New Music Festival

2022 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Click on each link to view a PDF program.

CONCERT #1 - American Brass Quintet
8:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 12 - Kobacker Hall
Music by Stacy Garrop, Ching-chu Hu, Eric Ewazen, and the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon's new brass quintet.

COMPOSER TALK: Stacy Garrop
1:30 p.m., Thursday, October 13 - Bryan Recital Hall

CONCERT #2
3:30 p.m., Thursday, October 13 - Bryan Recital Hall
Chamber works by Stacy Garrop, Jeffrey Mumford, Gregory Mertl, Jessie Montgomery, Udi Perlman, and David Bixler.

CONCERT #3
8 p.m., Thursday, October 13 - Kobacker Hall
Wind ensemble and New Music Ensemble performances of works by Han Lash, Stacy Garrop, Michael Frazier, Christopher Dietz, and Marilyn Shrude.

CONCERT #4
10:30 a.m., Friday, October 14 - Bryan Recital Hall
Music by Lei Liang, Catherine Likhuta, Stacy Garrop, and Emily Koh.

CONCERT #5
2:30 p.m., Friday, October 14 - Kobacker Hall
Music by Matthew Kennedy, Stacy Garrop, Jennifer Jolley, and Terri Sanchez.

CONCERT #6
8 p.m., Friday, October 14 - Kobacker Hall
Music by Nathalie Joachim, Christopher Cerrone, Hong-Da Chin, and Julia Wolfe.

CONCERT #7
2:30 p.m., Saturday, October 15 - Bryan Recital Hall
Music by Anne LeBaron, David T. Little, Molly Joyce, and Steven Naylor.

CONCERT #8
8 p.m., Saturday, October 15 - Kobacker Hall
Orchestral and choral music by Stacy Garrop, Jessie Montgomery, Joan Tower, Adolphus Hailstork, Jocelyn Hagen, Chen Yi, Reena Esmail, and Leah Tracy.

Some concerts will be streamed live at youtube.com/bgsumusic
Check the Arts Calendar for updated streaming listings

The 2022 American Musicological Society, Midwest Chapter Conference will also overlap with the Festival on Saturday - there will be a panel discussion on 'Voice and Vocality in Contemporary Music' from 1-2:15pm in the Choral Room featuring several festival composers. All are invited to attend. For more information on the conference click here.

Featured Artists

Stacy Garrop

        Stacy Garrop’s music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. The sharing of stories is a defining element of our humanity; we strive to share with others the experiences and concepts that we find compelling. She shares stories by taking audiences on sonic journeys – some simple and beautiful, while others are complicated and dark – depending on the needs and dramatic shape of the story.
         Garrop is a full-time freelance composer living in the Chicago area. Her catalog covers a wide range, with works for orchestra, opera, oratorio, wind ensemble, choir, art song, various sized chamber ensembles, and works for solo instruments.
        Recent commissions include In a House Besieged for The Crossing, The Battle for the Ballot for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Shiva Dances for Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, Goddess Triptych for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Spectacle of Light for the Music of the Baroque Orchestra, The Heavens Above Us for the Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Alpenglow, a double concerto for saxophone, tuba, and wind ensemble commissioned by a consortium of 18 organizations. Notable past commissions include My Dearest Ruth for soprano and piano with text by Martin Ginsburg, the husband of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Glorious Mahalia for the Kronos Quartet, Give Me Hunger for Chanticleer, Rites for the Afterlife for the Akropolis and Calefax Reed Quintets, Slipstream for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Musicians Chamber Music Series, and Terra Nostra (oratorio), commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and Piedmont East Bay Children’s Chorus. Her current commissions include projects with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Soli Deo Gloria Music Foundation, and Chicago Opera Theater for a new opera that will premiere in 2024.
         Garrop has received numerous awards and grants including an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm Music Foundation Grant, Barlow Prize, and three Barlow Endowment commissions, along with prizes from competitions sponsored by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Omaha Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Boston Choral Ensemble, Utah Arts Festival, and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Earlier in her career, she participated in reading session programs sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra (the Composers Institute). Recent performances of her orchestral works were given by the Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Reading, Richmond, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, and of her chamber works by the Boston Trio, Ensemble Échappé, Kronos Quartet and Lincoln Trio.
         Theodore Presser Company and ECS Publishing carry her works. Garrop is a Cedille Records artist with pieces currently on eleven CDs; her works are also commercially available on more than a dozen additional labels.
        In 2022, she is serving as the featured composer of the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival and the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, as well as a mentor composer for the Cabrillo Conductors/Composers Workshop, LunART Festival Composers Hub, and Chicago a cappella’s HerVoice Emerging Women Choral Composers Competition.
         She was the first Emerging Opera Composer of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Program (2018-2020), during which she composed The Transformation of Jane Doe and What Magic Reveals with librettist Jerre Dye. She also held a 3-year composer-in-residence position with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra (2016-2019), funded by New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. She previously served as composer-in-residence with the Albany Symphony (2009/2010) and Skaneateles Festival (2011), and as well as on faculty of the Fresh Inc Festival (2012-2017).

The American Brass Quintet

           The American Brass Quintet is internationally recognized as one of the premier chamber music ensembles of our time, celebrated for peerless leadership in the brass world. As 2013 recipient of Chamber Music America’s highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award for significant and lasting contributions to the field, ABQ's rich history includes performances in Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and all fifty of the United States; a discography of nearly sixty recordings; and the premieres of over one hundred fifty contemporary brass works.

            ABQ commissions by Robert Beaser, William Bolcom, Elliott Carter, Eric Ewazen, Anthony Plog, Huang Ruo, David Sampson, Gunther Schuller, William Schuman, Joan Tower, and Charles Whittenberg, among many others, are considered significant contributions to contemporary chamber music and the foundation of the modern brass quintet repertoire. The ABQ’s Emerging Composer Commissioning program has brought forth brass quintets by Gordon Beeferman, Jay Greenberg, Trevor Gureckis, and Shafer Mahoney. Among the quintet’s recordings are eleven CDs for Summit Records since 1992 including the ABQ’s 50th release State of the Art—The ABQ at 50 featuring recent works written for them.   

            Committed to the promotion of brass chamber music through education, the American Brass Quintet has been in residence at The Juilliard School since 1987 and the Aspen Music Festival since 1970. Since 2000 the ABQ has offered its expertise in chamber music performance and training with a program of mini-residencies as part of its regular touring. Designed to offer young groups and individuals an intense chamber music experience over several days, ABQ mini-residencies have been embraced by schools and communities throughout the United States and a dozen foreign countries.

            The New York Times recently wrote that “among North American brass ensembles none is more venerable than the American Brass Quintet,” while Newsweek has hailed the ensemble as “the high priests of brass” and American Record Guide has called the ABQ “of all the brass quintets, the most distinguished.” Through its acclaimed performances, diverse programming, commissioning, extensive discography and educational mission, the American Brass Quintet has created a legacy unparalleled in the brass field.

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Guest Composers

Guest Performers

DMA Performers

BGSU Faculty Composers & Performers

Large Ensemble Personnel