New Music New College Announces 2015-16 Season
New Music New College’s 2015-16 concert series is about inventors – musicians and composers who create combinations of music, language, instruments, technology, movement and style.
In its 17th season of bringing innovative, talented and challenging performers to the Sarasota and Manatee communities, New Music New College will once again entertain and engage its audiences.
The five-concert series opens Saturday, Sept. 26, and again will include Artist Conversations and Pre-Concert Talks. Subscriptions for the entire series are $60 and tickets for individual shows are $15. Performances are in auditoriums and theaters on the New College campus. There also are two free special event concerts featuring the work of New College of Florida students.
New Music New College is a program of New College of Florida, the state’s honors college and a national leader in the liberal arts and sciences. It is funded in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development tax revenues.
For reservations, visit https://donate.ncf.edu/newmusictix or call 941-487-4888.
New Music New College Season Schedule
Kate Soper and Wet Ink
Kate Soper is an “erudite, hilarious and furiously inventive” composer, says The New Yorker. She also is a dazzling singer with a “lithe voice and riveting presence,” says The New York Times.
Soper, a 2012 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and professor of music at Smith College, is appearing with Wet Ink, a New York City-based new music ensemble (flute, violin, percussion).
They will perform Soper’s “Ipsa Dixit,” a theatrical-style work that uses texts by Lydia Davis, Wittgenstein, Freud, Plato, Aristotle, and others to explore the treachery of language and the frustrations and limits of communication.
To learn more about Kate Soper, visit http://www.newmusicnewcollege.org/soper.html
Kate Soper and Wet Ink: Ipsa Dixit
Saturday, Sept. 26, at 8:00 p.m.
Sainer Pavilion, New College of Florida, 5313 Bay Shore Road
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m.
Artist Conversation, Thursday, Sept. 24, 5:00 p.m., Sainer Pavilion (free)
Tickets: $15. Call 941-487-4888 or visit https://donate.ncf.edu/newmusictix
Miya Masaoka
Miya Masaoka is a musician and composer and performance artist who has reinvented the Japanese koto with computers, laser and real-time processing.
She also is a performance artist who incorporates the natural world – plants, insects, and amplification of human heartbeats and brainwaves – into her live performances.
The Los Angeles Times writes: “Masterful and conceptually restless koto player Miya Masaoka has made it her business to usher the Japanese instrument into contemporary contexts, combining respect for tradition with new musical applications.”
At New College, using the koto, resonant objects, video projections, electronics, and a wearable percussion dress, Masaoka will present a program of pieces, including an excerpt of a new work, “A Line Becomes A Circle.”
To learn more about Miya Masaoka, visit http://www.newmusicnewcollege.org/masaoka.html
Miya Masaoka: A Line Becomes a Circle
Saturday, Nov. 14, at 8:00 p.m.
Sainer Pavilion, New College of Florida, 5313 Bay Shore Road
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m.
Artist Conversation, Thursday, Nov. 12, 5:00 p.m., Sainer Pavilion (free)
Tickets: $15. Call 941-487-4888 or visit https://donate.ncf.edu/newmusictix
JACK Quartet
The JACK Quartet is a string group like no other, the Washington Post writes: “the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a take-no-prisoners sense of commitment.”
But don’t just take the Post’s word for it. The JACK Quartet’s performances are “breathtaking” (London’s The Guardian), “viscerally exciting” (The New York Times), and display “explosive virtuosity” (Boston Globe).
New Music New College veterans may recall their previous appearances here, including a performance of John Zorn’s “Cat O’ Nine Tails,” where they attack each other with their bows. This time, their program will feature Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams’s “The Wind in High Places.”
To learn more about the JACK Quartet, visit http://www.newmusicnewcollege.org/jack.html
JACK Quartet: The Wind in High Places
Saturday, Jan. 16, at 8:00 p.m.
Sainer Pavilion, New College of Florida, 5313 Bay Shore Road
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m.
Artist Conversation, Thursday, Jan. 14, 5:00 p.m., Sainer Pavilion (free)
Tickets: $15. Call 941-487-4888 or visit https://donate.ncf.edu/newmusictix
Eliza Ladd
Eliza Ladd is a professor of movement for the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, a playwright, songwriter, choreographer and a performer. Her ensemble musical “Elephants and Gold” is an Audience Encore Award Winner at the Boulder Fringe and Berkshire Fringe Festival.
