I Care if You Listen

08/21/20 • 39 min

1. Icli Zitella - Zona, for violin soloist and 10 string instruments
https://soundcloud.com/iclizitella/zona-for-violin-soloist-and-10-string-instruments
2. Michael Abels - "Anthem," from the score to Jordan Peele's Us
https://open.spotify.com/album/1gkLMuAnI8U5z2yhyhhRQk?si=4gDbAGb3Q2-m2eFUjGmcIw
3.Nathalie Joachim - Suite pou Dantan
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1UfE5N84rXZzd8mWWqSwhG?si=VBC5-qKrQha3CJa2htJEig

Panelists:

Venezuelan violinist Natalie Calma, currently based in Boston, is an enthusiast of new music and improvisation. She is dedicated to promoting living, contemporary music in all of its forms. Natalie is a co-creator of Box Not Found, a violin and clarinet duo that seeks to build and cultivate the foundations for alternative streams of new music while also generating a positive impact on both the local and global communities. Natalie holds degrees from the Interlochen Arts Academy, The Boston Conservatory (BM), where she studied with Lynn Chang, and Boston University (MM), where she studied with Dana Mazurkevich. Natalie plays on a violin made by Venezuelan luthier Matias Herrera, and a bow made by Venezuelan luthier Eduardo “Guayo” Gonzales.

Sugar Vendil is a composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her artistic practice is strongly rooted in rigorous discipline as a musician and gradually expanded into performance that integrates music, movement, and unconventional approaches to the piano. She is a proud second generation Filipinx American. Vendil was recently awarded an ACF | Create commission to write a work for Boston-based duo Box Not Found (May 2020) and was awarded with 2020 Fellowships at the National Arts Club and Sokoloff Arts. She was a 2019 Artist in Residence at High Concept Labs in Chicago and was awarded a 2019 Chamber Music America commission to write a new work for her ensemble, The Nouveau Classical Project, which she founded in 2008. Vendil was a finalist in National Sawdust’s 2019 Hildegard Competition. ETHEL premiered her new string quartet in December 2019 as part of their Homebaked commissioning program. She was a 2019 resident artist at Mabou Mines and an artist in residence at Target Margin Theater. In 2016, she was a Fellow in the Target Margin Institute for Collaborative Theater Making, which encouraged her to further pursue composition and performance making. She holds a Master of Music degree in piano performance.
Amanda Cook is a Boston-based editor, writer, and arts administrator with a background in flute performance and higher education. She is the Editor-in-Chief of I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, an award-winning contemporary classical music magazine advocating for historically underrepresented artists and equitable programming. Her training as a performer coupled with her current work in music journalism and nonprofit administration provides a unique perspective from which to view the current state of classical music.
More information at pauseandlisten.com. Pause and Listen was created by host John T.K. Scherch and co-creator/marketing manager Michele Mengel Scherch.

Panelists:

Previous Episode

The Informants

1. Garth Baxter – From the Heart: Three American Women
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7k9n3QWkHSYQ5e5TGProGb

2. Jennifer Jolley – Prisoner of Conscience
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0kAYkFmqvLvBeFVeKL8Zx4

3. Gleb Kanasevich – your fortress
https://youtu.be/V1l141q9_VA

Panelists:

Soprano Katie Procell has been praised throughout the Baltimore area for her “golden tone and arresting stage presence” (Peter Dayton). Her musical curiosity includes the avant-garde and she has performed Pierrot Lunaire, Ginastera’s third String Quartet, Messiaen’s Harawi, Berio Sequenza III, even Kurtàg’s Attila Fragments. Procell’s past opera credits include Giselle, Jenny, Mel 2, and various roles in the two-woman collection of short new operas called Elevator (ENA Ensemble); Lisa ( La Sonnambula; Opera Alchemy); Susanna ( Le nozze di Figaro; Peabody Conservatory); Giulietta ( I Capuleti e i Montecchi; Alchemy); Krysia (understudy, Out of Darkness; Peabody); Rosina ( Il barbiere di Siviglia; James Madison University); and more. She studies with Elizabeth Futral and has studied with Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Kevin McMillan. Procell has trained at Opera Roanoke (Apprentice Artist), Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, and SongFest. She works closely with composer Peter Dayton and has premiered several of his works and is collaborating with both Dayton and Baxter on upcoming recording projects.

