Duo Gelland & 113 Composers
Duo Gelland, joined by members of the 113 Composers Collective will present an evening of adventurous new music as part of their California tour.
Program will include:
"Apsis," by Jeremy Wagner (Duo Gelland) *world premiere*
"Mother of Exiles" by Josh Musikantow (Duo Gelland and Nina Dante)
"Mauscheln" (Nina Dante and Jeffery Kyle Hutchins)
"Rasch" by Georges Aperghis (performed by Maria Ritzenthaler and Jeffery Kyle Hutchins)
"Time Lag Zero" by James Dillon (performed by Nina Dante and Maria Ritzenthaler)
"The Myth of Psyche and Cupid" by Tiffany Skidmore (performed by Duo Gelland and Jeffery Kyle Hutchins)
"FardanceCLOSE" by Chaya Czernowin (performed by Nanyi Neil Qiang)
"Charm" by James Dillon (performed by Nanyi Neil Qiang)
"Dragonfly" by James Dillon (performed by Nanyi Neil Qiang).
113, a collection of composers and performers of new music, curates concerts, seminars, and master classes. Through ambitious programming, community building, and educational outreach, 113 provides a platform for musicians pursuing bold, personalized artistic visions, and helps them to transmit those visions, unfettered by university politics, market pressures, or established conventions, as directly and honestly as possible to audiences. Since its inception in 2012, 113 has presented over sixty world premieres and worked with composers and performers such as Richard Barrett, Anthony Cheung, Chaya Czernowin, James Dillon, Julio Estrada, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Pisaro, Collect/Project, Duo Gelland, Ensemble Dal Niente, Fonema Consort, The Gregorian Singers, Marcelo Rilla, Bill Solomon, the Strains New Music Ensemble, and Milana Zaric, as well as dozens of local musicians of the highest caliber. Our 2018-19 season programs include the Twin Cities International New Music Festival, concerts, residencies, and opera screenings by internationally-acclaimed composers and musicians such as Chaya Czernowin, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, the TAK Ensemble, and the Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble, and works created during our 2018 educational residency by the students of Folwell School Performing Arts Magnet.
Soprano
Nina Dante is a soloist, chamber musician, and improviser based in NYC and Chicago. She is interested in musical experimentation and the continual discovery of the voice’s technical ability and emotive power. Dante is co-founder and soprano of the new music ensemble Fonema Consort, which specializes in avant-garde chamber music for voice and instruments, with special focus on the music of Latin American composers. Her work in new music involves constant collaboration with composers to expand modern vocal repertoire and technique. Recent collaborators include: Pablo Chin, Bethany Younge, Juan Campoverde, Tiffany Skidmore, Clara Olivares, Chris Mercer, Stratis Minakakis and Ben Vida. With Fonema Consort, Dante has performed in residencies and given lecture-performances at Oberlin Conservatory, UC Berkeley, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Scripps College, the 113 Composers Collective, New England Conservatory, Drew University, North Central College, Saint Xavier University, and High Concept Laboratories. She has participated in festivals and concert series including Resonant Bodies, BAM, Lampo, Contempo, Performa, Indexical, Visiones Sonoras, the Festival Internacional Chihuahua, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, the Experimental Sound Studio, New Music Miami, the Latino Music Festival, the Frequency Festival, the Ear Taxi Festival, the Goethe Institut, the Renaissance Society of Chicago, and National Sawdust’s Original Music Workshop. Dante’s improvisational and compositional practices gives her the opportunity to explore her own voice and musical impulses. She can be heard on Fonema Consort albums Pasos en otra calle (New Focus Recordings) and FIFTH TABLEAU (Parlour Tapes+). Dante graduated manga cum laude from Northwestern University in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance. From 2008-2009 she studied in Paris at the École normale de musique; and participated in the 2012 Darmstadt Ferienkurse. 2018-2019 performance highlights include performances at Roulette, Issue Project Room, solo and chamber performances on the 113 Composers Collective Festival, the New Music Miami Festival, and the New England Conservatory faculty recital of Stratis Minakakis and Bert van Herck. Commissions this year include works by Bethany Younge, Stratis Minakakis and Pablo Chin.
