The Wesleyan Connection

Angel Gil-Ordóñez, director of private lessons, chamber music and ensembles, adjunct professor of music and Wesleyan Orchestra and Wesleyan Concert Choir music director, is mentioned in the October 2009 issue of Gramophone, the world’s leading classical music magazine.

Gil-Ordóñez directed the Washington D.C.-based Post-Classical Ensemble, which performed a newly-recorded soundtrack to Aaron Copland’s 1939 documentary film, The City.

The article says, “In what can only be called a spectacular improvement from the original monaural recording (which is included on the DVD as an extra), the newly performed score showcases every aspect of Copland’s Americana style, from majestic splendor accompanying wide-angle shots to an almost minimalist pulse of customers eating at busy lunch counters, to heart-rending looks at the urban poor. It was this masterful treatment that led to Copland’s successful run in Hollywood in films such as Our Town and The Red Pony. Anyone who is a fan of that music will surely not want to miss the full soundtrack of The City.”

The City, released by Naxos, is online at http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=2.110231.

Neely Bruce, professor of music, directed The Mitchell College Singers & Friends Oct. 20 in New London, Conn. The Mitchell College Singers performed The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets, one of the more notable musical works created within Connecticut in the past decade. This unique program was presented in New London’s historic Pequot Chapel. Prior to the concert, Bruce spoke on “Why I Set the Bill of Rights to Music,” and led a recitation of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights.

This was the fourth complete performance of The Bill of Rights. The song’s premiere was at Wesleyan in 2005. More information on Bruce and the Bill of Rights event are posted in the Oct. 8 edition of the Wesleyan Connection, online here.

New CD by Steve Lehman '00

Steve Lehman ’00 is an alto and soprano jazz saxophonist who continues to receive praise from jazz critics across the country for performing music on the cutting edge. He is one of several graduates who studied jazz at Wesleyan and have gone on to notable music careers. Lehman is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Columbia University.

Travail, Transformation & Flow (Pi Recordings), his latest CD with his octet, was recently reviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air. NPR describes Lehman as “an explorer in the esoteric compositional realm labeled ‘spectral harmony,’ and perhaps his most ambitious innovation is that he’s taken that discipline’s rigorous, math- and computer-based analytical processes and put them to work in the fluid, improvisation-driven genre of jazz.”

Alvin Lucier performed at Queen's University Oct. 25.

Alvin Lucier, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, is featured in an Oct. 23 article titled “Alvin and the experimentals: Alvin Lucier comes to town as a Queen’s visiting artist and special guest for Tone Deaf 8″ published by The Journal of Queens University.

According to the article, Queen’s Tone Deaf 8 festival “brings an experimental sound adventure to campus through the genius of experimental composer Alvin Lucier and some of his critically-acclaimed students.”

Lucier teaches music composition, an experimental music course, as well as a freshman course on the Orpheus Myth at Wesleyan, where he’s been teaching for over 30 years. Lucier presented his work at the Sydenham St. United Church on Oct. 24 and gave a public lecture at Queens on Oct. 25.

Lucier said he strives to explore many of the natural characteristics of sound and sound waves. His work isolates single sounds and plays around with tone and synchronization for extended periods of time. His album, Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas, contains songs with only one key on a piano being played at a time.

“This includes echoes from pulse waves reflecting off walls, ceilings and floors; brain waves, vibrating wires … rather than simply writing for musical instruments,” he said, in the article.

Neely Bruce, professor of music.

The following is the second installment of The Wesleyan Connection’s new feature, “5 Questions.” This issue, accomplished composer and Wesleyan Professor of Music Neely Bruce is our guest.

Q: I see your piece Vistas will be performed at the “Hearts Pounding and Skins Taut” concert in late October at Wesleyan. For what instrument was this piece originally composed?

NB: Vistas at Dawn is a short (approximately three minute) piece for organ and vibraphone.

Q: For what musician did you compose this piece?

NB: I wrote it for Ronald Ebrecht, Wesleyan University Organist, to play. Over the years I’ve written two major works and several smaller pieces for him. Ron has been a staunch advocate for new music for the organ for years, and has encouraged his faculty colleagues and our students to write all sorts of music in all sorts of styles for that remarkable instrument. This has been going on for more than 20 years, and dozens, perhaps hundreds of new organ works have seen the light of day because Ron asked people to write them and offered an opportunity to get them before the public. Vistas was originally written for a tour that he did in Russia with a Russian percussionist, although he’s played it many times in the US with several different vibes players, including Wesleyan’s own Jay Hoggard. It’s something like a pop ballad—slow, languorous, very chromatic, sometimes almost atonal, sometimes with jazz-like quasi-standard chord changes.

