2024-2025 Season
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Bass & Koh
Emily Koh, composer and bassist
Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm
NCSU Students: Free with student ID if ordered online through NCSU Ticket Central,
Faculty & Staff: $10, Others: $12.
(photo credit: Boston Symphony Orchestra/Aram Boghosian)
Emily Koh is a Singaporean composer-bassist based in Atlanta whose music aims to elevate the ordinary by sonically expounding on everyday human experiences. Her music usually consists of multiple layers of details that are intricately woven together, with raw, other-worldly elements, and intense grit. Dr. Koh is a multi-faceted creator who enjoys working collaboratively with other artists. She holds degrees from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore, the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and Brandeis University, where she earned her doctorate and studied with Ho Chee Kong, Kevin Puts, David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow and Yu-Hui Chang.
Described as “the future of composing” (The Straits Times, Singapore), Dr. Koh is the recipient of many awards and her music has been performed around the world. Prof. Koh’s music is published by Babel Scores (Europe) and Poco Piu Publishing (worldwide), and can be heard on the Innova, XAS, New Focus and Ravello labels. As a bassist, Prof. Koh is most excited to champion solo bass works by living composers that place microtonality at the forefront, as well as works composed specially for 5-string bass (with a low B0 string.) Among many other projects Dr. Koh is at work on a collection of etudes focused on developing extended techniques for the double bass. She studied bass with Paul Johnson, Guennadi Mouzyka, and Lee Tsu Hock and plays a 5-string bass of limited known origins with busetto corners. This instrument is the love of her life. Dr. Koh is currently Associate Professor of Music Composition at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, University of Georgia (UGA), USA.
The concert will include 20th- and 21st-century music for bass, bass and electronics, fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music) and a game!
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Piano, New (and Cello!)
Anatoly Larkin, piano
Bonnie Thron, cello
Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm
NCSU Students: Free with student ID if ordered online through NCSU Ticket Central,
Faculty & Staff: $10, Others: $12.
Born in 1979, in Russia, Anatoly Larkin has been studying and making music from around the age of 4. After undergraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, UK, he completed his doctoral studies in Piano Performance at the University of Minnesota, mentored by Alexander Braginsky. In Minnesota, he was a member of the new-music ensemble, Zeitgeist, premiering works by leading American composers. As an active improviser, he frequently collaborated with trombonist Patrick Crossland, clarinetist Pat O’Keefe and other artists.
In 2005, he moved to Raleigh, NC, to join Zenph, a music technology company. There he developed a software/manual process, subsequently trademarked as “Re-Performance®”, that made it possible to hear performances of recorded pianists live, through modern reproducing piano technology. He oversaw the recording and production of five critically acclaimed piano albums. In 2010 and 2012, his re-creation of Rachmaninoff’s and Marvin Hamlisch’s pianism (respectively) was featured in ‘Live from Lincoln Center’ PBS telecast, in collaboration with violinist Joshua Bell.
Bonnie Thron joined the North Carolina Symphony as Principal Cellist in 2000. She is an active chamber musician and locally has been a guest with the Mallarme Chamber Players and the Ciompi Quartet. She is a member of Three For All, a clarinet trio with her husband, clarinetist Fred Jacobowitz and pianist Anatoly Larkin. In the Washington DC area she has been a guest with the American Chamber Players and regularly performs on the Washington Musica Viva series. In summers she plays with the Sebago Long Lake Music Festival in Maine. She was a member of the Naumberg award winning Peabody Trio and played with Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, St. Lukes Orchestra and was the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Denver Symphony. She has played concertos with the North Carolina Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the Vermont Symphony, the New Hampshire Symphony, the Panama National Orchestra and many regional orchestras throughout New England and North Carolina. Thron maintains a large private teaching studio and joined the cello teaching at NC State this season.
The concert will include 20th- and 21st-century music for piano, piano and cello, and fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music).
