Always and Forever – Nina C. Young | Yuliya Lanina, Animation
When the pandemic hit, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Separated by 1000 miles and unable to visit him, I kept myself sane by painting small pieces which I would mail to health care workers. Always and Forever grew out of these paintings. In animated form, they give testimony to my subconscious mind’s effort to process his impending death, the distance between us, and feeling powerless. As the characters in a masked ball of Life flash across the screen, my furry black alter ego must decide if it’s safe to follow the high-heeled spider into another dimension – will it hurt or heal?
This project is supported in part by Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.
The music of composer Nina C. Young, assistant professor of composition at USC Thornton, is characterized by an acute sensitivity to tone color, manifested in aural images of vibrant, arresting immediacy. Her experience in the electronic music studio informs her acoustic work, which takes as its given not melody and harmony, but sound itself, continuously metamorphosing from one state to another. Her musical voice draws from elements of the classical canon, modernism, spectralism, American experimentalism, minimalism, electronic music and popular idioms. Her projects strive to create unique sonic environments that can be appreciated by a wide variety of audiences while challenging stylistic boundaries, auditory perception and notions of temporality.
Young’s works have been presented by Carnegie Hall, the National Gallery, the Whitney Museum, LA Phil’s Next on Grand and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Either/Or, the JACK Quartet, mise-en, wild Up, and Yarn/Wire. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, Young has also received a Koussevitzky Commission, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award, Aspen Music Festival’s Jacob Druckman Prize, and honors from BMI, IAWM, and ASCAP/SEAMUS.
Young’s current interests are collaborative, multidisciplinary works that touch on issues of sustainability, climate change, historical narratives, and women’s rights. During the 2016-17 season, the American Composers Orchestra premiered Out of whose womb came the ice (commissioned by the Jerome Foundation) for baritone, orchestra, electronics, and generative video, commenting on the ill-fated Ernest Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17. Recent commissions include a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh from the Philadelphia Orchestra, a new piece for the NY Phil’s 19-20 season and a new work for the EMPAC’s wavefield synthesis audio system with the American Brass Quintet.
Young will join the faculty at USC Thornton in the 2019-2020 school year. Before USC, she taught at the University of Texas at Austin’s Butler School of Music where she was an assistant professor of composition and director of the Electronic Music Studios.
A graduate of McGill University and MIT, Young completed her DMA at Columbia University. She is Co-Artistic Director of New York’s Ensemble Échappé. http://www.ninacyoung.com
Yuliya Lanina is a multimedia artist whose work bridges traditional media with new technologies, such as video, robotics, Virtual Reality, and performance – often combining them all. Born in Moscow, Lanina arrived in New York as a political refugee. There she established herself as a pioneering artist on the cutting edge of combining digital technologies with the handmade media. She creates alternate realities in her works—ones based on sexuality, fetishism, and identity.
She has exhibited and performed extensively both nationally and internationally, including SXSW Interactive (TX), Seoul Art Museum (Korea), SIGGRAPH Asia (Japan), 798 Beijing Biennial (China), Cleveland Institute of Art (OH), Museum Ludwig (Germany), Teatro Santa Ana (Mexico), Blanton Museum of Art (TX), and Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Russia). Her recent solo show at Xposed gallery on New York’s HighLine was viewed by more than 1,000 people per day over three weeks.
Her work has been featured in Brooklyn Rail, Houston Press, Glasstire, Art Review, Bloomberg News, Australian Art Review, SightLines, NYArts Magazine, ART on AIR.com/MOMA, PS 1, Bejing Today. She was listed among the “top 10 artists in NYC now” by Revolt Magazine and received an honorable citation from the New York State Assembly in 2013.
Lanina’s collaborative projects were performed at the New Museum Festival (New York), San Diego Museum of Art (CA), National Museum the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania (Lithuania), National Sawdust (Brooklyn, NY).
