Events for Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Music of John Cage

Event Time

4:00 pm and 8:00 pm

A Cage marathon. Two memorable programs. One ticket permits entry to both concerts.

Click names for performer biographies.

Performers

• The Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet
• Formed in 1996, Pacific Rims is comprised of Gunnar Folsom, Paul Hansen, Matthew Kocmieroski, and Rob Tucker, leading players in new, chamber, and orchestral music and dance, theater, and film in the Pacific Northwest. Individually they can be heard performing with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, the 5th Avenue Theatre, and on numerous major motion picture and video game sound tracks, from Die Hard with a Vengence to Valkyrie and from Halo to Warcraft. Pacific Rims performs music from the 1930s to the present, from Cage to Xenakis to Takemitsu to Reich to Roldán. As well as producing their own concerts, they have appeared with the ensembles Sonora, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Seattle Creative Orchestra; on series such as the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Cornish Music Series, the Auburn Symphony chamber music series; and numerous times at the Seattle Asian Art Museum and at St. James Cathedral, where they helped celebrate Messiaen’s 100th birthday in 2008. Educational performances have included the Seattle Symphony “Tiny Tots” series, Seattle Public Schools, Federal Way Public Schools, and the Imperials Percussion Festival as well as working and performing with percussion students at Music Works Northwest and with student composers and choreographers at Cornish College of the Arts.
• Gunnar Folsom
• Gunnar Folsom studied with Christopher Lamb, Duncan Patton, and Don Liuzzi at the Manhattan School of Music. He is a member of both the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra and the Bellevue Philharmonic. As a freelance percussionist, Folsom performs regularly with the Seattle Symphony, the Seattle Opera, the Tacoma Symphony, the Northwest Sinfonietta, and the Seattle Chamber Players. He has also performed with the Festival Chamber Music Society, John Taverner and the Tallis Scholars, the Ensemble Sospeso in New York City, the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble in Berkeley and Los Angeles, and the Vaasa City Orchestra of Finland in Seattle.
  
  Folsom has held positions at the University of Puget Sound, UPS Community Music Programs, Music Works Northwest, Marrowstone Summer Music Festival, Marrowstone-in-the-City, and Midsummer Musical Retreat. He is currently the percussion coach for the Seattle Youth Symphony and a faculty member of the New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine. Paul Hansen has been active for thirty years as one of the top percussionists in Seattle’s music and theater circles, having performed with popular talents such as Mr. Rogers, Quincy Jones, Johnny Mathis, and Burt Bacharach. As a concert musician he performs regularly with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and Auburn Symphony. His Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra was premiered by the Northwest Sinfonietta with Paul as soloist in 2002. He has been a mainstay in Seattle’s top pit orchestras at the Paramount and 5th Avenue theaters with over 70 musicals to his credit. He has also composed film scores for his wife, filmmaker Janice Findley. Hansen serves as Managing Editor for Freehand Music Publishing and is co-founder of the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet.
• Paul Hansen
• Paul Hansen has been active for thirty years as one of the top percussionists in Seattle’s music and theater circles, having performed with popular talents such as Mr. Rogers, Quincy Jones, Johnny Mathis, and Burt Bacharach. As a concert musician he performs regularly with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and Auburn Symphony. His Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra was premiered by the Northwest Sinfonietta with Paul as soloist in 2002. He has been a mainstay in Seattle’s top pit orchestras at the Paramount and 5th Avenue theaters with over 70 musicals to his credit. He has also composed film scores for his wife, filmmaker Janice Findley. Hansen serves as Managing Editor for Freehand Music Publishing and is co-founder of the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet.
• Matthew Kocmieroski
• Matthew Kocmieroski, Drums Along the Pacific festival curator, is principal percussionist with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra. He regularly performs with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, and the Auburn Symphony, and is on the faculty of the Cornish College of the Arts. He is the President of the International Guild of Symphony, Opera and Ballet Musicians. In the field of chamber music, he served for ten years as Artistic Director and percussionist of the New Performance Group, and was a founding member of Taneko and the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet. In the Northwest he regularly performs with the Seattle Chamber Players, and has appeared at the Seattle Chamber Music Society festivals, Icicle Creek Music Festival, Marrowstone Summer Music Festival, Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, Seattle International Chamber Music Festival, and the Bellingham Festival of Music. Internationally he has appeared at the Bergen, Moscow Autumn, Moscow Cold Alternativa, St. Petersburg Sound Waves, Kiev MusicFest, and Warsaw Autumn festivals.
• Rob Tucker
• Rob Tucker performs frequently with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, and Pacific Northwest Ballet orchestras. He has performed with the Bellingham Festival of Music, the Seattle Chamber Players, Seattle International Music Festival, and the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. Tucker is a founding member of the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet and Quake. He has recorded for New World Records, and can be heard on more than 100 movie sound tracks. He attended the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Southern California, and currently teaches percussion at Western Washington University.
• Stephen Drury, piano
• Stephen Drury, piano, named 1989 Musician of the Year by the Boston Globe, has concertized throughout the world with a repertoire that stretches from Bach to Liszt to the music of today. He has given solo performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at New York’s Symphony Space, and from Arkansas to California to Hong Kong to Paris.
  
