Student Composition Recital

Wed. | 04.23 | Ganz | 7:30pm

Select from the list of works on the left for program notes and composer bios, or view the program from the previous composition recital.

Program:

Ted Nazarowski was born in Chicago IL. He started in music at the age of 12 when he took piano lessons from Sally Daley. He later studied electronic composition with her as well. In addition to being a composer Ted Nazarowski also plays cello regularly. He was principal cellist in the Lane Symphony in 2004-2006 and has performed with many ensembles throughout Chicago and the northern suburbs. Also, he has travels to many countries all around the world. In his music Nazarowski tries to capture his experiences around the world and mix them with his experience in visual arts to create something that is both visually and musically intriguing.

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About Untitled:

 “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
-Albert Einstien-

Brian Jacobs is currently pursuing his Master’s of Music degree in composition at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts.  He received his BA in music composition at Columbia College Chicago.  His concert music has been performed at the Music Center of Columbia College by members of ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), as well as having other performances at St. James Cathedral, Sherwood Conservatory of Music, and Roosevelt University in Chicago.  Jacobs was a national finalist in the MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) 2008 Young Artist Composition Competition.    Jacobs hopes to teach music composition and music theory at the undergraduate level after he graduates.

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In Sample Ex I used sound recordings or “samples” which came from a variety of sound sources from rolling ball bearings across a table to striking the spokes of bicycle tire with a mallet.  Movements I and III each feature the spinning and playing of a bicycle tire’s spokes.   Through special preparations of the tire and subsequent electronic manipulation of the original samples, I was able to achieve very different characters in the electronic part of Movement I and III.  In both cases, I used looping processes to extend the “life” of the tire spin and to provide the necessary repetition I needed for the composition.   The piano is used to emphasize or deemphasize this repetition as well as to provide colorful harmonic landscapes.  Movement II features an arrangement of many short samples with no piano accompaniment.  This movement deals with sound as a collection of events meant to be equal to that of “live” sound.
I would like to especially thank Gunnar Jebsen for his assistance with recording the bicycle.

John Van Geem was born in Mt. Prospect, IL on May 8, 1987 where he was immersed in music from an early age. While always playing piano by ear, John was also involved in public schools percussion programs. For eight years he learned the groove which lead him to unforgettable experiences with the award winning band, orchestra, and choirs at Prospect High School. He is now attending Roosevelt University, studying Music Composition under his professors Stacy Garrop and Kyong Mee Choi.

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Ode to Einstein

Time is not a direction,
It is a word to describe the movement of objects through space.
When we shrink down to the infinitely small,
We see matter moves the same way gravity guides the flow of our rivers.

The Buddhist say,
"The river is everywhere,
It is at the source, and at the mouth
In the weather, and on the mountains.
The present only exist for it.
Not the shadow of the past nor the cast of the future."

Likewise, all dimensions of our selves are infinite.
A forever moving balance of motions through space.
We are the flowing rivers of Consciousness.
We are the self aware Sea.

Olivia Block is a contemporary composer and sound artist who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Her recorded work seeks to introduce and ultimately reconcile nature with artifice in the realms of music and sound. In the process, "organic" sound becomes subtly process, digitized, and abstracted; "inorganic" sound becomes self-replicating and animate; and "musical" elements such as chamber instruments are defamiliarized from their traditional associations, freeing them to participate in the larger aesthetic possibilities of sound. Block works with recorded media, chamber ensembles, video, and site specific sound installations. She is currently studying composition at Roosevelt University, with a particular interest in orchestral music.

She has performed throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours and festivals including Dissonanze, Archipel, Angelica, Outer Ear, and many others. She has completed residencies at Mills College of Music and The Berklee College of Music and has taught master classes at several additional universities.

Block has created sound installations for public sites and exhibition spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the library at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the Lincoln Conservatory Fern Room in Chicago, and at the "Echoes Through the Mountains" exhibit at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

She has also published recordings through Sedimental, Cut and several addition labels.

