This Valentine’s Day we’re celebrating Susan & John’s 17th Unniversary!
Recently, I was commissioned to write some original music for Susan & John’s 17th “Unniversary”. Susan (aka “Aunt Mickey”) is a dear friend of my partner Anne’s family (Anne is featured on viola!). Susan is a flutist with a great sense of humor who loves everything from Jazz to Experimental Improvisation to New Music and anything deemed whacky by ordinary standards!
Movement I the “Scorpio Serenade” (title suggested by Aunt Mickey) starts on a bit of a reflective note and somber tone. This waltz (again per the suggestion of Aunt Mickey) leaves some space to think back on how difficult a year 2020 was for most of us. Susan and John who had some especially terrifying, exciting & life threatening events transpire. On top of the fact that we are a bit stuck in the home and stuck in the moment, as represented by the flute’s continuing ostinato line… It is a bit somber because were are unable to be in each other’s physical presence to enjoy or celebrate life’s moments together. But as you will experience during the solo section, we are passionate none the less!
As we keep moving forward with hopeful energies, we find ourselves in Movement II, the “Joyous Dance”! Here the foreground cello and viola parts represent the two souls of our lovers, intertwined in a celebratory dance. The flute soloing in the background represents the pure energy of their joy radiating off of the dancing souls. Special thanks to Iva Ugrčić for her spirited flute contributions to this track!
In Movement III, a “Tapestry of Moments”, we find the friends and family who make up the small irreplaceable, separate moments of our lives sewn together into the single, unbroken, continuous, forward moving melody that is our existence here on this earth. Our life as a “tapestry of moments”. Aunt Mickey requested that I involve a number of good friends and so I reached to everyone to help me form the “17th Unniversary Unsemble”! If you listen closely, you can hear individual melody notes played by many separate players which have been carefully pieced together to form this single, minimalist melody line. There is also a surprise element to this musical, life collage.
Susan and John, we hope you enjoy it & can’t wait to debut it for you during the Zoom celebration this Valentine’s Day!
Happy 17th Unniversary to Susan and John, And a big special thanks to everyone who contributed their musical talents to this project, ~ BCG
The mission of LunART Festivalis to support, inspire, promote, and celebrate women in the arts through public performances, exhibitions, workshops, and interdisciplinary collaboration; thus enriching our community and creating a welcoming space for learning and experimentation. This international art festival features engaging and accessible events and concerts in Madison, an educational program for emerging composers, as well as community building events for artists. LunART interweaves art forms throughout events, offering diverse and exciting programming, where creativity is queen!
Join us for a Playhouse Gallery Reception from 6 PM – 8 PM! Art Discussion with Kelly Parks Snider starts at 6:30 PM!
We are women united against hate. We are mothers, sisters, grandmother and caretakers. We are joined together purposely to shine a light, capture attention, and push back against injustice.
A collective effort of artists and activists, “Women Against Hate United by Love” is a platform, an entry point for a female-led anti-hate campaign united against bigotry, intolerance and racism. The creative building blocks for our artwork and messaging are women’s stories—powerful, tough, revealing stories of injustice, tragedy, strength, and amazingly, hope.
The goal of “From Page to Stage” is to support emerging women composers in gaining a clearer understanding of not only expressing their creativity, but also creating clear scores, cultivating relationships with performers, and the art of collaboration. The master class with festival composer-in-residence Valerie Coleman will explore works submitted by participants, while talks about collaboration and the role of the independent composer will offer participants a well-rounded approach to growing their own careers.
Join the LunART Festival in celebrating women in the arts with our opening gala concert. Featuring chamber music, poetry, monologues and aerial dancing, this concert will be a spectacular showcase of creativity by women artists!
