News
New Music New College cancelled by Interim New College President
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Jay Handelman
Friday, August 4, 2023
New College ends its contemporary New Music series after 24 years
New Music New College, which has offered an eclectic array of contemporary music that attracted a loyal audience of students, faculty and the Sarasota community, won’t make it to its 25th season as the school continues a transformation triggered by Gov. Ron DeSantis to become a more conservative college focusing classical studies.
Producer and Director Ron Silver, who has been involved since the program’s founding in 1998, said that after receiving initial approval to move forward for the 2023-24 season from Provost Brad Thieseen, Interim President Richard Corcoran ultimately decided to cancel the series.
“He has decided to cancel NMNC for this year to begin planning a new concert series for 2024-25” with a new hire in the school’s music department, Thiessen told Silver in an email. read more
New College Students Explore Passions, Build Skills Through Performance
SRQ Magazine
Guest Correspondence, By Patricia Okker, President of New College of Florida
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Performance is a vehicle for self-discovery and, at New College of Florida, the academic experience is the fuel.
Whether our students are interning at local symphonies or performing compositions in our on-campus concert series, there are countless opportunities here for artistic growth.
And we just happen to be located in Sarasota-Manatee—one of the most culturally vibrant areas in Florida—where students can intern at arts-and-humanities-based organizations and build career skills while fostering creativity.
One of my favorite examples of this artistic engagement is New Music New College (NMNC)—a program, founded by Professor Emeritus of Music Stephen Miles, that has involved New College students since its very first performance in 1998. This program not only allows students to showcase their original work, but it also gives them the opportunity to help produce the concerts in which they perform. read more
New Music New College’s New Artistic Director Takes Audiences on a Discovery of Exciting ‘New Sounds’
Sarasota Magazine
By Kay Kipling
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
“It’s a wild time to be planning a concert series,” Mark Dancigers admits.
When New Music New College founding artistic director Stephen Miles announced his impending retirement last January, it marked the end of an era for the 20-plus-year-old contemporary music series—and also a new beginning, under his successor, Mark Dancigers.
The 39-year-old Dancigers, an electric guitarist and composer with degrees from Yale and a Ph.D. from Princeton, may be new to this role, but he’s hardly “new” to the worlds of new music or of New College. He first became aware of the college’s music series when he performed here with the NOW Ensemble a decade ago. He was encouraged enough by that experience (“a great group of really enthusiastic students, a very receptive audience and an atmosphere of excitement,” he says), that, “When I saw there was an open position here in 2012, I thought I’d throw my hat in there.” He’s been teaching electronic music, digital media and composition here since, with a brief break spent in California.
“That was lovely,” he says, “but we found we really missed this particular place. We love heading to the beach in the evening when it’s cool and spending an hour letting the boys play in the water. It’s magical; once it gets in you, it stays.” read more
New Music series adapts to online programs
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Jay Handelman
Friday, August 28, 2020
New Music series adapts to online programs
When he was named artistic director of New Music New College in January and started planning his first season, Mark Dancigers had no idea that a pandemic would prevent the organization from presenting its adventurous live music programs.
But the music will continue in different ways this fall, and hopefully in person beginning in January.
Dancigers said the challenges posed by social distancing and the coronavirus have created unexpected opportunities to introduce the New Music series to a wider audience through online programs and discussions before everyone can gather together again. read more
New days for New Music New College
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Susan L. Rife
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Stephen Miles steps down after leading New College program for 21 years
“Invitation to experience” has been Stephen Miles’ guiding principle as he led New Music New College through 21 seasons of contemporary and cutting edge concerts at New College of Florida.
He retired at the end of the spring semester after 32 years at New College and handed control over to Mark Dancigers, a longtime collaborator who first came to New Music New College as a performer, joined the college’s faculty, and now will serve as director of the program as it enters its 22nd season.
Although the final concert of the 2019-2020 season, by the JACK Quartet, has been postponed indefinitely by the coronavirus outbreak, Miles and Dancigers anticipate that New Music will flourish somehow, some way, whether through live performance or through digital innovations. read more
New Music New College New Leadership!
NMNC Director Stephen Miles has announced that he will retire from the New College of Florida faculty after 32 years, and step down as NMNC's Director at the end of the 2019–2020 season. As Steve would say, But Wait—There's More! Mark Dancigers has agreed to take over the helm of NMNC. So this is a time of celebration and excitement for us!
Read more here
Music Review: Jen Shyu puts raw emotion into multi-faceted show
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By T. Michele Walker
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Jen Shyu, a singer, mulit-instrumentalist and dancer, performed ‘Nine Doors’ for the New Music New College series.
