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The American Composers Forum New England
Commissions Three Composers: Julie Rohwein, Andy Vores, and Dalit Warshaw;
New Works to be Premiered at Ditson Festival of Contemporary MusicACFNE is proud to announce that we have commissioned Boston composers
Andy Vores, Julie Rohwein, and Dalit Warshaw
to write new works to be premiered at the upcoming Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music (September 18-21 at the Institute of Contemporary Art) by three of Boston's most prominent new-music performing ensembles:
the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Musica Viva, and Collage New Music.
These commissions are funded by generous grants from the Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund and the Thomas R McMullin and Ruth R McMullin Fund.
In April of this year, 76 composers from around New England responded to ACFNE's open call for submissions, and from these, the three final composers were selected by the music directors of the collaborating ensembles – Gil Rose of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Richard Pittman of Boston Musica Viva, and David Hoose of Collage New Music. In each case, the project has created a new partnership between collaborators who have not worked together previously. Through the summer, the composers have worked to create their new compositions, which the ensembles are now preparing for the premiere performances in September:
Boston Musica Viva – Julie Rohwein premiere – Thursday, Sept. 18, 8pm
Collage New Music – Dalit Warshaw premiere – Friday, Sept. 19, 8pm
Boston Modern Orchestra Project – Andy Vores premiere – Sunday, Sept. 21, 3pmInstitute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Avenue, Boston MA
(for a complete festival schedule, see http://www.ditsonfestival.org)ACFNE is proud to bring three imaginative and original compositional voices to the public through new collaborations with Boston 's most accomplished performers of new music. We are very grateful to these wonderful composers and musicians for their dedication to this project, and to the Argosy Foundation and the McMullin Fund for making these commissions possible. In addition, the enthusiastic response from so many composers, and the high artistic quality of the many submissions we received, are a testament both to the vitality of new music in our region, and to the importance of such opportunities for composers and for their art.
About the composers:
Julie Rohwein was born in Livermore, California and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received a B.S. in Physics from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, where Michael Iatauro introduced her to composing. She has participated in research projects in thunderstorm physics and acoustics, done systems programming at the MIT Media Lab and worked as professional costume designer, both independently and for the Music and Theatre Arts section at MIT. Julie holds an M.S. in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and earned an M.M. in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music. She recently completed her doctorate at Harvard University, where she studied with Mario Davidovsky. Julie's music has been performed by musicians such as Francis-Marie Uitti, the Hilliard Ensemble, Elizabeth Keusch and Evan Ziporyn in venues across the United States and Canada. Recent honors and residencies include the Bohemian Prize for her composition Triton, and performances at the Composers Conference (Wellesley) and the Composers Symposium at the Oregon Bach Festival. Her teachers have included Bernard Rands, John Heiss, John McDonald and Robert Kyr. Her ACFNE-commissioned work, Borne on the Wind, is scored for a mixed ensemble of six instruments, and will be premiered by Boston Musica Viva on Thursday, September 18.
Dalit Warshaw's works have been performed by over twenty-six orchestral ensembles, including the New York and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras (Zubin Mehta conducting), the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Y Chamber Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony and the Albany Symphony. In April 2006, the Grand Rapids Symphony premiered After the Victory for chorus and orchestra. A full-time faculty member of the composition/theory department at the Boston Conservatory since September 2004, Ms. Warshaw obtained her doctorate in music composition from the Juilliard School in May 2003. She taught orchestration in the Juilliard Evening Division from the year 2000 to 2005. Awards and grants include five ASCAP Foundation Grants to Young Composers, a Fulbright Scholarship to Israel (2001-2002), a Fromm Music Foundation Grant from Harvard University, and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1984, she became the youngest ever to win the BMI Award for Student Composers, with her orchestral piece Fun Suite, written at the age of eight. Ms. Warshaw has held residencies at both the Yaddo and MacDowell Artist Colonies. A native of New York City, she is a graduate of Columbia University and the Juilliard School.