Q: Aside from hearing Vistas at the Center for the Arts in October, where can people see you perform publicly this fall?

NB: October is an exceptionally busy month, even for me. I’m playing the world premiere of Twelve Fugues by Gerald Shapiro, chair of the Music Department at Brown and one of my closest friends. (Shapiro and I were freshmen together at the Eastman School of Music). I’m playing these pieces at Wesleyan’s Crowell Concert Hall on Saturday October 10 at 8 p.m. and at Brown on October 14, with a little Stravinsky and Ravel as the warm-up. The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets is being performed at Mitchell College in New London on October 20. For (more…)

The 33rd annual Navaratri Festival, a celebration of Indian music, dance and food, was held on campus Sept. 30-Oct. 4.

Navaratri, one of India’s major festival celebrations, is a time to see family and friends, enjoy music and dance and seek blessings for new endeavors. Wesleyan’s 33rd annual festival celebrated traditional music and dance while giving audiences a glimpse at the contemporary arts scene. Exciting pre-festival activities extend the festival into nine (nava) nights (-ratri), featuring performances by some of India’s leading artists, a film screening, Dandiya Raas dance parties and an honoring of Navaratri’s religious traditions; it culminated with a worship service.

Photos of the festival are below. (Photos by Stefan Weinberger ‘10)

Drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey will take an extended break to study composition with “avant-garde avatar” Anthony Braxton, professor of music, in a master’s program at Wesleyan.

According to a July 2009 article in Time Out New York, Sorey shares an earnest, seeking quality with Braxton, who also has upset convention, particularly in terms of what kind of music African-Americans schooled in jazz are supposed to make.

“Quiet as it’s been kept,” Sorey says, “people would tell me to my face that this is not like ‘real’ black music. To me, it’s a very serious problem.”

Sorey has had stints with headstrong leaders like Dave Douglas and Steve Coleman, saxophonist Steve Lehman and pianist Vijay Iyer.

Angel Gil-Ordóñez is the director of the Post-Classical Ensemble in Washington DC. (Photo by Tom Wolff)

With a boost from National Endowment for the Arts, Angel Gil-Ordóñez’s Washington DC-based orchestra will continue making music for seasons to come.

Gil-Ordóñez, music director of the Wesleyan Orchestra, adjunct professor of music, director of private lessons, chamber music and ensembles, learned that his Post-Classical Ensemble received a $50,000 grant from The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The award is made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

“We are still jumping for joy,” Gil-Ordóñez says. “It is such an honor, and reassurance that the NEA and the Recovery Act consider that our work must be assured continuity.”

Gil-Ordóñez and artist (more…)

Alvin Lucier, professor of music, Iván Naranjo MA ’09, and Katherine Young MA ‘08 are mentioned in a July 19 New York Times article titled “Where Bows Tap and the Cello Travels.”

The Flux Quartet, which performed an American contemporary music program at Bargemusic near the Brooklyn Bridge, performed music that grew from their association from Wesleyan. For several years the quartet has participated in Wesleyan’s graduate seminar for composers, playing new pieces by students.

Along with an experimental work by composer Lucier, who has been on the Wesleyan faculty for nearly 40 years, there were recent scores by two of his students Naranjo and Young.

In works like “Group Tapper,” a 10-minute score, Lucier explored the physical properties of sound and spatial relationships of instruments. A of the sounds in the piece are produced by the musicians tapping on their instruments with their bows, mostly using the blunt edge of the handle.

Young’s piece, “Inside UFO 53-32,” gave the players leeway in determining its shape and content. “The score alternates written passages with places for improvisation and other bits by the composer that can be fit in wherever. Surprisingly, in this performance the most compelling element of this raw, wailing, coloristic piece was its organic sweep,” the article says.

Naranjo’s piece, “Vibrating Soundless Hum” consists of a series of fragments produced by unconventional, nearly inaudible scraping and bowing effects, according to the article.

Center for Creative Youth (CCY) students enrolled in a music program performed a concert July 10 behind North College.

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