When Jen Shyu takes the stage, she’s a true force of nature. Her solo work, “Nine Doors,” which she presented Saturday for the New Music New College series, is a combination of American jazz, Taiwanese, European, Indonesian and Korean song, the bardic, long-form poetry of pansori, and shamanic ritual chant. Less musical concert and more complex theatrical performance art, it includes traditional Indonesian temple dance, eight languages, two goddesses, and a simple lunar stage set.
The inspiration for the piece is the 2014 car crash and subsequent death of Shyu’s friend Sri Joko Raharjo, a composer and shadow-puppet master, along with his wife and their infant son. The couple’s 6-year-old daughter, the lone survivor of the accident, is the central character. read more
Music Review: Yarn/Wire ensemble relishes silence
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By T. Michele Walker
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Yarn/Wire challenges you to listen to the silence. An odd and somewhat uncomfortable request, perhaps, coming from a group of musicians, but odd and uncomfortable is what they do best.
It’s the job of new, contemporary composers and music groups like Yarn/Wire to challenge the way we listen to and experience music. This music redefines concepts like time and sound and shows us that music is “a temporal phenomenon, audible time,” as defined by composer Klaus Lang.
Yarn/Wire asks us to ponder how we experience time. In the age of cell phones and our compulsive need to fill every moment of silence with some activity, this music wants to redefine the act of listening by sitting in silence. read more
Music Review: Ensemble Dal Niente leads a fascinating sonic journey
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Sunday, January 27, 2019
New Music New College is in its 20th season of stretching our ears and has never failed to make me question, “What is this?” and “What does it mean to me?” Saturday night’s performance by the acclaimed Chicago contemporary music ensemble Ensemble Dal Niente was a compact sonic voyage of never-ending fascination.
Making the experience all the richer, a pre-concert conversation between New Music New College Director Stephen Miles and featured guest composer George Lewis prompted us to adopt the role of improvisational listener. This advice certainly does take the heat off one trying to listen “perfectly” and find the real meaning of anything. Taking the sounds as they came, I settled into enjoying what came to my ears and piqued my interest.
Lewis, a historian, philosopher, performer and composer, projects a sense of academic gravitas. In describing his first composition on the program, “The Mangle of Practice” (2014) for violin and piano, he pointed to the mangle or wringer of an antique washing machine as a metaphor for the push-pull dynamic of resistance and accommodation. Violinist Minghuan Xu Choi maintained a gritty resistance interspersed with tight glissandi. Her detuned lower string afforded the production of squeaky-toy bobbles that made me smile. Meanwhile, pianist Winston Choi had an energetic go both on the keyboards and in the strings of the piano both plucking and strumming. I hardly knew what to listen to next, and it kept me on my toes. read more
Music Review: Rain sounds inspire impressive New Music concert
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, November 11, 2018
In its “Inter/Action” concert Saturday night, New Music New College once again led the Sarasota music scene into welcome new territory.
Already well-known and welcome for its devotion to bringing more contemporary music to our rich-but-mostly-traditional musical climate, Artistic Director Stephen Miles and producer Ron Silver led a large and mature audience through new sounds created by the compositional gifts of New College faculty member Mark Dancigers. He employed the impressive skills of both professional musicians and New College students to realize his musical aims.
Taking full advantage of technical support in both the audio and visual requirements of this program, Dancigers delivered an ambitious concert ranging from violinist Samantha Bennett’s energetic presentation of “Skyline,” with electronic processing supporting her excellent live presentation of the solo score, to trombonist Brad Williams using his instrument to punctuate the fixed electronics in “Everything Happens for the First Time.” read more
NMNC at Social Theory of Politics & The Arts Conference 2018
Director Stephen Miles and Producer R. L. Silver attended The Social Theory of Politics & The Arts Conference in Manchester, UK at the beginning of November. Miles presented on Engaging New music Audiences through Reflexivity and Dialog, focusing on NMNC's Artist Conversations, and also led a workshop/performance of his composition Pitch Chess. Silver led a workshop/performance of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning, Paragraph 7.
Music Review: Dither gives a sense of future sounds in New Music concert
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, April 22, 2018
A large and diverse audience was given the opportunity to hear and digest music at the cutting edge of contemporary trends in the art Saturday evening when a quartet of young electric guitar players and composers rocked the Mildred Sainer Pavilion at New College with a barrage of edgy sounds.
To be sure, some of the compositions heard were not to everyone’s taste but, as is frequently the case in this concert series, many of those seen jiving in their seats were, um, the more mature attendees.
