By JULES SHINKLE<\/strong><\/p>\n BG Independent News<\/strong><\/p>\n The 46th Annual New Music Festival this past weekend gave listeners a chance to bask in BGSU\u2019s celebration of contemporary classical music. This year\u2019s program featured two panel sessions, three masterclasses and eight concerts over three days.<\/p>\n Contemporary classical music is often deemed unapproachable and overly-demanding to non-academic audiences. The reality is that many people struggle to get into new music regardless of its genre, be it newly released albums or artists unfamiliar to one\u2019s taste.<\/p>\n It\u2019s comforting and rewarding to return to the sounds and sensations of long-appreciated works. Though as John Birge from Composer\u2019s Datebook reminds us, \u201cAll music was once new.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s special about the New Music Festival is that it provides listeners with an opportunity to experience an array of musical styles and instrumentation. Composers are always finding novel, enticing ways to express themselves through musical art; a festival like BGSU\u2019s is a reminder that there are an infinite number sounds waiting to be conjured.<\/p>\n Saxophone choir, theremin, solo harp, wind ensemble, art song, symphonic concerto: these are just a few examples of what could be heard this weekend.<\/p>\n Friday night\u2019s concert was a performance by the Meridian Arts Ensemble, a brass quintet (two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba) and percussionist. Since their founding in 1987, they have recorded 15 CDs and commissioned dozens of new works. They are an important institution in the world of brass chamber music.<\/p>\n The first half of their concert featured two world premieres, Tom Nazziola\u2019s \u201cMad Clown\u201d and Armando Bayolo\u2019s \u201cDystopian Moods.\u201d The unconventional addition of drums expanded their range of timbres \u2013 the snap of a snare drum and sizzle of rolled cymbals complimented the warm blend of brass very well.<\/p>\n Daniel Grabois, the group\u2019s horn player, spoke to the audience about a composition of his that they were to play next. \u201cMigration\u201d emerged from an invitation to play at the Chautauqua Music Festival, whose programming that year was centered around Franz Schubert. Finding most of the brass quintet arrangements of Schubert unsatisfactory, Grabois wrote \u201cMigration\u201d \u2013 a piece decidedly unlike Schubert but still borrowing his melodic and harmonic ideas.<\/p>\n Meridian Arts Ensemble has a reputation for their boisterous renditions of Frank Zappa, and they concluded Friday with three of his songs arranged by Jon Nelson. Their repertoire slid through many genres, all of which felt convincing in the hands of such strong performers.<\/p>\n Saturday night\u2019s concert was the eighth and final event of the festival. BGSU\u2019s Collegiate Chorale sang five pieces for the first half. Richard Schnipke led the choir and accompanying instrumentalists.<\/p>\n The Collegiate Chorale\u2019s half of the concert was programmed around themes of faith, comradery, and liberation. Their first piece, Ily Matthew Maniano\u2019s \u201cPapuri,\u201d revolved around the repetition of \u201cPapuri sa Diyos,\u201d or \u201cPraise the Lord\u201d in Filipino. Following that was a song set to the text of a W.E.B. Dubois poem titled \u201cChildren of the Moon\u201d by BGSU alum Evan Williams.<\/p>\n Notes from the composer describe his interpretation of the poem as \u201cboth proto-Afro-Futurist and biblical in its scope, envisioning a future for Black people as free and untethered as the vastness of space.\u201d<\/p>\n This vision for Black liberation was mirrored later in the chorus\u2019s closer, \u201cThe Caged Bird Sings for Freedom\u201d by Joel Thompson. Maya Angelo\u2019s famous \u201cCaged Bird\u201d was represented by solo clarinet (Ricky Jurski), who plays a hopeful melody that spreads throughout the choir, leading to a united and triumphant conclusion.<\/p>\n After intermission, the Philharmonia took the stage. They played two pieces: \u201cRE|Member\u201d by Reena Esmail and \u201cInto Light\u201d by Marilyn Shrude. The former was written to express the strangeness of an ensemble coming back to play after the onset of COVID-19. Esmail writes, \u201cBut as the pandemic unraveled life as we knew it, the \u2018return\u2019 suddenly took on much more weight. Now the piece charts the return to a world forever changed \u2026 writing the musicians back onto a stage that they left in completely uncertain circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n Shrude\u2019s \u201cInto Light\u201d was recorded by the Bowling Green Philharmonia back in 1999. It was fitting to hear this joyful, electric work marking the end of another New Music Festival.<\/p>\n
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