Bienen School hosts sixth biennial new music conference April 25-27

• Composers include George Lewis and Bec Plexus
• Performers include International Contemporary Ensemble
•  Performances include music of George Lewis, Bec Plexus, Björk, Mason Bates

EVANSTON, Ill. – The Institute for New Music at Northwestern University’s Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music hosts its biennial Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC! 6) from Friday, April 25 through Sunday, April 27. One of the leading new music conferences in the world, the event welcomes composers, performing musicians, scholars and other new music advocates for workshops, panel discussions and concerts.  

“I think [this year’s] conference has become even more expansive and diverse in a number of different ways: aesthetically, demographically, technologically,” says Institute for New Music director Alex Mincek.  

“I’m especially happy that our Symphonic Wind Ensemble will be a part of the conference for the first time,” Mincek added. “I’m thrilled that the International Contemporary Ensemble, in addition to their own featured concert, will play alongside our students during the Contemporary Music Ensemble concert, which will also include students from Jazz Studies for the first time.” 

All events take place on Northwestern’s Evanston campus and are open to the public, and most are free. Tickets to performances with an admission charge are available from the Bienen School Ticket Office at 847-467-4000 or music.northwestern.edu/nunc6. 

Symphonic Wind Ensemble
Friday, April 25, 7:30 p.m.
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive 
Tickets are $8; $5 for full-time students with valid ID. 

Led by Bienen Director of Bands Robert Taylor and doctoral assistant conductor Sheldon Frazier, the ensemble opens the conference with a program featuring Björk’s “Dancer in the Dark” Overture from the 2000 film; Cindy McTee’s “Soundings”; George Lewis’s ode to Chicago, “Big Shoulders, Sharp Elbows”; Christopher Stark’s “Velocity Meadows” for oboe, chamber winds, electronics and video; and Mason Bates’ dance music-inspired “Mothership.” 

Guest Presentations 
Saturday, April 26, 9:30 a.m. 
McClintock Choral and Recital Room, 70 Arts Circle Drive 
Free admission 

Presentations by Tina Tallon (The Ohio State University), Teerath Majumder (Columbia College Chicago), Anna Heflin (University of Southern California) and Sasha Ishov (University of California San Diego). 

Saxophone Concert 
Saturday, April 26, noon
Ryan Opera Theater, 70 Arts Circle Drive
Free admission 

The Bienen saxophone studio, under the direction of Taimur Sullivan, performs selected works by Yotam Haber, Joanne Na, Benjamin Martin, Tina Tallon, Max Eidinoff and Timothy Kramer. 

Composer-Performer Presentation: Bec Plexus 
Saturday, April 26, 2 p.m.
McClintock Choral and Recital Room, 70 Arts Circle Drive
Free admission 

Amsterdam-based composer, vocalist and producer Bec Plexus discusses her work. Plexus founded rock band Jerboah, created art installation the Facechord Factory and co-founded the concert and video series EARSessions. 

Keynote Speaker: Kirsten Speyer Carithers 
Saturday, April 26, 4 p.m. 
McClintock Choral and Recital Room, 70 Arts Circle Drive
Free admission 

Assistant professor of music history at the University of Louisville, Kirsten Speyer Carithers (PhD ’17) specializes in music of the 20th and 21th centuries, exploring the intersections between music and labor across a spectrum of performance practices. 

Contemporary Music Ensemble 
Saturday, April 26, 7:30 p.m. 
Galvin Recital Hall, 70 Arts Circle Drive 
Tickets are $8; $5 for full-time students with valid ID. 

Led by Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter, the ensemble is joined by Bec Plexus, members of the International Contemporary Ensemble and Bienen jazz studies students. Their performance features three selections by Bec Plexus: “Letter to a Tardigrade” for voice and chamber ensemble; the song cycle “Whose arm is that?”; and “Mirror Image.” Also on the program are George Lewis’ “The Deformation of Mastery” — a work devoted to, in the composer’s words, “not only a…discouragement of complacency, but also a celebration of mobility” — and Anthony Braxton’s “Ghost Trance Music.” Braxton’s work is inspired by the Native American ritual of a circle dance, or ghost dance; in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, displaced tribes would assemble for this dance to invoke the spirit of their ancestors.  

Composer Presentation: George Lewis 
Sunday, April 27, 10 a.m. 
McClintock Choral and Recital Room, 70 Arts Circle Drive 
Free admission 

Composer, musicologist and trombonist George Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music and Area Chair in Composition at Columbia University. He currently serves as artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. Lewis is the recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award, a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A Yamaha Artist, he is widely regarded as a pioneer in the creation of computer programs that improvise in concert with human musicians. 

 Arboretum Duo 
Sunday, April 27, Noon 
Regenstein Master Class Room, 60 Arts Circle Drive 
Free admission
Clarinetist Zachary Good and bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward perform their work “Arb.” 

Guest Performances 
Sunday, April 27, 1:30 p.m. 
Galvin Recital Hall, 70 Arts Circle Drive
Free admission 

Selected performers include the Varo String Quartet, Sasha Ishov, Niayesh Javaheri, Duo Aequalis, the Decho Ensemble and Beyond This Point. 

Electroacoustic Performances 
Sunday, April 27, 4:30 p.m. 
Ryan Opera Theater, 70 Arts Circle Drive 
Free admission 

Selections by Heroic Dose, Ipek Eginli, Mohammad H. Javaheri and Francisco Javier Trabalón Ruiz, Jack Hamill, Jyun-Rong Ho and Ben Zucker.  

International Contemporary Ensemble 
Sunday, April 27, 7:30 p.m. 
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive 
Tickets are $20; $5 for full-time students with valid ID. 

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble is a collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers and educators dedicated to reimagining contemporary music performance. The ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works and is the recipient of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, as well as Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year Award. The ensemble closes the conference with a performance featuring Carlos Bandera’s “Spirare IV,” Luis Miguel Delgado Grande’s “Remains of a portrait,” Bahar Royaee’s “a hair on the skin of the water on the lake” and Jee Won Kim’s “Whisperweave.”