Tag: orkest de ereprijs

Premières and Projects 2010
5 January 2010, 3:23 pmTags: , , , , , ,

The New Year is off to a busy start, with sev­eral pre­mières com­ing up and a vari­ety of new projects in the works.

  • On 25 Jan 2010, Brazilian-Canadian pianist Luciane Car­dassi pre­mières my new piece, Hockey Story, on the Hap­pen­ing 2010 New Music Fes­ti­val in Cal­gary. This piece, on the theme of hockey, is for speak­ing pianist and electronics.
  • Shortly there­after, on 19 Feb 2010, I’m off to Hol­land for the pre­mière of a piece com­mis­sioned by ork­est de erepris. This piece, Elegy of Oth­ers, is a col­lage, with quo­ta­tions rang­ing from Vivaldi to R.E.M. and Anto­nio Car­los Jobim.
  • Finally, Feb­ru­ary wraps up with the orches­tral read­ing (28 Feb 2010) of a sec­tion from the opera, Oksana G., that libret­tist Colleen Mur­phy and I have been devel­op­ing for sev­eral years. We con­ducted a suc­cess­ful piano-vocal work­shop with Tapes­try New Opera at the Banff Cen­tre in August and now the Cana­dian Opera Com­pany is doing a read­ing, as part of the long-term devel­op­ment process for this piece.

These events mark the cul­mi­na­tion of sev­eral projects from 2009. Sev­eral other projects, includ­ing some uncon­ven­tional ensem­bles and the use of unusual media, are under devel­op­ment for 2010. Addi­tional details will be posted when available.

19 Feb 2010
Elegy of Others Première
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ork­est de erepris pre­mières a new piece of mine, Elegy of Oth­ers, com­mis­sioned by them after I won their Young Com­posers Com­pe­ti­tion in 2009. The piece is a col­lage and is reflec­tive in nature, bring­ing together sources from Vivaldi to R.E.M.

