CONFERENCE AND CONCERT
Presented by the Polish Music Center & Department of Music History and Literature, School of Music,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Organized by Asst. Prof. Maria Anna Harley (now Maja Trochimczyk).
Saturday, April 4, 1998; USC Campus, Los Angeles
Guest composer from Poland: HANNA KULENTY
2:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
WOMEN IN MUSIC: A SYMPOSIUM
Arnold Schoenberg Institute, USC Campus (free admission)
2:00 — 4:00 PART I : HISTORICAL VISTAS
PARTICIPANTS:
- Lloyd WHITESELL (USC Visiting Prof.), Chair.
- Janet JOHNSON (USC Assoc. Prof.): “What Emma and Beatrix Heard: the Envoicing of Lucia, or Resistance Reread.”
- Meredith BRAMMEIER (USC doctoral student): “‘The highest reward…’: Compositional Issues in the Hensel – Mendelssohn Correspondence”
- Wojciech MARCHWICA (Prof.; Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland): “Keyboard Virtuosity and Aesthetics of Wanda Landowska”
- Maria Anna HARLEY (USC Asst. Prof.): “Neoclassicism and Avant-garde?: The Aesthetics of Grazyna Bacewicz”
4:30 — 6:00 PART II: COMPOSERS’ VOICES
PARTICIPANTS:
- Beverly GRIGSBY (CSU Northridge, Professor Emerita, Composition)
- Cindy A. COX (University of California, Berkeley, Associate Professor, Composition)
- Hanna KULENTY (Poland, now residing in Holland, composer)
- Veronika KRAUSAS (Canada, now at USC, doctoral student of composition)
8:00 p.m. CONCERT OF NEW MUSIC Hancock Auditorium, USC Campus, (tickets $5/$2 USC students) PROGRAM:
- Marta PTASZYNSKA: Spider Walk for percussion solo
- Hanna KULENTY: Still Life with A Cello for cello solo *
- Beverly GRIGSBY: Movements for guitar solo
- Hanna KULENTY: A Fourth Circle for violin and piano *
INTERMISSION
- Hanna KULENTY: One by One for marimba solo *
- Veronika KRAUSAS: Inside the Stone for viola solo
- Hanna KULENTY: A Sixth Circle for trumpet and piano **
- Grazyna BACEWICZ: Sonata no. 4 for violin and piano
* U.S. premiere; ** world premiere
PERFORMERS:
- Arnold BELNICK, violin;
- Sergei SILVANSKY, piano;
- Thomas BURITCH, cello;
- David WALTHER, viola;
- Tal BAR-NIV, trumpet;
- Erik FORRESTER, percussion;
- Peter YATES, guitar.
HANNA KULENTY:
INVITED GUEST COMPOSER
Hanna KULENTY (b. 1961 in Bialystok, Poland) began her music education as a pianist in the G. Bacewicz Elementary Music School in Warsaw. From 1980 to 1986 she studied composition with W odzimierz Koto ski at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. From 1986-1988 she did her post-graduate work in composition with Louis Andriessen, at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. She participated in the International Courses for Young Composers organized by the Polish Section of the ISCM, and the International Summer Courses of New Music at Darmstadt. The year 1985 was very important for her career: her composition for symphony orchestra, Ad Unum, received second prize at the European Young Composers’ Competition, organized in Amsterdam by the European Cultural Fundation to celebrate the continent’s unity. The theme of her work, a dissonant, dramatic and well-crafted study of convergence towards musical unity, was eminently suitable for this occasion. The same piece by the 24-year old composer, performed at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, elicited an enthusiastic response from Jan Weber, a very powerful music critic who warned Kulenty’s male colleagues: “Gentlemen, hear and tremble!”She has received numerous awards and commissions, including the DAAD scholarship to Berlin, Germany (for senior artists in many disciplines), and composition commissions and scholarships from the governments of Poland and Holland. Ms. Kulenty has taught composition at courses and seminars in several European countries; her music has been featured at festivals in Poland, Denmark, England, Germany and Holland. Her music is currently available on three CDs and has been broadcast and recorded in many European countries. In December 1996, the Hamburg Opera premiered her Mother of Black-Winged Dreams at the Munich Biennale. The opera explores the difficult subject matter of “multiple personality syndrome” and touches upon issues of suffering, child abuse, and gender relations. With the scenario penned by a Canadian writer who lives in Holland, Paul Goodman, the chamber work is structured as one huge arch of increasing tension, spanning the duration of the piece.
During her visit to California Ms. Kulenty will give lectures for composition students at the California State University, Long Beach (1 April), the University of California, Santa Barbara (2 April), and University of Southern California (April 3). Her trip to California was possible thanks to a grant from the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Kosciuszko Foundation, American Center for Polish Culture, New York
Friends of Polish Music for reception
Ars Musica Poloniae Foundation for financial support
Arnold Belnick and Sergei Silvansky for donating their musical talents
Iza Brzozka, USC Student of Broadcast Journalism for video documentary