We are excited to announce the featured artists for the 2019 Women Composers Festival of Hartford!
Ensemble-in-Residence: The Nouveau Classical Project
The Nouveau Classical Project (NCP) is a New York-based, all-women contemporary classical music ensemble that is “bringing a refreshing edge to the widely conservative genre” (VICE). It began by collaborating with fashion designers for its concerts and has expanded to creating multidisciplinary performances. Its mission is to engage new audiences and show that classical music is a living, breathing art form.
To provide opportunities for composers, NCP holds annual Calls for Scores, Calls for Proposals, and commissions new work via the NCP Commissioning Fund. The collaborative nature of its work also allows the ensemble to create opportunities for artists from a variety of disciplines.
NCP has performed at exciting venues such as Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Fisher, (le) poisson rouge, Galapagos Art Space, Korea Gallery, Symphony Space, The Center for Fiction, White Box, and Issue Project Room as part of MATA’s Interval series. Fashion shows include CFDA winner Pamela Love, Project Runway winner Gretchen Jones, Kempner Collection, Ecco Domani winner Novis, Tanya Taylor, and more. Its projects are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and other generous foundations and individual donors.
Composer-in-Residence: Jennifer Jolley
Composer Jennifer Jolley’s diverse catalog includes choral, orchestral, wind ensemble, chamber, and electronic works. She has been commissioned by ensembles and institutions across the United States, including the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, University of Texas at Austin, Bowling Green State University, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, The Canales Project, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, among others. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and has written articles for the e-zine NewMusicBox.
In recent years, Jennifer has been increasingly drawn toward subjects that are political and even provocative. Her 2015 collaboration with librettist Kendall A, Prisoner of Conscience, sets to music statements made by the Russian punk-rock band Pussy Riot as they stood trial in Moscow for “hooliganism” and “religious hatred.” Quince Ensemble has performed the piece widely and has released a recording on their album Motherland with New Focus Recordings. Jennifer’s 2017 piece The Eyes of the World Are Upon You, commissioned by the University of Texas at Austin Wind Ensemble, reflects on the first-ever campus shooting in America, which took place at UT-Austin in 1966.
Jennifer’s blog—on which she has catalogued more than 100 rejection letters from competitions, festivals, and prizes—is widely read and admired by professional musicians. She is particularly passionate about this project as a composition teacher, and enjoys removing the taboo around “failure” for her students. In addition to her professorship at Texas Tech, she is a member of the composition faculty at Interlochen Arts Camp.
Jennifer deeply values the relationship that is created between composers and the communities with whom they collaborate. She has been composer-in-residence at Brevard College, University of Toledo, and the Vermont Symphony, and was in-residence at the Central Michigan University School of Music and the Alba Music Festival in Italy in 2018. She will be the Composer-in-Residence of the Women Composers Festival of Hartford in 2019.
Jennifer Jolley took 2nd Place for the 2017–18 American Prize in Composition (Band/Wind Ensemble Division) and was a finalist for the the Symphony Number One Call for Scores. She holds degrees from the University of Southern California and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where her principal teachers included Stephen Hartke, Frank Ticheli, Michael Fiday, Joel Hoffman, and Douglas Knehans.
