Festival features modern music

By: Kathleen McGowan

Posted: 3/4/09

Each year, the Western Illinois University School of Music hosts the New Music Festival to showcase contemporary music written by students, faculty and other modern published composers. Throughout the three-day festival, participants contemplate the question "how do we recognize good music?"

One of the most important things that the music faculty emphasizes about the New Music Festival is that keeping an open mind is crucial. Twenty-first century music incorporates such a variety of sounds, that if one were to subject it to the same kind of criticism as music considered to be "established genius" (music by Beethoven or Mozart, for example) it could not hold up. It's like comparing bananas to pineapples. Concertgoers are not expected to enjoy every piece that they hear, but merely to listen and hear what the composer has to say. It is as much a change of musical perspective as it is a showcase.

The festival will begin on Monday, March 9 with a presentation by the festival's featured composer, Robert Morris, in Browne Hall at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Morris, who has been a member of the prestigious Eastman School of Music's Composition Department since 1980, is known best as a music theorist for his work bridging the gap between academia and the realm of experimentation in the field of modern music. He has composed over 160 pieces for a variety of media in all different forms. Morris also contributes articles to publications, including "Perspectives of New Music," "Journal of the American Musicology Society," and "In Theory Only."

The first of three concerts for the New Music Festival will be held in the College of Fine Arts and Communication Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. It will feature "Around Chimney Bluffs" by guest composer Robert Morris, two pieces by the School of Music faculty: "The Apple nor the Flood" by James Caldwell and "Recall Coordinator" by James Romig, as well as the work of two other contemporary composers.Tuesday, March 10 marks the second day of the festival with a Composers' Forum at 9 a.m. in the University Art Gallery. It will feature guest composer Morris in addition to other composers' whose work comprises the evening recitals. Listeners will have the opportunity to "pick each composer's brain" as to their views on composition methods, how they market their finished pieces, and how they have created such innovative styles.

The second concert will be held in COFAC Recital Hall at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, and is slightly shorter than those in the evening. Morris' piece in the recital is titled "MA" and features computer generated sounds. Julieta Mihai will play Matthew Scheibis' "Immaus," and Rick Kurasz will finish with Mark Zanter's "Paean" for double

steelpans and electronics.

The third concert will be at 7:30 p.m. in COFAC, and will feature five contemporary composers in addition to the guest composer. Morris' piece for this concert is titled "Traces," and will be played by Virginia Broffit (flute) and Tammie Walker (piano), both members of the Western Illinois School of

Music faculty.

Of the five remaining composers, two are School of Music faculty members. Caldwell will function as the controller for his piece for computer, "Texturologie 7b: Canterbury Bell," and Walker and Minyoung Yoon will perform a piece for two pianos by Paul Paccione titled "Stations II: To Morton Feldman."

The three remaining pieces are "The Line We Can't Cross" by Kyong Mee Choi, performed by John Vana on alto saxophone, with electronics; "Filament" by Paul David Thomas, performed by Broffitt (flute) and Kurasz (crystal glasses); and finally "Sfumato" by Yao Chen, performed by the faculty Camerata Woodwind Quintet of Broffitt (flute), Michael Ericson (oboe), Eric Ginsberg (clarinet), Doug Huff (bassoon) and Randall Faust (horn). The recital will be followed by a reception at the Alumni House.

Wednesday, March 11 closes the festival with a composers' workshop at 9 a.m. in the COFAC Recital Hall. Composition students will have the opportunity to workshop some pieces to be played during

future recitals.