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1996 Conference, Concert 4

The John Cage Legacy

Concert

Joseph Koykkar is an associate professor at the University Wisconsin-Madison where he is a member of the Interarts and Technology faculty and Music Director for the Dance Program. He holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Indiana University and the University of Miami (DMA in 1983). His principal composition teachers have been John Eaton, Dennis Kam, and John Downey. His compositions have been performed extensively throughout the United States and in Europe and South America by such ensembles as North/South Consonance (New York), Synchronia (St. Louis), Relache (Philadelphia), Zeitgeist ( Minneapolis), and Present Music (Milwaukee). Northeastern Records (Boston, MA) has released a CD featuring six of his compositions. MMC Records released the CD "Robert Black Conducts" which features his orchestral composition COMPOSITE. He has been the recipient of 11 consecutive annual awards from ASCAP and has received an Individual Artists Award in Music Composition from the Wisconsin Arts Board Arts. He was the Composer in Residence at the NOW Festival 1996 at the Conservatory of Music at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Koykkar is a past president of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers.

Triple Play was commissioned by UW Madison Professor of Piano Todd Welbourne and was premiered in May 1992. Since then Welbourne has performed the work numerous times throughout the state and the nation including on Present Music in Milwaukee and the SEAMUS National Conference in Austin. His recording of this work is included on Volume 3 of the CD series produced by SEAMUS. Together with the live pianist, the composition uses a Disklavier and a sampler, both under the control of MIDI sequencing software.

John Jeffrey Gibbens holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where his principal teacher were James Ming and Ben Johnston. In addition to performing, Dr. Gibbens has taught at Oberlin College, has published articles on Xenakis and Johnston, and has written extensively on connections between Debussy and Ives.

On Winnowing and Sifting, for piccolo, tuba and piano, Gibbens writes: "In 1944, Wisconsin became the Polka State, an event which caused me to reflect on the connections between experimental and vernacular music, especially the role of noncommercial musicians play in the life of small towns, and the similarity of that role to the position of the "new" musician. The result is my tribute to the 1894 UW Board of Regents, Bohemian bands, Tejano music, and Nino Rota."

David Drexler received his Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in 1990, where he studied with Joel Naumann, Stephen Dembski, Les Thimmig, and Joan Wildman. In addition to writing concert music, David is active as a jazz arranger and trumpet player.

Forgotten at Dawn... (...recalled at dusk) refers to the sensation of waking from a dream unable to remember what the dream was about. The piece is a theme with four variations, or "not-quite-remembered repetitions." Between each variation is a solo for one of the instruments and a rhythmic exploration of harmonies based on the theme. This work was commissioned by the Madison chapter of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers for the "99-cent Concert Series."

Sigmund Snopek has been an active composer for over 25 years. His music ranges from taped electronic pieces to full orchestral scores. He has received many performances and awards for his work in the compositional field. This past year 1995 was a busy year. Starting with a commission from Kathleen Matts and Carol Meves for whom he composed thirty pieces for flute and voice. Shortly after he finished 15 pieces for pipe organ which were recorded by David Bohn and are being released by his German record Label Music is Intelligence. Next was a commission from Irishfest for whom he composed the opera "Trocaire" which was performed five times at Irishfest to packed houses. Snopek completed another commission for Marlee Sabo and the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra for an orchestrated version of his song cycle "The Pale Sun". And he closed the year out finishing a re-recording of "Nobody to Dream", a piece for rock band and string quartet for Music is Intelligence.

Snopek writes the following notes.: "A Rock in the Wicklow Mountains was written on a warm Saturday afternoon while sitting on a rock in the Wicklow Mountains in Wicklow county Ireland. I had the previous night visited my great grandfather's brother's grave and was staying at the old family farm while on a trip to Ireland with my mother Shirley and my sister Allison. I thought, since this is St. Patrick's day weekend it would be fun to perform this piece for you. I wrote the poem and the melody simultaneously while practicing flute and watching the cows and breathing the fresh mountain air. The Simple Concerto grew out of my activities as a cabaret and festival performer. I also think of the piece as a stunt, a gimmick piece, kind of associated with vaudeville. The piece is never the same but the stunt is."

Thomas Powell is currently a D.M.A. dissertator in music composition at the UW-Madison. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, he has completed graduate degrees in music and the arts at Michigan State University, and Warwick and Surrey Universities in England. Most recently he has had works premiered at The Guildford International Music Festival (England), The Edmonton Fringe Festival (Canada), The Viterbo New Music Festival (La Crosse), Dancework (Milwaukee), The MadWAC 99-cent Concert Series (Madison), and various Kanopy Performing Arts Center dance events (Madison). He is Vice-President of WAC, and co-founder of the Madison Chapter. He is also looking for a job.

What if some day... is a one-movement song for soprano and Pierrot ensemble. It is based on a translation of a excerpt from Freiderich Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" in which a man is confronted by a demon who asks him a most pointed, two-edged question.

Yehuda Yannay is a prolific and versatile composer, conductor and media artist of international reputation whose list of about one hundred works include: music for orchestra, electronic, live electronic and synthesizer pieces, environmental compositions, film, music-theater, and a large body of vocal and chamber music pieces. Last season, performances of his music took place across continents between Bucharest to Taipei. Among his most recent performances was the January premiere of "Exit Music At Century's End" with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Edwin London conductor, and last week's first European performance of "Three Jazz Moods" for saxophone and trumpet solo, 7 instruments and rhythm section in Romania. Yannay's original contributions to contemporary music literature and ideas are documented in many books, international periodicals and dictionaries of 20th century music. This year, the first in a series of compilation of his chamber works will be issued on CD.

Yannay informs the following: "Five Pieces for Three Players was composed for a retrospective of my chamber music presented at the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee in May 1994. Written at the request of clarinetist Frankie J. Kelly, the music is in a form of a suite: each piece composed from a set of recognizable motifs woven into colorful tapestries of sound. I composed the work in a great hurry and was very pleasantly surprised that the music came out lighter in spirit than I expected. I concluded in hindsight that the music was my version of "Le Sacre du Printemps" celebrating spring finally arriving after one of the harshest winters in memory. Last summer, the Ars Nova Ensemble of Cluj (Romania) presented the work on three international festivals in Europe."

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