Oberlin College and Conservatory

Contemporary Music Ensemble: Timothy Weiss, conductor

Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 8:00pm to 10:00pm

Warner Concert Hall
77 West College Street, Oberlin, OH 44074

A concert by the Contemporary Music Ensemble conducted by Timothy Weiss.

Guest artists will include Tony Arnold ’90, soprano and George Lewis, composer-in-residence.

Program:

George Lewis: Flux (2014) (World Premiere) 

Jennifer Higdon: wissahickon poeTrees (1998)

spring; ...clock...; summer; ...clocking...; autumn; ...clocking through...; winter; clocking through time...

György Kurtág: Messages of the Late Miss R. V. Troussova, Op. 17 (1980)

In a space; The day has fallen; Heat; Two interlaced bodies; Why should I not squeal like a pig; Chastushka; You took my heart; Great misery; Pebbles; A slender needle; I know my loved one

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George E. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. The recipient of a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship, a 1999 Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2011 United States Artists 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 in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, and notated and improvisative forms is documented on more than 140 recordings. His work has been presented by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Talea Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wet Ink, Ensemble Erik Satie, Eco Ensemble, and others, with commissions from American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Harvestworks, Ensemble Either/Or, Orkestra Futura, Turning Point Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad, IRCAM, Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and others. 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, University of Chicago; and CAC Fitt Artist In Residence, Brown University. Lewis received the 2012 SEAMUS Award from the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and his book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. Lewis is the co-editor of the forthcoming two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, and is composing Afterword, an opera commissioned by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago, to be premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in Fall 2015.

 

The Chicago Tribune writes, “anything sung by soprano Tony Arnold is worth hearing.” Hailed by the New York Times as “a bold, powerful interpreter,” she is recognized internationally as a leading proponent of new music in concert and recording, praised for her sparkling and insightful performances of the most daunting contemporary scores. Since becoming the first-prize laureate of the both the 2001 Gaudeamus International Competition (NL) and the 2001 Louise D. McMahon Competition (USA), Ms. Arnold has collaborated with the most cutting- edge composers and instrumentalists on the world stage, receiving consistent critical accolades for a voice of beauty and warmth, an uncanny technical facility, sterling musicianship, and her riveting stage presence. “Simply put, she is a rock-star in this genre” (Sequenza 21).

Tony Arnold is the soprano of the intrepid International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and with them has premiered over 25 new works written expressly for her voice. She has received critical acclaim for her performances with Ensemble Modern, Chicago Symphony Orchestra MusicNOW, L.A. Philharmonic New Music Group, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, New York New Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and many others. International festival appearances include Darmstadt (Germany), Cervantino (Mexico), Luzern (Switzerland), Tongyeong (Korea), and soundSCAPE (Italy), where she performs and teaches each summer. Ms. Arnold has collaborated with the most renown composers of our day, including George Crumb, György Kurtág, Georges Aperghis, David Lang, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jason Eckardt, Eric Chasalow, and John Zorn. To date, Ms. Arnold has premiered over 200 new works for voice.

Tony Arnold is one of the most recorded singers of contemporary music, with more than two-dozen discs to her credit on labels including Bridge, Naxos, New Focus, and Mode. Her recording of Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children (Bridge) was nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award. Other notable releases include a CD/DVD set of Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments (Bridge); Messiaen’s epic song cycle Harawi (New Focus); Jason Eckardt’s Undersong (Mode); and Berio’s Sequenza III and the complete chamber songs of Webern (both on Naxos).

Since 2003 Tony Arnold has served on the faculty of the University at Buffalo. In 2009 she was the Howard Hanson Visiting Professor of Composition at the Eastman School, the only performer ever to have held that position. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University.

Growing up in suburban Baltimore, Tony Arnold composed, sang, and played every instrument she could persuade her parents to let her bring home, but never intended to become a professional vocalist. Instead, she applied her broad musical background to the study of orchestral conducting. Following graduate school, she was thrice a fellow of the Aspen Music Festival (twice as a conductor, then again later as a singer), and she enjoyed success as the music director of several orchestras in the Chicago area. When she was in her early thirties, Ms. Arnold reconnected with her love of singing, and discovered a special ability for making the most complex music accessible to every audience. Having been inspired by many mentors, she is especially indebted to the teaching of sopranos Carmen Mehta and Carol Webber, conductors Robert Spano and Victor Yampolsky, and composer György Kurtág.

Read more about Tony Arnold at www.screecher.com

 

Watch the webcast! This event will be streamed live at the time of the event.

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