EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings: Composer Spotlight - Meng Wang

Meng Wang (b. 1989) is a Chinese composer currently based in New York City. Meng’s music has been performed throughout North America, China, and Europe, by esteemed ensembles such as The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Thin Edge New Music Collective, LONGLEASH trio, MSM Composer’s Orchestra (George Manahan, conductor) and China Youth Symphony Orchestra. Her piece Beloved by Artemis won the 2012 Chinese National Chamber Music Composition Competition and was selected for the composition showcase by the Xi’an Conservatory of Music in China. Meng has been a fellow at Aspen Music Festival and School and was named The Deolus W. Husband Scholarship for Composition in 2015-2017. Upcoming projects include a chamber opera, Simulacrum, presented by Path New Music Theatre, which will be premiered in April 2018. Meng is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Dr. Reiko Fueting. She also studied with Andreia Pinto Correia and Kaija Saariaho.

Meng Wang was selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings for her piece Blooming in the Long Dark Winter’s Night, which will be workshopped and conducted by Music Director Courtney Lewis in a final performance on Friday, April 20 at 8PM. Details here

Meng spoke with us about the piece and what she looks forward to at the readings.

Composer Meng Wang

American Composers Orchestra: What was your reaction to finding out that your piece had been selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings? What are you looking forward to about the program?

Meng Wang: When I first saw my name on the EarShot program this year, I was so excited! Especially when I realized that this would be such a fantastic chance to have my music performed by the incredible Jacksonville Symphony. I started to feel that this trip to Florida would be mean a lot to me.

ACO: Your piece Blooming in the Long Dark Winter’s Night is based on the French symbolist poem "Correspondences" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire. Why did you decide to base your piece on this poem? Is the poem well-suited to your compositional style?

MW: "Correspondences" is a sonnet divided into two quatrain and two tercets. The title of the poem points out what the poem is about, which is to blend all the perceptions. When I was working on this piece, I used the ideas of "blending" and "transforming one thing from another" to organize my orchestration of this piece. We can hear the frequency transferring from different groups in the opening section, and all the sounds blending into a sound field in the slow part. I chose metallic percussion instruments hitting throughout the whole piece to imitate the bell in the ancient temple, which then becomes the most important symbol of this piece.

ACO: What aspects of your piece have you improved or fine-tuned during the readings?

MW: After the two-day intensive rehearsal of my piece with Music Director Courtney Lewis and workshop with three mentors Marcos Balter, Steven Mackey, and Courtney Bryan, my piece has been adjusted in many ways and become more and more mature. For me, this is the most valuable experience during the readings. Now I'm very looking forward to hearing the latest version performing by Jacksonville Symphony on April 20th.

Learn more about Meng Wang at www.mengwangmusic.com
Follow Meng on Facebook and Instagram

The EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings culminate in a final performance on Friday, April 20 at 8PM. Details here

Check out Meng's contemporary opera group, Path New Music Theatre, which has an upcoming performance of Meng's chamber opera Simulacrum on June 3-10 in NYC.

EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings: Composer Spotlight - Ursula Kwong-Brown

Ursula Kwong-Brown (b. 1987) is a composer and media artist from New York City. Described as “atmospheric and accomplished” by The New York Times, her work has been performed in diverse venues including Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Miller Theatre and the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center in New York, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Awards include a 2017- 2019 fellowship with the Berkeley Symphony, the 2016 George Ladd Prix de Paris Prize, the 2015 Composers, Inc. BAMM Prize, and the 2014 Bowdoin Festival Prize, as well as honors from ASCAP, the New York Composers’ Circle and the Chicago Ensemble. Plans for 2018 include new works for both the Berkeley Symphony and the UC Berkeley Symphony. Currently, Ursula is finishing a Ph.D. in New Media & Music at UC Berkeley with support from a Mellon-Berkeley fellowship.

Ursula was selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings for her piece Night and Day, which will be workshopped and conducted by Music Director Courtney Lewis in a final performance on Friday, April 20 at 8PM. Details here

Ursula spoke with us about the piece and what she looks forward to at the readings.

Composer Ursula Kwong-Brown

American Composers Orchestra: What was your reaction to finding out that your piece had been selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings? What are you looking forward to about the program?

Ursula Kwong-Brown: I was super excited to find out that my piece Night and Day had been selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings. I’ve never heard this work performed before - not even a rehearsal - so I am very much looking forward to hearing it for the first time. Also, I’m looking forward to working with my mentor composer, Steve Mackey, and getting feedback from the orchestral musicians. I just met my fellow composers in the hotel restaurant here in Jacksonville, and I am excited to get to know them and to hear their works, too. 