Ms. Warshaw's new composition, Sonate Francaise (The Unwritten Chapters), takes its title from Irene Nemirovsky's unfinished epic novel, Suite Francaise, which examines the mass emigration from Paris preceding the Nazi occupation of France. Nemirovsky, a well-known Jewish-Russian author living in Paris at the time, was herself forced into hiding, and subsequently deported to Auschwitz where she met her untimely death in 1942, before she could write the last three volumes of her novel. Ms. Warshaw's composition seeks to continue the author's unrealized creative vision though music, based on Nemirovsky's vivid descriptions of her concept for the ensuing volumes, to be entitled (respectively) “Captivity,” “Battles” and “Peace.” The new chamber-orchestra work will be premiered by Collage New Music on Friday, September 19.
Andy Vores was born Wales and raised in England. He studied composition at Lancaster University with Edward Cowie. From 1982 he worked in London as Composer-in-Residence at The City University and as a music copyist for Universal Edition, Schotts, Novellos, and Faber Music. In 1986 he was a Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood, studying with Oliver Knussen. Since 1989 he has lived in Boston. From 1999 to 2001 he was Composer-in-Residence to the BankBoston Celebrity Series, and from 2002 to 2005 Composer-in-Residence to the New England Philharmonic. In 2001 he was appointed as Chair of Composition, Theory, and Music History at The Boston Conservatory. Awards and prizes include a Koussevitsky Fellowship, the Alea III International Composition Competition, the Ian Whyte Award, the Tanglewood Prize for Composition, the Omaha Symphony Guild New Music Festival, the Richmond International Festival, The National Orchestral Association, and the Huddersfield Festival. His music has been widely performed and broadcast in Europe and the US, and he has recently released Urban Affair, a CD of his chamber music. Mr. Vores' commissioned orchestral work, Two Fabrications, will be premiered by BMOP on Sunday, September 21. The composition's two parts, subtitled ‘Cast' and ‘Monster,' are components of a projected set of 27 interrelated pieces for differing forces which can be played alone or as an evening-long musical event.
About the Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music:
Organized and directed by Gil Rose, Artistic Director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music will be presented September 18-21 in the acclaimed new performance venue of the Institute of Contemporary Art at 100 Northern Avenue on the Boston waterfront. The first in a series of biennial festivals of contemporary music initiated by the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the festival comprises eight cutting-edge concerts by several of Boston's mainstay professional new-music ensembles, supplemented by multi-media works, visual art collaborations, and special events.
About the Performing Ensembles:
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) has had an outstanding reputation among Boston 's most innovative and performing arts organizations for attracting multi-generational audiences and providing thematic, diversified programming, and a national reputation for performing and recording new orchestral music at the highest level. Founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Gil Rose, BMOP strives to illuminate the connections that exist between both contemporary music and society by reuniting composers and audiences in a shared concert experience. The 07-08 season offered no fewer than 10 world premieres. In addition, BMOP recently launched its signature recording label BMOP/sound. In just 11 years, BMOP has received nine ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming of Orchestral Music including the 06-07 ASCAP Award for Programming of Contemporary Music, and the 2006 American Symphony Orchestra League's John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music.
Boston Music Viva was founded by Music Director Richard Pittman in 1969 as the first professional ensemble in Boston devoted to contemporary music. Through the years BMV has become one of the most highly respected ensembles of its kind, with an international reputation for innovation and excellence. The Boston Globe concluded “there is no group in town that excels it in adventure and responsibility,” and The New York Times wrote that BMV is “justly celebrated as one of the finest new music ensembles in the United States.” In its 39-year history BMV has performed more than 565 works by 233 composers. These include 143 works written specifically for BMV, 158 world premieres, and 71 Boston premieres.
Collage New Music, founded in 1972 by Frank Epstein, is highly regarded for its scintillating performances of music by the great composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Under the direction of David Hoose since 1991, Collage has commissioned new works by such luminaries as Andrew Imbrie and John Harbison, as well as many local composers. Many of the finest American singers of contemporary music have appeared as guests with Collage, as have Seiji Ozawa, Gunther Schuller, Milton Babbitt, Clark Terry, Vanessa Redgrave, and others. In addition to its annual series of concerts and commissioning activities, Collage hosts an annual composer-in-residence, an annual composition competition for high school students, and is regularly engaged in recording new music.
Other Festival Performers: