2007 Festival of New American Music

The 30th annual Festival of New American Music runs November 1-11. This year's featured composer is Pauline Oliveros, who will kick off the festivities with a keynote address at noon on Thursday, November 1. Since the 1960's Oliveros has influenced American Music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. Many credit her with being the founder of present day meditative music. All of Oliveros' work emphasizes musicianship, attention strategies, and improvisational skills. She now serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College. Oliveros will be performing on the Gala Concert Thursday, November 1 at 8:00pm in the Music Recital Hall, as well as on Friday, November 2 along with pianist Sarah Cahill, also at 8:00pm in the Music Recital Hall.

The San Francisco contemporary ensemble Earplay will be performing twice on the festival, on Saturday November 3 featuring the music of Sonic Bloom (the Central Valley Composers' Collective), and again on Monday, November 5, featuring the music of Wayne Peterson. Both concerts will be at 8:00pm in the Music Recital Hall. The ensemble consists of violinist Terrie Baun, flutist Tod Brody, clarinetist Peter Josheff, violist Ellen Ruth Rose, cellist Thalia Moore, and pianist Karen Rosenak. Earplay was founded in 1985 by a consortium of composers and performers. Each year, Earplay presents live concerts of challenging music by contemporary composers, including works commissioned specially for Earplay. Commissioning projects have been a cornerstone of Earplay’s history, and Earplay sponsors an annual competition for new compositions. Since 1985, Earplay has performed works by more than 230 composers.

Pianist Sarah Cahill, performing on November 2 with Pauline Oliveros, will also be giving a solo recital on Tuesday, November 6 at 8:00pm in the Music Recital Hall. Cahill was recently praised in the Village Voice for “her phenomenal technique, her instinctive command of recent aesthetics, and quite possibly the most interesting repertoire of any pianist around.” She specializes in new American music as well as the American experimental tradition, and has commissioned, premiered, and recorded numerous compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Terry Riley, Annea Lockwood, Kyle Gann, Pauline Oliveros, and Evan Ziporyn, and she has also premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Ingram Marshall, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ursula Mamlok, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others. Cahill’s albums of works by Ravel and Cowell are on the New Albion label, which also released her recording of Ruth Crawford’s Preludes and Piano Study in Mixed Accents and two suites by the virtually unknown experimental composer Johanna Beyer.

Concert marimbist Nancy Zeltsman will be performing on the Gala Concert on November 1, as well as with the Sacramento State Percussion Group on Sunday, November 4, both at 8:00pm in the Music Recital Hall. Recognized internationally as a leading concert marimbist, her repertoire features recent compositions for marimba alongside her own adaptations of music of other styles and periods. Since 2005, she has served as Chair of the Percussion Department at The Boston Conservatory, where she has taught since 1993 along with teaching at the Berklee College of Music. She teaches marimba (exclusively) to approximately 30 students (marimba and percussion majors) between both schools. Numerous marimba solos have been composed for (and/or dedicated to) Ms. Zeltsman, including works by Louis Andriessen, David Friedman, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey and Gunther Schuller. A former fellow at Tanglewood, she has studied with Vic Firth at New England Conservatory as well as with with William Thomas McKinley (composition) and Dave Samuels (jazz improvisation). Zeltsman's comprehensive marimba method, "Four Mallet Marimba Playing: A Musical Approach for All Levels", is published by Hal Leonard Corporation.

The closing concert of this year's Festival will be on Sunday, November 11 at 8:00pm, featuring the Sacramento State Jazz Ensemble I with trombonist/composer Scott Whitfield and vocalist Ginger Berglund. A frequent clinician and guest artist for Bach Stradivarius trombones, Whitfield has appeared throughout the world, from Australia to Zurich, sharing his expertise on trombone technique, improvisation, composition, arranging, and jazz history. Upon settling in New York in 1993, he became a member of the Nat Adderley Sextet. From 1998 to 2002, Whitfield served on the jazz faculty at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, teaching trombone, composition and arranging, and improvisation, while also coordinating the school's combo program. Jazz vocalist Ginger Berglund has been crafting a multi-faceted career since her earliest days as cornerstone of her church's children's choir in Pasadena. Her band, Women Without Watches plays in the LA southland area. Berglund has sung with Kenny Rankin, recorded with Steve Allen and pianist Paul Smith, and she is a featured singer with the Jumpin' Joz swing band, Pasadena Pops Big Band, and Bruce Eskovitz quartet.

To see more concerts during this year's Festival of New American Music, visit the schedule page. There is no admission charge for Festival events. Parking for evening concerts is free after 7pm in the parking structure adjacent to our building. For daytime events, a limited number of courtesy permits will be available in the lobby of the music building one hour prior to event start times (Permits are not required on weekends) . Daily permits may also be purchased for $5 at the information booth on campus or from the machine on the fifth floor of the parking structure. For driving directions or more information, click here.

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