Lanina’s honors include fellowships and scholarships from Fulbright (Vienna, Austria), Headlands Art Center (CA), Yaddo (NY), Marble House Project (NY), NY Studio Gallery (NYC), The Puffin Foundation (NJ), CORE Cultural Funding Program (Austin, TX), ArtSprinter (NYC) and Award of Excellence in the Manhattan Arts International Competition (NYC).
Lanina holds an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from SUNY Purchase College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice at the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies at The University of Texas at Austin. http://www.yuliyalanina.com
The Song of Songs – Karen Tanaka | Nick Photinos, cello
The title, The Song of Songs, comes from The Song of Solomon from the Old Testament. It is a beautiful song of love, beginning as follows:
The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
Because of the savour of thy ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore the virgins love thee.
I have attempted to project this sensual song of love onto the sound of the cello and the computer. My intention was to weave color and scent into the sound while blending the ancient story and today’s technology. The sound of the cello should be consistently gentle and tender.
Karen Tanaka’s works have been performed by distinguished orchestras and ensembles worldwide including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, Brodsky Quartet, Gothic Voices, Anúna, among many others. Various choreographers and dance companies, including Wayne McGregor and Nederlands Dans Theater, have often featured her music. After studying composition at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, she moved to Paris in 1986 to study with Tristan Murail and work at IRCAM. In 1987 she received the Gaudeamus Prize in the Netherlands. In 1990-91 she studied with Luciano Berio in Florence.
In 2012 she was selected as a fellow of the Sundance Institute’s Composers Lab for feature films and mentored by Hollywood’s leading composers. Recently, she served as an orchestrator for the BBC’s TV series, Planet Earth II. The animated film she scored, Sister, was nominated for the 92nd Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Film.
Her music is published by Chester Music in London (Wise Music Group), Schott Music in New York (PSNY), ABRSM in London, and Editions BIM in Switzerland. Karen Tanaka lives in Los Angeles and teaches composition at California Institute of the Arts.
Four-time Grammy Award-winning cellist Nick Photinos is one of the most innovative and multifaceted cellists of our time. An ardent advocate for new music, Photinos has collaborated, toured, and recorded with a vast array of artists including Björk, Wilco, Bryce Dessner, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, film composer Gustavo Santaolalla, classical artists Dawn Upshaw, Philip Glass, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and jazz artists including Sheila Jordan, Laurence Hobgood, Zach Brock, and Matt Ulery. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Toronto, Utah, and Atlanta Symphonies, and performed across the globe including the Sydney Opera House, the Barbican in London, KBC Hall in Seoul, and in the US from Disney Hall to Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall in New York City. Photinos formerly served as the founding cellist and Artistic Director of Eighth Blackbird. For more information, go to nickphotinos.com.
Disorder: Chapter One – Mark Snyder | Rebecca R. Levy, Choreography & Performance; Will Darden Direction & Editing
Shot on location at the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, FL.
Made possible in part by the City of Jacksonville and the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville through the Cultural Service Grant Program, by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and by The Community Foundation of Northeast Florida.
Despite what you may think about electronic composers, Mark Snyder does not work in a laboratory. His music does not offer cross-sections of frequencies or waveforms, nor does it mix technology & the canon inside a closed petri dish. Instead, Snyder produces soundscapes that envelope the viewer, and charged arrangements keyed specifically to the moving image. Space is occupied, and space is offered.
Works such as Harvey and the Invalid’s Sonnet are acutely aware of the passage of time, of duration, and successfully venture beyond the establishment of a mood. Working in conjunction with found and computer-generated video, Snyder moves seamlessly between high and low influences, and the realms of “art” and popular music. Put simply, it is his mission to engage the listener, as much to experiment with the esoteric forms and technology particular to his discipline. https://marksnyder.org
Rebecca R. Levy is a choreographer/performer/educator currently living in Jacksonville, Florida. Her critically acclaimed choreographic and performative work have been featured in festivals, films, concerts, and events internationally and throughout the country. The privilege of living in a variety of areas within the United States provided her with a diverse set of influences in her art. In 2012, she co-founded and took on the role of artistic director of Jacksonville Dance Theatre, a professional contemporary modern dance company, and has been working to slowly change the art culture of the city ever since. Her role in the company is to create dances, mount performances, commission new and innovative artists, and provide dance training to company members. In a recent presentation for TEDx, she gave a talk titled “Engaging A Movement” about her experiences founding JDT and advocating for professional dance in Jacksonville. Throughout her career in dance she has created, produced, and mounted a multitude of shows, events, performances, and pop-ups on national and international stages. Her work was shown in Puebla, Mexico, and during a tour to France last year she had the opportunity to perform at the Chartres and Grail Haven Labyrinths. Through her work with JDT Rebecca has had the opportunity to dance in works choreographed by Jonah Bokaer, Bryn Cohn, Bliss Kohlmyer, Lisa D. Long, Tiffany Santeiro, James Morrow, and many others.
