Monticello Road, Charlottesville, Va.