Next up in the Printempo series is composer Tom Gurin, Fulbright-Harriet Hale Woolley Scholar in residence at the FEU. In collaboration with several FEU resident artists and special guests, including members of Ensemble Calliopée and FEU alumna Jenny Maclay, he presents an immersive project that allows the audience to be an actor in the performance they are attending.
This concert will explore two ideas that have been guiding my work in Paris: space and interactivity. Questions like “Where will we perform?” and “How will we interact with the audience?” were central to music-making during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. These questions will likely remain essential to composers and performers going forward.
These new compositions will explore the role of space by examining traditional concert music (such as a string quartet) in juxtaposition with public sound environments—church bells, noises from the Metro, etc.—and how different kinds of sounds fit into the Grand Salon. In three of the pieces, re-framed “field recordings” from public spaces will directly influence the musical result.
When pandemic-era concerts could not happen in concert halls or in public spaces, they often took place online. Interactivity was largely missing from these experiences. To address this, at the end of the concert, I will invite the audience to participate in and perform the final piece together.
All the music you will hear this evening was written in 2021 and 2022. It is a reflection on the role of space and framing in music, as well as a search for new tools for audience interactivity. — Tom Gurin
Practical Information
Date: May 31 | Time: 7PM | Facebook event
COVID: wearing a mask is not mandatory, however it is strongly recommended. Please use the hydroalcoholic gel at your disposal.
Program
Thomas Gurin (1995)
Rhythmes Verticaux (string quartet)
Dhyani Heath, violin
Riana Heath, violin
Karine Lethiec, viola
Albert Kuchinski, cello
Thomas Gurin
Sorores (violin duo)
Dhyani Heath, violin
Riana Heath, violin
Susila Heath, violin
Thomas Gurin
Not Open
Jenny Maclay, clarinet
Thomas Gurin
Could Mortal Lip Divine (voice and electronics)
Sarah Grace Graves, soprano
Thomas Gurin
Mouvement Social (piano and electronics)
Edgar Jaber, piano
Thomas Gurin
Bas-Relief (interactive electronics and projection)
Owen Moran, projection
Resident Artists
Tom Gurin, a graduate of Yale University, is a Paris-based composer and performer. He is the current recipient of a Fullbright Harriet Hale Woolley award at the Fondation des États-Unis and studies composition at the École Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot”. He frequently collaborates with musicians and visual artists throughout Paris, with projects ranging from traditional concert premieres to “en plein air” events and sound art works. He is the 2022 recipient of the Rosalind Swenson Fulbright Award to extend his stay in Paris.
His music has been premiered at the Mannes School of Music in New York City as part of the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, the Yale School of Art, the Antwerp Royal Conservatory, highSCORE New Music Festival in Pavia, Italy, and more. For the month of July 2022, he will be participating in the composition program at the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau.
Additionally, Gurin is a former U.S. Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation and holds an artist diploma with great distinction from the Royal Carillon School in Belgium. He has performed hundreds of carillon concerts throughout North America and Europe. His recent performances in France include Annecy and Taninges, as well as an upcoming concert in Perpignan, where he was also the first prize winner in the city’s 2022 carillon composition contest.
Aron Frank is an award-winning composer of classical music and film scores, as well as a violinist and music educator. A graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, he has studied composition with Claude Baker, Sven-David Sandström, Aron Travers, Don Freund and P. Q. Phan, film scoring with Larry Groupé and violin with Federico Agostini. The films he has composed for have been screened at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey (Jury Prize) and at the Independent’s “Project Involove” in Los Angeles. His compositions have been performed in the United States, Latin America, and Europe, at the Tanglewood Music Institute, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, and the Music Educators National Conference among others. Aron is the recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Fellowship and is an Artist-in-Residence at the Fondation des États-Unis for the academic year 2021-2022, during which time he will prepare for the Diplôme Supérieur in Composition and Film Composition at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot.
Sarah Grace Graves is a composer and singer of experimental music living in Paris. Her music contextualizes the voice and instrument within the internal landscape of the performer: emotions, physical sensations, and sense memory. In March 2021, her experimental vocal recital Songs from the Chalet was released as part of Divertimento Ensemble’s Young Performers on Digital Stage concert series. In it, Graves performs her own compositions as well as selections from Erin Gee’s Mouthpiece series and Giacinto Scelsi’s Canti del Capricorno. She has participated in numerous festivals including Voix Nouvelles Academy at Royaumont, Northwestern University New Music Conference, Westben Performer-Composer Residency, IlSuono Contemporary Music Week, Nief-Norf Summer Festival, and Estalagem da Ponta do Sol Residency for contemporary music and electronics. She performs Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung with the Italian contemporary vocal ensemble Fragmente and is a founding member of Mockingbird and Magpie, an experimental voice/cello duo with Toronto composer and cellist Cory Harper-Latkovich. Sarah Grace holds a Master of Arts in composition from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor of Music in composition from Rice University. From 2021-2022, Sarah Grace was a Harriet Hale Woolley scholar at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris. She was studying vocals with Nicholas Isherwood.
Born in 1994 in New York City, American-Javanese violinist Dhyani Heath has performed recitals in France, the United States, Canada, Austria, and the United Kingdom. She performed as a soloist with the American Romantics in 2017 and 2018, as well as with the Chamber Orchestra of Galicia in 2016. After studying at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and as a scholarship student at the Yale School of Music, she is completing her studies at the CNSMDP as a graduate artist and received a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship for the 2021-2022 academic year.