Program: Kirsten Volness little tiny stone, full of blue fire for flute/alto, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin & cello
Valerie Coleman, Tzigane for woodwind quintet
Barbara Strozzi, L’Astratto, Opus 8.04 Che si può fare, Opus 8.06
Hilary Tann, The Walls of Morlais Castle for oboe, viola & cello
Kate Soper, Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say for flute & soprano
Special guests: Andrea Musher – poet Deborah Hearst – theatre artist Linda DiRaimondo – aerial dancer + BC Grimm guqin zither
What does it mean to create art as a woman in the 21st century, and how do our experiences shape what we produce and perform? Join us to hear stories of modern women and their unique personal journeys that led them to lives and careers in the arts.
This is a free pre-concert lecture that is open to the public. Stick around for the 7 PM concert Portraits of Josephine featuring an evening of music and dance.
Join us for a night of music and dance! Featuring a percussive string quintet by composer Edna Alejandra Longoria and a choreographed exploration of rhythm by dancer Liz Sexe & Kimi Evelyn, this concert will have you moving in your seat throughout the evening.
Program:
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Concerto for trumpet and five players
Valerie Coleman, Portraits of Josephine wind quintet
Edna Alejandra Longoria, Danzas Cautivas for string quintet & piano
Liz Sexe, Lone Sum: Part II (choreographed dance)
Stacy Garrop, My Dearest Ruth for soprano, violin, cello, clarinet & piano
Kimi Evelyn, She (choreographed dance)
Missy Mazzoli, The Sound of the Light for flute, violin, trumpet, trombone & piano
This lineup of amazing comedians is gonna be a stunner! Featuring local comics from the Midwest who are blazing a trail of funny that will leave you gasping in their wake. Come to the Robinia courtyard where these Queens will be “Holding Court.”
We are extremely excited to welcome our 2019 participants to LunART’s educational program “From Page to Stage: Emerging Composers!” After attending masterclasses and workshops, these 6 talented composers will have their compositions performed by Madison musicians during this free concert at Capitol Lakes.
Program:
Emily Joy Sullivan – Dangerous Curves Ahead for violin, cello & piano
Claudia Sofía Alvarez Cuba – Nada queda (Nothing Left) for soprano & marimba
Shelby Scott – Going Thoughts for piano solo
Veronica Cator – Direction for string quartet
Anna Marcus-Hecht – Transfiguration for mezzo-soprano & piano
Join us for our final gala concert of the festival! This program will feature a wickedly upbeat clarinet & piano duo by Eunike Tanzil (who will be here to perform the piece herself!), Clara Schumann’s classic Piano Trio in G minor, and Valerie Coleman’s groundbreaking Afro-Cuban Concerto for wind quintet.
The ARTemis Women’s Choir returns for a second year and we’ll be featuring the artwork of women artists from Studio 84, Inc. and ARTWORKING, two nonprofit organizations that support artists with disabilities.
Full program:
ARTemis Women’s Choir: Joan Szymko, Eli Eli Meg Huskin, Oblivion Jocelyn Hagen, Moon Goddess Alexandra Olsavsky, What Happens When a Woman?
Eunike Tanzil, Catching Time! for clarinet & piano
Clara Schumann, Piano Trio in G minor for violin, cello & piano
“Mooning Around” Poetry Reading and Artist Mixer – no better way to close our 2019 season! Join us for a performance of “One for Mileva Maric (Einstein)” by Andrea Musher, with special guests Sarah Whelan and Jackie Bradley, and poetry readings by The Line-Breakers: Andrea Potos, Eve Robillard, Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva & Katrin Talbot.
Enjoy your morning coffee and brunch while making creative connections with other artists. Open the public and all artists – bring your portfolios, business cards, and get creative!
Sun, 4/28 | 4-5pm Free @ Fort Atkinson Club 211 S. Water Street East, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 Chamber Series Concert featuring Sound Out Loud
From Fort Atkinson Club: “Join us on Sunday, April 28 2019 from 4-5pm for the second 2019 Chamber Series Concert. Stay after the concert for a complimentary wine and appetizer reception. This is a great opportunity to meet the performers! This event is FREE and open to the public.
