NuMusWes24: Day II
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 8:00am
Various locations on the Wesleyan campus, and streaming on YouTube and Zoom.
FREE!
The second day of NuMusWes24 will feature an elaborated reconstruction of the February 1974 concert “An Evening with John Cage” in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts including members of the Wesleyan University Orchestra, a simultaneous teleconcert with audience participation between Middletown and Germany, three installations, and four symposium panels.
Installations
Saturday, May 11, 2024 from 8am to midnight
Various locations around the Wesleyan campus
Three installations will include the radio play Saturn and Jupiter (2003) by Brent Wetters MA ’03 in Ring Family Performing Arts Hall located at 287 Washington Terrace, For Alvin Lucier (for automated pipe organ) by Brian Parks MA ’09, MA ’13 in Memorial Chapel located at 221 High Street, and Deer Tick: Solar Sounders on the Lawn (2017) by Daniel Fishkin MA ’15 in the Digital Design Commons gardens located at 301 High Street, which features synthesizers played by sunlight (until sunset).
Symposium: Panel I
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 10am
Frank Center for Public Affairs, Room 100, 238 Church Street
Attend on Zoom
Featuring presentations by Dan Wolf MA ’90, PhD ’90 “This Talk Might Be Called The Structural Dynamics of Flow,” and Aaron Siegel MA ’05 “What is a Community of Ideas?” moderated by Professor and Chair of the Music Department Ron Kuivila ’77.
Symposium: Panel II
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 11:15am
Frank Center for Public Affairs, Room 100, 238 Church Street
Attend on Zoom
Featuring presentations by Phillip Schulze MA ’08 “Not Tommy's playground,” and Brian Parks MA ’09, MA ’13 “Humor as Experimental Fuel and Exhaust” moderated by Assistant Professor of Music and University Organist Alcee Chriss.
Concert III: Teleconcert from the University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 1pm
Frank Center for Public Affairs, Room 100, 238 Church Street
Attend on Zoom
Performed simulaneously by audience members posessing smartphones at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany featuring the works Signals by Mladen Milicevic MA ’88, Neural Labyrinths by Alberto DeCampo, Duo Performance by Liz Albee and Anne Wellmer MA ’03, Solo Performance by Rees Archibald MA ’02, and the video documentary “Maryanne Amacher at Wesleyan 2003” by Anne Wellmer MA ’03.
Symposium: Panel III
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 2:15pm
Frank Center for Public Affairs, Room 100, 238 Church Street
Attend on Zoom
Featuring presentations by Ann Warde MA ’85 “Anne Modugno, George Cacioppo, Alvin Lucier, and John Cage Instructors,” and Nic Collins ’76, MA ’79 “I was right for all the wrong reasons” moderated by Visiting Professor of Music William Brooks ’65.
Symposium: Panel IV
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 3:30pm
Frank Center for Public Affairs, Room 100, 238 Church Street
Attend on Zoom
Featuring presentations by Judy Dunaway MA ’00 “Mother** of Balloon Music,” and Cristohper Ramos Flores MA ’14 “An empirical approach to estimate an optimal mounting location of transducers on active string instruments” moderated by Professor of Music and Director of Graduate Studies Paula Matthusen.
Environmental Performance
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 5pm
Andrus Field and Daniel Family Commons Balcony, Usdan University Center, Third Floor, 45 Wyllys Avenue
Concert IV: February 1974
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 7pm
Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Avenue
An elaborated reconstruction of “An Evening with John Cage,” a concert celebrating the opening of the Center for the Arts, will open with a dedication of a Crowell Concert Hall chair in honor of Jean A. Shaw, Hon ’11, P ’79, GP ’11, who served as Director of the Center for the Arts from 1985 to 1999.
The concert will feature Cage’s Etcetera (for orchestra) performed by members of the Wesleyan University Orchestra, together with Matt Bauder MA ’03, Director of the World Music Archives and Music Librarian Aaron Bittel, Sam Boston ’25, Guitar Instructor Tom Crean MA ’04, Daniel Fishkin MA ’15, Omar Fraire MA ’17, Heather Dea Jennings MA ’97, David Jensenius MA ’08, Chia-Yu Joy Lu PhD ’21, Andre Marquetti MA ’09, Alec McLane, Shawn O’Sullivan, Matt Rogalsky MA ’95, David Scanlon MA ’18, Anne Warde MA ’85, and graduate music students Marie Carroll, Parsa Ferdowsi, Emma Mistele, Negar Soleymanifar, and Eva Yang.
Stream on YouTube.
Cage’s Empty Words will be spoken/sung by Stuart Wheeler MA ’21 starting at 8:02pm in World Music Hall, located at 40 Wyllys Avenue. Empty Words will run until Sunday, May 12, 2024 at 7:32am. Stream on YouTube.
The reading of “Lecture I” from Cage's Empty Words in World Music Hall will be accompanied by transformations of the time brackets of Cage’s Four(6) prepared by Professor and Chair of the Music Department Ron Kuivila ’77 and realized by Visiting Scholar in Music Arshia Rahmati, Shawn O’Sullivan, and graduate music students Nat Baldwin, Lea Bertucci, Emma Mistele, and Negar Soleymanifar from 8:02pm to 10:32pm. Stream on YouTube.
Syntactical Ghost Trance Music, Composition No. 255 by John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Emeritus Anthony Braxton will be perfomed in Crowell Concert Hall starting at 10:40pm. The work will be conducted by Nick Hallett, and performed by graduate music students Nat Baldwin, Hansini Bhasker, Marie Carroll, and Negar Soleymanifar, as well as Matt Bauder MA ’03, Tom Crean MA ’04, Heather Dea Jennings MA ’97, Andre Marquetti MA ’09, David Scanlon MA ’18, Ron Shalom MA ’16, and indigo madrone maxwell cochrane ’24. Stream on YouTube.
The reading of “Lecture II” from Cage's Empty Words in World Music Hall will be accompanired by realizations of the work Chambers by the late John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Emeritus Alvin Lucier (1931–2021) from 11:02pm to 1:32am. Stream on YouTube.
The concert will continue in World Music Hall and adjoining grounds on Sunday, May 12, 2024 starting at 1:35am with the work Vespers by Lucier.
View or download program with notes.
View all NuMusWes24 events.
Images (from left): John Cage at Wesleyan, detail of Anthony Braxton’s Syntactical Ghost Trance Music No. 254, Alvin Lucier with Wesleyan Javanese Gamelan Ensemble