University of South Carolina’s Southern Exposure New Music Series Announces 2015-2016 Season
August 3, 2015
COLUMBIA, SC – Southern Exposure’s 2015-16 season, “Classical Collaborations,” expands from its traditional four concerts to five. The year bursts at the seams with the energy and eclecticism that characterizes contemporary music today. Highlights include a path-breaking chamber arrangement of Mahler’s unfinished 10th Symphony, an evening with new music’s leading young soprano, a concert of electro-acoustic music with four world premieres, a show featuring artists that reimagine the concert experience, and a season-ending collaboration with Columbia’s Indie Grits film festival. Each concert represents a different take on the idea of collaboration: between performers, composers, arrangers, artists, filmmakers, video designers, and even with the audience.
All Southern Exposure concerts are free. All but the final concert are at the USC School of Music Recital Hall (813 Assembly St., Columbia, SC) at 7:30 p.m.
Season at a Glance:
Fri., Aug. 28, 2015: Classical Discrimination, Argento Chamber Ensemble
Fri., Oct. 2, 2015: Apparition, soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Jacob Greenburg
Fri., Jan. 29, 2016: Exposed Wiring V, Percussionist Cameron Britt, USC faculty and C-Street Brass
Fri., April 1, 2016: Transforming the Concert Experience, clarinetist Karel Dohnal and
percussion/video duo Peter Ferry and Xuan (co-presented by Spark: Carolina’s Music Leadership Laboratory)
Fri., April 15, 2016: Indie Grits Collaboration, artists TBA, outdoor location TBA
Fri., August 28, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Classical Discrimination with Argento Chamber Ensemble
USC School of Music Recital Hall – Free
The Argento Chamber Ensemble, called an “essential source of adventurous new music” by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross, has been much lauded for its recent series of performances of chamber orchestra arrangements of Mahler symphonies, which recast the legendary, forward-looking composer and former New York Philharmonic conductor as a “New York Contemporary.”
Argento’s Southern Exposure show features the first-ever performance of their latest Mahler project: portions of his 10th symphony, left incomplete at his death. As an opener to the Mahler arrangements, Argento will perform ABRAXAS by rising star Jesse Jones, Southern Exposure’s former assistant director, now professor of composition at the University of Georgia. As an opener to the Mahler arrangements, Argento will perform ABRAXAS by rising star Jesse Jones, Southern Exposure’s former assistant director, now professor of composition at the University of Georgia. The concert will be followed by a conversation with the artists in the Recital Hall.
This concert is sponsored, in part, by South Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Related Events: Post-Concert Conversation; Educational Concert at Dreher High School, grades 5-12, Thurs. Aug. 27, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Instrumental master classes at USC, TBA.
Fri., Oct. 2, 7:30 p.m.
Apparition with Soprano Tony Arnold and Pianist Jacob Greenburg
School of Music Recital Hall – Free
Contemporary music’s leading soprano, Tony Arnold consistently receives accolades around the world for the warmth and beauty of her voice, her extraordinary technical facility, superb musicianship, and riveting stage presence. Arnold’s long-time collaborator pianist Jacob Greenburg has been praised for his “brilliance,” “heroic dexterity,” and the depth and nuance he brings to interpretations of both old and new repertoire (New York Times).
Arnold and Greenburg’s Southern Exposure program will include American icon George Crumb’s haunting “Apparition,” which sets texts from Walt Whitman’s elegy for Abraham Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” (2015 is the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s death; Whitman wrote his elegy shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, in the summer of 1865).
Fri., Jan. 29, 2016, 7:30 p.m.
Exposed Wiring V with C Street Brass, Percussionist Cameron Britt and USC Faculty
School of Music Recital Hall – Free
Exposed Wiring, music created for live performance with electronics, is curated in part by USC composer and electronic/computer music whiz Reginald Bain. Remarkably, this special evening will include four world premieres by acclaimed composers, three of whom have Carolina connections: Bain, former USC composition professor Jesse Jones, Washington University in St. Louis’s Christopher Stark, and the College of Charleston’s Yiorgos Vassilandonakis.
USC faculty performers will include Craig Butterfield (bass), Joe Eller (clarinet), Scott Herring (percussion), Robert Jesselson (cello), Jennifer Parker-Harley (flute), Joseph Rackers (piano), and William Terwilliger (violin). Percussionist / composer extraordinaire and USC grad Cameron Britt (Duke University) will journey down from Durham, NC to join in the fun. Finally, Pittsburgh’s C-Street Brass, praised for their “fantastic and imaginative approach to brass music” (trumpeter Chris Botti) will commandeer the stage, returning to Columbia for an extended encore.
Fri. April 1, 7:30 p.m.
Transforming the Concert Experience with Karel Dohnal, clarinet/Peter Ferry & Xuan, percussion and video design
This concert promises to be in some respects its most adventurous: it features a world-renowned clarinet soloist and up-and-coming young percussion/video design duo, both of whom present striking, original visions of the concert experience – in addition to flat-out playing great. The Czech performer Dohnal, one of the world’s leading clarinetists, will present his engaging, critically-acclaimed interpretation of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Harlekin (Harlequin, 1975), a costumed piece that includes elements of dance and pantomime – it was written for dancing clarinetist!
Peter Ferry and Xuan, winners of USC’s 2015 Savvy Musician in Action Chamber Music Competition, are a duo that challenges the conventional notions of a chamber music partnership. Ferry, a virtuoso percussionist, has significant video and technology chops. Xuan, an acclaimed video designer, is also a classically trained pianist and is unusually well-suited to interpret music on the big screen. As a team, they create performances that blend percussion and video (and occasionally piano) with extraordinary sophistication, beauty and humor.
Fri., April 15
Indie Grits Collaboration – guest artists TBA
outdoor location TBA – part of the 2016 Indie Grits Film Festival – coming soon to a river near you!
Details of this concert, a special premiere collaboration between two of Columbia’s artistic mainstays, Southern Exposure and Indie Grits, are still being confirmed, and as such cannot be released at this time. We can say, however, that the featured ensemble will be one of the leading groups in contemporary music today. The show will include 4-5 brand new films commissioned by Indie Grits especially for the occasion to accompany the music.
About Southern Exposure New Music Series
Founded in 2001 by University of South Carolina associate professor of composition and composer John Fitz Rogers, the nonprofit series has grown steadily and attracts standing-room-only crowds from throughout South Carolina and neighboring states. The series has achieved a national reputation for the quality and adventurous spirit of its four yearly concerts, unparalleled in the southeast for their mix of artistic quality, audience education and cutting-edge programming. Southern Exposure was awarded a 2007 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming in its 2005-2006 season.
Reserve a seat – These free concerts are often standing room only and early arrival is suggested for seating. For a donation of $100 or more, patrons may reserve one seat for the entire Southern Exposure season.
