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The second Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute (JCOI) heads west!
August 7-11, 2012 at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
The American Composers Orchestra (ACO) and Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University (CJS), in cooperation with The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and EarShot, the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network, will present the second Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute (JCOI) from August 7-11, 2012 at UCLA.
JCOI brings together 38 jazz composers at various stages in their careers chosen from a national pool of applicants, to explore the challenges of writing for the symphony orchestra. Composers working in jazz, improvised, and creative music have been selected based on their excellent musicianship, originality, and potential for future growth in orchestral composition.
JCOI is a new development in the jazz field. While many jazz composers seek to write for the symphony orchestra, opportunities for hands-on experience are few. JCOI aims to provide new resources for both jazz and classical music, promoting the emergence of composers trained in both jazz and new orchestral techniques. Participants in JCOI will study with leading composers, conductors and performers in a curriculum designed and led by George Lewis (JCOI Director; Columbia University), Anthony Davis (University of California, San Diego), Anne LeBaron (California Institute of the Arts), Paul Chihara (UCLA), Nicole Mitchell (University of California, Irvine), James Newton (UCLA), Alvin Singleton (ACO advisor, Improvisation), and Derek Bermel(ACO Creative Advisor).
The Institute culminates on Saturday, August 11, 2012 at 8pm with a concert performed by wild Up at Schoenberg Hall at UCLA. For information, the public should call ACO at 212-977-8495.
wild Up
Saturday, August 11, 8:00 PM
Christopher Rountree, conductor
wild Up is a 24-member experimental classical/contemporary ensemble comprising Los Angeles musicians committed to creating visceral, thought-provoking happenings. The group, led by artistic director and conductor Christopher Rountree, unites around the belief that no music is off limits, and that a concert space should be as moving as the music heard in it: small, powerful and unlike anything else. Our projects are meant to bring people together, defy convention and address the need for heart-wrenching, mind-bending experiences.
www.wildup.la
The program features music by JCOI mentor composers and includes George Lewis’s The Will to Adorn which takes its title from a 1934 essay by Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression;” Anne LeBaron’s Telluris Theoria Sacra(Sacred Theory of the Earth) depicting the chaos that preceded creation and inspired by Thomas Burnet’s 1681 text of the same title; Nicole Mitchell’s “dense, dramatic, and daring” (JazzHouse.org) Before and After (Nuclear War); Alvin Singleton’s Almost a Boogie for string trio, bassoon, horn, and piano; and Derek Bermel’s Three Rivers which combines both notated and improvised music. In addition, wild Up offers selections from its own eclectic repertoire including Art Jarvinen’s Egyptian Two-Step which features harmonica and compressed air cans; Andrew Tholl’s corpus callosom which shines a spotlight on the drum set as a prominent part of the ensemble; Brian Ferneyhough’sL’chute d’lcare inspired by the celebrated painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Breughel; and Tom Johnson’s Narayana’s Cows based on a numerical sequence resulting from a mathematical question cow reproduction posed by Narayana, an Indian mathematician from the 14th century.
2012 JCOI Participating Composers
| Steve Allee | Columbus, IN | James Lewis | Valencia, CA |
| David Arend | Oakland, CA | Daniel Marschak | Los Angeles, CA |
| Gregg August | Brooklyn, NY | Miya Masaoka | New York, NY |
| Mariel Austin | Northridge, CA | Ole Mathisen | New York, NY |
| Adam Bartczak | Denver, CO | Lisa Mezzacappa | San Francisco, CA |
| Jennifer Bellor | Rochester, NY | Andy Milne | Shohola, PA |
| Jose Bevia | West New York, NJ | Chase Morrin | San Diego, CA |
| Samantha Boshnack | Seattle, WA | Alon Nechushtan | Jersey City, NJ |
| Anita Brown | Nyack, NY | Tomeka Reid | Chicago, IL |
| Courtney Bryan | New York, NY | Randall Reyman | Decatur, IL |
| Alan Chan | Santa Monica, CA | Jason Robinson | Amherst, MA |
| Tobin Chodos | Santa Cruz, CA | Kevin Robinson | Valencia, CA |
| Joseph Daley | Hawley, PA | Kyle Simpson | Pittsburgh, PA |
| Michael Dessen | Irvine, CA | Richard Sussman | Nyack, NY |
| Nicolas Fernandez | Brooklyn, NY | Sumi Tonooka | Beacon, NY |
| Alex Heitlinger | Austin, TX | Gregory Ward | New York, NY |
| Stefan Kac | Valencia, CA | Salim Washington | New York, NY |
| Laura Kahle | Brooklyn, NY | Dave Wilson | Studio City, CA |
| Ingrid Laubrock | Brooklyn ,NY & Moers, Germany | Alon Yavnai | Brooklyn, NY |
About Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies
sees jazz as a music without borders and ultimately without limits, a model for the integration of forward-thinking models of scholarly inquiry with innovative teaching and community dialogue. Its direction, which emphasizes the themes of internationalization, technology, and community, is realized by promoting research by innovative scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences; encouraging excellence in the teaching of music and culture; and presenting public events that complement and extend the Center’s research and teaching. The Center for Jazz Studies views the interdisciplinary expansion of the intellectual conversation surrounding jazz, and especially its lifeblood practice, improvisation, as tracing a path toward the development of new knowledge that illuminates the human condition.www.jazz.columbia.edu
About the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
With its three outstanding departments of Ethnomusicology, Music and Musicology, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music aspires to educate the whole student through productive collaborations between performance and scholarship, a cross-cultural, global understanding of the art of music, and preparatory training for a broad range of careers in music after graduation. Public concerts, lectures, symposia, master classes, and musical theater and opera productions, are a hallmark of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Each department hosts a calendar of events open to the entire community, enriching the lives of both those on stage and those in the audience, and contributing to the quality of life in the city and beyond. The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music was formed in 2007, with the support of a $30 million endowment from the Herb Alpert Foundation, made possible through the generosity of the renowned performer, producer and philanthropist Herb Alpert and his wife Lani Hall Alpert. www.schoolofmusic.ucla.edu
About EarShot
EarShot is the newly formed National Orchestral Composition Discovery Network that initiates partnerships with orchestras around the country; provides consulting, production, and administrative support for orchestras to undertake readings, residencies, performances, and composer-development programs; identifies promising orchestral composers, increasing awareness and access to their music; supports orchestras’ commitment to today’s composers and enhances national visibility for their new music programs. EarShot is coordinated by American Composers Orchestra in collaboration with American Composers Forum, the League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA (formerly the American Music Center and Meet The Composer). It brings together the artistic, administrative, marketing, and production resources and experience of the nation’s leading organizations devoted to the support of new American orchestral music.
www.earshotnetwork.org
The Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Continuing Innovation Program, with additional funding provided The Herb Alpert Foundation and the Fromm Music Foundation.