November 18, 2011
NEWS OF THE WEEK: NOVEMBER 18

RENOWNED SOPRANO AND UCSD MUSIC FACULTY MEMBER SUSAN NARUCKI joined ASKO/Schoenberg and conductor Pierre-André Vallade for the world premiere of Arbre généalogique a twenty-five minute work for soprano, large ensemble and electronics by Dutch composer Rozalie Hirs. The piece was performed in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw on November 10 as part of the PROMS series, in the Dutch festival, November Music in Den Bosch. UCSD COMPOSER LEI LIANG'S MUSIC HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR SCHOTT NEW YORK's pilot project utilizing digital media (former UCSD faculty Chaya Czernowin and Joji Yuasa are also published by Schott). UCSD ALUM COMPOSER RICHARD CARRICK'S SCORES are also part of Schott's digital publishing venture. Carrick moderated a panel discussion at the recent concert of George Lewis's music in New York City. ITALY'S SOUNDSCAPE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED THAT LEI LIANG will be guest composer and UCSD music alumnus Josh Levine will be composer-in-residence. The festival takes place in Maccagno from July 4 to July 16. UCSD FACULTY MEMBER JOHN FONVILLE, ADJUNCT FACULTY TAKAE OHNISHI, GRAD GUITARIST PABLO GOMEZ, AND ALUMNUS JANE RIGLER perform on Lei Liang's new CD Milou. MILOU EARNS AN EXCELLENT REVIEW FROM ITALY'S PERCORSI MUSICALI. Here's a translated excerpt: "The new generation of composers (Tan Dun, Chen Yi, Sheng, et al.) have bridged the cultural gap with the West by inserting new connecting elements, but there is one who is trying to do much more: creating contemporary music without barriers and taking into account the intrinsic cultural elements of a country are only one part of the formula. Lei Liang (b. 1972) represents this new dimension of cultured music...[sic] With Liang you certainly are not faced with a product of stylistic mediation between East and West. Liang is contemporary, and he takes the theories of Cage and of the New York School as his first working level, passing freely through the many elements that comprise that school...[sic] He makes cultural references with such discretion that in the end one appreciates it more for the wide range of solutions employed. In the space of freedom opened naturally by contemporary composition, Liang manages to travel magnificently giving instruments a language all their own that affirms not only its prerogatives of highly intense technique but that also affirms their engaging sense of the mysterious and transcendental that does not pass forcibly for modern western theory: it is a sort of new age spirituality, but one that has a strength of definition and an entirely serious modernism...[sic] His music is at the same time both abstract and sensitive and is made up of a thousand trajectories condensed into appealing and ultra-modern sounds." UCSD'S STEVEN SCHICK CONDUCTED A "LEAN AND ELEGANT" PROGRAM IN SAN FRANCISCO, according to San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joshua Kosman.

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