I’m spending the week working on some publishing updates, getting some scores up and ready to distribute, and finishing up an orchestra piece, But meanwhile, from the inbox this week:
Dear artist
After an arduous task by our evaluation commission, the works listed below have been selected for our “Fourth Cycle of Virtual Concerts” of “La Hora Acusmática”.
We will shortly send you the schedule of the four concerts planned for 2024.
Congratulations
.Works selected:
“Flutervoice II” Gustavo Chab
“Hiperaural” Ricardo De Armas
“Fire and dice 2014” Eric Delgado
“Spider web” Benjamin Fuhrman
“Beyond 88” Mattew Lam
“Noturno” Eduardo Nespoli
“Bayou” Michael Rosas Cobian
“Post Anthropocene” Edmar Soria
“Tape piece” Kyle Vandenburg
“Glitch Mass” Davide Vannuccini
“Abedul” Cami Albarracin
“7 minutes of recistance” Cristian Biasin
“Filo entre los espacios” Francis Rodriguez
“Sancocho” Sergio Flórez Rincón
“Mental upgrade” Simón Hutchinson
“Antithesis” Maxwell Miller
“Onirico y perpetuo” Rafael de Rioja
“Grind” Droki Ouro
“Parallaxe Parataxe” Nicola Cappeletti
“Watching time” Adolfo Núñez
“Granciporro” Leonardo Vita
“Thales from Dylawerson” Onur Dülger
Ausdrüecke – Jakob Gruchmann
“Bound” Lack Ballard
“Cloud chamber Remix” Heinz-Josef Florian
“Theurgy” Elliot Yair Hernández López
“Mutations” David Jason Snow
“Digital Hymn” Masafumi Oda
“Dolente” Piotr Pawlik
“Dim life” Seokmin Kang
“Le bruit de suspirs” Roxanne Turcotte
“YTEcho” Andreja Andric
From the inbox:
Dear Kyle Vanderburg,
We are happy to inform you that your presentation, “Debugging the Composer: designing a tool for self-reported composition processes” has been accepted to ATMI 2024 in Washington, D.C. November 7-9. Congratulations.
We ask that you 1) reply to this email confirming your intentions to present at the conference by May 15, and (2) register for the conference by June 20. Participants are also required to be active members of ATMI at least 1 month prior to the National conference. Information about hotels and ATMI member discount will be sent in the next few weeks.
CMS Registration link:https://www.music.org/index.php?option=com_eventbooking&task=register.individual_registration&event_id=138&Itemid=5784
ATMI Registration link: https://www.atmimusic.com/join/
Important Dates
May 15- Declare interest in presenting at conference
June 20th – Presenter Registration Deadline
July 1st – Bios/abstracts/headshots due
August 1st – Schedule Finalized
September 19th – Hotel Reservation Deadline
Please look for further correspondence regarding the date and time of your presentation. Due to shared programming with CMS, requests to present on specific dates may not be granted.
Congrats again and we look forward to welcoming you to Washington DC in November. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions at all before the event.
Sincerely,
ATMI 2024 Programming committee
Jason Fick, Chair
Kyle Vanderburg
Teresa Nakra
VJ Manzo
Peter Webster
Last week, as I was working on preparations for the College Music Society’s regional conference at NDSU, I received notification about an acceptance to their national conference this fall in Washington.
Dear Kyle Vanderburg,
Greetings from The College Music Society. I am pleased to inform you that your proposal for the 2024 CMS National Conference has been accepted! Below you will find a link to an official letter of invitation to participate in the conference, which will take place in Washington, D.C., November 7-9, 2024.
If you have any questions about your proposal’s acceptance or the conference, please contact Charlie Chadwell of the CMS office.
We look forward to your participation!
Sincerely,
Rachel Roberts
Chair, Program Committee
2024 CMS National Conference
Hey! Tape Piece is making the rounds, and will be performed in Belfast next April!
Dear Kyle,
I am pleased to inform you that your submission “Tape Piece” for the Listening Rooms strand of the open call has been selected for the Sonorities Festival Belfast 2024 programme.
Please confirm that you are still happy for your work to be featured in the festival via email to [email removed] by no later than 4pm Thursday 2nd November GMT, 2023.
Once you confirm your participation, please contact [name removed] to confirm your technical requirements.
Finally, many thanks for your interest in our festival, and for sending us such engaging work.
Regards,
Sonorities Team
Dear Kyle Vanderburg,
Your paper “Inspiration/Perspiration: Creating a Map of the Music Composition Creative Process” has been selected for programming as part of the 7th annual ROCC conference at the University of North Georgia.
All participants must register for the conference.
The conference is scheduled for October 27 to October 29, and the program booklet will be sent electronically after the event. Congratulations and we look forward to an engaging conference this year.
Research on Contemporary Composition Conference
This will be fun! I haven’t had a presentation or performance in Georgia yet (but I did drive up from Jacksonville when I was there this spring for CMS).
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve had two items selected for the College Music Society central conference this coming March! My Reverie of Solitude for stereo fixed media, and a presentation on The Mess of Music Composition (which I first gave at the Aspen Composers Conference a few years ago) will be on the program in Wichita. Notification follows:
Dear Kyle Vanderburg,
The CMS Program Committee would like to thank you for submitting your proposal, “The Mess of Music Composition” in response to the CMS 2023 Central Conference – Call for Oral & Poster Presentations. I am very pleased to let you know that your work has been selected for presentation on the program.
It is our policy that all composers, presenters, co-presenters, panelists, and collaborative pianists must hold current membership in CMS and must register for the event no later than Thursday, February 9, 2023. The registration form is available on the conference website. As only the primary submitter receives this message, please share this link with any collaborators involved in your presentation and make sure they are aware of this policy.
