Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky leads the Juilliard Orchestra in annual evening of new compositions by Juilliard student composers on Thursday, May 1 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Program includes compositions by Juilliard composers Jakub Ciupinski, Nicholas Csicsko, Michael Gilbertson, Reinaldo Moya, and Armand Ranjbaran

Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky leads the Juilliard Orchestra in the School’s annual evening of new compositions by Juilliard student composers on Thursday, May 1 at 8 PM in Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 West 65th Street. The program features Jakub Ciupinski’s D.J. Guillaume, Nicholas Csicsko’s Upon the King, Michael Gilbertson’s Vigil, Reinaldo Moya’s Aurora Australis, and Armand Ranjbaran’s Flashpoint.

Many of today’s most respected composers received their education at Juilliard, and the School continues to provide a strong education in composition. Among the young composers whose works have been selected for past premieres at the annual spring concert are Nico Muhly, Kenji Bunch, and Mason Bates. The school offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs in composition. Juilliard’s composition faculty includes Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Robert Beaser, John Corigliano, and Christopher Rouse. Alumni of the program include Bruce Adolphe. Mason Bates, Kenji Bunch, Sebastian Currier, Richard Danielpour, Norman Dello Joio, Philip Glass, Laura Karpman, Lowell Liebermann, Nico Muhly, Steve Reich, Ned Rorem, Peter Schickele, and Ellen Zwilich.

FREE tickets are available beginning April 18 at the Juilliard Box Office, located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM – 6 PM. The Juilliard Box Office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. For further information, call the Juilliard Box Office at (212) 769-7406 or visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.

Mr. Ciupinski’s D.J. Guillaume is a nine-minute piece for symphony orchestra that was written in January 2007. The composer writes: “The central idea of the work comes from the art of remixing. Remixing was very popular in the pop music scene, especially in the 1990s. Certain elements of the song were removed and then put together with a new percussion beat, usually more danceable than the original. Remix is not as much of a variation of the source, but rather the source itself reinvented in a context of a completely different style.”

“In D.J. Guillaume,” the composer continues, “I was trying to capture this distinction, as well as the atmosphere of folk and pop music. After a short introduction, a folk-like tune is presented; later in the last section, the same tune is being ‘remixed’ with rhythms coming from pop music genres, such as drum ‘n’ bass and jungle. The title refers to disc jockeys who play remixes in dance clubs. The second part of the title refers to Guillaume de Mauchaut, one of my favorite composers. Sometimes when I listen to his music an absurd thought comes to my mind: what would happen if he were a DJ standing at the turntables and remixing his own isorhythmic motets?”

Nicholas Csicsko commented that his work, Upon the King, “depicts a scene from Shakespeare's Henry V in which King Henry reflects upon the burden and responsibility of being a king. The setting of this soliloquy is the night before the famous battle of Agincourt, where the greatly outnumbered English miraculously defeated the French. King Henry had been moving through his camp -- disguised as a common solider to better gauge the moral and sentiments of his troops. King Henry is not surprised that his men have little hope to outlive the coming day, but is shocked by the manner in which his men place all moral and ethical responsibility upon him, as the king. In conversation with his soldiers, Henry attempts to make the argument that ‘every subject's duty is the king's, but every subject's soul is his own.’ This only further angers the men, making the reality of his absolute responsibility clear. This composition follows the King's thoughts through his emotional journey after his interactions with his men. The universality of Henry's plight is such that it can be found familiar by anyone who has felt the full burden of responsibility.”

Michael Gilberton’s Vigil was composed during the summer of 2007. The work is scored for a large orchestra: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, harp, piano, three percussionists, timpani, and strings. The composer has been interested in the Vesper services of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Vespers, also called the all-night vigils, prompted numerous composers (including Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky) to create extended and richly spiritual choral works for the occasion. While no material in Vigil was drawn from the music of the Russian Church, the reverent nature of the Vespers provided a conceptual basis for the work, and suggested the expansive soundscape the composer tried to create within it. Vigil is nocturnal and lyrical in character, and is structured in a large arc form.

Mr. Moya’s Aurora Australis refers to the Southern Lights, which are mesmerizing, dynamic displays of light that appear in the Antarctic skies in the winter. They are, in effect, nature’s light show; visual poetry penned from the quantum leaps of atmospheric gases. “The piece,” writes the composer, “depicts the different aspects of light, from quiet and meditative to violent and exuberant. The work was partially inspired by a passage from the poem ‘Quartet’ by Octavio Paz.” 

“The title Flashpoint,” writes Mr. Ranjbaran “implies a critical situation that can erupt into violence at any moment. The whole piece revolves around several key moments in which the music explodes into crashing climaxes. Much of this work is spent racing towards the end, but as the tempo increases, the mood shifts from excitement to tragedy and the tension transforms into a heartbreaking lament. From this point, the music softens considerably before arriving to a huge, calamitous ending.”

JUILLIARD COMPOSERS
       
Polish composer Jakub Ciupinski has studied with Krzysztof Penderecki, Zbigniew Bujarski, Edwin Roxbrough, and Joe Cutler. While he writes chamber and symphonic concert music – including his Oratorio for the Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust for symphony and orchestra and two choirs, premiered in Cracow in 2003 – his stylistic influences run across many genres. Mr. Ciupi?ski has collaborated with a variety of artists, musicians, choreographers and film directors, including Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda, and at the age of 18, he signed a contract with SONY Music Poland. His electronica-infused world music has frequently been played on Polish radio and aired on music channels such as MTV and VIVA. Mr. Ciupi?ski’s works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, as well as in Poland, France, Italy, England, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Canada, and the U.S. He is currently in his second year of the master of music degree program, studying composition with Christopher Rouse at Juilliard.