  A champion of twentieth-century music, Drury’s performances have received the highest critical acclaim. He has appeared at the MusikTriennale Köln in Germany, the Subtropics Festival in Miami, the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, and the North American New Music Festival in Buffalo, as well as at Roulette and the Knitting Factory in New York. Drury has commissioned new works for solo piano from John Cage, John Zorn, Terry Riley, and Chinary Ung. Drury tours frequently with the John Zorn Ensemble, performing in Paris, New York, London, Madrid, Vienna, Brussels, and Cologne, and has conducted Zorn’s music in Bologna, Boston, and San Jose (Costa Rica).
  
  Drury has performed or recorded with the American Composers Orchestra, the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, the Springfield (Massachusetts) and Portland (Maine) symphony orchestras, and the Romanian National Symphony. In 1999 he appeared onstage with choreographer Merce Cunningham and Mikhail Baryshnikov as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.
  
  Drury is Artistic Director of the Callithumpian Consort, and he created and directs the Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance at New England Conservatory. He has recorded the music of John Cage, Elliott Carter, Charles Ives, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Colin McPhee, John Zorn, and Frederic Rzewski, as well as works of Liszt and Beethoven, for Mode, New Albion, Catalyst, Tzadik, MusicMasters, and Neuma. He teaches at New England Conservatory in Boston.
• Julia Tai, conductor
• Julia Tai, conductor, is a doctoral student at the University of Washington where she studies instrumental conducting with Maestro Peter Erös and violin with Ronald Patterson. She has conducted the UW Symphony in many concerts, the UW Opera in productions of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera and Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins, and was assistant conductor for Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. She has served as associate conductor of the Rainier Symphony and conducts the UW contemporary ensemble. Tai has conducted premieres with the Seattle Chamber Players, Seattle Experimental Opera, and the Affinity Ensemble of the Washington Composers Forum.
  
  Tai has toured extensively in Australia, Europe, the United States, Japan, and Taiwan. She has also participated in numerous conducting workshops, studying with renowned teachers such as John Farrer, Daniel Lewis, Kenneth Kiesler, Gustav Meier, Jorge Mester, Otto-Werner Müller, Larry Rachleff, and Donald Thulean.
• Stuart Dempster, trombone
• Stuart Dempster, trombone, is also composer, didjeridu`ist and Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, and has recorded for numerous labels including Columbia, Nonesuch, and New Albion. New Albion recordings include In the Great Abbey of Clement VI at Avignon—a cult classic—and Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel, consisting of music sources for a 1995 Merce Cunningham Dance Company commission. Grants received include Creative Associate at SUNYAB; Fellow, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois; Fulbright Scholar (Australia); National Endowment for the Arts Composer Grant; US/UK and Guggenheim fellowships. Dempster, a leading figure in the development of trombone technique and performance, published his landmark book, The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms, in 1979. A member of Cathedral Band and a founding member of Deep Listening Band, he has toured extensively and produced the first three DLB recordings. October 2008 saw the release of Deep Listening Band’s new high end double LP on TAIGA, Then & Now Now & Then: Celebrating 20 Years.
• Richard Eckert, cello
• Dr. Richard Eckert, cello, has performed frequently with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra in addition to his work as a studio musician for feature-film sound tracks such as Valkyrie and The Incredible Hulk. He has a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and a master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and maintains a private teaching studio in the Seattle area. Eckert is noted for his work with the Bird Tribe Orchestra, with whom he has recorded two CDs, and for his alter-persona, Richard III, who introduces classical music to the twenty-first century via innovative programs and/or presentations that borrow material and techniques from popular idioms.
• Justin Emerich, trumpet
• Justin Emerich, trumpet, having finished his tenure as solo/first trumpet with the Canadian Brass, has quickly established himself as one of the most sought-after trumpeters in the United States. He has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, and has been a featured soloist with the Seattle Symphony and the Fulcrum Point New Music Ensemble in Chicago. Also an avid chamber musician, Emerich has toured with such groups as Proteus 7, Burning River Brass, The Avatar Brass, and Pink Martini.
  
