Thursday, November 9, 2023
7:30 PM
San Diego New Music joins November’s statewide California Festival: A Celebration of New Music with a concert at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library on Thursday, November 9. The festival celebrates the tremendous stylistic diversity and inventiveness of California composers. All the composers featured on the program are living and creating new music in the state today.
For the November 9 concert, San Diego New Music has co-commissioned a new work from Texu Kim, who recently relocated to San Diego and was also featured on the 2023 edition of the soundON Festival. Other works include inventive ensemble pieces by Berkeley-based composer Ken Ueno and Los Angeles–based composer Nicholas Deyoe. SDNM’s own Christopher Adler presents a new cross-cultural composition for Thai mouth organ and Korean zither, which premiered earlier in 2023. Solo works by Vera Ivanova (Orange County) and Francisco Eme (San Diego) round out this program.
This concert is generously underwritten by Julia S. Falk, PhD.
Compositions:
Ken Ueno, Visible Reminder of Invisible Light
Christopher Adler, The Memories that Drift from Mountain Peaks
Vera Ivanova, Aura
Nicholas Deyoe, Ashley, Christopher, Andy
Texu Kim, newly commissioned work
Francisco Eme, Goutha
Performers:
Christopher Adler, khaen and piano
Francisco Eme, electronics
Sasha Ishov, flute
Peter Ko, cello
Junghwa Lee, gayageum
Anishka Lee-Skorepa, voice
Batya MacAdam-Somer, violin
Ryan Nestor, percussion
Ariana Warren, clarinet
Christopher Adler is a composer, performer, and improviser living in San Diego. His music draws upon over 25 years of research into the traditional musics of Thailand and Laos and a background in mathematics. He is a master performer of new music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand, and has composed extensively for instruments from Asia. His work has been performed in major venues across the United States and Asia by ensembles such as the Silk Road Ensemble, the Tesla Quartet, and red fish blue fish. His works based on early 20th-century Russian futurism include a violin concerto written for Sarah Plum and Zaum Box, a collection of 10 compositions scored for a solo percussionist who orates Russian Futurist poetry while performing on a variety of instruments and devices. Recent works include Construct: for organ, commissioned by the American Guild of Organists. He is a pianist with NOISE, a frequent performer for San Diego New Music, and co-founder of the soundON Festival in La Jolla, CA. He is currently a professor of music and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of San Diego. christopheradler.com
Nicholas Deyoe is a Los Angeles–based guitarist, composer, and conductor. He is a co-founder of wasteLAnd ensemble and concert series and is a member of the dark-ambient electric guitar duo KillDry with Jay Sorce. His music has been called “intriguingly complex and excitedly lush” (Los Angeles Times). The New York Times wrote that his piece a new(er) anxiety “contrasted filigree lightness and explosive loudness . . . without seeming to strain for effect.” The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that “Deyoe’s blistering “A New[er] Anxiety,” electronics transformed Archie Carey into the Jimi Hendrix of bassoonists. Drawn to sounds that are inherently physical, Deyoe strives to create music that engages listeners intellectually and emotionally by appealing to their inner physicality. His music combines the use of noise, delicacy, drama, fantasy, brutality, lyricism, and joy to create a diverse sonic experience. Nicholas is currently on faculty at California Institute of the Arts, where he conducts the new music ensemble, teaches composition and conducting, and is the program director of the Instrumental Arts specialization. nicholasdeyoe.com
Francisco Eme “is a sound artist specialized in the study of sublime dimensions and parallel planes. In his work we find a strange fleeting vocation: he turns everything into a horizon” (franciscoeme.com). Originally from Mexico City, Eme currently lives and works in San Diego. He is a composer, producer, and multimedia artist. He mainly works with sound, but various disciplines are integrated into his practice. His work has been presented in museums, galleries, and concert halls in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and South America. He has released albums as a soloist, in collaborations, and with musical projects in various genres, mainly electroacoustic, experimental, and electronic pop music. Eme is the current Gallery Director at The Front Arte & Cultura, a binational art gallery in the San Diego, US–Tijuana, Mexico border region, where he curates art exhibitions, workshops, concerts and performances focused on the transnational artistic life of the region but also attentive to the international art scene. In recent months, he has produced the Didactic Sessions Series at the Athenaeum Art Center in Logan Heights. franciscoeme.com