ACO: Your experience includes some fantastic projects that are far removed from the concert hall, including your sound-art installation Chromatic Counterpoint and research on production and perception of musical intervals in African clawed frogs for Columbia University. Can you talk about why these experiences have been important for you as a composer? Do you think they affect your approach when it comes to writing a conventional orchestral work?

UKB: It’s funny because I rarely think about the influence of my background in science on my compositions, but I think there is a connection between the textures and timbres in the “Night” section of my piece and the many hours that I spent recording and analyzing the calls of crickets and frogs in the nighttime.

ACO: Your piece Night and Day is split into two sections, night in the first half, day in the second. From your program note it seems as if these two sections will contrast quite a bit. What, if any, are the musical elements that tie them together? Is the piece trying to show similarities between night and day, as well as differences?

UKB: Excellent question. To be honest, I really think of this piece as having two separate parts. The one conscious connection that I made was in the orchestration: both start with pizzicato in the strings, but use the pizzicato in very different ways. 

ACO: What aspects of your piece do you hope to improve or fine tune during the readings?​

UKB: It’s hard to say without hearing the piece, but I am open to any and all possible improvements! From the more technical aspects of orchestration to the more musical questions of motivic development.

The EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings culminate in a final performance on Friday, April 20 at 8PM. Details here

Learn more about Ursula at www.ursulakwongbrown.com

EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings: Composer Spotlight - Nicholas Bentz

Nicholas Bentz (b. 1994) is a composer and violinist whose music often takes its inspiration from pieces of literature and poetry, film, and visual art. He has received several esteemed commissions and performances of his music, was Composer-in-Residence for Symphony Number One’s 2016-17 season, and was a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards in 2014. Nicholas is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in violin at Peabody Institute and studying composition privately with composer Felipe Lara.

Nicholas was selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings for his piece E.W. Korngold Goes to Nikkatsu, which will be workshopped and conducted by Music Director Courtney Lewis in a final performance on Friday, April 20 at 8PM. Details here

Nicholas spoke with us about the piece and what he looks forward to at the readings.

Composer and violinist Nicholas Bentz

American Composers Orchestra: What was your reaction to finding out that your piece had been selected for the EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings? What are you looking forward to about the program?

Nicholas Bentz: When I first found out, I was floored! The orchestral stage is one of the largest for a composer, and it's a steep learning curve that we have to figure out extremely quickly. ACO provides such an amazing program in that you get to learn from your fellow composers as well as mentor composers that have already mastered the game, so to say. I'm really excited to dig into my piece and to see what things I can tinker around to better approach the sound I want to hear. As great as MIDI has become, it doesn't compare to a full orchestra!

ACO: You are both a composer and a performer, with extensive experience studying and playing the violin. How does the performing aspect of your career affect the way you write music? Do you compose on the violin?

NB: I think that being a performer can only positively influence you as a composer. Being an active performer allows you to go through and really get to know so many pieces on a different level. I've always treated orchestra rehearsals like orchestration lessons, seeing what works in the orchestra and what doesn't - seeing what kinds of gestures require additional rehearsal time, and which ones can be executed correctly the first time. Being a performer also forces me to think about the physicality and psychology of the players. I've played through enough pieces where I feel like my part is either extraneous or overbearing, and it's hard to connect to a piece in which you feel that way. I actually don't compose on the violin oddly enough, even though it's easily the instrument I'm the most comfortable on. I oftentimes find myself controlled by the idiomatic nature of the instrument if I ever do try.

ACO: Your program note says that your piece E.W. Korngold Goes to Nikkatsu is based on the idea of using Korngold's musical style to score a Nikkatsu film. Can you talk about the result of combining these two artists' styles into one piece? Did it end up different than you expected when you first had the idea?

NB: When I first set out with the idea of a piece based on the combination of Korngold and Suzuki, I was more than a little apprehensive. I didn't know if there was much overlap between the two artists that I could utilize for myself, but as I watched more and more Suzuki, and got more accustomed to his frenetic and high-octane style, the more comfortable the idea became. The piece definitely came out much different than I planned (which is never a bad thing)!

ACO: What aspects of your piece do you hope to improve or fine tune during the readings?​

NB: I definitely have a few gestures and textures that I want to see if I got right, and how to make them more like what I hear. It's also always good to look towards possible balance issues and to see how those work out, and how I can best improve those situations.