Many of the compositions had been written by the performers, so it must be assumed that what we heard — however unfamiliar — were definitive renditions of the music, both written and improvised, beginning with Lisa Renee Coons’s “Cross-sections: Entropion,” which was featured on Dither’s 2010 debut album. This is an aggressive piece, full of abrupt transitions and massive in its impact. read more
Music Review: Improvised concert proves another first for New Music New College
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, January 21, 2018
On Saturday evening, New Music New College once again gave a large and attentive audience an entirely new experience, presenting a concert that was entirely improvised.
Such a risky enterprise, precisely the sort of challenge we might expect from this adventurous concert series, was both stimulating and somewhat restricted by the extent to which even these highly qualified and experienced musicians could anticipate the musical gestures presented by their colleagues.
Pianist Marilyn Lerner, bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Lou Grassi played a mostly boisterous program without hesitation, responding to the improvisations of their colleagues with impressive aplomb, even when sounds infrequently produced by their instruments were dominant, including plucking of the piano strings and percussive employment of the bass casing. read more
Music Review: New Music explores the body and sound in concert
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Saturday, November 18, 2017
A bare-chested Stephen Miles sat in white drawstring pants with naked feet forward on the stage, his hands over his face, before he progressed through a series of head slaps, scalp rubs, and consonants hurled at the New Music New College audience in a brave performance of Vinko Globokar’s ”?Corporel” (1985), which was more theater than music. The grimaces and stares of the NMNC director/performer were key elements along with the myriad sounds he drew from his body.
New Music New College never fails to spur its audiences to think deeper and think again. Friday’s “Dis/Embodied” program had us pondering aplenty as talented performers and creators from within the college community explored the use of the human body for movement and visual expression as well as vocal and percussive sound.
Contemporary dance choreography shared the limelight with experimental music and new works by student composers. Jacob Wentz, Laila Kalantari, and Zachary Cole composed a trio of project compositions that served as the engine behind the collaborative choreography and movement of five dancers: Jim DePriest, Laila Kalantari, Allie Stachura, Lily Tanner, and Eugenia Titterington. Faculty choreographer Leymos Bolaños Willmott structured a framework for what appeared to be improvisational style dance which was nothing if not intriguing. read more
New Music At New College Offers Conversation About Contemporary Music
WUSF 89.7
By Tyler Kline
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
For nearly two decades, the New Music New College series has been holding contemporary music concerts in Sarasota. It’s featured works from artists ranging from John Cage and John Luther Adams, to pieces composed by New College students.
Series director Stephen Miles said the goal is to foster “a conversation about contemporary music and performance” between the artists and the audience. And it’s distinct from what classical music fans might see in a performance from the Sarasota Orchestra or the Florida Orchestra.
“All organizations are in one sense engaged in some kind of educational programming. But for New Music New College this is especially important because the music we present is often questioning what music is itself,” Miles said. “And so we do want to investigate that. But it’s important that we do that with audiences as a conversation.” read more and listen to the radio interview
New Music New College concert series explores new musical territory
YourObserver.com
By Marty Fugate
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Stephen Miles and Ron Silver, the driving forces behind the New Music New College concert series, say they’re not satisfied with giving Sarasota music audiences a taste of something new.
They want to serve a whole feast.
Silver says the series grew out of a challenge. In 1998, the Ringling showcased a Joseph Beuys exhibition. That experimental German artist had a connection with John Cage, the experimental American composer. The museum tapped New College’s music program to explore that connection. Miles, a music professor, gladly accepted the challenge. read more
A bucket list of possibilities in ‘Dis/Embodied’
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Susan Rife
Saturday, November 11, 2017
The score for Roger Marsh’s “Dum,” “a vocal theater piece for one performer,” includes citations for texts by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Christina Rossetti, John Donne, Dante and Rupert Brooke, and “also, throughout, the Lord’s Prayer.” There’s also a diagram of the performer’s setup, on an 8-by-4-foot platform with a bucket on a stool, a chair, a lectern, a second bucket and a tam tam.
Among the props are “a saucepan lid wth a good ringing quality,” a small “tinkly” bell to be attached to one of the buckets by a string, and the contents of one bucket: “heavy metal objects, e.g. short lengths of iron piping.”
The score’s directions include “cover eyes,” “uncover eyes” and stage whisper, gutterals, fast-panting and exhalations read more
Music Review: Modern music hits the spot in Amernet String Quartet concert
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Important works from either end of the “modern” movement were received with great enthusiasm Saturday evening at the intimate concert hall of New College when the Amernet String Quartet presented strong performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s iconic String Quartet No. 2 (completed in1908) and Toshio Hosokawa’s (born in 1955) “Kalligraphie: 6 Pieces for Quartet”.