  Emerich attended the Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, as an undergraduate and then pursued a graduate degree at the Juilliard School. As a student Emerich won numerous international and national competitions including grand prize at the 2000 International Trumpet Guild (ITG) mock orchestra competition; he was a prizewinner at the ITG solo competition that same year and is a two-time prizewinner at the National Trumpet Competition. Emerich has been artist-in-residence and Associate Professor of Trumpet at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and is currently living in Seattle where he performs regularly with both the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera orchestras.
• Paris Hurley, violin
• Paris Hurley, violin, has been performing with a multitude of orchestras, chamber ensembles, and bands for the last twenty years. Her wide variety of experience extends from her Carnegie Hall debut at the age of fifteen to her mastery of new music and love of experimentation, making her one of the most sought-after violinists of the Pacific Northwest. While finishing her degree at Cornish College of the Arts, Hurley became a core member of the hyperexperimental performance group Degenerate Art Ensemble, creating multimedia works that ranged from explosive rock club sets to large-scale dance/theater productions, notably performing at The Moore Theatre, the REDCAT in L.A., and throughout Germany.
  
  Hurley has written, recorded, and performed with an array of local groups including Circus Contraption, Seattle Pianist Collective, Implied Violence, Reptet, The Dead Science, Aqueduct, Parenthetical Girls, The Bike Bin Project, Figeater, Led to Sea, Ribbons, The Water Tower Project, Trespassers William, Johanna Kunin, and Eric Miller. This year, she looks forward to two European tours and a record release with Balkan rock legends Kultur Shock, followed by the premiere of her first evening-length multimedia work, Bridging Wounds.
• Jessika Kenney, voice
• Jessika Kenney, voice, is a vocalist and composer living on Vashon Island. She performs with Gamelan Pacifica and with the Hossein Omoumi Ensemble, and teaches voice at Cornish College of the Arts. Her work demonstrates a love both for the depth of traditional sources and for experimental methods, and has brought her to many places including Indonesia, Iceland, and Italy. Kenney has studied with many great singers including Jay Clayton at Cornish (1994–1997) and Nyi Supadmi of Central Java (1998–2000). Since 2004, she has immersed herself in the art of Classical Persian music with Ostad Hossein Omoumi. In 2007, Kenney completed her degree at Cornish, while studying Persian vocal music and theory (avaz and radif) and developing her compositions for gamelan.
  
  Kenney has performed works by composers as varied as Tadao Sawai, John Cage, Hans Eisler, Lou Harrison, Michael Maier, Eyvind Kang, Sutrisno Hartono, Eve Beglarian, Morteza Khan Neydavoud, Raz Mesinai, and Jarrad Powell. Her recording credits include Aestuarium (2006) and Athlantis (2007) with Eyvind Kang, the vocal music of Jarrad Powell in The Stonehouse Songs (2007), and Voices of Spring (Ava-ye Bahar) (2008) with Hossein Omoumi.
• Roger Nelson, piano
• Roger Nelson, piano/celesta, has been a member of the Cornish faculty since 1979, and performs frequently as a pianist and conductor. He holds a BA degree from Pomona College and an MM in choral conducting from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His early teachers were Adolph Baller and John Steele Ritter.
  
  As conductor, Nelson has worked with the Minnesota Opera’s New Music Theater Ensemble, the George Coates Performance Works, and the Floating Opera on Puget Sound. Nelson also served as conductor of the Bainbridge Orchestra from 1987 to 2000 and was the pianist with the New Performance Group from 1979 until 1997. During the 1997–1998 academic year, he was a visiting professor at Qufu Teachers University in China. As a composer, Nelson has produced a book of fiddle tunes in a variety of styles for violin and piano. He has written more than 1,200 fiddle tunes as well as choral works and ensemble pieces. He currently conducts and sings with Canzonetta, an a cappella ensemble, and conducts the Seattle Chinese Orchestra.
• Paul Taub, flute
• Paul Taub, flute and Drums Along the Pacific festival curator, has been a leading performer of chamber and contemporary music in the Northwest since his arrival in Seattle in 1979. Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts, Taub was trained at Rutgers University and the California Institute of the Arts; his teachers include Marcel Moyse, Samuel Baron, Michel Debost, and Robert Aitken. He is a founding member and Executive Director of the Seattle Chamber Players.
  
  Taub is also an active soloist and recitalist, with extensive work in American, Soviet/Russian, and international contemporary repertoire. He has appeared in venues throughout the U.S. Northwest and Southeast, Western Canada, Southern France, Greece, Costa Rica, and Russia, Ukraine, and Estonia. He has given world and U.S. premieres of music by Henry Brant, John Cage, George Crumb, Janice Giteck, Sofia Gubaidulina, Toru Takemitsu, Peteris Vasks, and many others. He has a solo CD on Periplum of twelve commissioned works, and has also recorded for New Albion, New World, Mode, and CRI. He is a member of the boards of directors of Chamber Music America and the National Flute Association.