TENOR Boston 2023
Performances

May 15-17, 2023

International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation

TENOR BOSTON 2023: Performances

(schedule may be subject to change)

Accepted Sonic Works / Music

Notifications went out directly to composers via e-mail on Monday, February 20, 2023. THANK YOU to all composers who submitted works to TENOR BOSTON 2023. There were many brilliant submissions, many more than we could accommodate in our conference. Special thanks to the SONIC WORKS / MUSIC COMMITTEE for their review. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact John Mallia <john.mallia@necmusic.edu>.

CONCERT #1

Monday, May 15, 2023, 5:00 pm

Longy School of Music of Bard College

Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall

27 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138

CONCERT #2

Monday, May 15, 2023; 8:00 pm

Longy School of Music of Bard College

Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall

27 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138

CONCERT #3

Tuesday, May 16, 2023; 5:00 pm

New England Conservatory 

Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre

255 St. Botolph St., Boston, MA 02115

CONCERT #4

Tuesday, May 16, 2023; 8:00 pm

New England Conservatory 

Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre

255 St. Botolph St., Boston, MA 02115

Guest Artists

New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang is building a new kind of music for mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice. Since their founding in 2008, they have been praised as ‘cultivated’ by The New Yorker, ‘an extra-cool new music group’ and ‘exhilarating’ by the Baltimore Sun, ‘inventive’ by the New York Times and called a ‘formidable new-music force‘ by TimeOutNY. Creating ‘a sonic world unlike any other‘ (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), their unique lung-powered instrumentation has provoked diverse responses from composers, resulting in a repertoire comprising an inclusive picture of composition today. In New York City, they have been recently presented by and performed at Miller Theater, Symphony Space, MATA, and by the Look and Listen Festival; on American tours at Da Camera of Houston, Rothko Chapel, and the Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State University; and internationally at Ostrava Days (Czech Republic), China-ASEAN Music Week (China), the Xinghai Conservatory of Music (China), Shanghai Symphony Hall (China), Visiones Sonoras Festival (Morelia, Mexico), and the Musikverein (Vienna, Austria). loadbang has premiered more than 450 works, written by members of the ensemble, emerging artists, and today’s leading composers. Their repertoire includes works by Pulitzer Prize winners David Lang and Charles Wuorinen; Rome Prize winners Andy Akiho and Paula Matthusen; and Guggenheim Fellows Chaya Czernowin, George Lewis, and Alex Mincek. They are the ensemble in residency at Cornell University through the Steven Stucky Memorial Residency for New Music, and through a partnership with the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston, they are on the performance faculty of Divergent Studio, a contemporary music festival for young performers and composers held each summer. 

Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based composer, bassist, bandleader, and producer. Called “one of the most imaginative figures on the Bay Area creative jazz scene” by The Mercury News and “a Bay Area treasure” by KQED public radio, she has been an active part of California’s vibrant music community for nearly 20 years. Mezzacappa’s activities as a composer and bandleader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, music for groups from duo to large ensemble, and collaborations with film, dance and visual art. 

Recent projects include Cosmicomics, a series of compositions inspired by Italo Calvino’s stories about the origins of the universe; avantNOIR, a suite for sextet rooted in noir fiction; Organelle, a chamber suite for improvisers grounded in scientific processes on micro and cosmic scales; Glorious Ravage, an evening-length song cycle for large ensemble and films drawn from the writings of Victorian lady adventurers; and Touch Bass, a collaboration with choreographer Risa Jaroslow for three dancers and three bassists. Current projects include the duo B. Experimental Band which performs original compositions for improvisers bimonthly in Oakland, CA; and premiering in 2020, The Electronic Lover, an opera podcast created in collaboration with writer Beth Lisick.

Mezzacappa has released her music on the New World, Clean Feed, NoBusiness, Leo, and NotTwo record labels, and her work has been supported on the national level by the MAP Fund, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund, and the Andy Warhol Foundation; and by Bay Area funders the Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and Intermusic SF. She has been artist-in-residence at the Cité International des Arts in Paris, Fr; Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Headlands Center for the Arts and the Banff International Jazz Workshop. She was a participant in the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, a program of American Composers Orchestra and the Jazz Studies Institute at Columbia University.

The music of composer, drummer, and percussionist Jason Levis lives in the rich spaces where styles intersect and musical languages merge. His broad artistic scope to includes jazz, contemporary improvisation, modern classical composition, and dub. His wide-ranging creative efforts are skillfully bound by his innate sense of timbre, sonic space, rhythmic force, and his insatiable interest in discovery. Over the years his passion and curiosity have led him to search out the intersections of musical paths less traveled, and the resulting unique perspective is reflected in his music. Levis has led and been a collaborator in numerous ensembles in the San Francisco Bay Area and Berlin, Germany. These include the chamber/jazz ensembles Jason Levis Trio and Jason Levis Septet; live dub ensemble Joseph’s Bones; the Berlin Boom Orchestra; the duo B. experimental band – a large ensemble for improvisers co-led by Lisa Mezzacappa; Italian cinema inspired group Citta di Vitti, Junior Reggae, and many more. Levis received his Ph.D. in composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He also studied with Richard Barrett and Fabien Lévy in Berlin, and Henry Threadgill during his residency at UC Berkeley. Levis is a Professor at the California Jazz Conservatory.