Schoenberg’s quartet is an intriguing mélange of tonally familiar techniques and the first steps into what would become atonal music. The change, leading to the final two movements for string quartet and mezzo-soprano, mark the beginning of a ground-breaking trend toward the abandonment of traditional devices in expressing passionate conviction about issues of life and death.
The result, as experienced in this gripping composition, is heard best in the last two movements, when the rich tone of soprano Rachel Calloway’s voice conveyed the message of Stefan George’s poems, “Litany” and “Transport” -- music is changing and we are invited to join the journey. read more
NMNC at New Music Gathering 2017
Director Stephen Miles and Producer R. L. Silver attended New Music Gathering for the second year in a row, and opened the gathering by leading a group participatory performance of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning, Paragraph 7, with more than fifty participants. Hosted this year (May 11–13) by Bowling Green State University in Ohio, NMG is an informal conference for composers, performers, presenters, and anyone else interested in new music.
In addition to the Cardew, Miles and Silver were on a panel they organized called “A Three-Way Street: Support as a Mutually Beneficial Endeavor in New Music Presentation” along with pianist Kathleen Supové, composer Evan Williams, and superfans Arlene and Larry Dunn. The panel room was filled to capacity, and there were many follow-up questions and comments.
Music Review: New Music New College presents world premiere of Previte’s “Rhapsody (Terminals Part II: In Transit)”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Saturday, April 22, 2017
In what may prove to be a landmark event, New Music New College presented the world premiere of Bobby Previte’s “Rhapsody (Terminals Part II: In Transit)” at the Mildred Sainer Pavilion on the New College of Florida campus before a near-capacity and highly enthusiastic audience on Friday evening. The concert was the result of Previte winning the 2015 Greenfield Prize, which provides a $30,000 commission to be completed within two years and presented by a Sarasota area arts organization.
Composer Previte, playing percussion as well as guitar, autoharp and harmonica, and joined by guitarist Nels Cline, John Medeski, piano; Greg Osby, alto saxophone; Zeena Parkins, harp; Jen Shyu -- voice, traditional Chinese string instrument er hu, percussion and piano, delivered a remarkably energetic and compelling performance. Especially notable were the contributions of Ms. Shyu.
Their skill and unflagging energy proved to be essential to the performance of this challenging composition, focusing on a sometimes obscure scenario: a recreation of the experience of being “in transit” in life. Many of us have experienced the pervasive combination of both the excitement of discovery and the lack of traditional roots as we move forward in our lives and careers, but have seldom heard this sensation expressed publicly and so expertly as in this intense performance. read more
Music Review: Contemporary music series lives up to its title
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, January 22, 2017
The adventurous and challenging concert series directed by Stephen Miles and produced by Ron Silver at New College has never shied away from in-your-face programs, at times shaking up a willing and curious audience.
That mission was certainly evident Saturday evening, when the 15 musicians who make up the adventurous and challenging ensemble mise-en presented three examples of compositions created in the last 30 years.
The centerpiece of the program was the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, completed in 1988 by Gyorgy Ligeti. This is a massive composition, using five movements to make its points about harmony and rhythm, aiming toward a complexity that makes customary evaluations of its contents almost irrelevant. read more
Videos of Pierrot Lunaire I Care If You Listen
Video of Da Capo Chamber Players and Lucy Shelton performing Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire at our November, 2016 concert in Club Sudakoff is now available at I Care If You Listen's video site.
Music Review: Da Capo ensemble leads fun adventure in new music
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Sure, I enjoy classical music concerts, and even more so new classical music. Yet, rarely have I felt such much giddy elation as I had when leaving the New Music New College event featuring Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.
The venerable new music advocates of the Da Capo Chamber Ensemble presented a neatly packaged theme program focused on the night and the moon with the ground-breaking 1912 Pierrot Lunaire for voice and small chamber ensemble. Setting aside all the reasons why this work was every bit as revolutionary as Rite of Spring, if not more so, we were there to simply absorb a delightfully fresh piece of chamber melodrama.
The chamber ensemble calls for flute (Patricia Spencer), clarinet (Meighan Stoops), violin (Curtis Macomber), cello (Chris Goss), piano (Steven Beck), and soprano (Lucy Shelton). The text, translated from the original poetry by Albert Giraud, is in German and centers on the moonstruck Commedia dell’ Arte character Pierrot. Shelton did not sing, as we might expect, but used Sprechstimme as noted in the score. The text is not so much sung as declaimed in an exaggerated speaking voice to set rhythms, shapes and percussive effects. The spoken word is not sustained on a pitch, but drops off and decays more naturally. It’s a unique effect that immediately evokes the early 20th century German cabaret scene. read more
Stephen Miles gives a presentation about NMNC practices
Director Stephen Miles gave a presentation at the Conference on Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts in Montreal in October, 2016 entitled "Hypermodernity and the Re-framing of Musical Performance." He discussed how NMNC has adopted a number of strategies that are intended to heighten the audience’s awareness of their contribution to a performance and promote an exchange with the performers.
