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Click for stream Karen Bentley Pollick: New Works for Violin/Viola and Electronics | Virtual Listening Party
Join us in Zoom for a virtual listening party of new works for violin/viola and electronics performed and recorded by Karen Bentley Pollick. Mantautas Krukauskas will send live electronics from his home studio in Vilnius (LT) and Karen will join us from San Pancho, Nayarit (MX) along with composer John Henry Kreitler (KY) to answer questions at the end of the session.
REGISTER HERE: https://stanford.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpdeuqrTsrEtczMSoBVs_bDT7TRGcHvgaP
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PROGRAM
Mantautas Krukauskas: Mirroring for violin with live electronics (2019-2020) for violin and immersive live electronics by Mantautas Krukauskas
*WORLD PREMIERE*
John Henry Kreitler: Conversations Beyond the Stars (2020) for flute, violin and electronics
Karen Bentley Pollick, violin
Klaus Liebetanz, flute
World Premiere at Incanto Theatre in Puerto Vallarta (MX), January 19, 2020
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: KALBA (2020) for viola, electronics and video
*WORLD PREMIERE*
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Karen Bentley Pollick is one of America’s leading contemporary musicians, performing a wide range of solo repertoire and styles on violin, viola, piano and Norwegian Hardanger fiddle(hardingfele) to extend the boundaries of the concert experience, from the Baroque to cutting-edge contemporary music and live improvisations. She currently serves as concertmaster of Valse Café Orchestra in Seattle, and Principal Second Violin and Festival Artist with the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra in Boulder. She plays on a violin made by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume in 1860 and a viola made in 1987 by William Whedbee. Karen was awarded a grant from the Alabama State Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for ‘Solo Violin and Alternating Currents’ and subsequently launched ‘Violin, Viola & Video Virtuosity’ that now comprises dozens of videos projected onto the violinist. Karen received a Seed Money Grant for Disseminated Performances from New York Women Composers.
In May 2014, while she was residing in Vilnius, Lithuania she premiered ‘Resonances from Vilna’ with the pianist Jascha Nemtsov and, in December 2015 that of ‘Nothing is Forever’ with actor Aiste Ptakauske; and in August 2016 she premiered David A. Jaffe’s violin concerto How Did It Get So Late So Soon? with the Lithuanian National Opera & Ballet Theatre Orchestra conducted by Maestro Robertas Šervenikas. Karen’s recent recording for Toccata Classics presents Hermann Graedener’s two violin concertos with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, recorded with Maestro Gottfried Rabl in Kiev in June 2018, and winner of a Silver Medal in the 2019 Global Music Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the album and instrumental solo performance categories. Karen has performed at San Pancho, Chacala, and Sinergiarte Music Festivals in the state of Nayarit. A founding member of Virtuosos de Cámara in Puerto Vallarta, she collaborates with Peruvian guitarist Alfredo Muro in Duo KarMu.
www.kbentley.com
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Mantautas Krukauskas (b. 1980) – composer and sound artist, teacher at the Department of Composition of Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius, where he is also a co-founder and Head (since 2016) of Music Innovation Studies Centre, academic lab for studies, art and research, with a focus on music technology, innovation in music and music education, interactive arts, immersive media, and interdisciplinarity. His compositions, including chamber music, sound art and other works, music for theatre and dance productions have been performed in Lithuania, Austria, Germany, France, Canada, USA, and other countries. Professional profile also includes electronic music performance and work within creative industries sphere with music production and arrangement. Mantautas Krukauskas has been actively involved in diverse field of activities, including coordination and management of international artistic, research and educational programmes. His interests comprise interdisciplinarity, creativity, music and media technologies, and a synergy of different aesthetic and cultural approaches.
https://lmta.lt/
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John Henry Kreitler is an Emmy-winning American composer of contemporary classical, film, TV, and theatre music. He holds a B.A. in Composition from Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, where he studied violin, composition and conducting before continuing his studies towards an M.M. in Composition from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati where he also taught theory.
His concert compositions include Symphony No. 1 – the Psalms for orchestra, chorus & schola cantorum, the two-act opera, Stefan-the Young, two string quartets, and numerous works for chamber orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, mixed-media and electronics. His recent commissions include “Canciones de Vallarta” a suite for cello and orchestra commissioned by Chicago Symphony Orchestra cellist Don Moline; and “Behold My Servant” for choir, organ, brass & percussion, commissioned by First Christian Church of N. Hollywood, CA. His “Perpetua” for a cappella chorus was a finalist in the 2019 Tokyo International Choral Competition. His Conversations Beyond the Stars for violin, flute and electronics - inspired by an astronomical phenomenon known as ‘fast radio bursts’ - was premiered in December, 2019, by American violinist Karen Bentley Pollick and German flautist Klaus Liebetanz at the XIV Festival International de Arte in San Pancho, Mexico.
