emanate (2022) for piano-percussion quartet and electronics | Jia Yi Lee

emanate explores the movement of sounds emerging from the inside of the piano, and dispersing into the surrounding space. The first section of the piece focuses on the sounds produced inside the piano, triggered by the keys and employing the natural resonance of the piano. As the piece progresses, the sound source is spatially expanded, as the two percussionists walk to the extreme ends of the stage, and the electronics provide an illusion of a large space. Subsequently, the performers come together, this time exploring the intimate sounds produced solely with the frame and strings of the piano, with the electronics providing an artificial sense of space through amplification and reverb. emanate is commissioned by and was first premiered at the UNHEARD Concert Series in Singapore, February 2022.

Jia Yi Lee is a Singaporean composer whose work ranges across instrumental music, electronic media, interdisciplinary collaborations, using sound as a medium of perceiving the world. Inspired by natural phenomena and processes, her music challenges traditional notions of sound and creates imaginative, colorful sound worlds that captivate listeners.

Jia Yi’s music has been performed by various local and international ensembles such as the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, Philharmonic Wind Orchestra, Duo Tarenna, Ensemble Linea, Talea Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Ictus, Tacet(i) Ensemble, Toolbox Percussion, International Contemporary Ensemble, and heard in the Asia+ Festival, WASBE International Conference, IntAct Festival, Toolbox International Creative Academy, Académie Voix Nouvelles Royaumont, Mizzou International Composers Festival, Asian Composers League Festival among others.

Jia Yi is a DMA Candidate at Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Composition at Shenandoah Conservatory, and an Adjunct Faculty in Music Theory at Peabody Institute.

Fire and Ice (2023) for piano four hands | Sofia Ouyang

The program note for my piece is comprised solely of Robert Frost’s poem "Fire and Ice:"

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Sofia Jen Ouyang is committed to creating music that both expressively and critically engages with the world. Her awards include the BMI Composer Award (2023, 2024), John Eaten Memorial Competition (2024), Juilliard Orchestra Competition (2023) and The American Prize (2022). She is a DeGaetano Institute Fellow with Orchestra of St Luke’s (2025), a Fromm Foundation Fellow at Composer's Conference (2024) and recipient of the ARTZenter Composer Grant (2024). Her works have been performed at venues including Lincoln Center, Frankfurt Oper, Miller Theatre, Luzern KKL, Arvo Pärt Center, The DiMenna Center, and National Sawdust, as well as festivals like Lucerne Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, New Music On The Point and APAC Choir Festival. She has collaborated with New York Virtuoso Singers, Riot Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, JACK Quartet and Juilliard Orchestra. Sofia is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University and holds bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Music from Columbia, and studied composition with Andrew Norman and Amy Beth Kirsten at The Juilliard School.

Hommage à Kierkegaard (2024) for 2 vibraphones and 1 piano | Young Jun Lee

Repetition, for Søren Kierkegaard, was more than mere recurrence—it was a philosophical concept tied to renewal, transformation, and the struggle of existence. In Hommage à Kierkegaard, repetition serves as both a structural and expressive device, embodying the tension between familiarity and rupture, expectation and deviation.

Throughout the piece, musical ideas return, yet never in the same way. Motifs emerge, dissolve, and reappear in altered forms, mirroring Kierkegaard’s notion that true repetition is not a return to the same, but rather a movement forward through recollection and reinterpretation. Cyclic patterns are continuously destabilized, forcing the music to "leap" into new territories, much like Kierkegaard’s existential leap of faith—an act of embracing the unknown beyond rational certainty.

Through this interplay of recurrence and transformation, Hommage à Kierkegaard reflects the existential weight of repetition: not as stagnation, but as a process of becoming. The piece invites the listener to experience how repetition, rather than merely reaffirming the past, reshapes and redefines our perception of the present.

Born and raised in Seoul, Young-Jun Lee is a composer and interdisciplinary artist based in Baltimore and New York City. His work integrates orchestral music, theater, dance, visual arts, and noise, establishing him as a versatile voice in contemporary composition. Recognized by institutions such as Peabody and the Fontainebleau School, he has received numerous awards, including the Prix de Collaboration Inter-écoles, the Ise-Shima Special Prize, and the Macht Orchestral Composition Competition.

As a curator and co-founder of the New Uncertainty Collective, Lee has led performances in Baltimore, New York, and South Korea. His music has been performed worldwide by ensembles such as Mivos Quartet, Arditti Quartet, and Ensemble L’Itinéraire. He has participated in major festivals, working with composers like Helmut Lachenmann and Unsuk Chin. Currently pursuing a Doctorate at Peabody under Felipe Lara, Lee continues to push the boundaries of contemporary music.

