New Music Festival
“Believe it or not, a little town in northwest Ohio is one of the liveliest spots for new music in the whole United States. For 25 years, MACCM has pursued the latest musical ideas and the highest musical standards with fearless vision. Bowling Green students are lucky to have this amazing resource — but so are we all.”
—Steven Stucky, 2012
The 2018 Bowling Green New Music Festival
October 17-20, 2018
Featuring guest composer AARON JAY KERNIS
and guest ensemble HUB NEW MUSIC
At the heart of the Center’s activities is the renowned New Music Festival. This annual event celebrates the contemporary arts through concerts, panels, art exhibitions, seminars, master classes and papers. Begun in 1980, the festival has hosted John Adams, John Luther Adams, Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Chen Yi, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Anthony Davis, Dai Fujikura, Philip Glass, John Harbison, Lou Harrison, Jennifer Higdon, Karel Husa, Joan La Barbara, David Lang, Paul Lansky, George Lewis, Steven Mackey, Robert Morris, Pauline Oliveros, Shulamit Ran, Bernard Rands, Terry Riley, Christopher Rouse, Frederic Rzewski, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Bright Sheng, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Steven Stucky, Morton Subotnick, Joan Tower, Vladimir Ussachevsky and more than 400 other guest composers and musicians.
In 2018, we are proud to feature the music of the amazing Aaron Jay Kernis.
39th Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival
October 2018
Schedule of Events
Wednesday, October 17
Guest Artist Residency: Sha Sha Higby
Performance, 8pm, Donnell Theatre, Wolfe Cener
Talk and Workshop, TBA
Thursday, October 18
1pm, Bryan Recital Hall
Composer Talk: Aaron Jay Kernis
Winner of the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, 1998 Pulitzer Prize, and 2011 Nemmers Award, Aaron Jay Kernis is one of America’s most honored composers. His music appears prominently on concert programs worldwide, and he has been commissioned by America’s preeminent performing organizations and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco, Toronto, and Melbourne (AU) Symphonies, Los Angeles and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, Walt Disney Company, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Sharon Isbin. Recent and upcoming commissions include his 4th Symphony for the New England Conservatory (for its 150th anniversary) and Nashville Symphony; concerti for violinist James Ehnes, cellist Joshua Roman, violist Paul Neubauer, and flutist Marina Piccinini; a horn concerto for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Grant Park Music Festival; a work for the Borromeo String Quartet; and a piece for the San Francisco Girls and Brooklyn Youth Choruses with The Knights for the New York Philharmonic Biennial.
His works have been recorded on Virgin, Dorian, Arabesque, Phoenix, Argo, Signum, Cedille and many other labels. Recent recordings include his Goblin Market, and Invisible Mosaic II (Signum); Three Flavors, featuring pianist Andrew Russo, violinist James Ehnes and the Albany Symphony with conductor David Alan Miller (Albany); and a disc of his solo and chamber music, On Distant Shores, (Phoenix). Kernis’s conducting engagements include appearances with the Pascal Rioult Dance Company, at major chamber music festivals in Chicago and Portland, and with members of the San Francisco and Minnesota Orchestras and New York Philharmonic.
He is the Workshop Director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab and, for 11 years, served as New Music Adviser to the Minnesota Orchestra, with which he co-founded and directed its Composer Institute for 15 years. Kernis teaches composition at Yale School of Music, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Leta Miller’s book-length portrait of Kernis and his work was published in 2014 by University of Illinois Press as part of its American Composer series.
3pm, Bryan Recital Hall
Concert 1: chamber works by Samuel Adler, Catherine Likhuta, Eric Mandat, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Shulamit Ran.
7:30pm, Kobacker Hall
Concert 2: Large ensemble and wind ensemble works by Jim Stephenson, Steve Reich, Aaron Jay Kernis, Emily Koh, and David Biedenbender.
9:30pm, Clazel Theatre (127 N. Main St., downtown Bowling Green)
Concert 3: Works by Bret Bohman, Missy Mazzoli, Mark Micchelli, Paulo Guicheney, and Andy Akiho.
Saturday, October 20
2:30pm, Bryan Recital Hall
Concert 7: Chamber works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Ted Hearne, Daniel Felsenfeld, Rob McClure, and Eric Moe.
8pm, Kobacker Hall
Concert 8: Orchestral and large ensemble works by Kory Reeder, Martin Kennedy, John Corigliano, Aaron Jay Kernis and Erkki- Sven Tüür .
Tickets for Saturday night are available here
*this is a tentative schedule – concert programs and composers are subject to change.*