The EarShot Jacksonville Symphony Readings culminate in a final performance on Friday, April 20 at 8PM. Details here

Learn more about Nicholas at www.nicholasbentz.net

Follow him on Soundcloud and Facebook

Dreamscapes: Q&A with Clarice Assad

Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American Grammy-nominated composer, pianist, vocalist, bandleader and educator. She has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo, Albany Symphony, BRAVO! Vail Music Festival, and her works have been recorded by Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Eugenia Zuckerman, Chanticleer, and Liang Wang. Assad is a founding member of the Chicago-based music and poetry publishing company Virtual Artists Collective and VOXPloration, an award-winning research based outreach program and workshop for children and adolescents on spontaneous music creation, composition, and improvisation.

Clarice's piece Dreamscapes for violin and chamber orchestra is based loosely on Assad’s research on the subject of rapid eye movement (REM) and lucid dreaming. The piece follows a storyline based on notes Assad made about her own dreams, and depicts her struggle to have a pleasant dreaming experience against the strong subconscious draw of negativity.

ACO gives the New York premiere of Dreamscapes with violinist Elena Urioste on Friday, April 6, 2018, 7:30PM at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. Click here for concert details and tickets.

Clarice Assad. PC: Amara Photo.
"One of Brazil's brightest young composers" – Gramophone

American Composers Orchestra: In addition to composing, you are an accomplished singer/pianist and a dedicated educator as co-founder of VOXploration. Can you compare the concert experience as a composer (sitting in the audience listing to a performance of your piece) vs. a performer (on stage and performing your own music)? Do you find one more nerve-wracking than the other?

Clarice Assad: I think being exposed is the nerve-wracking part in either scenario, but it might be more so when I am sitting from an audience. When I perform, I am so preoccupied with the music that I am playing, that I tend to forget about everything else to focus mostly on doing justice to that piece (which most of the time, is music written by other composers…). When my own music being performed by other musicians, I will think about a million things per second. Ultimately though, it’s just an amazing moment to be inside of, having my music performed by people who took the time to learn it and are sharing it with others. The butterflies in the stomach turn out to be a good thing.

ACO: The human voice is the centerpiece of many of your works and performances, including your well-known singing scat concerto which you have performed all over the world. Can you talk about the influence the human voice has, if any, in your instrumental music? The violin is an inherently lyrical instrument -- did you write the solo violin part in Dreamscapes almost as if it was a singing part?

CA: Maybe I unconsciously write for other instruments thinking about the voice, because it is such an important part of my musical life! Dreamscapes is not really singable, though. It has lyrical moments, but I was more concerned about the different emotions and change of scenarios that take place, and the interplay between the orchestra and the soloist.

ACO: As a Brazilian-American who speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and English, can you talk about how your music has been influenced, affected, or guided by these languages?

CA: When I think of languages I think of cultures, so yes, I think somehow speaking other languages may influence the way in which we organize thoughts. I traveled frequently to France as a child and this experience deeply influenced me in every area of my life. Traveling at a young age also meant that I came in contact with people from other nationalities, so this may have given me a sense of familiarity with cultures that were not my own, and carte blanche to write in styles and genres that might not have come from my place of origin. I still feel a sense of belonging to more than one place at once.

ACO: Your Dreamscapes violin concerto is inspired by your research on the subject of rapid eye movement (REM) and lucid dreaming, and follows a storyline based on notes you made about her own dreams. Did the process of composing this piece change the way you think about dreams? Did it change anything about your actual dreams?

CA: I have an overactive mind and have had a handful of anxiety related problems affecting sleep. I've experienced many events of sleep paralysis which were petrifying until I knew how to handle them, so I began reading a lot about the brain and sleep. Writing this piece was the way I found to exteriorize what happened in my own mind, obviously because vivid dreams were a constant part of my life. I am in a better place now, having found ways to cope with these symptoms, and the silver lining was to turn vivid dreams into a piece of music. 

ACO: What are you looking forward to about the upcoming performance?

CA: Everything. The performance, hearing the orchestra, the soloist,  the hall, and the experience of re-visiting a work that is now completing 10 years of existence!

ACO gives the New York premiere of Dreamscapes with violinist Elena Urioste on Friday, April 6, 2018, 7:30PM at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. Click here for concert details and tickets.

Learn more about Clarice at www.clariceassad.com

Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Soundcloud