It’s About Time

 An American composer whose music has been “characterized by propulsive, syncopated rhythms, colorful orchestration, and instrumental virtuosity,” (Robert Kirzinger, Boston Symphony Orchestra) Kevin Day (b. 1996) has quickly emerged as one of the leading young voices in the world of music composition today. Day was born in Charleston, West Virginia and is a native of Arlington, Texas. His father was a prominent hip-hop producer in the late-1980s, and his mother was a sought-after gospel singer, singing alongside the likes of Mel Torme and Kirk Franklin. Kevin Day is a composer, conductor, producer, and multi-instrumentalist on tuba, euphonium, jazz piano and more, whose music often intersects between the worlds of jazz, minimalism, Latin music, fusion, and contemporary classical idioms. Day currently serves as the Composer-In-Residence of the Mesquite Symphony Orchestra. 

A winner of the BMI Student Composer Award and several other honors, Day has composed over 150 works, and has had numerous performances throughout the United States, Austria, Australia, Taiwan, and South Africa. His works have also been performed at Carnegie Hall, The Midwest Clinic, TMEA, and other major conferences and clinics. Day has collaborated with the likes of Jens Lindemann, Demondrae Thurman, and Jeremy Lewis on concertos for their respective instruments, as well as chamber ensembles like The Boston Symphony Orchestra Low Brass Section, Ensemble Dal Niente, The Puerto Rican Trombone Ensemble, The Zenith Saxophone Quartet, The Tesla Quartet, and many more. He has worked with and has been mentored by distinguished composers Gabriela Lena Frank, Frank Ticheli, John Mackey, William Owens, Julie Giroux, Marcos Balter, Anthony Cheung, Matthew Evan Taylor, and Valerie Coleman. 

Day is currently getting his Master of Music in Composition Degree at the University of Georgia, where he studies with composers Peter Van Zandt Lane, Emily Koh, and conductor Cynthia Johnston Turner. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree in Tuba/Euphonium Performance from Texas Christian University (TCU), where he studied tuba and euphonium with Richard Murrow and composition primarily with Neil Anderson-Himmelspach. His works are published with Murphy Music Press, Cimarron Music, and Kevin Day Music. Day currently serves as a board member for the Millennium Composers Initiative and is an alumnus of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America.

The Mind is Like Water is a work for solo violin and percussion that explores the concept of meditation. The composition is comprised of a central theme and seven different variations that play on this idea of how the “waters” of our minds can often become clouded, and how peace can eventually be found through the chatter.

enSRQ Talks with Kevin Day

Tania León, (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. She has been profiled on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and independent films.

León's opera Scourge of Hyacinths, based on a play by Wole Soyinka with staging and design by Robert Wilson, received over 20 performances throughout Europe and Mexico. Commissioned by Hans Werner Henze and the city of Munich for the Fourth Munich Biennale, it took home the coveted BMW Prize. The aria "Oh Yemanja" ("Mother's Prayer") was recorded by Dawn Upshaw on her Nonesuch CD, "The World So Wide."

Commissions include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt Quartet, Nestor Torres, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, Koussevitzky Foundation, Fest der Kontinente (Hamburg, Germany), Cincinnati Symphony, National Endowment for the Arts, NDR Sinfonie Orchester, American Composers Orchestra, The Library of Congress, Ensemble Modern, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, and International Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Recent commissions include: the score for the opera, The Little Rock Nine, with a libretto by Thulani Davis, and historical research by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., commissioned by the University of Central Arkansas's College of Fine Arts and Communication.

Her works have been performed by such orchestras as the Gewaundhausorchester, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the China National Symphony, and the NDR Orchestra. She has collaborated with authors and directors including John Ashbury, Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Jamaica Kincaid, Mark Lamos, Julie Taymor, and Derek Walcott.

León has appeared as guest conductor with the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Marseille, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Asturias, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogota, the Gewaundhausorchester, Chamber Orchestra of Geneve, Switzerland, the Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra, Mexico, Symphony Orchestra of Johannesburg, and the WaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, South Africa, as well as the Orquesta de la Comunidad y Coro de Madrid, and the New York Philharmonic, among others.

She has lectured at Harvard University and at the prestigious Mosse Lecture series at the University of Humboldt in Berlin and was the Andrew Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Scholar at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa. León was also Visiting Professor at Yale University, Guest Composer/Conductor at the Hamburg Musikschule, Germany and the Beijing Central Conservatory, China.