He is a founding member/composer-in-residence of Virtuosos de Cámara, a new chamber ensemble comprised of performers from Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Canada and America. The ensemble’s home base is Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and is focused on presenting new chamber music, cross-cultural performances and music by Mexican composers. 2020 performances by members of the ensemble will include premieres of several new works by Kreitler, including Sonata Andalusia for two violins - a work that draws its inspiration from the music and culture of Gitanos Béticos, or Andalusian gypsies, and calls on the violinists to not only play classically, but also to perform traditional palmas (claps) and baile (percussive footwork). Virtuosos de Cámara will also premiere his “Poets End Up Living Their Madness” a suite for piano, violin, viola, flute, clarinet/sax, percussion and electronics inspired by poems from Mexico, as well as his arrangement for the ensemble of the classic Mexican song by Manuel Ponce, Estrellita.
Kreitler’s theatre works have been performed on stages all over America and his film and tv music has been heard by audiences in over thirty countries internationally. His credits for underscore, songs and/or source music include numerous prime-time series such as Law and Order, Friends, Homicide, and Saturday Night Live, as well as the daytime dramas Passions (NBC) and Guiding Light (CBS) and films such as Material Girls (MGM) and Tribute (Lifetime). He has won ten EMMYs, and has been awarded the prestigious BMI TV/Film Award ten times. He and his wife, percussionist/vocalist Patsy Meyer, live in Northern Kentucky and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
www.johnkreitler.com
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"If this music transports you into a haunting, mysterious dream world, don’t worry about it – it’s only doing its job.” – Ingram Marshall wrote about New York-based Lithuanian born composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s solo CD In Search of Lost Beauty.... Released on the Starkland label in 2019, it received 2 gold medals at the Global Music Awards for Best Composer and Best Album. In 2020 Žibuoklė was awarded The Guggenheim Fellowship and granted the prestigious Lithuanian Government Award for her creative achievements.
Described by WQXR a “textural magician”, composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė has a growing reputation for her chamber and orchestral music. Although she began her career in Europe, the last decade of her activity has been gaining momentum in the USA. In 2008 she was commissioned by MATA festival on their 10th anniversary premiering her piece “Polarities“ by The Knights Chamber Orchestra. She received commissions from the Barlow Endowment (2012), Look+Listen festival (2017), Volti (2018), a fellowship for the Other Minds festival (2011) and the New Works residency at Harvestworks, NY (2016). Her first USA orchestral performance of Horizons took place at the Composers Inc. concert in Berkeley, California (2015). She received the “Look+Listen” Composers Competition Prize (NYC), the Copland House Sylvia Goldstein award and the Composers Now award for residency at the Pocantico Center. She was also awarded a number of fellowships for creative residencies at the MacDowell Colony for Artists in New Hampshire (2009, 2011, 2019), Aaron Copland house (2010, 2019), Millay Colony for Artists (2012), Wildacres (2014), Djerassi Artists Residency (2017) and Willapa Bay Residency (2018).
Martinaitytė studied composition at the Lithuanian Music Academy (BM, MA) with Bronius Kutavičius and Julius Juzeliūnas. Constantly attempting to broaden her horizons and advancing her compositional technique after completing formal studies, Martinaitytė has been taking part in various composition workshops and courses in Europe. She attended the Darmstadt New Music Summer Courses, Centre Acanthes/Ircam, Royaumont, The 6th International Academy for New Composition and Audio Art in Schwaz, Tirol and Stavanger studying with Brian Ferneyhough, Boguslaw Schaffer, Magnus Lindberg, Tristan Murail and Jonathan Harvey. In 2001 she was granted her first creative residency at Künstlerhaus Lukas der Stiftung Kulturfonds, Germany. Martinaitytė’s music has been performed throughout Europe, The USA and Asia by Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Canada), The Smith Quartet (UK), ERGO Ensemble (Canada), The Orchestra of Mons Royal Conservatoire (Belgium), TILT Brass (USA), Volti (USA), Yarn/Wire (USA), The Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and others. Her work for symphony orchestra A Thousand Doors To The World (2009), a commission of the Lithuanian Radio on the occasion of “Vilnius – Culture Capital of Europe 2009” was broadcast by Euroradio – one of the “largest virtual concerts halls” with 4 million listeners. Four of her orchestral pieces received the Lithuanian Composers Union Award as Best Orchestral Performances for 2019, 2018, 2013 and 2009.
www.zibuokle.com
Cost: FREE