Oberlin College and Conservatory

Panel Discussion: George Lewis - "Metaphor of Train in African American Expressivity"

Monday, May 5, 2014 at 7:30pm to 9:30pm

Bibbins Hall (Conservatory of Music), Room 224
77 West College Street, Oberlin, OH 44074

Panel Discussion: George Lewis - "Metaphor of Train in African American Expressivity " with Justin Emeka, Caroline Jackson Smith, George Lewis and Johnny Coleman.

Admission is free.

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George E. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002, an Alpert Award in the Arts in 1999, a United States Artists 2011 USA Walker Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lewis studied composition with Muhal Richard Abrams at the AACM School of Music, and trombone with Dean Hey. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis's work as composer, improvisor, performer and interpreter explores electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, text-sound works, and notated and improvisative forms, and is documented on more than 140 recordings.

His oral history is archived in Yale University's collection of "Major Figures in American Music," and his compositions and installations have been presented by the American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Talea Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wet Ink, Turning Point Ensemble, Ensemble Erik Satie, Ensemble Dal Niente, Bowling Green Festival of New Music, Eco Ensemble, and others, with commissions from the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad, Ensemble Either/Or, OPUS (Paris), IRCAM, Orkestra Futura, Harvestworks, Studio Museum in Harlem, the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and others. Most recently, Lewis has served as Ernest Bloch Visiting Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley; Paul Fromm Composer in Residence, American Academy in Rome; Resident Scholar, Center for Disciplinary Innovation, Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago; and CAC Fitt Artist In Residence, Brown University. Lewis has been honored with the 2012 SEAMUS Award from the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and his widely acclaimed book, A Power Stronger Than Itself:  The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) is a recipient of the American Book Award. Lewis is the co-editor of the forthcoming two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies

Professor Lewis came to Columbia in 2004, having previously taught at the University of California, San Diego, Mills College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Simon Fraser University's Contemporary Arts Summer Institute.

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