New College of Florida and The Hermitage Artist Retreat are collaborating to offer a “Meet the Composer” series on the New College campus in 2008-09. Four of the Hermitage’s Composers-in-Residence will offer free community discussions and demonstrations in the College Hall music room at 5:00 or 7:00 pm (please check each event for times): Daniel Levy (November 18); Nico Muhly (February 10), Wang Jie (March 17) Douglas Cuomo (March 30) and Mandy Fang (April 28).
“New College is the perfect partner for the new music being created at the Hermitage because the College is creating the audience and interest in the music of today,” states Hermitage Executive Director Bruce Rodgers, in a reference to the College’s ground-breaking contemporary music series, New Music New College.
The Hermitage Artist Retreat nurtures creativity in mid-career writers, painters, poets, playwrights, composers, translators, sculptors, and artists working in digital media. All Hermitage artists are nominated by a national artist selection committee and are asked to perform two services to the community that allows them to share their work and themselves with our Southwest Florida community.
2008-2009 Program
Free community discussions at College Hall at 7:00 pm
The Event is Free
No advanced reservations; first-come, first-served
Information (941) 487-4155 or email
events@ncf.eduDue to an illness, Mr. Levy was forced to cancel his appearance.
Theater and film composer Daniel Levy grew up in rural Ohio, playing jazz and popular music for celebrations of all stripes. A graduate of the music composition program at Miami University, he moved to New York in 1986, and has since composed music for over 40 NYC and regional theatrical productions and concerts presented at Manhattan Ensemble Theater, La MaMa, Dance Theater Workshop, HERE Arts Center, BAX, New Dramatists, Cucaracha, the York Theater, Shakespeare & Co. His opera
The Singing (with playwright Lenora Champagne) won the prestigious Richard Rogers Award in 1999. His latest opera-theater work
The Martian Chronicles was presented August 7-11 2008 at Fordham University Lincoln Center. In 2006, Daniel outed himself as a film composer, completing scores for 4 award-winning short films with graduate students at Columbia University and preparing scores for veteran Hollywood film composer Marcelo Zarvos on
The Good Shepard,
The Air I Breathe,
Ira and Abby,
You Kill Me, and
Trainwreck. Daniel's work has received support from the Richard Rogers Foundation, Loewe Foundation, Henson Foundation, Harburg Foundation, Jerome Foundation, New Dramatists, Goethe Institute, Vanden Heuvel Foundation and Meet The Composer. BM Miami University, Music Composition, MFA NYU/Tisch Musical Theater Writing. Member: Manhattan Producers Alliance; Teaching Artist: Lincoln Center Institute, Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and Musicians For Harmony. Website:
www.daniellevymusic.com.
Tuesday, February 10: Nico Muhly
Due to a scheduling conflict, Mr. Muhly was forced to cancel his appearance.
Nico
Muhly is a contemporary classical music composer born in 1981 in
Vermont and currently living in Chinatown in New York City. A graduate
of Columbia University and The Juilliard School with undergraduate
degrees in English and Music Composition, Muhly studied under John
Corigliano and Christopher Rouse. He has also worked alongside Bjork in
collaboration in the DVD single Oceania in 2004 and Philip Glass as an
editor, conductor, and keyboardist. In 2006 he released his first album
of works, titled Speaks Volumes. Muhly is currently working on an opera
for the Metropolitan Opera with librettist Craig Lucas.
Tuesday, March 17: Wang Jie
Wang
Jie is at the forefront of a new wave of Asian composers. Born and
raised in Shanghai during the economic expansion which followed the
Cultural Revolution, her music is richly orchestrated, rhythmically
vibrant, and always imbued with the sensibility of her heritage. The
New York Times calls Jie’s work “introspective” and the Pittsburgh
Tribune Review described it as “scrupulously crafted composition that
embraces both Chinese and Western modern classical expression.”
Beginning with her first public performance as a pianist at age five,
Jie’s musical talent was cultivated by some of China’s most
distinguished composers. In 2000, she moved to the United States to
begin composition studies at the Manhattan School of Music, where she
was the first composer in the history of the school to receive a full
scholarship. She received her Master’s degree in composition there,
graduating with honors in May 2007. Wang Jie is a composer of the
Artist Diploma program at the Curtis Institute of Music, and currently
studies with Richard Danielpour.
Monday March 30: Douglas Cuomo
This is a New Event.
This event takes place at 5:00 pm
Douglas Cuomo has composed highly acclaimed and original music for concert and theatrical stages, television, and film. His music, with influences from jazz, world music, classical, and popular sources, is as personal, distinctive, and recognizable as it is wide-ranging. His compositions range from well-known television themes – for Sex and the City and NOW with Bill Moyers, among others – to evening-length works for theater, including Arjuna’s Dilemma, a chamber opera based on the story of the Bhagavad Gita. Cuomo’s expressive musical language, with its arresting juxtapositions of sound and style, is a natural outgrowth of his eclectic background and training.
Tuesday, April 28: Mandy Fang (Fang Man)
Due to a conflict, Ms. Fang has rescheduled her lecture to April 28.
This event takes place at 5:00 pm
Born in China, Fang Man --Mandy Fang is the Americanized version of her name-- is currently a freelance composer living in New York City. Her original concert music has been performed by outstanding orchestras and ensembles, including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (Japan), Orchestre National de Lorraine (France), Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Festival Chamber Orchestra, Music From China Ensemble, and Cassatt String Quartet, among others. In 2007, she won the 3rd prize of the Toru Takemitsu Award for her work Aqua In Memoriam Toru Takemitsu for large orchestra, which was premiered by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra under Chikara Iwamura in Japan. In October, Ambush From Ten Sides for Guitar and Live Electronics was premiered at Espace de Projection IRCAM- Centre Pompidou. She was named the winner of the Underwood New Music Readings by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) in 2006 with a commission from ACO for composing a clarinet concerto, which will be premiered at the Carnegie Hall in February 2009.
She is currently working on a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association for a new work for chamber orchestra with electronics, which will be conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at Walt Disney Hall in April 2009. Fang Man has appeared at many music festivals and workshops, such as the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Centre Acanthes (France), June in Buffalo Festival, Bowdoin Summer Festival, Minnesota Orchestra Reading and Composers Institute. She is a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, where her primary teachers are Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra. She has also studied with Samuel Adler, Qigang Chen, George Crumb, Marc-Andre Dalbavie, Pascal Dusapin, Du Ming-xin, David Felder, Brian Ferneyhough, Mauro Lanza, Mikhail Malt, Yan Marez, Tristan Murail, Aaron Jay Kernis, Wolfgang Rihm, Alessando Solbiati, Richard Toensing, Michael Theodore and Ye Xiao-gang.