Rebecca holds her Masters of Fine Arts in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts, where she studied with distinguished artists such as Stephan Koplowitz, Colin Connor, Stephanie Nugent, and Mitchell Rose. Her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance was earned at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA where she studied with Wade Madsen, Pat Hon, Deborah Wolf, and many others. She was a performer for six seasons with the Lineage Dance Company of Los Angeles where she was a soloist. While in Los Angeles she was co-artistic director, founder, and performer with B.E. Productions Dance Company. She is honored to sit on faculty at Florida State College at Jacksonville where she serves as Director & Professor of Dance. Through this role she recently earned the 2020 Art Educator of the Year Award from the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, a 2019 40 Under 40 award from The Jacksonville Business Journal, and was named Outstanding Faculty of the Year in 2016. She was awarded a 2019 Individual Artist Grant by Community First Bank, and a 2020 Art Ventures Individual Artist Grant for the work, Disorder.
Rebecca is a registered Certified Yoga Instructor, a certified Pilates instructor and dabbles in aerial acrobatics. http://www.rebeccarlevy.com
Will Darden is a content creator based in Jacksonville Florida and the owner-operator of Eriden Images. In addition to providing photography and videography he also offers training and consulting for small businesses and individuals interested in unique visuals for marketing purposes.
Will has provided services to several local companies, such as The Bolles School, Jacksonville Public Education Fund, Jacksonville Dance Theatre and Players by The Sea just to name a few. Will has also provided content for national outlets and brands such as CBS, FOX and Express, his work has been published in magazines, newspapers and Billboards. Will also helps and mentors aspiring photogs and videographers by providing an environment that encourages them to develop their own unique eye and artistic expression. www.eridenimages.com
Feel Like This – Brittany J. Green
Feel Like This uses source material from a speech given by, then, 9-year old Zianna Oliphant at a Charlotte, NC town meeting. The piece conveys the struggles and erasure Black voices face when speaking out against injustice through the intermingling and transformation of timbres. As her gripping plea, “We are Black people and we shouldn’t have to feel like this,” is repeated in phase, it encounters and struggles against white noise, which in turn triggers the filtering, distortion, and detuning of her voice, eventually leading to the breakdown and white-washing erasure of her voice.
Brittany J. Green (b. 1991) is a North Carolina-based composer, creative, and educator. Described as “cinematic in the best sense” and “searing” (Chicago Classical Review), Brittany’s music is centered around facilitating collaborative, intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses. The intersection between sound, movement, and text serves as the focal point of these musical spaces, often questioning and redefining the relationships between these three elements.