A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the Sonidos de las Américas festivals with the American Composers Orchestra, and served as Latin American Advisor to the American Composers Orchestra and New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic. She is the founder and artistic director of Composers Now Festival and the Composers Now organization, a nonprofit in New York City founded in 2010 and dedicated to empowering all living composers, while celebrating the diversity of their voices and honoring the significance of their contributions to the cultural fabric of society. In 2017, a proclamation was presented to Tania Leon and Composers Now on behalf of Mayor Bill de Blasio in recognition of their contributions on behalf of living composers. For more information please visit: Composersnow.org.

León has also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin, and SUNY Purchase College, and has served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A Professor at Brooklyn College since 1985 and at the Graduate Center of CUNY, she was named Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York in 2006. In 2010 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2017 she received the Mad Women Festival Award in Music, in Madrid, Spain.

Her honors include the New York Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award, Symphony Space's Access to the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Fromm, Koussevitzky, and Guggenheim Fellowships. In 2012 she received both a Grammy nomination (for "Best Contemporary Classical Composition") and a Latin Grammy nomination (for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition") and in 2013 she was the recipient of the prestigious 2013 ASCAP Victor Herbert Award. Most recently she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship

De Color is a set of four pieces for violin and marimba about color and how it stimulates my imagination. These pieces are concerned with the color of sound and the sound of color: sound paintings, pieces in search of colors that create colors through speed, movement, rapid dynamic changes and manipulations of sound textures. 

Cobre (Copper) contains a dislocated "montuno," a syncopated pulse at the heart of many forms of dance music in America Latina. The concluding Mestizo is both a blend of previously used materials and an attempt to blend the colors of the two instruments (doubling, imitating each other). Toward the end of the work, the montuno rhythmic pattern returns and prevails. 

-Tania León

The music of Katherine Balch (b. 1991) captures the magic of everyday sounds, inviting audiences into a sonic world characterized by imagination, discovery, and a rich diversity of styles. Ms. Balch is often inspired by literature, nature, and science, aptly reflected in the San Francisco Chronicle’s description of her as “some kind of musical Thomas Edison – you can just hear her tinkering around in her workshop, putting together new sounds and textural ideas.” 

Ms. Balch’s facility in elevating ordinary sounds through large-scale orchestration and dramatic narrative arcs has led to commissions and performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the symphony orchestras of Minnesota, Oregon, Albany, Indianapolis, and Tokyo. She has been featured on IRCAM’s ManiFeste, Fontainebleau Music Festival, and Festival MANCA in France, Suntory Summer Arts and Takefu Music Festival in Japan, and the Aspen, Norfolk, Santa Fe, and Tanglewood music festivals in the United States. Her work has been championed by the Argus Quartet and Departure Duo and has been presented in major global venues including Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. 

Ms. Balch recently completed her tenure as the first female composer-in-residence for the California Symphony, where she drew the attention of the Mercury News as a “superbly gifted composer [with] a compositional voice that is truly unique and full of wonder.” She has also served as composer-in-residence for Young Concert Artists, who commissioned her to write works for the Kennedy Center and Merkin Hall debuts of flutist Anthony Trionfo, pianist Albert Cano Smit, and cellist Zlatomir Fung.

Nominated by violinist Hilary Hahn, Ms. Balch was just announced as the recipient of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2020 Career Advancement Award. She has also been honored by ASCAP, BMI, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, the Barlow Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the International Society of Contemporary Music. In 2021, she will be in residence at the American Academy in Rome, completing an album of music for double bass and ensemble as the Elliot Carter Rome Prize Fellow. 

Ms. Balch is deeply committed to developing inclusive, engaging pedagogical practices that empower students through creative music-making, and she maintains an active teaching studio at Mannes School of Music. Currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, she counts George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Marcos Balter among her mentors. She is a proud alumna of the Yale School of Music, where she studied with David Lang, Christopher Theofanidis, and Aaron J. Kernis. Her chamber works are published by Schott PSNY. 

Ms. Balch documents her lived experiences on the page, with each composition serving as a diary of what has captivated her curiosity. Fueled by her peers’ creative practices, she has been using her time in quarantine to pick up fiddling and learn more about American improvisational traditions. When she’s not creating, she’s actively collecting inspiration from the nearest botanical gardens, Rimbaud’s poetry, or her feline sidekick, Zarathustra.