8:00pm, Podium Gigant
Nieuwstraat 377 (map)
Apeldoorn, the Netherlands
www.ereprijs.nl    www.gigant.nl    
Awards
24 October 2009, 4:32 amTags: , , , , , , , , ,
2009
  • Alberta Cre­ative Devel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive Grant
  • Canada Coun­cil for the Arts Com­mis­sion­ing Grant (Ensem­ble Res­o­nance, Calgary)
  • Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, Travel Grant
2008
  • Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of Alberta Emerg­ing Artist Award
  • SOCAN Awards for Young Com­posers: Serge Garant Award (Cham­ber Music), third prize
  • Alberta Foun­da­tion for the Arts, Music Project Grant
2007
  • Cul­ture no.3 selected by the ISCM Cana­dian Sec­tion as part of their sub­mis­sion to the 2008 ISCM World Music Days in Lithuania
  • Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, Com­mis­sion­ing Grant (Toca Loca, Toronto)
2006
  • Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, Grant to Pro­fes­sional Musicians
  • SOCAN Awards for Young Com­posers: Pierre Mer­cure Award (Solo or Duet), first prize
  • Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, Grant to Pro­fes­sional Musicians
  • UC San Diego, Travel Grant
2005
  • Neil D. Gra­ham and William Erv­ing Fair­clough Grad­u­at­ing Schol­ar­ships (Uni­ver­sity of Toronto)
2004
  • SOCAN Awards for Young Composers:
Serge Garant Award (Cham­ber Music), sec­ond prize
God­frey Rid­out Award (Vocal Music), third prize
  • George Coutts and Gwen­dolyn Grant Aca­d­e­mic Schol­ar­ships (Uni­ver­sity of Toronto)
2003
  • Tryp­Tych Toronto Young Com­posers’ Com­pe­ti­tion, first prize
  • Mon­ica Ryck­man and Ben McPeek Aca­d­e­mic Schol­ar­ships (Uni­ver­sity of Toronto)
2000
  • Jazz Band Most Valu­able Mem­ber Award (Grant MacE­wan College)
1999
  • Louise McK­in­ney Schol­ar­ship and entrance schol­ar­ship (Grant MacE­wan College)
  • Alberta Foun­da­tion for the Arts, Study Grant
1998
  • Alberta Foun­da­tion for the Arts, Study Grant
Professional Experience
24 October 2009, 4:29 amTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 2009
Com­po­si­tion Fel­low
Cham­ber Music Con­fer­ence and Com­posers’ Forum of the East
Ben­ning­ton VT, USA
By invi­ta­tion. Duties include com­pos­ing a work for ama­teur musi­cians and coach­ing the ensemble.
Feb 2009
ork­est de ereprijs Young Com­posers Meet­ing
Apel­doorn, the Netherlands
Win­ner of the 2009 com­pe­ti­tion. Wrote a piece for the ensem­ble, par­tic­i­pated in masterclasses.
2008–present
Artis­tic Direc­tor
Recy­cled 80s Live
Canada
Con­ceived and orga­nized the cre­ation of a concert-length, ampli­fied piece for night­clubs based on quo­ta­tions of ‘80s pop songs, includ­ing com­po­si­tion of the score, hir­ing of musi­cians, arrang­ing for per­for­mances, and cre­at­ing audio–video sup­port materials.
Nov–Dec 2009
Banff Cen­tre Fall Cre­ative Music Res­i­dency
Banff, Canada
Sep–Dec 2007
Konin­klijk Con­ser­va­to­rium Res­i­dency
the Hague, the Netherlands
Pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment res­i­dency and com­po­si­tion mas­ter­classes with Mar­tijn Padding.
Aug 2007
Domaine For­get Acad­emy New Music Sem­i­nar
St-Irénée QC, Canada
Par­tic­i­pated in mas­ter­classes. Rehearsals and per­for­mance with the Nou­vel ensem­ble mod­erne.
Feb 2007
Arditti Quar­tet Res­i­dency, UC San Diego Vis­it­ing Artist Pro­gram
San Diego, USA
Com­posed a piece for the Arditti Quar­tet. Rehearsals, record­ing, and mas­ter­classes with the quartet.
2005–2007
Teach­ing Assis­tant
Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego
Prepa­ra­tion: Three-month, inten­sive ped­a­gogy sem­i­nar on teach­ing crit­i­cal read­ing and writ­ing to undergraduates.
Duties: Attend­ing lec­tures and meet­ings with pro­fes­sors, cre­at­ing les­son plans based on course read­ing, teach­ing classes, hold­ing office hours, help­ing stu­dents develop research papers, and grad­ing writ­ten assign­ments and exams.
Classes Taught: (Music) MUS1B Music The­ory, MUS12 Intro to Opera, MUS4 Intro­duc­tion to West­ern Music His­tory, LTEN159 Pop­u­lar Music of the ‘60s; (World Lit­er­a­ture) MMW2 The Great Clas­si­cal Tra­di­tions, MMW3 The Medieval Heritage.
2005–2006
Com­poser in Res­i­dence
Ensem­ble con­tem­po­rain de Mon­tréal Généra­tion 2006
Mon­tréal, Canada
Wrote a piece for the ensem­ble, gave a mas­ter­class on my music at the École de musique Vin­cent d’Indy, rehearsals with stu­dent musi­cians, work­shop and rehearsals with the ensem­ble, cross-Canada tour.
Aug 2005
Tapes­try New Opera Works Composer–Librettist Lab­o­ra­tory
Toronto, Canada
Com­po­si­tion of four short opera scenes with four libret­tists, daily mas­ter­classes and dis­cus­sions, rehearsals with per­form­ers, performances.
Sep 2004–Jan 2005
Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Con­tem­po­rary Opera Show­case Pro­gramme
Toronto, Canada
Only under­grad­u­ate stu­dent invited to par­tic­i­pate. Wrote a cham­ber opera for U of T stu­dents, rehearsed with the singers and ensem­ble, held meet­ings with the music director.
Spring 2004
Artis­tic Direc­tor, Orga­nizer
Uni­ver­sity of Toronto – Har­vard Com­po­si­tion Exchange
Orga­nized a student-run exchange between com­po­si­tion stu­dents at both uni­ver­si­ties. Curated a con­cert of stu­dent works.
Spring 2004
Artis­tic Direc­tor, Organizer
Curated a con­cert of new music for sax­o­phone in Toronto. Respon­si­ble for find­ing per­form­ers, com­pos­ing a new piece, mak­ing pro­gram­ming deci­sions for other reper­toire, and pub­li­ciz­ing the concert.
Sum­mer 2002
Artis­tic Direc­tor, Organizer
Curated a con­cert of new music for stu­dent com­posers at the Uni­ver­sity of Alberta. Respon­si­ble for find­ing per­form­ers, com­pos­ing a new piece, mak­ing pro­gram­ming deci­sions for other reper­toire, and pub­li­ciz­ing the concert.
1995–present
Pri­vate music instruc­tor in per­cus­sion, com­po­si­tion, music the­ory, and history.
10 Sep 2009
orkest de ereprijs at Gaudeamus Music Week
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ork­est de ereprijs per­forms my piece, Love in the Time of Con­nec­tiv­ity, at the Gaudea­mus Music Week. This is the same piece that won their Young Com­posers Com­pe­ti­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2009.

