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Artistry inside the Machine
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featuring
Jason Charney, iPhone
Kari Johnson, toy piano
Jessica Salley, soprano
Samuel Wells, trumpet
Zhou Jing, guzheng
SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 2012
Doors open at 7:00pm, Concert begins at 7:30pm
Tickets $10; Students $5
Unity Temple on the Plaza
707 West 47th Street
Kansas City, MO 64112
The Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance closes its
fifth season at Unity Temple on the Plaza with an eclectic and
expressive concert of electro-acoustic music. KcEMA is proud to
bring together a group of exceptional performers, highly respected for
their interpretation of modern electro-acoustic repertoire, for this
event.
The talent and artistry of previous KcEMA-collaborators Kari Johnson and Samuel Wells is showcased on a pair of world premiere performances. In Wunderkind, for toy piano and electronics, composer Timothy Roy
plays with one’s expectations of a toy piano, paralleling how the
perception one might have of children’s musicality can be changed by a
young prodigy’s performance. Caroline Louise Miller’s
Vitreous Jungles, for trumpet and electronics, sonically imagines a
phantasmagorical world of glass and metal organisms sympathetically
vibrating with one another.
Jessica Salley, Zhou Jing, and Jason Charney
are all joining KcEMA for the first time. Salley, a
soprano, is performing “Descent into Madness” from George Brunner’s
electro-acoustic drama, Lady Macbeth. Zhou Jing is featured
playing the Chinese guzheng on Zihua Tan’s Pangu, inspired by the
mythological Chinese creator of the world from Nothing.
Jason Charney’s own Compass features the composer adeptly wielding an
iPhone to trigger and manipulate electronic audio in a
musical setting.
Additionally, Samuel Wells is featured performing two other works for
trumpet and electronics: Adam Cuthbert’s Rikai, about the nurturing of
an idea from nothingness, and Michael Pounds’s
“emotional outburst,” Cry Out. A new fixed media piece by
composer Stamos Martin rounds out the evening of expressive artisty in
electro-acoustic media.
for more information please visit
www.kcema.net
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Kari Johnson
is a doctoral student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where
she studies with John McIntyre. She holds bachelors degrees in
Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Central
Missouri, a master’s degree in Piano Performance from Bowling Green
State University, and a master’s degree in Piano Pedagogy from the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ms. Johnson has won or
placed in competitions throughout the Midwest, including the MTNA
Steinway Young Artist Competitions in Missouri and Illinois and the
Venetia Hall Concerto Competition. Ms. Johnson’s performances include
UMKC’s “Carter and Messiaen at 100” festival, the CMS Great Plains
Chapter 2009 Regional Conference, EMM 2011, SEAMUS 2010 and 2011,
Electro Acoustic Juke Joint, the Thailand International Composition
Festival, and numerous KcEMA concerts. She is featured as
soloist on Scott Blasco’s Queen of Heaven, released in 2012 by
Irritable Hedgehog.
Jessica Diana Salley,
soprano, has a variety of musical interests including opera, musical
theater, solo recital, and concert engagements. She was awarded the
Metropolitan Opera National Council Kansas City District Encouragement
Award in 2011, the Midwest Region 3rd Place Award in 2009 and the Tulsa
District Winner’s Award in 2008. Most recently, Jessica was the 2012
Missouri District first prizewinner, in the bi-annual National
Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards, and a Central Region
Finalist. Passionate about active composers, Jessica is involved
in many regional and world premieres. Upcoming this June, she will work
with Libby Larsen, William Bolcom, and Jake Heggie, as a recitalist at
Songfest 2012 in Los Angeles, CA.
Samuel Wells is
a composer and performer based in Kansas City, MO. A musician with wide
and varied interests, he is always seeking new and exciting
opportunities for expression. Hailing from Des Moines, Iowa, Sam has
performed throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and
France. He has performed electroacoustic works for trumpet as part of
the Chosen Vale Trumpet Seminar as well as the Electronic Music Midwest
and Electro-Acoustic Barn Dance festivals. Sam is currently
pursuing degrees in both performance and composition at the University
of Missouri-Kansas City, where he studies composition with James
Mobberley, Paul Rudy, Chen Yi and Zhou Long, and trumpet with Keith
Benjamin.
Jing Zhou is
a composer, pianist, and guzheng performer. She fuses new and bold
musical ideas with her traditional Chinese musical heritage to create a
distinct compositional style. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral
degree in composition at the University of Missouri - Kansas
City. Previously, Zhou completed her Master’s in composition at
the New England Conservatory of Music and her Bachelor’s in composition
at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. As both a
composer and performer, Zhou is a fixture in events around the world.
Recently, the group Music from China performed Zhou’s piece Stuck in
the Middle at Symphony Space in New York. A re-scored version was
performed in NEC’s Jordan Hall later that month. As a performer she has
also performed in various venues worldwide.
The Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA),
founded in 2007, is now in its fifth season. KcEMA endeavors to
encourage and develop understanding and appreciation of electronic
music and to create an expansive sense of community for electronic
musicians and other artists in the Kansas City Area. KcEMA organizes
concerts of electronic music and collaborative projects with generative
and performing artists. KcEMA provides a forum for electronic
musicians and artists in other media to collaborate, exchange ideas,
and grow as an interactive, supportive community.
for more information on KcEMA, please visit
www.kcema.net
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The Aaron Copland
Fund for Music
KcEMA is funded in part
through the generosity of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, whose
purpose is to encourage and improve public knowledge and appreciation
of contemporary American music. |
Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund
KcEMA is supported in part by a grant
from the Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund, which provides
grants for the production or presentation of music performances,
including the promotion of music education, composition, performance,
and other musicians’ endeavors by individuals, groups or institutions.
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 Electrotap
KcEMA would like to thank Electrotap for their generous corporate support of electronic music and art in Kansas City.
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“When
you think of electronic music, boops and beeps might come to mind.
Synthesizer-heavy new wave. Tinny video game themes. But listen
to the work of the Kansas City Electronic Music Alliance, a co-op of
composers, musicians — sometimes even performance artists — that
promotes experimental electronic music in the area. You might be
surprised by the music’s emotionality, its sonic richness, its absolute
abstract nature.”
- Sarah Benson, ink
Magazine
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