The Beginning (2022) for saxophone, violin, cello, piano, electronics | Neda Nadim

The Beginning is a piece for B-flat clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and fixed media. This piece was inspired by the Iranian poet and writer Ahmad Shamlou. The formal structure of The Beginning consists of four main parts that represent a progression of emotions: uncertainty, fear, anger, the beauty of life, and hope.

Neda Nadim is a composer, media artist, and educator from Tehran, Iran. Her musical compositions draw inspiration from Persian poetry, as well as a diverse array of human experiences and emotions. Characterized by dense and intricate textures, her work is significantly influenced by the microtonal structures and timbral range of traditional Iranian music. Neda's current interests encompass electronic music and sound installations. Her compositions have received recognition and have been performed by various ensembles and performers, including Unheard-of//Ensemble, Splice Ensemble (featured at the Splice Institute Festival), ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, and LINÜ Guitar Duo. Additionally, her work has received international performance opportunities in Ecuador. Neda’s works have been acknowledged by the SHE: Festival of Women in Music (2025), Technosonics Festival at the University of Virginia (2024), Petrichor Records Composition Competition (2021), Fifteen Minutes of Fame (2021), Tehran Contemporary Music Festival for Emerging Iranian Composers (2020).

Neda holds a bachelor's degree in composition from Tehran University of Art and a Master of Music from Bowling Green State University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition and Computer Technologies at University of Virginia.

Timbre Studies (2018) for any group of instruments | Ken Ueno

Timbre Studies was designed as a pedagogical tool to introduce innovative ways of playing with timbre, for occasions when I was invited to residencies to work with student new music groups. Since new music ensembles at universities often consist of non-traditional formations or face the problem of lacking a fixed instrumentation until the last minute, I created this open instrumentation piece to address that issue. Another focus I wanted to explore is timbre. The most critical challenge for burgeoning new music groups is learning to play the sounds of new music, often through extended techniques or non-idiomatic playing. Observing a lack of pieces addressing this challenge motivated me to compose this work. Each short movement presents a unique provocation of color and imagination. I encourage you to create your own sounds. In coaching, I have specific techniques to offer to assist you with your instruments.

A Rome Prize and Berlin Prize winner, Ken Ueno is a composer, performer, sound artist, and scholar. Leading performers and ensembles around the world have championed Ueno’s music. His piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, was featured in their repertoire for over ten years. Another work, Pharmakon, was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons. In 2011, a portrait concert of Ueno’s music was featured at MaerzMusik in Berlin. As a vocalist, Ueno is known for inventing extended techniques and has performed as a soloist in his vocal concerto with orchestras in Boston, New York, Warsaw, Vilnius, Bangkok, Sacramento, Stony Brook, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, and Berkeley. As a sound artist, his installations have been commissioned and exhibited by museums and galleries in Beijing, Guangzhou, Taipei, Mexico City, Art Basel, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. One of his largest projects, Daedalus Drones—an installation featuring a fence-labyrinth housing a swarm of choreographed flying drones, designed for performance with instrumentalists—was installed at the Asia Society of Hong Kong and featured in the New Vision Arts Festival in 2021. More recently, in 2024, he was the featured guest composer for the Takefu International Music Festival, where the Arditti String Quartet premiered his latest string quartet. Last summer, he was a featured performer at Freespace’s Noise Fest in Hong Kong.

Ueno currently serves as a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His writings have been published by the Oxford Handbook, the New York Times, Palgrave Macmillan, The Dance Review (TDR), and Wiley & Sons. His bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. www.kenueno.

Momentum Confluence Metaphysical Elaboration (2018) for flute, saxophone, cello, and piano | Chihchun Chi-sun Lee

Momentum Confluence Metaphysical Elaboration is a piece that describes and demonstrates idioms that normally happen in music. The abbreviation of the title “MCME” hints equivalently to the premiere ensemble Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble.

Taiwanese-American composer, CHIHCHUN CHI-SUN LEE’s works were described as “eye-openingly, befittingly, complex, but rather arresting to hear” by Boston Globe, “exploring a variety of offbeat textures and unusual techniques” by Gramophone and “eastern techniques blended with sophisticated modern writing style” by “Amadeus” Il mensile della grande musica. Lee has received honors including winning the Brandenburg Symphony International Composition Competition, Guggenheim Fellowship, IAWM Theodore Front Prize, ISCM/ League of Composers Competition, International Festival of Women Composers Composition Prize and MARCO Competition. She has received commissions from Boston Symphony Orchestra, Harvard Fromm Foundation, Barlow Endowment, Taiwan National Culture and Arts Foundation, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Korea, and Taiwan National Chinese Orchestra, just to name a few. Her music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers, and various international festivals and broadcasts around 40 countries in 5 continents.

Improvisation | Ken Ueno

The concert will end with the improvisation, concept and lead by Ken Ueno, performing with BGSU faculty, Piyawat Louilarpprasert.