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Date: Friday, March 29, 2019 | 7:45pm
Free Admission
Location: Gruss Hall, Austin Arts Center, Trinity College
New in 2019, audiences are invited to attend an open dress rehearsal of the works by the winning composers selected from the International Score Call, played by The Nouveau Classical Project. The performance will be held Saturday evening.
This year’s Score Call Winners are:
F I X E D HbeaRt, Niloufar Nourbakhsh
a brief comment on the current state of insanity, Amelia S. Kaplan
Duo In Memory of the Littlest Refugees who Never Reach a Place of Safety, Susan Kander
Bios
Described as “stark” by WNPR and a winner of 2nd Hildegard competition, Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been commissioned and performed by Symphony Number One, I-Park Foundation, PUBLIQuartet, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Cassatt Quartet and others at numerous festivals. Founder and co-director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nilou is a strong advocate of music education. she is currently a Teaching Artist Associate for composition students of NY Philharmonic Young Composers program and teaches piano at Brooklyn Music School, while finishing her doctorate at Stony Brook University.
“I never understood exactly what we are all trying to get to. The ascending lines of HbeaRt are my searching attempts for getting to a solid point. There are several random elements built into the live electronics that resemble the unexpected events of everyday life; yet, we continue to ascend. In the second movement however, I explore the emotional components of being FIXED and stuck in a situation, a terminal disease, war, etc. Even in such predicaments, the music begs for action and movement, inspired by the innate nature of life.”
Amelia S. Kaplan is Associate Professor of Composition at Ball State where she teaches composition and theory, and directs the new music ensemble. She completed her AB at Princeton University, and her AM and PhD at the University of Chicago where her primary teachers were Shulamit Ran and Ralph Shapey. She worked with Azio Corghi at the Milan Conservatory on a Whiting Fellowship, and received a Diploma of Merit from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (studying with Franco Donatoni) and a Diploma from the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Ms. Kaplan has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been performed at numerous contemporary music festivals, including Mise-En, Thailand International New Music Festival, SCI, SICPP, Wellesley Composers Conference, Gaudeamus, Darmstadt, June in Buffalo, and others. Recordings can be heard on Albany, NAVONA (Parma), and Centaur labels.
Susan Kander’s music has been heard across the US and in Europe, China, Australia and South Africa. Commissioners include Opera Minnesota, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Columbus Opera, National Symphony Orchestra, Southampton Chamber Music Festival, the Copland Fund/Boosey and Hawkes, the Grammy Award-winning Kansas City Chorale, Columbia Foundation and a variety of soloists and ensembles. She is a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony. Her chamber music has been recorded on the MSR, Navonna and Loose Cans labels. Her orchestral, chamber and opera works are published by Subito Music Corp. She received her BA in Music from Harvard University in 1979, then side-stepped into 15 years as a playwright before returning to music. After a 20-year career, she earned an MM in Composition in 2017 at Purchase Conservatory where she studied with Du Yun and Huang Ruo.
Duo In Memory of the Littlest Refugees who Never Reach a Place of Safety “was commissioned during the migrant refugee crisis in Europe. Just after I started it, the photo of the lifeless little boy washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean, arrived at my door.”