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24th New Music & Art Festival slated BOWLING GREEN, O. — The work of more than two dozen composers and visual artists will be presented at the 24th annual New
Music & Art Festival Oct. 16-18 at Bowling Green State University.
Hosted by the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at the College of Musical Arts and the University’s School of Art,
the three-day international festival will offer concerts, video screenings, performance art, lectures, exhibitions and workshops
on campus and at the Toledo Museum of Art.
University of Michigan faculty member Bright Sheng is this year’s featured composer. The Tákacs Quartet, whose performance
is also part of the College’s Festival Series, and the Ann Arbor-based new music ensemble BraveNewWorks, are featured guest
artists. “
An innovative composer who merges diverse musical customs in works that transcend conventional aesthetic boundaries,” Sheng
received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—the so-called “Genius Award”—in 2001. “Sheng is a fresh voice in cross-cultural
music,” the foundation committee noted, adding, “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 he was sent during the Cultural Revolution—as well as a Bartókian sense of rhythmic propulsion and
musical and theatrical gestures borrowed or derived from Chinese opera.
The art exhibit at this year's festival is “Radical Line: Contemporary Chinese Art.” The 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.
Other guests composers at the festival include: Karim Al-Zand (cq), Braxton Blake (cq), Gregory Cornelius, Christine Gorbach
(cq), Jeff Herriott, David Heuser, David Kechley (cq), Robert Kritz, Julie Yount Morgan (cq), Walter Mays, Gary Lee Nelson,
Sylvia Pengilly (cq), Kevin Puts, Bernard Rands, Dean Roush (cq), Haskell Small, Harvey Sollberger, Joseph T. Spaniola, Karen
P. Thomas, Michael Sidney Timpson, Ileana Perez Velazquez (cq), John Villec, Orianna Webb, and BGSU faculty members Mikel
Kuehn and Marilyn Shrude. BGSU faculty members Elainie Lillios and Bonnie Mitchell will also create an interactive installation
titled “Experiential Extremism” that will be housed in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union Gallery.
Organized by the directors of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music and the Bowling Green State University Fine Arts
Center Galleries, 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 festival is funded by the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, Fine Arts Center Galleries, College of Musical Arts,
Division of Computer Art and Ethnic Cultural Arts Program at BGSU, as well as the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Commission of Greater
Toledo and Medici Circle.
The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence
and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.
Most events are free and open to the public. Concerts in Bryan Recital Hall require tickets, which are free of charge. Tickets
can be obtained by contacting the Moore Musical Arts Center box office at 419-372-8171 or 1-800-589-2224.
For a complete schedule of festival events and ticket information for evens for which there is a charge, contact the MidAmerican
Center for Contemporary Music at 419-372-2685 or visit www.bgsu.edu/colleges/music/MACCM/.
(Posted October 08, 2003 )
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