12:30pm, Bernard Haitink Hall, Amsterdam Conservatory
Oosterdokskade 151 (map)
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
www.ereprijs.nl    www.english.conservatoriumvanamsterdam.nl/en/    
orkest de ereprijs YCM Competition
14 February 2009, 10:38 pmTags: , , , ,

I’m pleased and excited to announce that I was declared the win­ner of this year’s annual Young Com­posers Meet­ing in the Nether­lands, hosted by renowned Dutch ensem­ble, ork­est de ereprijs. The jurors chose between 16 pieces that the invited com­posers wrote for the ensem­ble. My piece, Love in the Time of Con­nec­tiv­ity, was a col­lage of approx­i­mately a dozen other pieces, with sources rang­ing from Claude Debussy to Pizzi­cato Five. I’ll be writ­ing another piece for the ensem­ble, to be per­formed in 2010.

13 Feb 2009
orkest de ereprijs Young Composers Meeting
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Pre­mière of a new work writ­ten for the ensem­ble, a col­lage based on love songs.

8:00pm, Podium Gigant
Nieuwstraat 377 (map)
Apeldoorn, the Netherlands
www.ereprijs.nl    www.gigant.nl    
New Performances and Projects
10 January 2009, 10:41 pmTags: , , , , , ,

This year is off to a busy start, with two pre­mières in Feb. One is a col­lage piece based on love songs, for the ork­est de ereprijs in Hol­land. The other piece, for soprano and speak­ing pianist, is based on spam email texts and is being pre­mièred in Toronto’s SHIFT Fes­ti­val by pianist Greg Oh and soprano Xin Wang.

In addi­tion, I’m work­ing on a piece for Brazilian-Canadian pianist, Luciane Car­dassi, which will involve elec­tron­ics and her voice (in addi­tion to her piano play­ing). I’m also work­ing on a col­lab­o­ra­tive mul­ti­me­dia piece with Amsterdam-based flautist/composer Anne La Berge.

Lastly, after a suc­cess­ful pre­mière in Banff last month, I’m putting together mate­ri­als based on Recy­cled 80s Live, which will be acces­si­ble here once they’re ready. I’m cur­rently in the plan­ning phases for an even­tual tour of the piece; details TBA as they become available.

Love in the Time of Connectivity (2009)
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Instru­men­ta­tion: sop, sop, m-sop, flt, flt, clar, alto sax, bari sax, hrn, trpt, tbn, tbn, tba, pno, elec gtr, bass gtr, drums
Dura­tion: 3’30
Commissioned by orkest de ereprijs
score view score
mp3 listen to Love in the Time of Connectivity
cmc get per­for­mance materials
Per­form­ers: orkest de ereprijs, conductor: Rob Vermeulen
Pro­gramme Note

Love in the Time of Con­nec­tiv­ity is a col­lage. In fact, even the title is a col­lage: I took the title of Gabriel Gar­cía Márquez’s novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, and com­bined it with a ref­er­ence to the cul­ture of Inter­net file shar­ing. I have been inter­ested in col­lage and the reap­pro­pri­a­tion of mate­r­ial for some time, because as the say­ing goes, good artists bor­row but great artists steal. Col­lage is the most hon­est way to hon­our that prin­ci­ple, and I spent most of 2008 work­ing in this direction.

Col­lage, as well as related ideas such as sam­pling, remix, and mash-up, are among the few uni­fy­ing forces dri­ving artis­tic change today. Through video sites like YouTube and audio sites like ccMix­ter, these ideas have been respon­si­ble for renew­ing ama­teur art on a mass scale, for chal­leng­ing the stan­dards of cre­ativ­ity, for expand­ing musi­cal taste, and even for influ­enc­ing legal precedent.

For the first time in his­tory, we are drown­ing in art. There is too much music of the high­est artis­tic qual­ity for any­one to ever hope to expe­ri­ence. So how can artists con­tribute to cul­ture in a sit­u­a­tion like this? I think col­lage is an impor­tant part of the answer, and the proof is in the atti­tudes of those who grew up with the Inter­net. For many of them, art is not some­thing sim­ply to be expe­ri­enced, it is a resource to be adapted, changed, built upon, and shared.

While com­pos­ing Love in the Time of Con­nec­tiv­ity, I gave myself some restric­tions in order to inspire cre­ativ­ity. For exam­ple, I decided to try to present all quo­ta­tions in as rec­og­niz­able a form as pos­si­ble. I did not allow myself to trans­pose frag­ments from their orig­i­nal tonal­i­ties, and I did not allow myself to com­pose my own new mate­r­ial to bridge together the quo­ta­tions—every note is bor­rowed. I also made tempo an inte­gral part of the musi­cal devel­op­ment, and I tried to make gram­mat­i­cal sense of all the text frag­ments I com­bined. Finally, every quote relates to the oth­ers in some way, either in terms of theme, title, text, artist, or (obvi­ously) musi­cal sounds.

CC-by-sa 2010, . Some rights reserved. Some ele­ments adapted from var­i­ous freely avail­able sources.