Music Review: A welcome dose of the contemporary
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, October 2, 2016
The frequently-heard laments about a dearth of contemporary music in our town may be coming to an end. In recent days we have been treated to programs in the Sarasota Orchestra's chamber music series that included challenging music of recent vintage, well played by the orchestra's leading musicians.
Now, New Music New College has initiated its new season with a concert that will not soon be forgotten, devoted to music composed during the past forty years, a fitting continuation of the commitment of the college to our future arts heritage.
Leading off with Lainie Fefferman's 2015 "Impostor Syndrome," the trio tackled a very demanding score with a strongly political recorded narration and background sound concerning our political climate, employing an impressive array of sound effects around and within the convoluted musical score. The result, as is often the case with music of our time, seemed focused more on the sound effects than musical texture and melodic development. read more
New Music New College adjusts approach to performance
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Dahlia Ghabour
Saturday, September 24, 2016
It’s a good indication that another New Music New College season is underway when the ugly, sterile Sudakoff Conference Center, usually used for student orientations, is transformed into a club.
In Club Sudakoff, harsh, fluorescent lights are turned off and replaced with colored spotlights that bounce off the ceiling. Round tables thrown with dark tablecloths and LED candles hug the stage. In the intimate atmosphere of the club, audiences can see fellow patrons across round tables. Conversation is easier, and so is opening ears to something new.
“There are conventions to the concert as an institution that are really worth examining,” said Stephen Miles, artistic director of New Music New College. “Sometimes a recital hall is exactly the type of place you want for a piece of music and other times it’s not. We locate performances in certain spaces and use that space to heighten the experience for the audience. This, to us, seems totally logical now.” read more
NMNC's largest grant ever!
New Music New College was awarded over $51,000, the largest grant we have ever received, in a Sarasota County Tourist Development Cultural/Arts Grant. This program, a competitive grant funded by Tourist Development Tax Revenues, will support the visiting artists in our 2016–2017 season.
NMNC awarded yet another Florida state grant!
For the third year in a row, the Florida Department of State/Division of Cultural Affairs has awarded New Music New College a Specific Cultural Project Grant of $25,000. This was a competitive grant process, and the money will support NMNC’s 2016–2017 season of programming.
Stephen Miles joins the American Composers Forum
NMNC is proud to announce that Director Stephen Miles will become a member of the board of the American Composers Forum starting in July of 2016!
Music Review: Dazzling rhythm in percussion concert
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Anyone who hesitates to attend concerts of “new music” fearing they’ll be an intellectual chore, have not attended a New Music New College event. Third Coast Percussion, a band of four seemingly fun-loving masters of the percussive musical arts (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore), has been energizing audiences all over the globe. At Saturday night’s performance in the cabaret setting of Club Sudakoff and with John Corkill standing in, they dazzled and delighted.
The beauty of percussion is that music is made by tapping, rapping, or striking almost anything in any way. It is also something that is inherently playful. Who among us pounded on some sort of drum, bucket, or can sometime in our youth?
Right. Everyone. What fun it was to watch three artists using only their bare hands on a table with a contact microphone produce a mesmerizing display of sound and hand choreography. Tapping, snapping, rapping, and stroking, their fingers, palms, and knuckles created a wider range of sounds than one could imagine in the inventive “Table Music” (1987) by Thierry De Mey. read more
Interview with Stephen Miles and R. L. Silver at I Care If You Listen
Read an interview, complete with photos and a video, of NMNC's Director and Producer where they discuss several aspects of what makes New Music New College unique at the new-music blog I Care If You Listen.
REVIEW: The ancient selfie
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Carrie Seidman
Monday, February 15, 2016
In a commentary delivered by Stephen Miles prior to the performance of Eliza Ladd’s “Selfie of the Ancients,” the director of New Music New College described the work of Ladd, the dance/movement coach at the Asolo Conversatory, as “a sort of haiku of live theater” and “a contemporary theatrical form of Zen art practice.”
I’m not sure either label rang true for me. Ladd’s unusual combination of sound and movements created by the human body with or without the use of a variety of objects – a form she calls “Live Sound Action -- seemed neither as stark and compact as a haiku, nor as unattached and pacific as Zen. In fact, rather than looking to the East, I was sent to the past. Way back. Think “cave man.”