Vera Ivanova received degrees from the Moscow Conservatory and London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London before earning a PhD in composition from Eastman School of Music. Her works have been performed in Russia, Europe, and the United States. Her work has been described as "humanistic and deeply felt" (John Bilotta, Society of Composers, Inc.). In her Three Studies in Uneven Meters for piano (2011), LarkGallery Online Blog found "the greatest power of her brief, angular, crystalline music lies in its power to provoke the gods of symmetry" (LarkGallery Online Blog). After teaching as assistant professor of theory and composition at the Setnor School of Music of Syracuse University, she was appointed an associate professor of music in the College of Performing Arts at Chapman University (Orange, California). Ivanova is also teaches at the Colburn Academy (Los Angeles). veraivanova.com
Texu Kim is “one of the most active and visible composers of his generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice), writing music that is fun, sophisticated, and culturally connected. Drawing on his affinity for humor, background in science, and fascination with everyday experiences, his work radiates positivity while demonstrating “surprising scope.” (San Diego Story) As a Korean American, Kim explores the localization of imported traditions, incorporating cross-cultural elements into his work in “impressive and special” ways so that “many orchestras and conductors around the world are taking an interest in [his] music” (KPBS). By highlighting the interaction between folk culture and external influences, Kim creates meaningful depth while maintaining a signature playfulness and exuberance that is listener-friendly and engaging. Characterized by “exuberant, colorful washes of sound . . . punchy bass lines, snappy brass fanfares, and suave . . . solos” (San Diego Story), Kim’s music is at times “explosively virtuosic” (Wall Street Journal) but always uplifting and rewarding for both listeners and performers. texukim.com
A recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize, Ken Ueno is a composer-vocalist–sound artist. His music has been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MusikTriennale Köln Festival, the Muziekgebouw, Ars Musica, Warsaw Autumn, Other Minds, the Hopkins Center, Spoleto USA, Steim, and the Norfolk Music Festival. His piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, was featured in their repertoire for over 10 years, with performances at such venues as Queen Elizabeth Hall in England and the Vienna Konzerthaus and was aired on Italian national radio, RAI 3. His Pharmakon has been performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird, the Boston Modern Orchestra premiered his concerto for two-bow cello and orchestra, and Guerilla Opera premiered his chamber opera, Gallo, to critical acclaim. He has a PhD from Harvard and holds the Jerry and Evelyn Hemmings Chambers Distinguished Professor Chair in Music at Berkeley. His bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. kenueno.com
About San Diego New Music:
San Diego New Music is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the public performance of notated music of the highest integrity and artistic caliber from the 20th and 21st centuries. We seek to advance the art form by promoting music composed with conceptual rigor, passionate energy and singular artistic vision. SDNM enriches the artistic culture of San Diego through the presentation of an annual concert series and the soundON Festival of Modern Music, and through fostering its resident performing ensemble, NOISE.
In 1994, the only place in San Diego where you could hear an entire concert of 20th-century music was on a college campus. San Diego New Music pitched the idea of a concert series devoted to modern music and 20th-century classics at the Athenaeum. The concerts of modern music perfectly complement the exhibitions of modern art held in the Athenaeum’s galleries. In 1996, San Diego New Music presented its first season. The series was called "Noise at the Library," and the ensemble would later adopt the name, as well.
San Diego New Music and the Athenaeum have been happily co-presenting concerts of new music ever since.
For more information on the organization go to www.sandiegonewmusic.com.
The concert will be in person at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. There are no physical tickets for this event. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Seating is first-come; first-served. This event will be presented in compliance with State of California and County of San Diego health regulations as applicable at the time of each concert.
Masks optional. If you have a fever, cough, or flu-like symptoms, please stay home.