The Sound Out Loud Collective is a contemporary music ensemble based in Madison. While the specific instrumentation of the group fluctuates with each program, the core ensemble is comprised of flute (Iva Ugrcic), violin (Aaron Yarmel), cello (Brian Grimm), and two pianists (Satoko Hayami and Kyle Johnson). Sound Out Loud specializes in engaging works from the early 20th century–present and commissions new pieces from composers around the world. April’s concert will feature a diverse program of National Styles. Bryce Dessner’s “Murder Ballades” features intense, rhythmical arrangements of American ballads, while Arnold Schoenberg’s “Chamber Symphony” offers a mix of high modernism with popular European styles.
While these concerts are open and free to the public, many dedicated patrons and sponsors are to be thanked for their generosity and support of the Chamber Series Concerts. “
Features on the Program, notes by Brian Grimm
I am thrilled to be joined by Todd Hammes (tabla) for a performance of compositions and variations in Drut Ektaal (fast 12 beat cycle) on Raga Bageshree. These theme and variations were given to me by my guruji pandit Sugato Nag, a sitar master based out of Kolkata, India. Sugato’s style of playing is highly melodic and vocal, which has been one of the great advantages as he has helped me to adapt this music on my ‘sarangicello’. Todd studied under Pandit Sharda Sahai and for a period of time, was my brother AJ’s tabla teacher. I’ve had a lot of fun rehearsing with Todd and can’t wait to perform more Indian Classical with him in the future! Here is a performance of my guruji Sugato Da and his son Snehesh Nag performing the same main compositions, with different variations:
Ravi Shankar, one of the greatest musicians of all time has remained a favorite inspiration of mine throughout my life. Only in the last year did I stumble upon one of his masterpieces for dance and theater, Ghanashyam: A Broken Branch (1989). Back in college, I found a CD of Indian ensemble music featuring a concerto for two sitars and ensemble music highlighting bansuri flute that Ravi had composed – I’ve always kept my eye out for more of that sound. Most people in the Western World have come to know of Ravi Shankar via his influence on the Beatles, being that he was George Harrison’s guru. Ravi became one of the first Global Musicians to help spread and educate on the deep joyful experience of Indian Classical and Folk music. I first heard the Overture of Ghanashyam on a compilation disc I found years ago at a Half Priced Books, and was blown away! This was exactly what I was looking for and what an exciting piece to kick off any album or production! I couldn’t find any more info on this piece and for a couple of years, I simply enjoyed it and stopped looking further. Then, curious again last year I happened upon the good news that the entire project was remastered and re-released in 2017! I immediately ordered a copy and it has become one of my favorite albums of all time.
Ravi of course was know also as one of the greatest sitar soloists of his time, but few Westerners know of his ensemble compositions that he did for film, radio, and dance. Shankar grew up performing traditional Indian dance and music, so he was the perfect person to create this dance and theater piece about the ultimate death of a dancer due to drug abuse, and the effect on those around him. If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you know that the Brothers Grimm have composed many scores for dance and theater, so this is kind of an ultimate geek out album for me.
I have arranged the overture for Sound Out Loud to play at this Fort Atkinson performance. One brilliant idea executed in this overture is that no matter how that each musical theme presents it self later on in the production (4, 6, 7, 12, 16, etc beat cycles), they are all stitched together and made one by fitting each theme to an 11 beat cycle within the overture.
The remaster sounds amazing, they really did a great job cleaning up the mix and opening up space and definition around each instrument, bringing out the color in each instrument voice. You can pick up your physical copy here: East Meets West Shop
From East Meets West, Ravi’s legacy record label: ” Nine Decades Vol. 5 is a special re-mastered recording of the music-theater piece entitled, Ghanashyam: A Broken Branch, originally commissioned by he Birmingham Touring Opera Company and premiering in 1989. Created out of his deep concern over the youth culture’s preoccupation with drugs as an “easy escape from the sadhana found in disciplined hard work,” Ravi Shankar wrote this outstanding piece of music in the folk tale tradition. It is an examination of the forces that can dilute the world-changing potential of the artist. The music is lush, featuring Shankar’s usual proclivity to combine Eastern and Western orchestral instrumentations to great effect. Featuring dance music in the North Indian Kathak style, as well as the South Indian Bharatanatyam and Kathakali styles, Ghanashyam is a dynamic work of unearthly beauty and one that is very much influenced by Shankar’s eight years of dancing in his brother Uday Shankar’s troupe. Originally released on CD in the early 1990s at a truncated 60 minutes, East Meets West has re-mastered the original reels and restored a full twenty more minutes to the music, making this recording a more faithful to the audio that accompanied the original theater production. “
Behind the scenes footage of the production!
