Marilyn Shrude
Distinguished Artist Professor; composer/pianist; degrees from Alverno College and Northwestern University. Recipient of the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for Orchestral Music (1984); Phi Kappa Phi Award for Creative Achievement (1985); Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1993-95) and the Ohio Arts Council (1985-86 and 1990-91); Distinguished Teaching Award (1987); Alverno College Outstanding Alumna Award (1988); Woman of Achievement Award from the Toledo Chapter of Women in Communications, Inc. (1989); Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming at BGSU (1992 and 1998); Dean’s Award for Service & Promotion of Contemporary Music (1994, 1999, 2005) and Leadership in Graduate Education (2011); Ohioana Award (1997); American Academy of Arts and Letters Lifetime Achievement Award (1997); the Cleveland Arts Prize (1998); Bellagio Fellowship (2000); MTNA Ohio Composer of the Year (2002); Hofstra Arts Award (2003); BGSU Chair/Director Leadership Award (2008); Guggenheim Fellowship (2011-12); Sorel Foundation Award for Choral Music (2011); BGSU Lifetime Achievement Award (2014). Recordings for New World, Albany, Orion, Ohio Brassworks, Impermanence, Centaur, Neuma, Capstone, Azica, Liscio, ATMA, MMC and Access. Compositions published by C. F. Peters, Henri Lemoine Paris, Southern Music, Thomas House and American Composers Alliance. Faculty member and chair of theory and composition for Interlochen Arts Camp (1990-97); visiting professor of composition at Indiana University (1998), Heidelberg University (2001) and Oberlin Conservatory (2004); chair of Musicology/Composition/Theory Department at BGSU (1998-2011); founder and director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music (1987-1999); coordinator of the BGSU doctoral program in contemporary music.
Piyawat Louilarpprasert holds a DMA in composition from Cornell University where he was awarded the Don Michael Randel Research Fellowship to conduct his new music course: P.I.Y. (Perform it Yourself) as well as degrees from Royal College of Music (M.M.), London and College of Music, Mahidol University (B.M.), Bangkok. Piyawat was previously a faculty at Cornell University and Ithaca College.
Originally from Bangkok, Piyawat Louilarpprasert is a Thai composer/artist who works interweave of composition, visual art and technology. Piyawat has been awarded commissions and prizes including Fromm Foundation Commission, Harvard University (USA), Hellerau Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Commission (Germany), Impuls Composer Commission 2025 (Graz), International Coproduction Fund (IKF)—Goethe Institut, ISCM/Asian Composer League Prize 2022 (New Zealand), Südwestrundfunk (SWR) Experimental Studio (Freiburg), MATA Festival (New York), Mizzou Composer Festival (Missouri), ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award 2018-20-21 (USA), Fritz Gerber Award, Lucerne Festival Commission 2021 (Switzerland), American Composer Orchestra-Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, Earshot Reading 2019 (USA), British Council Grants 2021: Connections Through Culture (United Kingdom), The Matan Givol International Composers Competition Winning Prize 2019 (Israel), Call for Scores Winner Northwestern University Conference 2021 (Chicago), Call for Scores Winner the 40th Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival 2019 (Ohio), Pro Helvetia Swiss Art Council (Switzerland), Japan Foundation Director Grants (Japan), The Charles Stewart Richardson Scholar Award and Commissions (Royal College of Music, UK), Unheard-of//Ensemble Multimedia Prize 2019, The Otto R. Stahl Memorial Award 2018 (USA), Sergei Slonimsky Composition Award 2018 (Russia), Léon Goossens Prize 2016 (UK), Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra Award 2015 (TH), Young Thai Artists Awards, Young Composers in Southeast Asia Competition 2013 (Germany) and many more. In 2017, he was a composer in residence at KulturKontakt 2017 (AIR), Vienna, offered by the Austrian Federal Chancellery Austria. In 2019, his “Smelly Tubes” was featured in CNN News World: “Young and Gifted”. His recent work, “Ohm-Na-Mo” was commissioned by Donaueschinger Musiktage for 100 years celebration in 2021.
Piyawat’s music explores possibilities of creating the amalgamation of sonic and visual arts, including integrating multimedia and music, deconstructing instruments’ s mechanism and physicality with sound production method, and involving Thai traditional music elements in new compositions. Louilarpprasert’s compositions have been performed more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe and United States. His music has drawn attention in numerous music festivals such as Darmstadt New Music Festival (Germany), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), MUSIIKIN AIKA – Time of Music (Finland), European Creative Academy, International Composition Residency (France), Saint Petersburg New Music Festival (Russia), Kulturkontakt Residency (Vienna), Gaudeamus Musikweek (Netherlands), China – ASEAN Music Week (China), London National Portrait (UK), Mozart of Tomorrow (UK), Musica y Arte: Correspondencias Sonoras (Spain), Asian Composer League (Japan) and Dian Red Kechil Young Composers Residency (Singapore). He collaborated with several established ensembles and orchestras such as Tacet(i), Alarm Will Sound, Berlin Philharmonic Horn Section and Horn Pure, American Composer Orchestra, Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, Arditti Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Yarn Wire, Wet Ink, Lucerne Alumni Ensemble, Orkest Ereprijs, Oerknal!, Platypus, Reconsil, Quasars, Surplus, Mozaik, Switch Ensemble, ASEAN Contemporary Ensemble, Omnibus, University Cincinnati Chamber Players, University of Austin Texas Chamber Ensemble, Vienna Improvisor Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Stockport Youth Orchestra, RCM Philharmonic Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra and more. More info: www.piyawatmusic.com
Christopher Dietz holds a Ph.D. in composition and theory from the University of Michigan as well as degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Wisconsin. He was previously a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory and Hillsdale College. He composes music inspired by a wide variety of sources, both real and conceptual. Poetry, sound as sculpture and color, how toddlers play, deep time and the cosmos, rhythm as geometry, religion and politics, animal behavior, and the music of others are a few of the subjects that have informed his musical imagination. A similarly diverse approach to the creation of each new piece has resulted in a collection of works distinct in their surface features yet bound together by a common vitality, nuanced palette, and a commitment to engaging with others.