Award-winning conductor Jordan Randall Smith is the Music Director of Symphony Number One and Assistant Conductor of Hopkins Symphony Orchestra. Smith was recently named Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Orchestras at Susquehanna University. Smith was formerly Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Dallas Festival of Modern Music and Assistant Conductor of the Peabody Opera Theatre. Smith was lauded for being “an attentive partner” by the Baltimore Sun. His leadership of Mahler’s fourth symphony was praised by the Sun’s Tim Smith: “The third movement, in particular, was quite sensitively molded.” Conductor Alan Gilbert called Jordan’s conducting of Boulez’ Le Marteau sans Maître, “impressive.” An active supporter of new music, Jordan has a discography spanning four commercial releases and a history of commissions, leading over 50 world premieres. Jordan is also a Creative Director of the International Florence Price Festival. Smith was named to the Executive Council for the Institute for Composer Diversity at SUNY-Fredonia in January 2020.

Ian Power is a composer, performer, and Director of Integrated Arts at the University of Baltimore. Ian’s music is inscrutable, warm, insistent, and performer-driven, and has been performed by ensembles and soloists in the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, and Israel. His writing on rhetoric in new music and reviews of CDs and performances are published in TEMPO, and he has lectured at the American Musicological Society, American Studies Association, and universities in the US, UK, and Turkey. Ian studied with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Takasugi, and John Luther Adams. Ian’s first CD, Diligence, featuring long solo pieces, is out on Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany) in June 2020. His CD Maintenance Hums, featuring chamber works, is out on Carrier Records (New York) in September 2020. He is writing an orchestra piece for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, to be premiered at the TECTONICS festival in Glasgow in May 2022.
More information at pauseandlisten.com. Pause and Listen was created by host John T.K. Scherch and co-creator/marketing manager Michele Mengel Scherch.

Next Episode

Afro House

1. Allison Loggins-Hull - Hammers
https://youtu.be/ANZrjcAiqPU
2. Valerie Coleman - Shotgun Houses
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ThyYRZwAsJrYeqtEan5eX
Tomeka Reid - Present Awareness, Mvt. III. Radical Hope
https://youtu.be/4b4CkxraLXk

Panelists:

Alisha Patterson is the co-founder and Managing Director of Afro House. Since the organization’s founding in 2011, Patterson has been at the forefront of producing live experiences that are in alignment with its ambitious mission. They include, Cloud Nebula, an Afrofuturistic sci-fi opera-ballet, the Afro House Concert Series, which celebrates Baltimore’s extraordinary maker scene, and the 100 Year Symposium, a conversation about what a community might be like in 100 years.
As one of Afro House’s chief architects, Alisha has successfully secured funding from foundations such as the T. Rowe Price and Robert W. Deutsch Foundations. In addition, she has played an instrumental role in the commissions Afro House has received from both local and regional theaters and the highly acclaimed choreographer Camille A. Brown. She also worked closely with Afro House’s Artistic Director on creating his award-winning Baker Artist Portfolio.
In 2016 Alisha was tapped by Kaisha Johnson, the Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts to manage the organization’s flagship program. Under Alisha’s stewardship, the Leadership Through Mentorship program has become a highly sought-after career and community building opportunity for entry level, mid-career and seasoned arts administrators of color. Kibibi Ajanku, the GBCA's Equity and Inclusion Director, appointed Alisha to the Urban Arts Leadership Council in 2019. Alisha has an MA in Organizational Management from The George Washington University, a BA in English Literature and Certificate of Concentration in Women’s Studies from the University of Cincinnati.
Scott Patterson is a pianist, composer and librettist of incomparable talent, whose work has been described by the Pittsburgh Review-Tribune as “a masterly blend of virtuosity, singing style and beautiful voicing.” His blend of classical, soul and rock music is futuristic, emotive and luxuriant. Since 2012 Patterson has toured with Camille A. Brown & Dancers. He is contributing composer of the Bessie Award winning Mr. TOL E. RAncE and Brown’s critically acclaimed work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play and ink. His compositions for these have been performed for audiences at venues such as Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Belfast Festival at Queen’s, White Bird, and more.
Patterson is co-founder and Artistic Director of Afro House, a Baltimore-based art house committed to creating disruptive, music culture. Through Afro House, Patterson leads the Astronaut Symphony, a contemporary ensemble that creates symphonic performance art pieces. His compositions for the ensemble include the Afrofuturistic opera-ballet, Cloud Nebula and the sci-fi tone poem Ebon Kojo: The Last Tribe. He also serves as Music Director and Composer for the Afro House Concert Series.
Patterson is a 2020 Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Fellow and a recipient of the 2020 Regional Independent Artist Award for Performing Arts from the Maryland State Arts Council. He is a 2019 Baker Artist Award, Mary Sawyers Imboden Awardee, and is a recipient of a Creative Baltimore Fund Grant and Artist/District Grant. He studied under Richard Fields at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and Phillip Kawin at the Manhattan School of Music.