Contemporary Music Festival
Society of Composers, Inc. Region VI 2008 Composers
The School of Music at Sam Houston State University will host its 46th Annual Contemporary Music Festival April 16-19, 2008. This year's festival will be in conjunction with the Society of Composers, Inc. Region VI Conference. Region VI includes Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Over seventy composers will be represented and attending the conference, both from Region VI and throughout the United States. Our featured guest composer this year will be David Dzubay : http://pronovamusic.com/.
www.pronovamusic.comDavid Dzubay was born in 1964 in Minneapolis, grew up in Portland, Oregon, and earned a D.M. in Composition at Indiana University in 1991. His principal teachers were Donald Erb, Frederick Fox, Eugene O'Brien, Lukas Foss, Allan Dean and Bernard Adelstein. David Dzubay's music has been performed by orchestras, ensembles and soloists in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Asia. His music is published by Pro Nova Music, Dorn, and Thompson Edition and is recorded on the Centaur, Innova, Bridge, Crystal, Klavier, Gia, First Edition and Indiana University labels. Recent honors include Guggenheim, MacDowell and Djerassi fellowships, the 2007 Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition, the 2005 Utah Arts Festival Commission and the 2004 William Revelli Memorial Prize from the National Band Association. He is currently Professor of Music, Chair of the Composition Department and Director of the New Music Ensemble at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington. Dzubay has conducted at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and June in Buffalo festivals. He has also conducted the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Greater Dallas Youth Symphony Orchestra, Music from China, Voices of Change, and an ensemble from the Minnesota Orchestra, the Kentuckiana Brass and Percussion Ensemble and strings from the Louisville Orchestra at the Music at Maple Mount Festival. From 1995 to 1998 he served as Composer-Consultant to the Minnesota Orchestra, helping direct their "Perfect-Pitch" reading sessions, and during 2005-2006 he was Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra.
The conference begins at 9AM Wednesday and continues until around 9:30PM Saturday. There are 13 concerts on the schedule, which will mostly take place in Killinger Auditorium and the Recital Hall on the campus of Sam Houston State University. Some of the ensembles performing include the SHSU Wind Ensemble, Women's Chorus, Concert Choir, Faculty Brass Quintet, Flute Choir, Percussion Ensemble, the Raven Brass, and Intersection, the newly-created SHSU New Music Ensemble. Many SHSU faculty and students will also be performing as well as instrumentalists and vocalists from around the country.
The composition faculty will also be represented on this festival. Trent Hanna, head of the theory and composition department, will be joined by fellow faculty members Scott Plugge, John Lane, and Daniel Saenz to premiere a new work for alto saxophone, vibraphone, violoncello, and piano entitled whim, which will take place Wednesday, April 16th at 2:30PM in the Recital Hall. Something More Than Sky by John Crabtree will be performed by the SHSU Women's Choir (James Franklin, conducting) Thursday, April 17th at 1:30PM in the Recital Hall. The SHSU Wind Ensemble (Matthew McInturf, conducting) will be performing Kyle Kindred's work, In Store, Friday, April 18th at 7:30PM in Killinger Auditorium.