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New Music by Juilliard Composers on Three Concerts By REENA ESMAIL
April will be a very exciting month for the Juilliard composition department, as new works by no fewer than 13 of its students will be featured in three concerts at the School.
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| Adam Schoenberg |
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The orchestral works of four Juilliard composers were selected by competition to be premiered by the Juilliard Orchestra on April 21 in Alice Tully Hall, under the direction of Jeffrey Milarsky. The winners of this year's competition were Ola Gjeilo, Ryan Francis, Adam Schoenberg, and Kyle Blaha.Ola Gjeilo's work The Identity Triad is based on (in the composer's words) "three different types of energies that are unified by being the three emotional types out of a system of nine … The last type of the three has many things in common with a certain vital aspect of the American society of today: a forceful, communicative, winning quality and a desire for instant positive feedback. It can be linked to what we sometimes call the "American Dream," which is part of this country's magnetic pull on foreigners like me. I wish to develop the ability to write music that describes an organic process which hopefully, in a small way, can help me and others reach deeper into our own lives." Gjeilo, who comes from Norway, is a master's student of Robert Beaser. His music is published by Walton Music (U.S.), Oxford University Press (U.K., summer 2005), and Musikk-Huset (Norway). He is currently completing a song cycle for soprano Barbara Bonney, which she will record in 2006.
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| Ryan Francis |
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Adam Schoenberg describes his new work Translucent Thoughts as a kind of musical stream-of-consciousness.
"Each musical idea represents a moment in my imagination," he said. "Each moment is distinct, but each thought is connected to the next through pitch content, rhythm, and/or motivic development. I use the word 'translucent' to convey the sense that many of these thoughts are ephemeral and difficult to fully grasp. The musical ideas in this piece vary; some moments are more translucent than others and some are even transparent." Schoenberg, a master's student of Robert Beaser, was the recipient of the 2000 ASCAP Film Music Fellowship and the Society for New Music's 2004 Brian M. Israel Prize. He has been commissioned by the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra and recently collaborated with choreographer Juliana F. May on a piece for her Manhattan-based dance company, MayDance.
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| Kyle Blaha |
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Ryan Francis took a completely different tack when approaching the orchestra. His piece white deep blue draws not from the standard classical repertoire, but from the electronica group Underworld. Francis comments, "I have long been an avid listener of electronic dance music and recently have found myself trying to bring this interest to my own music," he said. "Pearl's Girl had always been one of my favorite electronic pieces and the more I listened to it, the more convinced I became of its orchestral potential. Although there is a rich history of composers writing pieces on the themes of others, I have tried to make my treatment of Pearl's Girl more akin to how other electronic artists are constantly borrowing from each other. This is, in essence, an orchestral remix." Francis has had works performed by such ensembles as the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and the Proteus Ensemble, and has received commissions from the Columbia Symphony of Portland and FearNoMusic Contemporary Ensemble. Francis is a master's student of Robert Beaser.
Kyle Blaha, who received Juilliard's Arthur Friedman Prize in Composition for his piece Broken Colors, says of the new work: "When beginning Broken Colors in the fall of 2004, I was still emotionally attached to my previous orchestral piece, Light (dark). With the new atmosphere of Juilliard and New York City along with new guidance, I said my goodbyes to Light (dark) and started anew." Blaha is the recipient of a 2004 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and the Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize. In addition to his composition studies, Blaha has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad. He was awarded a grant for research in Germany from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), to study at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin. Commissions include works for the Eastman Wind Ensemble and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Blaha is a master's student of Samuel Adler.
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Juilliard Symphony: Student Compositions
Alice Tully Hall
Thursday, April 21, 8 p.m.
Free tickets available in the Juilliard Box Office.
Composers Concert
Paul Hall
Monday, April 11, 8 p.m.
Free, no tickets required.
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The season's final Composer's Concert presenting chamber works in Paul Hall will take place on April 11 at 8 p.m. The concert will feature works by eight student composers, including The Lion and the Lamb, a piece for unaccompanied violin by Teddy Niedermaier; a piece for 11 players featuring saxophone by David Fulmer; and excerpts from Unfortunate Coincidence, a song cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble by Reena Esmail.
Outside the realm of the composition department itself, the April 8 New Juilliard Ensemble concert will also feature a commissioned work by Teddy Niedermaier, the second of two students to have their work premiered by the ensemble this season. (A related article about the concert is on Page 9.) His work for chamber orchestra, Die Weiber von Weinsberg (The Wives of Weinsberg), is a loosely programmatic account of the old German tale of the same name about a city plagued by war, and the bravery of the women within it.Reena Esmail is a fourth year undergraduate composition major studying with Samuel Adler.
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