If a co-presenter or panelist is from a profession other than music (e.g., lawyer, librarian, medical professional), they may be exempted from the membership and registration requirements; however, it is your responsibility to communicate with us right away regarding such participants so that we may verify their exemption. Performers of works by CMS composers are not required to register unless they plan to attend conference sessions in addition to the concert in which they are performing. In this case, they are expected to pay the full registration fee accordingly.
Please look for further correspondence regarding the date and time of your presentation. Please recall that according to the rules of the Call, you have agreed to present on any day of the conference. We regret that we cannot entertain requests for specific dates or times.
I congratulate you on your acceptance and look forward to your participation!
Sincerely,
Hannah Christine Weaver
Chair, Program Committee
2023 CMS Central Conference
It’s turning out to be a busy semester! I’m teaching a couple of new-to-me classes—Music Research and Bibliography for the grad students and the Symphonic Literature for both grads and undergrads. These are paired with my normal Music Entrepreneurship, the bassoon part of Woodwind Methods II, and a studio of 13 composers.
Let’s talk about performances. I’ve recently updated the calendar, here’s what’s in store!
February 13: Kelly Burns, Cassie Keogh, and Tyler Wottrich premiere my Letters to the Poetry Editor that came about from my work with the NDSU Press.
March 5-6: We’ll present Letters to the Poetry Editor at the College Music Society Central Conference in Omaha. I’ll also be presenting a paper on composer workflow.
The next weekend, March 11-12, I’ll be in Oklahoma for the College Music Society South Central Conference, where Tempest in a Teakettle will be performed.
March 24-26, I’ll be in St. Petersburg, Florida for the Contemporary Art Music Project’s CAMPGround22, where Tape Piece will be performed.
April 21-23, we’re hosting a new music festival at NDSU, including a couple of concerts as part of our Unity concert series, and then a student and faculty (that’s me!) composers’ recital on the 23rd.
May 1, the NDSU Faculty Woodwind Quintet will play Course of Empire as part of the Fargo Moorhead Symphony Orchestra chamber series.
May 8, the Fargo Moorhead Area Youth Symphonies will premiere my One Sows for the Benefit of Another Age.
Oh, also at some point this semester, the New Rockford-Sheyenne High School Band will be premiering the new Steam Powered Rocket in New Rockford. I’ll update the website and the blog when I get that date.
Hope to see you at one (or several!) of these!
I had some writer’s block earlier this year. After completing Shindig for horn choir, I flailed a lot from about March to August. I think part of it was the workload from taking classes and teaching a full load across two campuses. But another part of it was that I spent mid-to-late part of the semester designing, proposing, and planning a composition program at NDSU.
Our composition degree has been approved and accredited, and we started our first students this fall. And as an extension of that, I’ve joined NDSU full time.
Does the world really need another composition program? Probably not. I attended a paper this summer about the overcrowding in the composition world, and especially in the time of COVID, the opportunities seem to be dwindling.
Does the region need a composition program? Yes. Looking at professional undergraduate (Bachelor of Music) degrees, ours is the first in the Dakotas. There are four in Minnesota, one in Montana, and one in Manitoba. It gets better the further south and east one goes. But new music opportunities are, well, not numerous up here.
Of course, at many schools, students interested in composition can take composition lessons within the context of the BA or BS in Music. My intention is that having a collection of degree-seeking composers will give us the ability to do several things we wouldn’t be able to do within the context of a BA or BS, such as produce more composer opportunities and resources for the region. Things such as a new music concert series, Dakota composer residencies, a student-run music press to experiment with self-publishing, and assembling materials for high school students interested in composition.
NDSU is an interesting place to do all this. We have a named and endowed School of Music within a comprehensive STEM-focused Land Grant university, which puts us in an ideal place for both collaboration and outreach. We already have a full range of academic music programs from the BM to the DMA. Our undergraduate music curriculum already requires Music Entrepreneurship which intersects with the university’s entrepreneurship initiatives. And NDSU is already quite new music friendly, with the annual Fissinger Composition Contest, the new Pilafian Composition Contest, and regular performances of works by living composers.
So looking at the reality of the new music scene in North Dakota and what the future of music composition might be like, we’ve tried to make the degree as flexible as possible. Composers have to know a little bit of everything, so we’re having them do the same instrumental or vocal performance requirements as our BA/BS students do. Proficiency on piano, conducting, counterpoint, advanced theory, and instrumental arranging, of course. But then we’re also opening up a chunk of electives for the degree, giving students the opportunity to gain some additional specialization or marketable skills. This might include taking some of the music methods classes to learn how to play all the instruments. Or taking on a certificate or minor through the college of business, such as Entrepreneurship, Accounting, Business Administration, Management Information Systems, or Community Development. Or pursuing minors in Creative Writing, English, or Theatre Arts. Or there’s the certificate in Publishing.
The hope is to twofold: To create resources and opportunities for composers in the Dakotas, and to create a composer incubator which gives students the tools they need to be successful musicians in the region and the world.
Oh and that writer’s block finally lifted. I have a new song cycle of hilarious poems by Mark Vinz that are getting the finishing touches soon, to be premiered in February.
Earmarks has moved from the semifinalist stage of the Chamber Music division of The American Prize to the finalist stage: Read more here: http://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2020/04/finalist-composers-instrumental-chamber.html
I found out earlier today (as I was driving from Fallon to Fargo) that Earmarks has just earned me a place as a semi-finalist in the Instrumental Chamber Music division of The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts.
You can learn more about The American Prize at www.theamericanprize.org or follow the news on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-American-Prize-celebrating-American-excellence-in-the-arts/214320622728 or Twitter: https://twitter.com/americanprize