Born in Boston and raised in Bucharest, Edgar Jaber is currently finalizing a master’s degree in Mathematics and Engineering at CentraleSupélec/Université Paris-Saclay. He is a pupil of the Romanian pianists Toma Popovici and Viorica Rădoi at the National University of Music in Bucharest. His repertoire focuses mainly on classical and romantic german composers as well as early XXth century modernism.
Owen Moran is trained as an art historian and film maker who now works as an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Moran’s art practice and educational practice coexist in the creation of alternative spaces to collect and engage with one another through audio visual installation and performance. Through these means, the work examines machines and technology placed in ecological and biological contexts. Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he currently studies Transdisciplinary New Media at the Paris College of Art.
Guest artists
Eucharis Strings, an ensemble dedicated to performing chamber music from around the world, was founded in 2020 by the Javanese American sisters Dhyani, Riana and Susila Heath. As a trio, they have recently commissioned a piece called Sorores by American composer Tom Gurin and perform their own compositions. Students at the Yale School of Music, the Paris Conservatory, and the Mozarteum University, these talented young women have performed together throughout Europe, Canada, and the USA.
Invited to appear in various festivals such as the Taos Chamber Music Festival, Mit Musik Miteinander of the Kronberg Academy, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk Festival, Enquentro Santandar and at Fontainebleau, they have collaborated with l’Ensemble Calliopée and have been coached at the Sándor Vegh Institut for Chamber Music by members of the Vienna Piano Trio, Minetti Quartett, Kuss Quartet, Quatuor Mosaïques, Hagen quartet, and by the Quatuor Modigliani and the Quatuor Ebène.
Susila Heath is an exceptional Javanese American violinist who excels in solo and chamber music repertoire. Born in the United States in 1999, she began studying the violin at the age of seven with Pavel Feldman. At eleven, she moved to Europe to study at the prestigious Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Susila is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in violin performance there, with Harald Herzl. An impassioned chamber musician, she studied at the Sándor Végh Chamber Music Institute with Thomas Riebl, members of the Minetti and Hagen Quartets. With her sisters Dhyani and Riana Heath, she founded Eucharis Strings, which is dedicated to performing works by composers from around the world. In 2016, she was invited to participate in the chamber music project Mit Musik Miteinander at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. She won numerous first prizes at National Competitions and was awarded first prize at the International Grand Prize Virtuoso Competition, which led her to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2015 and 2016, she received first chamber music and solo prizes from the Prima la musica competition. She regularly participates in concerts in Vienna, Salzburg, and Passau with the Salzburger Landesjugendorchester and has performed as a soloist with the Symphonie Orchester des Musikgymnasiums Salzburg. From 2015 to 2018, Susila played a Derazey violin, which was loaned to her by the Ernst Alexander Maier Memorial Fund. She is now studying with Prof. Michaël Hentz at the CNSMDP as part of ERASMUS.
Karine Lethiec is recognized today for her high standards and her artistic range, which makes her a sought-after musician, particularly for her expertise in chamber music and her conception of interdisciplinary programs. She holds degrees in violin, viola, and chamber music from the conservatories of Lyon, Paris, Geneva, and Bern. She is a prizewinner of the Tertis International Competition and of the Fondation Banque Populaire. She teaches viola at the Conservatoire de la Ville de Paris (Paris 8) and was a student advisor from 2014 to 2018. Her musical travels have taken her from Mozart (complete recording of the quintets with the Stradivari Quartet) to contemporary creation (more than a hundred premieres). Karine Lethiec continues to defend musical creation through commissions and performances of works by Betsy Jolas, Thierry Pécou, Philippe Schoeler, Benoît Menut, Philippe Hersant, Graciane Finzi… (Monographic CD released by ARION in November 2021). She has recorded́ Kryštof Mařatka’s concerto Astrophonia with the Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra (France Musique).
In addition, she is very involved in the democratization of music through artistic education adapted to all audiences. Artistic director and viola player of the Ensemble Calliopée since 1999, she proposes programming that favors interdisciplinary projects in the fields of Fine Arts, History, Archaeology and Science, in concert or in audiovisual creations available on the YouTube channel of Ensemble Calliopée.
Vandoren Artist-Clinician Dr. Jenny Maclay enjoys a diverse career as a clarinet soloist, recitalist, orchestral player, chamber musician, pedagogue, and blogger. In 2021, she was the Visiting Instructor of Clarinet at Brandon University (Canada) and was Visiting Lecturer of Clarinet at Iowa State University in 2020. Online, she is known as Jenny Clarinet, where she created her eponymous popular blog Jenny Clarinet, and she is also the Social Media Coordinator for the International Clarinet Association. In addition to teaching and performing, Jenny is also interested in travelling and researching clarinet cultures around the world. To date, she has visited and performed in over 30 countries, and she enjoys meeting other clarinetists during her travels. Recently, she was selected by the Council of Faroese Artists as an artist-in-residence in Tjørnuvík, Faroe Islands, where she performed and promoted clarinet compositions by Faroese composers. She has also been named an Artist-in-Residence Niederösterreich, and she will study the clarinet compositions of Ernst Krenek and his wife Gladys Nordenstrom during her residency in Austria in 2022. Jenny Maclay is an alumna of the FEU, former Harriet Hale Wooley scholar from 2015 to 2016.