Murder Ballads
Sound Out Loud will close the program with a performance of Murder Ballads (2013) by Bryce Dessner. Dessner is famously known in popular music circles as the guitarist for the National and the Clogs. Murder Ballads (recording below by Eighth Blackbird, in Chicago) explores a wide range of folk styles converted to 21st century Classical chamber music. This piece is a ” set of seven instrumental ballads, the piece was inspired by the tunes, stories and playing styles from the great American folk music tradition. The ballads include pieces loosely based on classic tunes, plus Dessner’s original compositions which were informed by the many months he spent inhabiting the seductive music and violent stories of these murder ballads. “It has been super fun and challenging to learn this piece, there are a number of movements which require very accurate bow technique. However difficult individual technique gets, it always remains melodic and easy on the ears. No matter how dark the murderous folk lore subject matter may be, we find it to be quite an enjoyable ride and a nice way to close out the concert.
It has finally arrived! The 2018 LunART Festival celebrating women composers, performers, visual artists, choreographers, and more! This festival, spearheaded by Sound Out Loud flutist Iva Ugrčić, has a mission to: “… support, inspire, promote, and celebrate women in the arts through public performances, exhibitions, workshops, and interdisciplinary collaboration; thus enriching our community and creating a welcoming space for learning and experimentation.”
Please do yourself a favor and take a scroll down LunART Fest’s official facebook page, you’ll find post after post highlighting all of the fantastic musicians participating in this festival!
More from LunART: “ [This] festival strives to cultivate a vibrant, safe space for women, unveiling our artistic leadership and creating the opportunity to put our hearts and souls into what we believe in.
Throughout history, artists have created and used their works as a powerful way to comment on social issues. They have raised questions, challenged norms, and encouraged people to observe controversial subjects through a different lens. Gender issues are currently at the forefront of political and social discussions, and we want to support women across the globe as they navigate the gender imbalance in artistic fields.
This three-day festival features a remarkable range of women, diverse and varied in their artistic vision, but with the shared passion and desire to make their voices heard!
Our 2018 Artist in Residence is award-winning composer Jenni Brandon. She will coach the LunART Festival “From Page to Stage: Emerging Composers Workshop,” offering master classes, lectures, and discussions about collaboration and career tools. ”
“The main idea behind this talk is to highlight the varied roles that women play in the music industry. We are performers, composers, and scholars, yes. And those roles have been public for quite some time. But we are also pedagogues, consiglieri, critics, and administrators, not to mention conductors, librarians, and educators. My goal with this talk is to explore some examples of these roles and to demonstrate how women’s cultural agency is a vital part of music in the 21st century.”
Enjoy this opening event featuring music by Composer-in-Residence Jenni Brandon; 2018 Call for Scores Winners Katy Abbott & Veronika Krausas; Valerie Coleman and Cecilia McDowall; with special guests Katrina Schaag, writer and Zhalarina Sanders, hip-hop artist.