“Selfie of the Ancients” -- the title is a tongue-in-cheek poke at today’s obsession with shared cell phone photos – appeared to honor a primitive and unedited sense of tribal connection beyond language, technology or societal structure. Working with four New College students as part of their required January independent study project, Ladd used a variety of catalysts -- from American Sign Language, Shakespearean text and the echolocation of dolphins – to trigger fundamental responses in movement and sound. (Edward Cosla, the sound designer used microphones at the edge of the black box theater to amplify all the effects.) read more
Videos of NMNC concerts at I Care If You Listen
A number of videos of our concerts or portions of our concerts are now available at I Care If You Listen's video site. More will be added over time.
Video of entire Miya Masaoka concert on line!
For the first time an entire NMNC concert is available as a YouTube video: Composer and performer Miya Masaoka graciously gave us permission to upload the video of her entire November 14, 2015 concert. View it here!
CONCERT REVIEW: MIYA MASAOKA: A LINE BECOMES A CIRCLE
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Once again, the new music concert series at New College has challenged our long-held beliefs, both in what we consider to be music and how it is a part of our ever more complicated lives.
In her program heard Saturday evening, Miya Masaoka, a classically-trained and highly-respected musician, shared with us her astonishing exploration of the relationships which link the tonal resources of both our present civilization and the compelling traditions of Japanese music as expressed in the sound of the koto, a traditional mix of both string and percussion techniques, combined with the impressive electronic resources now available to someone of her talent.
As expressed in his introduction by Stephen Miles, director of New Music New College, the evolution of musical language is ongoing, and our modern repertoire is often radically different from what we have heard until now, bringing us both freedom and a challenging new truth in musical art. read more
NMNC in the New York Times!
This article in the New York Times about extended techniques features a video of Ekmeles from their concert here in April of 2015.
New Projects pages
Check out our new Projects page to find out more about some of the long-term aspects of music we focus on. You'll find five more pages there devoted to the John Cage Song Books, Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning, extended techniques and vocal music, our Crossroads concerts, and the concept of forming social spaces through composition and performance.
NMNC at New Music Gathering!
NMNC Director Stephen Miles and Producer R. L. Silver will be participating in a panel at the 2016 New Music Gathering at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University discussing Making New New Music Communities!
NMNC awarded another Florida state grant!
For the second year in a row, the Florida Department of State/Division of Cultural Affairs has awarded New Music New College a Specific Cultural Project Grant of $25,000. This will support NMNC’s 2015–2016 season of programming. This was a competitive grant process, and our application was scored worthy of funding back in September of 2014; once the state budget was signed and funding for the grant line approved our grant was made official.
NMNC awarded a grant from the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County!
New Music New College was awarded more than $19,000 by the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County to support our visiting artists for the upcoming 2015–2016 Season! These competitive Tourist Development Cultural/Arts Grants are scored by the ACA’s Grants Policy Committee which then makes recommendations to the Tourist Development Council and finally to the Board of County Commissioners. The program is paid for by Tourist Development Taxes.
CONCERT REVIEW: Another musical challenge from New College lands in Sarasota
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, April 26, 2015
During the 15 years since it began, New Music New College has stuck assiduously to its mission: To bring the best and most challenging contemporary music to local audiences. Under the direction of its founder-director, Stephen Miles, the series has been impressive, challenging and, sometimes, irritating.
The final concert of the 2014-2015 season was mind-bending, to say the least, bringing the impressive talents of eight young singers based in New York to the stage of the Sainer Pavilion for a program of music written since 1958 in which the human voice is displayed as an immensely complex musical instrument.
Their ensemble, Ekmeles, takes its name from an ancient Greek music theory in which unusual tones were disallowed. Turning this edict on its head, the highly skilled vocalists employed both clashing tonalities and sound effects generated by their vocal skills. As Miles explained in his impressive and genial introduction, the composers responsible for this music often prepared detailed descriptions of the technical requirements involved, including precise instructions on the shape of the mouth and other aspects of their works. The results do not often sound like any vocals we may have heard in other examples of contemporary music. read more
Music Review: Pianist creates thrilling opening to New Music series
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Unless you exist on a steady diet of contemporary and experimental new music, you’ve probably never heard piano quite the way Blair McMillan presented it Saturday night in the opening concert of the New Music New College season.
A pianist with a resume filled with serious credentials and phrases such as New York Philharmonic and Naumberg Award, McMillen brings a high level of polish and credibility to what the non-initiated still consider “that blasted new music.” read more
NMNC awarded its first Florida state grant!
