2014 WCForum

Friday, March 7, 10:00AM – WCForum Session One “Electric-Drama”

Presentations:
Sabrina Pena Young – Epic Virtual Opera Production 101
Beth Wiemann – Sallee and Rumsey at Mann Gulch
Jing Wang – Brahmanda

Friday, March 7, 12:00PM – WCForum Session Two “2014 Composer-in-Residence”

Presentations:
Andrea Clearfield – TBA

Saturday, March 8, 1:00PM – WCForum Session Three “Winds and Song”

Presentations:
Amparo Fabra – Betsy Jolas: Setting Text in Music in Plupart du Temps I
Mary Matthews – The Flute Music of Anna Bon di Venezia with an Emphasis on Historical and Theoretical Importance
Linda Bleuel – Lucie Robert’s Cadenza for Alto Saxophone and Piano

Saturday, March 8, 3:00PM – WCForum Session Four “On Song”

Presentations:
Matthew Hough – Elements of Stevie Nick’s Songwriting Style
Michelle Latour – Vteřiny (Seconds), Opus 18, by Vitězslava Kaprálová

Presenter Bios:

Award-winning composer and published author Sabrina Pena Young composes mind-numbing electroacoustic works heard in Asia, North America, Australia, and Europe. Her multimedia works have been performed at venues like the Beijing Conservatory, the International Computer Music Conference, Miramax’s Project Greenlight, Vox Novus 60×60, the Athena Festival, Art Miami, the New York International Independent Film Festival, Art Basil Miami, Turkey’s Cinema for Peace, and the Pulsefield International Exhibition of Sound Art.Young’s works combine complex synthesis with live performance in innovative works that often challenge audiences and break new musical ground. Young’s latest work is Libertaria: The Virtual Opera, an innovative sci- fi animated opera about a young teen who escapes from a genetics factory and teams up with her addict father to destroy the evil Collective in a post-USA dystopia. The Libertaria Soundtrack (Special Edition) and her debut electroacoustic album Origins are available at CD Baby.

Beth Wiemann was raised in Burlington, VT, studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and received her PhD in composition from Princeton University. Her works have been performed in New York, Boston, Houston, San Francisco, Washington DC, the Dartington Festival (UK), the “Spring in Havana 2000 Festival (Cuba), and elsewhere by the ensembles Continuum, Parnassus, Earplay, ALEA III, singers Paul Hillier, Susan Narucki and others. She teaches clarinet, composition and theory at the University of Maine. Works of hers also appear currently on the Raviello, Abany, Capstone, innova and Americus record labels, and her music is available from American Composers Alliance in New York.

As a composer, Jing Wang’s compositions have been selected and presented in China, Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Romania, Russia, Australia, and throughout the United States. They have also been recognized by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and Electro-acoustic Miniatures International Contest, Spain. She was the winner of 2006 Pauline Oliveros Prize given by the International Alliance for Women in Music. As an active erhu performer, She has successfully performed erhu concertos with several symphony orchestras in the United States. Ms. Wang is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960) is an award-winning composer of music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, dance, and multimedia collaborations. She has been praised by the New York Times for her “graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing”, the Philadelphia Inquirer for her “compositional wizardry” and “mastery with large choral and instrumental forces”, the L.A. Times for her “fluid and glistening orchestration” and by Opera News for her “vivid and galvanizing” music of “timeless beauty”. Her works are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. Among her 90 works are ten cantatas including one for The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Amparo Fabra is an active composer whose music combines elements from traditional counterpoint, non-tonal harmonies, and new technologies. She received degrees in Piano, Musicology, and Composition from the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Valencia, Spain. She also holds a Master in Music Composition from The Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, New York, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. Currently, Amparo is an Assistant Professor at the Caroline L. Guarini Department of Music, Dance and Theatre (New Jersey City University). Her research specializes in Contemporary and Experimental Music.

Dr. Mary Matthews enjoys a varied musical life as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, lecturer, and clinician. She has appeared as a soloist with the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra, Firelands Symphony, Pottstown Symphony, and Baldwin-Wallace Symphony Orchestras and tours internationally as a member of the Soundscape Trio and Cuatro Puntos Chamber Music Collective. In 2013, she was appointed principal flutist of the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra, and she performs regularly as a member of the Generous New Music Ensemble.  Notable performances include a debut season with the 2012 Newport Music Festival, the 2013, 2012, and 2011 National Flute Association Conventions, the Goethe Institut Música Nueva Festival, and the Jornadas de Música Contemporánea in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Linda Li-Bleuel is a professor of music in the Department of Performing Arts at Clemson University, where she teaches applied and collaborative piano, music history, and music appreciation. Dr. Li-Bleuel maintains an active solo and chamber music career. Recently, Dr. Li-Bleuel was selected as a Fulbright scholar grantee to Taiwan where she taught piano and gave recitals at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. In 2012 she performed and conducted master classes at Taipei Normal University, and performed as a concerto soloist in the European premiere of Lucie Robert’s 10+1 at the World Saxophone Congress in St Andrews, Scotland.

Matthew Hough is a composer and guitarist based in Brooklyn, New York. His recent works have been performed and/or presented by Wet Ink, Iktus Percussion, the Machine Project, soprano Rachel Payne, violinist Joshua Modney, Freeport Schools, Red Light New Music, Loadbang, Yarn/Wire and others. Hough has received awards, grants and/or other recognition from New Music USA, the Sally Mead Hands Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Minnesota Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony and Ithaca College. Hough holds a DMA from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied composition with Reiko Fueting and guitar with Jack Wilkins.

Dr. Michelle Latour, soprano, has performed throughout Europe and the U.S. Her operatic roles include Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica, Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi, Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte. Solo appearances with orchestra include Haydn’s Creation, Handel’s Messiah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Honegger’s King David, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Magnificat, and J.S. Bach’s Magnificat, Coffee Cantata, Wedding Cantata, and Wachet Auf. She currently serves on the full-time voice faculty at UNLV, presents numerous lecture recitals and master classes, frequently serves as an adjudicator, and regularly publishes CD and book reviews and song cycle analyses for the International Alliance for Women in Music Journal and The Kaprálová Society Journal. She has published nearly forty articles for Classical Singer.

Abtract Bios Available Here