Her research and creative interests include mapping aural gestures to gestural recognition technology and exploring virtual reality platforms as a tool for experiencing immersive, intimate musical moments. Her music has been featured at concerts and festivals throughout the United States and Canada, including the Society of Composers National Conference, New York City Electronic Music Festival, SPLICE Institute, the West Fork New Music Festival, and Music by Women Festival. She has presented research at the North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference, East Carolina University’s Research and Creative Arts Week, Darkwater Women in Music Festival, and the Intersection @ Art and Science Symposium. From 2018-2019, Brittany served as composer-in-residence for the PCS/ECU Young Composers Project. Current projects include commissions from Mind on Fire and the JACK Quartet as an inaugural member of JACK Studio Artists, along with an artist residency with TimeSlips and consultant work for PBS’s SoundField. Brittany is currently pursuing a Ph.D in music composition at Duke University as a Dean’s Graduate Fellow. www.brittanyjgreen.com
Queen Solstice – Q&K
In a cataclysm long forgotten in a time before time, a rip in the fabric of reality opened the gates to the Mirror World. Queen Solstice, Empress of the Mirror World, found herself torn asunder rendered into duality bound to Earth. Separated from her children, her only way back to them is to quantum rendezvous at the binary solstice mirror portals. “For each revolution two portals open twice for a blink of an eye.” In her quest to reunite with her children, Queen Solstice, must battle evil forces brought upon Earth through the Great Cataclysm and transmute their energy into musical instruments harmonize the mirror frequency of E and unfold the evanescent portal duo. The seasons, her children, are waiting on the other side to be released and reborn. In a flash of light they reunite with their mother who will live to see another day and rise to her birthright, Queen Solstice, Mother of Seasons, Empress of the Mirror World, Protector of the Earth. Love is just beyond the horizon.
Story by Q&K.
Filmed, Edited, & Visual Effects by Richard Kennedy.
Music by Q&K, a collaboration of bassoonist and Moog synthesizer enthusiast, Anthony Ilumin Anurca, and producer, Philly G.
Make-Up and Wardrobe by Trinity Baker
Hair by Unity Morgan
Paper mask engineering by Ntanos.co.uk
Q&K logo design, additional costumes and masks constructed and painted by Anthony Ilumin Anurca and thanks to Jenn for helping cut out all those patterns!
Many thanks to the cast for your talent and acrobatics and your willingness to put on a mask:
Sea Monster Virus: Cristina Gillis
Forest Demon Creeper: Curtis Lyles
Queen Solstice Dragon Form: Trinity Baker
Seasons’ Dragon clan:
Summer Starblaze: Salym Winter
Autumn Crimson: Gabrielle Prieto
Winter Frostborn: Ana Kamiar
Spring Mirage: Tiffany Manning
Thank you Mike Neff for keeping us fed and happy and Jeffrey Burdian for the muscle and extra snacks!
Queen Solstice, Anthony Ilumin Anurca
Anthony Anurca is a Jacksonville Florida native and a musician with the Jacksonville Symphony. A member for ten seasons, they play in the second bassoon and contrabassoon chair. Anthony’s fascination with creating electronic music began their senior year at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, when the music department received a $100k grant to open an electronic music lab. Their undergraduate studies were at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music obtaining their B.M. in bassoon performance and were a fellow at the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy in Miami Beach, FL. Playing with many orchestras across the Southeastern United States, they have also played with the Kansas City Symphony. Their playing has been described as “vital” in both the Miami Sun-Sentinel and Kansas City Star. They can be heard on several albums with independent singer-songwriters/producers: RickoLus: Rivers and Lakes, Parts 1-5 https://youtu.be/8xXkrBm2JZw,Gabe Darling: Keep It to The Yard https://youtu.be/T8Y7zF7pykc, Inch https://youtu.be/TFzp8QGDE5E, and Radical Face: From the Mouth of an Injured Head https://youtu.be/gOZwjCmxcxY, and Midnight https://youtu.be/fbb1V988q90.At EABD 2019, Anthony and Gabrielle Prieto collaborated in an electroacoustic piece, Two Dragons inspired by a melody written by Ms. Prieto. Q&K, their most recent project isa collaboration with music producer Philly G of Greenteam Media www.greenteammedia.com. Their EP Mirror World can be found at: www.linktr.ee/anthonyanurca for purchase on Apple Music and streaming on other platforms.A resident of Historic Springfield in Jacksonville, they have curated a house concert series Schulkonzert Opus Series since 2015 out of their loft which is part of the repurposed Corrine Scott Elementary School.With the aid of Richard Kennedy behind the camera, tonight’s performance is the premiere livestream of a Schulkonzert and is an improvisation with bassoon, contrabassoon, foot pedals and synthesizers with visuals.