PAST EVENTS
Thursday, October 3, 2024
Artist Talk
Ron Liberti, interdisciplinary artist
Allred Gallery, Kamphoefner Hall, 4:00 pm
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Sax, Electronics, and Anti-Heroes
Laurent Estoppey, composer and saxophonist
Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm
NCSU Students: $5, Faculty & Staff: $10, Others: $12.
Swiss composer and saxophonist, Laurent Estoppey, has devoted himself mostly to contemporary music.
Numerous collaborations with composers have lead to at least two hundred works being composed for/with him. His musical activity is divided between written music and improvisation, and it occurs throughout Europe, the Americas, and South Africa.
He currently works with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and has performed with the Basel Symphony, the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra of the State of Lithuania, the Lausanne Sinfonietta, the NEC – Chaux-de-Fonds-Contrechamps Geneva, and the Staatskapelle Weimar. Estoppey has founded and developed many chamber music groups including: DILEMME, ST15, DEGRE21, 1+1, compagnie CH.AU, and the 4TENORS. Performing with the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet and COLLAPSS (Collective for Happy Sounds) are his main activities in the United States. He is regularly invited to play with the saxophone quartet Basel ARTE Quartet and is a member of baBel ensemBle. A guest musician of the Russian theatrical troupe Akhe, he has performed with them in Geneva, Nice, London, Stockholm, and Mexico City.
His discography includes thirty recordings. He was educated at the Lausanne Conservatory, where he studied with Jean-Georges Koerper.
His interest in all contemporary arts has led him to collaborate with many artists in interdisciplinary projects. As a composer, Estoppey writes music for concerts, sound installations, and video art.
The concert will include 21st-century music for saxophone and electronics, featuring works composed by Estoppey, along with fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music).
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
SpacePants
Jennifer Beattie, vocalist
Diana Wade, violist
Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm
NCSU Students: $5, Faculty & Staff: $10, Others: $12.
SpacePants is a virtuosic viola/voice duo who wears space pants and is guided by a TUBE from outer space (Andromeda Galaxy). At the command of the TUBE, SpacePants brings their own and others’ works of art to life here on Earth. SpacePants has been featured at the Charlotte New Music Festival, the California Institute for Abnormal Arts (Los Angeles), New Music on the Point (VT), the Foundation for Emerging Technologies in the Arts (FETA) Miami, and in the 2nd edition of the Seers’ Catalogue.
Vocalist, poet and composer Jennifer Beattie, hailed by Opera News for her “exuberant voice and personality”, and by the New York Times for her “warmth”, performs a wide range of vocal music from early to experimental. She collaborates as a poet/lyricist with classical, jazz and experimental composers, and co-creates works combining visual and performance art, poetry, music, theater, and science. She has been a featured soloist with The National Opera Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, Argento Chamber Ensemble at NYC’s Park Avenue Armory, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. As a specialist in writing for the voice she has premiered more than 150 works written for her instrument, and been artist-in-residence with Yale University, the University of Georgia, Charlotte New Music, University of Miami and New Music on the Point. She is a member of SpacePants; a band/composer/performer duo with violist Diana Wade (Los Angeles) and controlled by the TUBE (Andromeda Galaxy). Ms. Beattie is delighted to work with members of the NC State community on voice and performance as a lecturer in the Department of Performing Arts and Technology.
Violist Diana Wade likes to make strange sounds, usually on the viola. In a recent performance of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VI, Diana was praised for playing with “both athletic and operatic ferocity” and “throwing herself into tremolo passages with a physical force that shook her and a sonic one that practically shook the walls” (Mark Swed, LA Times). Wade enjoys a richly varied musical life in Los Angeles performing with ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Los Angeles Opera. She has worked closely with composers such as Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Kerrith Livengood, and Thomas Kotcheff in the performance of their music. Diana Wade holds degrees and certificates from Temple University, Cleveland Institute of Music and University of Southern California and she studied with CJ Chang, Jeffrey Irvine, and Donald McInnes. Wade plays a viola made by Tetsuo Matsuda in 2004 that she’s lovingly named Fernando.
The concert will include 21st-century music for voice, voice and viola, along with fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music).