Nicholas Csiscko currently is pursuing his master of music degree under the tutelage of Samuel Adler. A native of Indiana, Mr. Csicsko began his musical studies at the age of sixteen. He is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and Indiana University where he studied composition, violin, and piano. His principal teachers include Samuel Adler, Claude Baker, and Sven-David Sandström. Mr. Csicsko received scholarships to attend the European American Musical Alliance (EAMA), Bowdoin, and the International Summer University of Freie Universität, Berlin. His works have been performed in Canada, France, Germany, The Philippines, and throughout the United States.

Michael Gilbertson, a native of Dubuque, Iowa, is currently a second-year undergraduate student of Samuel Adler at Juilliard. His studies also include academic coursework at Columbia University. Mr. Gilbertson’s works have been programmed by ensembles, including the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra, the Flint Symphony Orchestra, the Rockford Symphony Orchestra, the Waterloo Symphony, and the Knox-Galesburg Symphony. His most recent commission, a flute sonata for flutist Margaret Cornils, will be premiered at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on April 20, 2008. Mr. Gilbertson’s works have earned him several honors, including a Silver Award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and awards from ASCAP in 2006 and 2007. His orchestral pops works are published by Wendel Music in New York.

An ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer award recipient, Reinaldo Moya is in the master of music degree program, studying composition with Samuel Adler. He graduated with a degree in music composition from West Virginia University, where he studied composition with John Beall and violin with Laura Kobayashi. A native of Venezuela, Mr. Moya was a member of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra and performed throughout North and South America, as well as in Europe. In the summer of 2005, he studied composition in Berlin with Samuel Adler, which he describes as life-changing. His String Quartet No. 1 was premiered by the Attacca Quartet in the summer of 2007 as part of MoMA’s Summergarden series and was performed again in March 2008 as part of the Chamber Music Society of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers. He participated in the Composers and Choreographers workshop at Juilliard and his Ethereal Whispers (choreographed by Nathan Madden) was premiered in December 2007.

Armand Ranjbaran, born in Queens, is currently an undergraduate composition student of Dr. Robert Beaser at Juilliard. He began playing the violin at age 4, and at age 12, he entered Juilliard’s Pre-College Division, studying viola with Toby Appel and Kenji Bunch, as well as composition with Ira Taxin. He attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Young Composers Program in the summer of 2006. He has enjoyed many performances of his works at Juilliard, including The New Gods, which was the winner of the 2006 Juilliard Pre-College Composition Competition and was performed by the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra in May, 2006. In 2008, he was a winner of the Juilliard Composition Orchestra Competition and received the world premiere of his String Quartet No. 2 at Barge Music by the Biava Quartet. Mr. Ranjbaran was the recipient of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers award at age 15 for his String Quartet No. 2, and at age 17, for his first symphony, a 70-minute, five-movement work for solo soprano, solo baritone, SATB chorus and orchestra. He recently received a commission by the Allentown Symphony Orchestra to compose a piece for their 2008-09 season.

Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky is music director of AXIOM, Juilliard’s newest contemporary music ensemble and has been conducting Juilliard’s annual presentation of new works by the School’s composers since 1991. As a conductor of contemporary music, he has premiered and recorded works by contemporary composers, including Charles Wuorinen, Fred Lerdahl, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Lasse Thoresen, Gerard Grisey, Jonathan Dawe, Tristan Murail, Ralph Shapey, Luigi Nono, Mario Davidovsky and Wolfgang Rihm. His wide ranging repertoire, which spans from Bach to Xenakis, has brought him to lead such accomplished groups as the American Composers Orchestra, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Manhattan Sinfonietta, Speculum Musicae, Cygnus Ensemble, The Fromm Players at Harvard University, The Composers’ Ensemble at Princeton University, and the New York Philharmonic chamber music series. He is a member of the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music as artistic director and conductor of the percussion ensemble. He has been a regular guest conductor of the Stony Brook Orchestra.

Mr. Milarsky also is professor of music at Columbia University, where he is the music director/conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. He is the music director and conductor of the newly-formed Manhattan Sinfonietta which will concentrate on 20th and 21st century scores. This ensemble, in residence at Columbia University, will perform, tour and record throughout the United States and abroad. Recent highlights include conducting the Cygnus Ensemble in the world premiere of Milton Babbitt’s Swansong, conducting the world premiere and recording of Mario Davidovsky’s Flashbacks, and several area premieres of the music of Gerard Grisey: Les Espaces Acoustiques (New York premiere) for Columbia University’s “Music for a New Century” series and Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (U.S. premiere) with Speculum Musicae. With the Ensemble Sospeso, he has conducted three United States premieres by Wolfgang Rihm, and two by Tristan Murail.

Mr. Milarsky received his bachelor and master of music degrees from Juilliard. He is a member of the Pre-College percussion faculty at Juilliard. As an active chamber and orchestral musician, Mr. Milarsky performs and records regularly with the New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Composers Orchestra, the Stamford Symphony and Concordia. He has recorded extensively.