“Look,” said Rhoda; “listen. Look how the light becomes richer, second by second, and bloom and ripeness lie everywhere; and our eyes, as they range round this room with all its tables, seem to push through curtains of colour, red, orange, umber and queer ambiguous tints, which yield like veils and close behind them, and one thing melts into another.” ’ - Virginia Woolf, The Waves

enSRQ Talks with Katherine Balch

Dr. Schwartz was Dean of Humanities of the University of Puerto Rico where he also held major academic and administrative positions during his 33 year career at the prestigious Caribbean institution. He was decorated by the French government and awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. His music is regularly performed around the world and he is particularly noted for his innovative music theater works that frequently incorporate the attending public as active participants in the performance.

His polyartistic creation “Mon Oeuf”, a miniature theater-sculpture with electronic sounds, aromas, temperature manipulations and tactile stimulations was premiered in 1979 at the Pompidou Center and later installed at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. “Mon Oeuf” has been hailed as a daring achievement in contemporary art. His chamber opera “DALI and GALA” was premiered in 2004 at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. 

Schwartz has written works for some of the world’s outstanding artists and ensembles such as Andres Segovia, Gary Karr, Pierre-Yves Artaud, Thomas Bacon, Henri Bok, Continuum, Jay Hunsberger,The New Juilliard Ensemble, Arioso Trio, 2E2M of Paris, LIM de Madrid, Casals Festival, Saint Louis Brass Quintet, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Sybarite5 among many others. He currently resides in Sarasota, Florida. 

In 2011 premiered his “Antigone’s Dream” in Paris with the French Flute Orchestra and Pierre- Yves Artaud as soloist. In the same year, Schwartz presented 12 of his compositions in the CLAEM Festival in Buenos Aires at the Jorge Luis Borges Cultural Center. During 2012, Schwartz premiered “Cooking at the Crossroads with Pauline & John” an homage to Pauline Oliveros and John Cage.

This composition was written and completed in August of the current year. After so many months of isolation and pandemic worries, I felt the need to express my feelings through the magic of stringed instruments. 

Nico Muhly (b.1981) is an American composer and sought-after collaborator whose influences range from American minimalism to the Anglican choral tradition. The recipient of commissions from The Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tallis Scholars and St. John’s College, Cambridge and others, he has written more than 100 works for the concert stage, including the opera Marnie (2017), which premiered at the English National Opera and was staged by the Metropolitan Opera in the fall of 2018.

Muhly is a frequent collaborator with choreographer Benjamin Millepied and, as an arranger, has paired with Sufjan Stevens, Antony and the Johnsons and others. His work for stage and screen include music for the Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie and scores for films including the Academy Award-winning The Reader. Born in Vermont, Muhly studied composition at the Juilliard School before working as an editor and conductor for Philip Glass. He is part of the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue (2008). He lives in New York City.

It’s About Time (2004) was written for Sam Solomon, one of my oldest collaborators. Some of the first music I wrote, I wrote for Sam, so when he asked me to write a solo for him in 2004, I started thinking about the sort of thing you cook for your best friends – food from the pantry, not designed to impress: the company itself is the point of the encounter. It’s About Time is precisely that: staples, things I know that I do well, and things I know Sam (and, by hopeful extension, any percussionist) does well.  It’s About Time lasts 9 minutes and is dedicated, with many thanks, to Sam Solomon. (-Nico Muhly)

Shaun Tilburg’s compositional style can best be described by his influences, ranging from Stravinsky to Radiohead to Schoenberg to Tower of Power to George Crumb. With a penchant for the dark and rhythmic, Shaun gravitates towards emo-esque tape elements and moments of unrest/aleatory. 

With performances in Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, South Korea, Italy and more, Shaun’s Abstracts for Percussion & Flute has quickly become a standard for mixed chamber ensemble. 

An Hour of Change, a piece for solo snare drum and digital audio, is currently enjoying premieres around the world and can be found in the very popular collection, The Dynamic Snare. Shaun’s piece is included alongside works of Andy Akiho, Timo Andres and John Psathas. 

His percussion trio, The Infantryman, has been live broadcast by the President’s Own Marine Band and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra percussion section. 

Recently, Shaun was commissioned by Orphic Percussion for a percussion quartet to premier on their first European tour, and by the Moreau VanTuinen Duo for a mixed percussion and euphonium duo to premier at the International Women’s Brass Conference. He has also composed for the Urban Nocturnes and ensemblenewSRQ chamber ensembles.

An Hour of Change is loosely about America's foundation being built of grit and determination, and how that is perhaps something we have wandered away from. It hints at something ominous, experiments with some Alien-ish glitch beats and then resolves with one of the most famous lines a President of The United States ever delivered.