Program
Katrina Therese Schaag The Infinite Woman feminist writing project
Jenni Brandon Music, composer-in-residence Meditations for piano, violin, viola and cello
Veronika Krausas, 2018 Call for Scores Winner Hopscotch Tarot for mezzo soprano and violin
Cecilia McDowall The Moon Dances for flute and piano
Jenni Brandon The Dreams of Birds for alto flute and piano
Katy Abbott, 2018 Call for Scores Winner Glisten for piano solo
Valerie Coleman-Page Flutist & Composer Trio Toccata for oboe, bassoon and piano
Xinyan Li, 2018 Call for Scores Winner Mongolian Impressions for solo bassoon, percussion, and string quartet
Katrin Talbot poetry reading and photo exhibition
Jenni Brandon Sun Songs for soprano, English horn, cello, and piano
Galina Ustvolskaya Composition No.1 “Dona Nobis Pacem” for tuba, piccolo and piano
Fanny Mendelssohn Three Pieces for piano four hands
Doina Rotaru Japanese Garden for bass flute/piccolo and electronics
Jenni Brandon The Woman with the Unfathomable Eyes for small chamber ensemble, narrator, and dancer
9:30pm Free | “That’s What She Said” Anthology @ Bos Meadery: 849 East Washington, Madison, Wisconsin 53703
That’s What She Said is a story-share production in which local women share real stories about their fears, their joys, their lives. Created in 2014, it is produced by The Bricks Theatre (Madison, WI) and directed by Molly Vanderlin (Owner/Producer, The Bricks Theatre). It has received great reviews, and after fifteen shows, The Bricks Theatre has decided it might have a great idea!
Saturday, June 30:
10am Free | Panel Discussion: “Collaboration in the Arts”– with Jenni Brandon, Katrina Schaag, and Zhalarina H. Sanders, @ The Bubbler at Madison Public Library: 201 W. Mifflin St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Join us for a Saturday morning chat about the Collaboration is the Arts led by our fabulous guest artists:
Jenni Brandon – composer Kelly Parks Snider – visual artist Katrina Therese Schaag, PhD. – writer
This engaging panel discussion is for anyone interested in arts entrepreneurship, and for those who want to learn how artists work together. Participation from attendees is encouraged.
We are extremely excited to welcome 6 talented composers to LunART’s 2018 educational program “From Page to Stage: Emerging Composers!” Join us for the concert dedicated to showcasing their works!
Join the LunART Festival in celebrating women in the arts! Enjoy this event featuring music by Composer-in-Residence Jenni Brandon, 2018 Call for Scores Winner Ingrid Stölzel, and Abbie Betinis, Hildegard von Bingen, Linda Kachelmeier, Elizabeth Alexander, Marilyn Bliss, Brianna Ware, Madeleine Dring, & Amy Beach. Featuring Festival Women’s Choir conducted by Kathy Otterson.
With special guests: visual artist Kelly Parks Snider and photographers Jennifer Bucheit & Katrin Talbot.
9:30pm Free | “Starry Night”performance: 2014 International Fingerstyle Guitar Champion and folk singer-songwriter Helen Avakian, and rock band Tiny Dinosaur @ Robinia Courtyard: 829 E Washington Ave, Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Come enjoy our fabulous guest artists, singer-songwriter Helen Avakian and Tiny Dinosaur rock band, and join us in celebrating the end of our inaugural 2018 season!
Madison singer-songwriter and guitarist Helen Avakian is the 2014 International Fingerstyle Guitar Champion, and was voted Favorite Acoustic Act by Rhythm and News Magazine. She is also a recording artist, producer, and guitar instructor specializing in acoustic guitar music. Time for some indie pop emerging from the primordial ooze of the isthmus to weave tiny tales. It’s Mesozoic music for the masses. Tiny Dinosaur is an indie rock band of four females giving a warm embrace to folk, punk, and pop to tell you a story.
Partners
LunART Festival has partnered with area art organizations including:
Overture Center for the Arts
Madison Museum of Contemporary Arts
First United Methodist Church
Madison Public Library
Capitol Lakes Retirement Center and First Unitarian Society
Robinia Courtyard
Bos Meadery
Field Table
LunART is supported by:
Dane Arts and Madison Arts Commission
2018 UW Arts Business Competition, 2nd place
finalist for 2018 National Flute Association’s C.R.E.A.T.E. Project Competition
