New Music New College

Welcome to the ninth season of New College of Florida's acclaimed contemporary music series, New Music New College (NMNC). Under the direction of Professor Stephen Miles  (photo at right), New Music New College provides educational opportunities for New College students while bringing leading local and national recording artists to the Sarasota area for performances hosted on campus in Sainer Pavilion and, for the first time, at the Sudakoff Center. Also this season, we introduce an exciting off-campus venue, the Mack b gallery, plus several College residencies and free lectures/discussions featuring the composers and guest artists.

Guest artists for 2007-2008 include the acclaimed pianist/performance artist Kathleen Supové, the Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo performing music of noted American composer Stuart Saunders Smith and The JACK Quartet, a powerhouse string ensemble whose program, "Inventions of Memory," will bridge the gap between the traditional and the avant-garde.

"The conception of music this season is rich and expansive, ranging from the popular (and the popularly inspired) to the most experimental," says Miles.  "As in previous seasons, NMNC will recast the musical concert as a form of theater. The highly personal music of Stuart Saunders Smith is dramatic, even operatic in character, while pianist Kathleen Supové transforms every recital into a spectacle of sound, image and movement.  New College graduate Silas Durocher's playful compositions will be offered in a relaxed cabaret setting, and the students and I (joined by interested members of the community) will perform a seminal work by 20th century British composer Cornelius Cardew as a mobile theater in the round."

Here is a look at the performance schedule for the 2007-2008 season of New Music New College.  Subscribers to the five-concert series receive the free bonus concert on November 16.

Saturday, September 15, 8 pm  *  New Music Cabaret
Silas Durocher and Friends * Sudakoff Center
Pre-concert discussion, 6:45 pm

Friday, November 16, 8 pm  *  A Night at the 'Opera'
Music by Stuart Saunders Smith *  Sainer Pavilion
Non-series bonus concert, free for subscribers

Smith's operas are works that achieve drama through unconventional means. The program will feature A Viet Nam Memorial, an opera of metaphor that explores the relationship between personal and public grief; Transitions and Leaps, an opera of props, movement, text and music; and By Language Embellished: I, which takes the audience on a journey through the English language in its many forms.

Saturday, November 17, 8 pm  *  The Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo
The Percussion/Theatre Music of Stuart Saunders Smith
Sainer Pavilion
Free lecture/discussion with the composer and performers, Thursday, November 15, 3:30 pm, Sainer Pavilion

Integrating percussion with spoken text and percussion theater, the program will include ..And Points North, a solo percussion opera in three scenes. Using music, singing, storytelling and theatrical props, it tells the story of a Native American woman in search of her spirit. Sylvia Smith has performed at Merkin Hall in New York, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Ayano Kataoka recently became the first percussionist to be accepted into the Chamber Music Society, and has performed with pianist Emanuel Ax at Lincoln Center.

Saturday, January 19, 8 pm  *  Digits
Pianist Kathleen Supové * Sainer Pavilion
Free lecture/demonstration, Friday, January 18, 3 pm, Sainer

One of America's most accomplished champions of contemporary music, Kathleen Supové's concerts are a multimedia experience using electronics, theatrical elements, vocal rants, performance art, staging and collaboration with artists from other disciplines.  Her "Digits" concert takes its title from a featured composition for piano, soundtrack and video by Neil Rolnick.  Playing before a sell-out New College crowd in 2002, Supové won a thunderous ovation.

Saturday, March 15, 8 pm * The Great Learning, Paragraph 7
Music of Cornelius Cardew performed by New College students
under the direction of NMNC director Stephen Miles
Mack b gallery, 500 Tallevast Road
Members of the community invited to participate. 
For details, call 941-487-4664.

The 20th century British composer Cornelius Cardew exerted a profound influence on the development of experimental composition and performance.  One of the canonical books of Confucianism, The Great Learning consists of seven paragraphs, each devoted to the pursuit of moral authority. Cardew's setting of the work's seventh paragraph for large vocal ensemble is one of the most influential experimental compositions of the last 40 years, and can be performed by any number of singers.

Saturday, May 10, 8 pm * The JACK Quartet
"Inventions of Memory"  * Sainer Pavilion
Pre-concert discussion, 6:45 pm

The JACK Quartet will perform contemporary music that engages the issues of modernity and history, of the persistence of memory and the imperative of transformation.  The program includes works by Iannis Xenakis, John Zorn, Wolfgang Rihm and Charles Wuorinen.  Praised for the "powerhouse playing" by the Chicago Sun Times, the JACK Quartet maintains a steady appetite for today's most demanding string quartet repertoire.  The musicians include violinists Ari Streisfeld and Christopher Otto; violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland.

Tickets for New Music New College cost $10 per performance - or $35 for a season pass to all five concerts - and can be purchased by contacting the Special Events Office (941) 487-4155.  New College faculty and staff are admitted free with their New College ID.
 

For more information, contact the Office of College Events at (941) 487-4155, or email events@ncf.edu. 

We'd like to thank our media sponsors for the 2007-2008 season: the Herald-Tribune Media Group, ABC7 and WUSF Public Broadcasting.