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In composing Scarcity and Choice, my interest was to incorporate certain fundamental electronic music concepts into a piece for an entirely acoustic chamber ensemble.  I focused on the attack, or the beginning of a sound-gesture, and the sustain and decay, the carrying through and ending of a sound-gesture. In electroacoustic music these elements can be controlled through specific electronic tools in sound design programs. I wanted to create a blending effect between all of the chamber instruments so that they might behave as one larger electronic instrument, yet maintaining the appealing warm sound color particular to acoustic music, which I feel is often lacking in electronic sounds. In designing the piece I often directed the piano to start a gesture with an attack, while the winds would sustain the gesture and the strings would carry the decay. I also had instruments offset pitch slightly from one another to create a psychoacoustic phenomenon known as ‘beating’, when slight differences in a certain pitch create audible vibrations or ‘beats’. Attention was also given to small overlapping patterns, resembling several electronic loops intersecting at different speeds.

Youn-Jae Ok was born in South Korea, and was educated in Korea, England, Switzerland and the Unite States.  After successfully completing International Baccalaureate from Chateau du Rosey, Switzerland, he moved to USA and completed his B.M. from University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.  His principal teachers include Stacy Garrop, Daron Hagen, Joel Hoffman, Michael Fiday and Mara Helmuth. Youn-Jae’s music is known for its powerful, dramatic and dynamic quality.  Youn-Jae is currently studying M.M. in Roosevelt University CCPA, and expected to graduate on May 2008.  His latest piece for wind ensemble, Audacity, was chosen as a winner of the 2008 CCPA Wind Ensemble Composition Competition and will be premiered at Rudolf Ganz Hall in Roosevelt University on May 5th 2008.

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How Long O Lord is a song set to the Psalm 13, a poem by the King David.  The text begins in a dark setting.  King David is earnest, unstable, and the tone of the text sounds as if he is complaining to the GOD.  Such characteristics are expressed with dissonant harmony, unstable rhythm, and by the aggressive and atonal melodic line.  After a sectional climax at the end of the second stanza, the tone of the poem changes from complaining to begging.  The pitch material changes as the text does.  The note D and A are introduced for the first time and a new modality is introduced based on those two pitches.  In the fourth stanza, the two atonal and modal ideas are combined and a drive towards the climactic word, “Shaken”, begins.  After the climax, the tone of the poem changes once again, from requesting for help to confirming his faith and trust towards the GOD.  The stable tonality matches the text and the music ends with a clear cadence.
When one is having a difficult time, the problem is perhaps the fact that his faith towards the original goal that he had has been shaken, and not the difficult time itself that he is experiencing.

NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) Psalm 13

How long, O LORD?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I hold counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!
Give light to my eyes,
or I will sleep the sleep of death,

and my enemy will say,
“I have prevailed;”
my foes will rejoice,
because I am shaken.
(shaken, shaken O LORD my God!)

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Aleks Savitski studied piano in a music school in Vinnytsya, Ukraine until his family moved to Poland in 1999.  In 2000 he was admitted to Karol Szymanowski Music High School, in Warsaw where he continued his piano studies with Irina Rumianceva.  At age twelve he discovered his joy for composing music.  In addition to piano, Aleks majored in composition from 2001 to 2006, studying with Barbara Niewiadomska.  Currently Aleks studies composition with Stacy Garrop at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University.
           
In 2004, the National Composition Competition for Young composers in Tarnow, Poland awarded Aleks second prize for his composition Inside, written for flute, vibraphone, contrabass, and piano.  From 2003 to 2006, he was a resident composer for the Warsaw Christian Fellowship Children’s Choir, for which he wrote many songs based on sacred texts.  Savitski’s pieces were performed on recitals at the Szymanowski United School of Music as well as Roosevelt University.  His portfolio includes pieces written for small and large chamber ensembles as well as compositions for solo instruments. Inside and Abys wrocil…, a cycle of art songs for soprano and piano, are Aleks’ most representative works. 

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Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his Sonnet no. 10 “Egypt”, draws a “picture” of the desert in a highly impressionistic manner.  Setting this sonnet to music I wanted to present my impression of the picture presented by Aldrich. In “Egypt” for female voice and piano I concentrate on two things: present the picture and emotions it induces in me. I chose this poem because I find it interesting that the author goes beyond a mere description of the landscape and involves the reader’s emotions. The piece itself has three fazes and each of them function present three different emotion. Nevertheless, the emotion presented a section remains to the end of the piece. Phrygian mode gives to the piece a medetarian flavor.  