In recent years, Christopher’s works have been premiered in London, Auvillar (France), Montreal, Ottawa, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Houston, Phoenix and Ann Arbor, among others. His music has been performed by numerous contemporary ensembles including Alarm Will Sound, Decoda, The Orchestra of the League of Composers, Ogni Suono, The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, The East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, The Chicago Ensemble, Trio Kavak, Palomar, TACTUS Ensemble, Dark in the Song, The Color Field Ensemble, as well as traditional ensembles such as L’Orchestre de la Francophonie, The San Jose Chamber Orchestra, The Beau Soir Trio, The Orange County Symphony, The Toledo Symphony, the University of Michigan Symphonic Band and additional university ensembles across the United States. Upcoming collaborators include the Deviant Septet and pianist Solungga Liu. His work has been featured at new music festivals such as soundSCAPE (Italy), The Etchings Festival of Contemporary Music (France), The Queens New Music Festival, Florida State's Biennial Festival, Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, Tutti Festival of New Music, MusicX Festival and the New Music Festival at Bowling Green State University.
Residencies at Copland House, Canada’s Banff Centre and The Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France) have been important milestones in the development of Christopher's compositional voice. Recognition of his work has come from honors and awards including ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, The Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions and Composer Institute, The Riverside Symphony Composer Reading Project (NYC), The Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, Random Access Music, The Utah Arts Festival’s Orchestral Commission Prize as well as several academic awards, grants and scholarships. Christopher's music has been released on New Focus, Navona and Cambria Records.
Fantasmi (2005) for 2 Two Solo Alto Saxophones and Alto Saxophone Ensemble was premiered at Associazione Musicale Culturale Domenico Sarro, Palazzo Discanno, Trani, Italy on May 30, 2005 by saxophonists John Sampen and Jessica Simms, alto soloists, and Jeffrey Heisler, Nathan Mandel and Ryan Muncy, saxophone ensemble. It was written to celebrate the passage of family and friends (now among the ghosts). The chants Libera me and Subvenite from Missa pro defunctis serve as source material.
flash (2023)
Composed for Sngkn Kim and commissioned by Seoul National University New Music 2023, this piece questions the essence of the trombone: its mechanisms, spirit, and physical capacities. It challenges the traditional understanding of the trombone's components—its slide, mouthpiece, and metallic structure—by deconstructing these elements through the use of a plastic squeaker. While the squeaker’s sound may evoke a sense of levity, the work itself carries a serious property: What is the intention of composition? Why are we doing it? Perhaps, in its essence, we might simply label it as a "flash."
untitled II (2024) two spinning machines with live coding and electronics (10 - 15 minutes)
Further developed from the Spinning Machine (2023), an installation commissioned by Outernational (DE) and Hellerau Europäisches Zentrum der Künste (Dresden, DE) for the Dresdener Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik 2023, untitled II reimagines machines as human performers, possessing gestures, behaviors, metallic fleshness, and the ability to produce sounds. As a duo of performers (two machines), they spin in various positions, engaging in a conversation with each other. The two performers generate sounds through their physicality and spinning motion. The mechanical tube maximizes movement possibilities such as polarities, interruptions, distractions, parallel motions, and disorientation. The sounds are generated by amplification inside the spinning tube, capturing the swirling sound, air movements, and mechanical tension of the physical motor. The overall experience of the work aims to liberate the machine, imbuing it with a sense of freedom that appears "alive" through its mechanics and programming processes.
Dignity, a farce (2022)
Amy and Vincent, a couple in their early thirties, have just robbed the wealthy guests of a gala dinner being held for a children’s charity. Vincent is an unemployed college dropout from a rich local family. He sees the robbery as an act of protest against his class and an exciting new direction in his otherwise unfulfilled life. Amy comes from a very modest background yet her academic brilliance and perseverance have put her on track for greater things. Mired in debt, she currently works as an adjunct instructor of literature all the while aspiring to realize the boundless potential imbued upon her by her former teachers. To her, the robbery offers an opportunity to get out of debt and resume her career’s ascent. The scene begins as the pair return to their apartment with the loot. Being total novices at robbery, and felonies in general, they are unsurprisingly excited and nervous about what they have just done.
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Updated: 02/06/2024 08:12AM