For the first time, New Music New College was awarded a grant from the Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs. NMNC received $25,000 as a Specific Cultural project Grant to support its 2014–2015 season.
CONCERT REVIEW: New Music showcase bursts with energy
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, November 17, 2013
A full house rocked with enthusiasm Saturday evening when Sarasota-based composer Francis Schwartz and his musical colleagues presented a concert of music of our time, including several Sarasota firsts and one world premiere.
In his witty introductory remarks, Schwartz was careful to emphasize that we each should feel free to form opinions about the music, something that would ideally be true at every concert if it were not for persistent snobbery and societal pressure. Since almost everyone in the room was hearing this repertoire for the first time, there were no residual effects of “good taste” or educational pressure. Truth be told, some of the compositions were more successful than others. Also true: they were all worth listening to and, occasionally, participating in. read more
MUSIC REVIEW: New Music series continues to inspire thought
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Saturday, September 21, 2013
New Music New College continues to deepen the conversation about new music in our community. The program’s 15th season opened with the Brooklyn-based NOW Ensemble returning after its acclaimed performance in 2009.
The five musicians — Alexandra Sopp, flute; Agnes Marchione, clarinet; Logan Coale, double bass; Mark Dancigers, electric guitar; and Aaron Wunsch, piano — performed in all six works, revealing remarkable powers of concentration and endurance. read more
CONCERT REVIEW: Advance notice can't compete with live performance of Toby Twining Music
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Sunday, April 21, 2013
It didn’t matter that I had heard the buzz, read previous reviews and listened to YouTube videos, I was not ready for the emotional impact of hearing Toby Twining Music in a live performance. Thanks to New College New Music everyone in Sainer Pavilion experienced the extraordinary range of vocal capabilities that the innovative composer Toby Twining employs in his music.
The focal point of the program was the incidental music Twining created for the 2008 production of Sarah Ruhl’s critically acclaimed play, “Eurydice” at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater. This is a fantastical take on the Greek myth of Orpheus told from Eurydice’s perspective. Twining’s score painted the aural set and scenery using sounds, vocal techniques, harmonies, but only a rare intelligible word. read more
Composer/pianist/therapist to improvise a concert
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Susan Rife
Friday, January 11, 2013
Canadian pianist Marilyn Lerner's bio reveals a number of intriguing details: Not only is she interested in 20th-century concert music, jazz, creative improvisation and klezmer, but she also is a practicing psychotherapist.
She'll be discussing the intersection of music and therapy, particularly object relations psychology, in an open-to-the-public Artist Discussion on Friday as part of New Music New College's 2012-2013 season, as well as a discussion of "Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Jazz" with the New College Gender Studies Program on Friday morning that is open only to New College students, faculty and staff. read more
NMNC presence at the Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts
NMNC Director Stephen Miles and NMNC and NCF alumni Chrissy Martin, Caitlin McMullen, and Dylan Bobek presented a panel, "Boundaries and Space: Experimental Music and the Framing of Social Experience," at the recent Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge).
Miles led the panel and gave a paper that had been co-authored with Margaret Eginton, "The Potential Space of the Gettysburg Project." Martin (Muscle Memory Dance Troupe, Dallas) and McMullen (Fuzion Dance Artists) presented "Improvisation, Collaboration, Reflexivity: A New Model for Performance." Finally, Bobek presented "In Site Out: Making Room for the Spectator." The panel was presented on Saturday, October 20, and the conference was truly international in scope, with presenters from Australia, Hungary, Portugal, China, Singapore, Russia, and Canada.
REVIEW: Third Coast Percussion electrifies New Music New College
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Gayle Williams
Monday, September 24, 2012
One might be surprised to see a Sarasota audience give a standing ovation for a performance of music by John Cage and Steve Reich. However, since the birth of New Music New College under the leadership of Stephen Miles, this series of concerts and events has become a shining beacon for new and experimental music attracting an ever-growing audience.
Not that either Cage or Reich are new, really. In fact, for new music fans, they’re the Bach and Beethoven of their genre. The centenary of John Cage’s birth is being celebrated this year across the globe. In honor of this event, Third Coast Percussion featured three of Cage’s compositions from the years 1940–42.
This crew of four percussionists from Chicago—Owen Clayton Condon, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore—with a veritable candy store battery of percussion, sizzled with the rhythmic energy of innumerable provocative sounds. Cage composed his “Second Construction” and “Third Construction,” where the use of prepared piano seemed to throw the whole world of sound up for grabs, yet still set it all in a score. Cage was the first to “prepare” the piano strings, throw a screw in, add paper and use a mallet, in “Second Construction.” “Third Construction” adds tin cans, a conch shell and a modified drum. Today drumming on garbage cans, rails and whatnot is commonplace, but the mastery of the entire array of sound by both the composers and the percussionists on stage was simply astounding. read more
NMNC gets a TDC Grant—again!