Justin Leo Kennedy is currently working on a Bachelors Degree in music composition at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts.   In the spring of 2007 he received an Associates Degree in music from Ventura College.  Also during the spring of 2007 his piece Uchikatsu was performed in competition by the Santa Paula High School Drum Line.  The competition was held by the American Drum Line Association in southern California, and was awarded first place in the standstill division.  During that same spring Mr. Kennedy was given a scholarship by the Kiwanis Club of East Ventura.  He has had numerous performances in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  Additionally Mr. Kennedy is a percussionist and pianist.  He was named Ventura College Orchestra’s co-principle percussionist during his last semester of study at the institution.  He originally hails from Ventura County in southern California. 

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Somber Contentment comes from a private part of my life.  It is about feeling two contrasting emotions at once.  I find that many times in life I have felt this way.  I’ve gone through periods were I felt content with one aspect of my life but somber with another.  Other times I have felt good about myself but sad because someone I loved was going through a difficult time.  There are even some things in life that have made me feel happy and at the same time upset.  Somber Contentment attempts to capture one of those moments in my life. 

Also I would like to add that I am especially thrilled about tonight’s performance because I received a lot of help in the writing process from pianist Guobin Yang.  It is most exciting having someone who aided my writing so much perform the piece.  I am also grateful to have the very talented Katalin von Walterskirchen playing the cello for tonight’s performance.

Brian Baxter currently resides in Chicago where he is pursuing an M.M. in music composition at Roosevelt University.  In 2007, he received a B.M. in music composition from Illinois Wesleyan University.  His principal teachers at both institutions have included; Stacy Garrop, Daron Hagen, David Vayo, Mario Pelusi, and Garrett Byrnes.  Baxter’s music is recognized for its colorful timbre, unique rhythmic textures, and a healthy preoccupation with symmetry.  His latest piece for wind ensemble, A Rising Sun Across the Water (2007), was chosen as a winner of the 2008 CCPA Wind Ensemble Composition Competition and will be premiered in Chicago on May 5th, 2008.  People Movement (2006), written for chamber sextet was selected for performance by the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble at the 2008 Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference in Atlanta.  Baxter is also an active performer (percussion and piano) in several groups around the Chicagoland area including the Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles, Chicago's most exciting up-and-coming new music trio where he is also a member of the Board of Directors.  Brian originally hails from Geneva, IL. 

Website: www.societyofcomposers.org/user/brianbaxter.html
Email: BTBaxt@gmail.com

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Old Meeting-House Bell is the first in a cycle of four songs for soprano voice and piano that I am in the process of completing.  This particular song is relatively short since the text itself consists of only a single five-line stanza.  In the song, the sound and image of a large church bell is invoked on a couple of different levels.  It is literally referenced through broadly sweeping bell-shaped gestures in the piano.  These gestures produce a rich and sonorous sound reminiscent to that of a powerfully tolling bell.  On a larger scale the image of the bell is projected in the overall formal shape of the piece.  In this sense the musical materials for both the voice and piano parts are constructed in a symmetrical manner reflecting the similarly symmetrical construction of a bell.  In fact, there is a broad sweep in range from low to high and then back down again in both the voice and the piano that create this composite symmetrical effect.  Below is the text for Old Meeting-House Bell:

Old Meeting-House Bell
I love thy music well
It peals through the air
Sweetly full & fair
As in the early times
When I listened to its chimes.

Randall West's interests and inspiration span from 20th century modernism to the baroque, Indian classical, Japanese folk, electronic, avant-garde, and popular music.  Currently, Randall is pursuing a M.M. in composition at the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, where his composition instructors include Daron Hagen, Stacy Garrop, and Kyong Mee Choi.  Recent works have been performed at Ganz Hall, the Sherwood Conservatory, and the Green Mill.  Randall originally came to Chicago in 1997 to attend the University of Chicago, where he studied economics; he also works as a website programmer.  Now, in addition to composition, Randall is studying Japanese Taiko drumming with JASC Tsukasa Taiko, and piano performance with Gerald Rizzer; he has previously studied West-African Djembe and Indian Tabla.  In his compositions, Randall seeks to blend both western and non-western influences, such as by incorporating western instrumentation and contrapuntal textures with non-western inspired melodic lines and rhythms.

