From MIDAMERICAN CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
The MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music (MACCM), one of the Midwest’s leading new music institutes, presents the 8th International Conference on Music & Minimalism, May 5 to 8 in conjunction with the Society for Minimalist Music and Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts. This four-day event features eight concerts by BGSU and University of Michigan musicians and baritone Timothy Mix, keynote addresses from scholar Ellie Hisama and composer Tashi Wada, and fifty research presentations and lecture-recitals from national and international scholars and performers. Click for full schedules.
Notable performances include the U.S. premieres of Karel Goeyvaerts’s enigmatic “Pour que les fruits mûrrisent cet été for 14 Renaissance instruments” and Jürg Frey’s “Metall, Stein,” the second-ever performance of Harold Budd’s transcendent “Into the Cloud,” world premieres of music by James Johnston and Eric Moe, and Elodie Lauten’s semi-improvised postminimalist tour de force, “Variations on the Orange Cycle.” All performances are free and open to the public and are held in Bryan Recital Hall in the Moore Musical Arts Center.
“We relish the opportunity to host conferences like this, not only to bring world-class scholars and musicians to BGSU, but also to share the work and artistry of the students and faculty of the College of Musical Arts with the world,” said Kurt Doles, director of MACCM.
The eight curated concerts offer an expansive view of minimalism, a compositional style and aesthetic that has transformed musical landscapes around the world since its inception in the late 1950s and its popular flourishing in the 1970s and 1980s. Minimalism’s many aesthetic branches are explored through contrasting concerts, from the cool experimentalism of “Downtown Minimalism” and the delicate sound worlds of Jürg Frey and Sarah Hennies in “Minimalism for Deep Listening” to the abrasive eclecticism of “Low Country Minimalism” and the “Ecstatic Minimalism” of Julius Eastman.
The scholarly portion of the conference, which requires paid registration, is similarly wide-ranging. Organized into eighteen themed sessions, the research presentations cover topics ranging from Brazilian minimalism, techno, and the Great Highland Bagpipe to Éliane Radigue’s aesthetic of slowness, Harold Budd’s “pretty” minimalism, and Indian singer Pandit Pran Nath’s influence on minimalist composers.
“Ever since the first Music and Minimalism conference at Bangor in 2007,” said Maarten Beirens, president of the Society for Minimalist Music, “these biennial conferences have proven to be exciting opportunities to bring together a wide range of academic research and boost scholarship on minimalism worldwide.”
Concert schedule:
- Thursday, May 5, 1 p.m. Downtown Minimalism: Music by Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich & Evan Ziporyn
- Thursday, May 5, 8 p.m. Low Country Minimalism: Music by Louis Andriessen & Karel Goeyvaerts
- Friday, May 6, 1 p.m. Minimalist Potpourri: Music by Gavin Bryars, Mary Jane Leach, Meredith Monk, Arvo Pärt & James Tenney
- Friday, May 6, 8 p.m. Minimalism for Deep Listening: Music by Pauline Oliveros, Catherine Lamb, Jürg Frey & Sarah Hennies
- Saturday, May 7, 1 p.m. Keyboard Minimalism: Music by John Adams, David Lang, Elodie Lauten & Eric Moe
- Saturday, May 7, 8 p.m. Ecstatic Minimalism: Music by Julius Eastman (featuring baritone Timothy Mix)
- Sunday, May 8, 8:30 a.m. Conceptual Minimalism: Music by La Monte Young
- Sunday, May 8, 1 p.m. Minimalist Supermix: Music by Harold Budd, James Johnston, Molly Joyce, Colin Labadie, Steve Reich & Tashi Wada
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About Tashi Wada:
Tashi Wada is a composer and performer based in Los Angeles. Grounded in a belief that “music should be as direct as possible,” his compositions use apparently simple structures to generate rich and unanticipated perceptual effects. Wada studied composition at CalArts with James Tenney and for many years performed alongside his father, composer and artist Yoshi Wada. He has presented his music internationally and collaborated with a range of artists including Charles Curtis, Simone Forti, and Julia Holter. Wada founded and runs the label Saltern. His most recent album Nue was released by RVNG Intl. His keynote for the conference will explore aesthetic connections between his and his father’s generation of composers.
About Ellie Hisama:
Ellie M. Hisama is Dean of the Faculty of Music and Professor of Music at the University of Toronto. She is Professor Emerita of Music at Columbia University, where she taught for over 15 years, and she has published widely on music and gender, race, ethnicity, and equity. She is the author of Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Marion Bauer, Ruth Crawford, and Miriam Gideon and is co-editor of Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds and Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip-Hop Studies. Her keynote for the conference is titled “The Fragment and the Long Song of Julius Eastman.”
About Timothy Mix:
Finnish American baritone Timothy Mix’s recent successes include his debut as Alberich at Opera Santa Barbara in the Jonathan Dove adaptation of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, his return to the role of Joseph de Rocher in Dead Man Walking at Opera Idaho, and a role debut as Dr. Bartolo in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Opera Delaware. The artist has often appeared at Santa Fe Opera, where he made his debut in 2016 as Count Capulet in Romeo et Juliette; he returned the following season to jump into the role of Tsar Dodon in Paul Cullen’s Le Coq d’Or, and most recently sang the role of Jack Hubbard in a new production of Doctor Atomic. Recent San Francisco Opera appearances include Elder Ott/Blitch (c) in Susannah, de Brétigny in LManon, and Count Capulet. International engagements include Escamillo in Carmen at Finnish National Opera and Albert in Werther at Bergen National Opera ( Norway). He will perform Julius Eastman’s Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc at the conference.
About the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music:
The MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music serves as the hub for the BGSU College of Musical Arts’ distinctive specialty in contemporary music. MACCM promotes and coordinates new music creation, production, research, and innovation, enhancing the vitally of the College and community. At the heart of the Center’s activities are the annual Bowling Green New Music Festival and the Music at the Forefront concert series. MACCM also administers awards in support of contemporary music projects and research at the College of Musical Arts, organizes “New Music from Bowling Green” concerts featuring faculty and student performers at acclaimed venues around the country, and helps produce the radio series Living American Composers: New Music from Bowling Green in collaboration with WGTE-FM in Toledo. More information on MACCM can be found at https://www.bgsu.edu/musical-arts/maccm.html.
About the Society for Minimalist Music:
The Society for Minimalist Music is a global community of scholars and musicians seeking to promote the study of the music known as minimalism. The Society’s interests extend from minimalism’s formation in the 1960s to the ensuing streams of music developed from these origins and to the relationship of music to minimalism in the other arts. The Society formed in Bangor, Wales in 2007, and has held international conferences in Kansas City, Missouri; Leuven, Belgium; Long Beach, California; Turku, Finland; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Cardiff, Wales.