For the second year in a row New Music New College was awarded a Sarasota County Tourist Development Cultural/Arts Grant. This year we got over $22,600, more than a 60% increase over the grant we were awarded last year! These grants are reviewed by the Sarasota Arts Council and approved by county commissioners.
MUSIC REVIEW: ‘Timber’ is a percussive surprise
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Richard Storm
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Stephen Miles, Director of NewMusicNewCollege, has never promised less than an adventure to those who attend this fascinating series. The audience in the candle-lit shadows of “Club Sudakoff” Saturday evening was taken on a remarkable journey to previously unfamiliar musical territory, more than fulfilling Miles’ promise.
Mantra Percussion, a New York based ensemble made up of six highly talented and highly disciplined percussionists (Michael McCurdy, Joe Bergen, Al Cerulo, Chris Graham, Jude Traxler and Nick Woodbury) performed a lengthy (perhaps somewhat too long) work by Michael Gordon that was more an experience than a concert.
We found ourselves moving in space and time in extraordinary ways, hearing highly unusual timbres and seeing explosions of light that seemed to come from another world as the musicians, listening on ear-buds and following the complex score on computer screens, manipulated amplifiers to create differing pitches and overtones to match an underlying rhythmic and tonal base. read more
Wooden you like to hear some music?
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Walker Meade
Friday, April 13, 2012
Perhaps the best way to tell you about music unlike anything you’ve ever heard is to talk with a man who plays it. The piece he and five other Mantra Percussionists will play here Saturday night is called “Timber” and its composer is the innovative, renowned Michael Gordon.
Gordon’s music has been presented at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Royal Albert Hall and many other edgy European venues. He has often worked with dance companies including the Royal Ballet and has written for the Kronos Quartet as well. So he’s got game. The piece is being presented in Sarasota as the culmination of the 2011-2012 New Music New College season. read more
NMNC DVDs now available in the New College Library
Breaking news: New College’s Jane Bancroft Cook Library has DVDs of several NMNC concerts—Miranda Cuckson, the Borup-Ernst Duo, Crossroads 3, Andrew McKenna Lee/Michael McCurdy, Darrett Adkins, Crossroads 2, and a sampler with excerpts from nine programs—you can borrow. They are in the Popular Media circulating collection (ask a helpful member of the Library staff where this is). Catch a concert you missed, or re-experience one you enjoyed!
Experience the creative process
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Carrie Seidman
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Composer Stephen Miles and choreographer Margaret Eginton are careful not to describe the “New Experimental Works” they will present at New Music New College this week as a “performance.”
“It’s really a sharing of research, not even a presentation,” says Eginton, an adjunct professor who has taught dance, theater arts and theater composition at the school for the past decade. “It’s research that uses sound and movement to explore relationship.”
This most recent collaboration between Eginton and Miles, a New College music professor and vice-president for academic affairs, is an outgrowth of a piece their students presented in 2009, called “Living and Dead: The Gettysburg Project.” read more
Violinist champions ‘new music’
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
By Susan Rife
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Audiences for modern classical music are likely self-selecting in appreciating the experience over the entertainment value. Violinist Miranda Cuckson supports and encourages that point of view.
“I’m presenting people with something to think about, to experience things that are new,” she said. “It’s about more than just entertainment. It’s about an experience and about thinking new.”
Cuckson will open New College of Florida’s 13th season of cutting-edge music, New Music New College, with a performance titled “Past, Present, Future” on Sept. 24. read more
CULTURE CITY: Avant Music
SRQ
By Ashton Goggans
Monday, September 12, 2011
For the past 13 years, New College of Florida Professor Stephen Miles has been pushing the limits of what it means to experience live, classical music with New Music New College. A main concern for Miles and New Music New College has been to reconsider how contemporary classical music is presented to audiences, what environment would serve certain compositions better than traditional ones and how to remove the distance between audiences and the music with which they engage.
“One of the problems contemporary music has faced,” says Miles, “is that it’s performed in the same spaces that were designed for the performance of Beethoven. And that’s great, if you want some distance between the audience and the work. But if you put John Cage on a stage, people might feel alienated. They might not understand it.”
One of New Music New College’s first productions was of Cage’s work, performed by New College students inside The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art’s galleries. Audience members as well as performers moved through the rooms, free to, as Miles says, “shape their own experience.” By providing the audience with a sense of agency, they are liberated from the constraints of traditional classical performances, free to follow a performer or drift from piece to piece. read more
