AbouttheFestival ScheduleofEvents

The annual New Music & Art Festival at BGSU has traditionally brought international musicians and artists to Bowling Green for a celebration of current art and music. The work of over two dozen composers and artists will be presented at the 24th Annual New Music & Art Festival on Oct. 16-18, 2003. The festival includes concerts, film screenings, lectures, exhibitions, workshops and other exciting opportunities. Organized by the directors of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music and the Fine Arts Center Galleries, Burton Beerman and Jacqueline Nathan, the Festival supports the creation of new work and engages both the University and city communities in the process of art appreciation and awareness. The majority of events are accessible, free and open to the public.

This year's featured composer is Bright Sheng. Proclaimed "an innovative composer who merges diverse musical customs in works that transcend conventional aesthetic boundaries," he received the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—the so-called "Genius Award"—in November 2001. "Sheng is a fresh voice in cross-cultural music," the Foundation Committee further noted. "He will continue to be an important leader in exploring and bridging musical traditions." His music is noted for its lyrical, limpid melodies inspired by the folk music of China, particularly from the remote Chinese province of Qinghai, where Sheng was sent during the the Cultural Revolution; a Bartókian sense of rhythmic propulsion; and musical and theatrical gestures borrowed or derived from Chinese opera. Although his works are not "political" music, two of his major orchestral works (H'un (Lacerations) and Nanking! Nanking!) indeed were inspired by events in recent Chinese history.

Special guest performers this year include the Takács Quartet, whose performance is also part of the CMA Festival Series, and ensemble-in-residence BraveNewWorks. Recognized as one of the world's greatest string quartets, the Takács String Quartet appears regularly in major music capitals and prestigious festivals. Based in Colorado, the quartet has been the ensemble-in-residence at the University of Colorado since 1983. The initially all-Hungarian quartet, now led by British-born Edward Dusinberre, received a 2003 Grammy in the Chamber Music Performance category and Gramophone's "Chamber Music Recording of the Year" award in 2002 and 1998. The quartet will perform selections from its award-winning Beethoven and Bartók cycles, as well as a quartet they recently commissioned from featured composer Bright Sheng.

The mission of Brave New Works is to engage, enrich, and educate through the medium of contemporary music. The ensemble was founded in 1997 by percussionists Chris Froh and Eli Shapiro and conductor Chris Younghoon Kim at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The musicians of Brave New Works have performed all over the world and have collaborated with some of the most influential composers of the 20th and 21st centuries including Leslie Bassett, Luciano Berio, William Bolcom, Eliott Carter and George Crumb. In addition, Brave New Works has commissioned and premiered numerous works for its unique instrumentation of string quartet, piano, flute, harp, clarinet, and soprano. Brave New Works has served its educational mission through several college and university residencies across the country.

The featured exhibit at this year's festival is Radical Line: Contemporary Chinese Art. This exhibition sets its sights on the influences—collision, rejection, integration—that have motivated a number of contemporary Chinese artists to reexamine their relationship to traditional Chinese media and values as they intersect with Western culture and ideas. Radical Line refers not only to the tradition of ink drawing and calligraphy, but also to an edge or border that has been delineated, and crossed, by these artists. The invited artists, all with significant international exhibition records, include Qiu Zhijie, Xu Bing, Gu Wenda, C.C. Wang, Liu Tian Wei, Wang Dongling, Qin Feng, Xing Fei, Wang Tiande, Zhou Hejun, Huang Chih-Yang, Pan Xing Lei, Emily Cheng, Huang Rei, Yuan Yunsheng, and Qiu Deshu. Each utilizes innovative interpretations of traditional Chinese ink and scroll media in aesthetically rich visuals that correspond to a concern for language, writing, and the challenges of cross-cultural communication.

These artists are impressive: for example, Xu Bing was a MacArthur Grant recipient, and is probably the most famous Chinese artist known internationally. Qin Feng is one of the younger and most powerful innovators in ink today who works between China, the U.S. and Germany. Wang Dongling is the most noted calligrapher in China, and exhibited in the "China: 5,000 Years" Guggenheim show in 1998. Qiu Zhijie is one of the most important experimental artists working in China today. C.C. Wang, whose work was included in numerous museum exhibitions, was a cultural hero in China. Many admirers consider him the last of a centuries-old line of Chinese scholar-artists.

Other events at the festival include a performance art piece by Pan Xing Lei, who will create a performance piece that reflects his interdisciplinary and provocative approach to art-making. His performances often involve flexible latex rubber figures that were inspired originally by the artist's participation in the tragic Tiananmen Square Demonstrations in 1989, where he and five other sculpture students created and erected the Goddess of Democracy monument. Pan has had numerous one-man shows and performances, and has been included in important group events in China, Hong Kong, Germany and the U.S., including the landmark traveling exhibition Inside Out-New Chinese Art, seen in New York at the Asia Society and PS1. He was featured in the March 2001 issue of Art News, in an article by Hugh Akin titled "Camouflaged Revolutionary."

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The program book and schedule are available in .pdf format.

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