For her first collaboration with New Music New College, Ladd is offering “Selfie of the Ancients,” a work that combines the sounds of objects and human movement with layers of primitive voice and song. She will work with New College students to create a piece that is visual, aural, and physical, concerned with the act of making sound, the relationship between sound and movement, and the ways in which sound articulates visible and invisible space.
Ladd is a graduate of Harvard University and Naropa University. To learn more about her, visit http://www.newmusicnewcollege.org/ladd.html
Eliza Ladd: Selfie of the Ancients
Three performances: 8:00 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12, Saturday, Feb. 13; 4:00 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14
Black Box Theater, New College of Florida’s Hamilton Center
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12 and 13, 3:30 p.m. Feb. 14
Artist Conversation, Thursday, Feb. 11, 5:00 p.m., Black Box Theater (free)
Tickets: $15. Call 941-487-4888 or visit https://donate.ncf.edu/newmusictix
Third Coast Percussion
The members of Third Coast Percussion are graduates of the country’s finest music schools – Northwestern, Eastman, Yale, the New England Conservatory – and have played as soloists and in orchestras.
But as a group – ensemble-in-residence at University of Notre Dame – they are winning the respect of audiences and critics everywhere. “Vibrant… superb,” says The New Yorker. “Brilliant” says London’s The Independent. “Sonically spectacular” says the Chicago Tribune. “A riveting performance” says The New York Times.
When they played here in 2012, they rocked Club Sudakoff, with works ranging from Reich’s intense and beautiful Mallet Music to Cage’s raucous Third Construction (which featured modified tom-toms called “lion’s roars” and rhythmic conch shell blowing).
This year they will offer a program featuring a movement from Augusta Read Thomas’s acclaimed “Resounding Earth,” composed for bells from around the world; Glenn Kotche’s “Wild Sound;” and works by Owen Clayton Condon, Thierry De Mey, Isaac Schankler, and Third Coast’s own David Skidmore.
To learn more about Third Coast Percussion, visit http://www.newmusicnewcollege.org/tcp.html
Third Coast Percussion: Points of Contact
Saturday, April 30, at 8:00 p.m.
Club Cudakoff, at New College of Florida’s Sudakoff Center
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m.
Artist Conversation, Thursday, April 28, 5:00 p.m., Club Sudakoff (free)
Tickets: $15. Call 941-487-4888 or visit https://donate.ncf.edu/newmusictix
New Music New College Special Events
The New Music New College series also offers two special events, free concerts that draw on the musical talents of New College of Florida’s students, faculty and the community.
The Sarasota String Quartet: Music by New College Student Composers
Sunday, April 24, at 4:00 p.m.
Sainer Pavilion, New College of Florida, 5313 Bay Shore Road
In collaboration with the Sarasota String Quartet, a Sarasota Orchestra chamber group, New College music students will take compositions from workshop stage through final completion. This concert offers the newest of the new—young composers offering fresh compositions, performed by a first-rate ensemble.
Electronic Music Class Concert: The Final Projects
Thursday, May 12, at 7:00 p.m.
Sainer Pavilion, New College of Florida, 5313 Bay Shore Road
Mark Dancigers is a composer and guitarist of the nationally acclaimed NOW Ensemble. Students in his Electronic Music class at New College will present their final projects, which will emphasize pairings of music and visuals, including short film scores and more.
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New Music New College, entering its 17th season, is funded in part by grants from the Florida Department of State/Division of Cultural Affairs and the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County. To learn more about the history and concept of the New Music New College series, visit newmusicnewcollege.org.
New College of Florida is a national leader in the arts and sciences and is the State of Florida’s designated honors college for the liberal arts. Consistently ranked among the top public liberal arts colleges in America by U.S. News & World Report, Forbes and The Princeton Review, New College attracts highly motivated, academically talented students from 40 states and 15 foreign countries. A higher proportion of New College students receive Fulbright awards than graduates from virtually all other colleges and universities.