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Drops of Neon is the first movement from a string quartet inspired by my recent trip to Shanghai, China.  The intent of Drops of Neon is to hint at the city’s vibrant streetscapes, where, at dusk, one seems to have been transported into a neon wonderland.  On every street, one is surrounded by activity.  Glowing vertical advertisements stretch indefinitely, and the streets are alive with traffic, bicycles, and people. Musically, I tried to create this sense through dense, yet bustling textures, out of which meandering melodies and small bursts of energy emerge over time.

Olivia Block is a contemporary composer and sound artist who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Her recorded work seeks to introduce and ultimately reconcile nature with artifice in the realms of music and sound. In the process, "organic" sound becomes subtly process, digitized, and abstracted; "inorganic" sound becomes self-replicating and animate; and "musical" elements such as chamber instruments are defamiliarized from their traditional associations, freeing them to participate in the larger aesthetic possibilities of sound. Block works with recorded media, chamber ensembles, video, and site specific sound installations. She is currently studying composition at Roosevelt University, with a particular interest in orchestral music.

She has performed throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours and festivals including Dissonanze, Archipel, Angelica, Outer Ear, and many others. She has completed residencies at Mills College of Music and The Berklee College of Music and has taught master classes at several additional universities.

Block has created sound installations for public sites and exhibition spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the library at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the Lincoln Conservatory Fern Room in Chicago, and at the "Echoes Through the Mountains" exhibit at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

She has also published recordings through Sedimental, Cut and several addition labels.

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Enthalpy was commissioned for a forthcoming CD compilation release dedicated to Giancinto Scelsi, the late Italian composer. Scelsi was known for his use of single pitches held for long time periods. In a sense he sought to ‘go in’ to each pitch rather than travel in a fluid manner from note to note. In the recorded version of this composition performed by James Falzone, there are actually two layers (two recorded tracks) of solo clarinet interacting which I combined into one score for solo clarinet.

Like Scelsi, I included many long tones held on single pitches with very subtle changes in color so that the emphasis of the piece shifted from the narrative of pitch and harmonic structures to timbral gestures. Clarinet is one of the instruments I enjoy using the most in my compositions due to its ability to play extremely quietly. The inclusion of very quiet material often draws attention to the silence surrounding each note as much as the note itself. I am also attracted to sounds which traditional musicians are often trained out of, like the inclusion of audible breath and multiphonics in the performance. This score  includes certain open parameters so that the performer can improvise in parts. In my own background I have worked with many free improvisers, which informs my own style of music. I often seek to create a line or passage which flows like an improvised passage so that there is a less formal feel to the music.

Aleks Savitski studied piano in a music school in Vinnytsya, Ukraine until his family moved to Poland in 1999.  In 2000 he was admitted to Karol Szymanowski Music High School, in Warsaw where he continued his piano studies with Irina Rumianceva.  At age twelve he discovered his joy for composing music.  In addition to piano, Aleks majored in composition from 2001 to 2006, studying with Barbara Niewiadomska.  Currently Aleks studies composition with Stacy Garrop at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University.
           
In 2004, the National Composition Competition for Young composers in Tarnow, Poland awarded Aleks second prize for his composition Inside, written for flute, vibraphone, contrabass, and piano.  From 2003 to 2006, he was a resident composer for the Warsaw Christian Fellowship Children’s Choir, for which he wrote many songs based on sacred texts.  Savitski’s pieces were performed on recitals at the Szymanowski United School of Music as well as Roosevelt University.  His portfolio includes pieces written for small and large chamber ensembles as well as compositions for solo instruments. Inside and Abys wrocil…, a cycle of art songs for soprano and piano, are Aleks’ most representative works. 

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String Quartet was started with the beginning of my studies in Roosevelt.  It consists of three movements and each movement has influence on each other – some motivic, gestural and intervallic structures are kept the same as the piece develops. The first movement is kept in fast tempo and it is build around one simple motive which is developed throughout the movement.  The second movement is a slow movement and is based on a falling gesture. Short phrases are happening on the base on quiet drawn.  Rhythmical freedom is the prime priority in the movement. The last movement is a fast finale based on the gestures and intervals presented in previous movements. It functions as a summary of all emotions presented throughout the piece.