Eminent European ensemble, Duo Gelland, has turned an 18th-century concept into a driving force of contemporary exploration. Their passionate, profound, and playful interpretations have earned them the Annual German Record Critics' Award 2008, Swedish Nutida Sound 2011, and Fanfare Yearbook 2001. They revive forgotten gems with historically-inspired insight, and in close collaboration with composers, bring new scores to life - nearly 200 premieres - while frequently performing work by composers such as Giorgio Netti, Bernd Franke, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Samuel Adler, James Dillon, Bruno Maderna, and Luigi Nono. Duo Gelland has premiered and performed duos and double concerti in the Berliner Philharmonie (both halls), Konzertverein Wien, Grünewaldsalen Stockholm, and Tand onhalle Zürich. They are guest lecturers at Musikhochschule Leipzig and were artists-in-residence in Strömsund for almost 10 years. They have been in residence throughout Minneapolis and Duluth on a yearly basis, working with student composers and musicians, as well as children in inner-city schools.
Yamaha Performing Artist Dr. Jeffery Kyle Hutchins is active as a soloist, chamber musician, improviser, educator, and performance artist. Praised for his “formidable technique” and “enviable uniformity of tone” (The Saxophone Symposium) and described as a “skilled improviser, no doubt about it” (I Care If You Listen), Hutchins has performed in Asia, Europe and across North America. He has appeared on more than ten albums on record labels such as Avid Sound Records, Emeritus Records, GIA Publications, Farpoint Recordings, and Klavier Records, and has been awarded grants and competition prizes from DOWNBEAT, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC), Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, and New Music USA, among others. As an advocate of new music, Hutchins has participated in the creation of more than 130 new works and regularly performs with groups 113 (One Thirteen), AVIDduo, Binary Canary, The Broken Consort, The Poem is Done, Renegade Ensemble, and Strains New Music Ensemble. Hutchins received Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees from the University of Minnesota where he was a recipient of the prestigious Berneking Fellowship and a student of Eugene Rousseau. He has degrees in Music Education and Saxophone Performance from the University of North Texas where he studied with Eric Nestler. Hutchins teaches classical and jazz saxophone at Virginia Tech and directs the VT Jazz Lab Band and New Music Ensemble (NME).
Pianist Nanyi Qiang has established a wide-ranging career as a chamber musician, soloist, and pedagogue. He is much in-demand as a concert artist in solo and chamber recitals and new music concerts throughout the US, Canada, and China. Dr. Qiang has appeared to public acclaim in venues including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (NY), Hahn Hall (Santa Barbara, CA), MacMillan Theater (Toronto, Canada), and Grand Concert Hall at Sichuan Conservatory of Music (Chengdu, China).
Dr. Qiang is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Central State University, OH and serves on the piano faculty of Bayview Music Festival, MI. He completed a DMA in Collaborative Piano and Coaching from the University of Minnesota, a BM and a MM in Piano Performance from Sichuan Conservatory of Music (China) and the University of Washington, respectively, and has studied with Lydia Artymiw, Dr. Timothy Lovelace, Craig Sheppard, and Dr. Chenggang Yang. A strong advocate of new music and technology, Dr. Qiang commissions and performs new music written exclusively for piano and electronics. He also serves on the Board of Directors and performs regularly with 113, a new music organization based in the Twin Cities, MN.
Violist Maria Ritzenthaler received degrees in viola performance from University of Wisconsin Madison and Roosevelt University in Chicago, and completed two years of a Doctoral degree in performance at the University of Minnesota. Her major teachers include Sally Chisholm, Roger Chase, and Korey Konkol. She has held positions in many orchestras including principal of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Great Falls Symphony, as well as assistant principal of the South Bend and South Dakota Symphonies, in addition holding positions as violist for the Cascade Quartet and Professor of viola at Harper College. Ritzenthaler premiered the viola version of “For Violin Solo” by Chaya Czernowin and has premiered many works by living composers as a member of the Contemporary Music Workshop Ensemble, the 113 Composers Collective, and the contemporary chamber music ensemble Present Music. She has also been fortunate to participate in many music outreach programs including the Chicago Symphony’s Citizen Musicianship Initiative.
