PHILADELPHIA MUSIC PROJECT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Crossing Cultures: New Frontiers in Violin Performance and Compositionwith Lewis Kahn, Diane Monroe, Anuradha Sridhar, Nick Didkovsky, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Huang Ruo

Registration Deadline: Friday, August 5, 2011To register for one or both panels, please call PMP at 267.350.4960 or e-mail Lucy Warrington at lwarrington@pcah.usRegistration is required. This event is offered free of charge.

Friday, August 12, 2011Curtis Institute of Music, Field Concert Hall1726 Locust StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19103

9:45 TO 10 A.M. SIGN-IN

10 A.M. TO 12 P.M. PANEL I: THE GLOBAL VIOLINwith Lewis Kahn, Diane Monroe, and Anuradha Sridhar

12 TO 1 P.M. BUFFET LUNCHEON

1 TO 3 P.M. PANEL II: THE EXPLODING COMPOSERwith Nick Didkovsky, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Huang Ruo Both panels will be moderated by new music advocate, author, and veteran WNYC radio host John Schaefer.

PANEL I: THE GLOBAL VIOLINIn a world of immigrants and emigrants, music has become migratory as well. Think of the violin as the Arctic tern of the music world. Like that seafaring bird, the violin has spanned the globe, finding a home in very distant places (and occasionally displacing the native birds – er, instruments). As we’ll see, the Western fiddle has traveled geographically (to India, where it is now part of Anuradha Sridhar’s tradition), culturally (Diane Monroe’s dual life in jazz and classical music), and stylistically (Lewis Kahn’s work with the kings of Latin music). And since the time of Vivaldi, it has crossed the often-tightly-guarded border between the genders, as Diane Monroe and Anu Sridhar indicate. As a result, many contemporary violin works are the product of a remarkable artistic miscegenation.

PANEL II: THE EXPLODING COMPOSERThe composers of the 21st century present a very different image from the usual dead Europeans. Composers working in contemporary classical, rock, and jazz have not just adapted to the multiform, shape-shifting world of music in the Digital Age – in many cases, they’ve helped to create it. So-called Western classical music has received a jolt of inspiration from a generation of Chinese-born composers, including Huang Ruo. In jazz, often termed America’s classical music, some of today’s leading figures, like Rudresh Mahanthappa, draw on deep roots in South India and beyond. Even rock composers have defied expectation by moving past the simple verse/chorus/bridge format; Nick Didkovsky, for example, uses his own music-specific software language to create scores that refuse to be confined by terms like Rock or Chamber Music. Hear three musicians who don’t cross borders, they ignore them.

Panelist and moderator biographies on reverse.

This event is produced by the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

MODERATOR

John Schaefer is Executive Producer of Music Programming at WNYC, and hosts WNYC’s innovative music/talk show Soundcheck, which features live performances and interviews with a variety of guests. Schaefer has also hosted and produced WNYC’s radio series New Sounds since 1982 (“The #1 radio show for the Global Village” —Billboard) and the New Sounds Live con-cert series since 1986. Schaefer has written extensively about music, includ-ing the book New Sounds: A Listener’s Guide to New Music (Harper & Row, NY, 1987; Virgin Books, London, 1990); the Cambridge Companion to Singing: World Music (Cambridge University Press, U.K., 2000); and the TV program Bravo Profile: Bobby McFerrin (Bravo Television, 2003).

PANEL 1: THE GLOBAL VIOLIN

Based in New York City, Lewis Kahn has been working as a trombonist and violinist since the late sixties. After studying at the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music, he went on to perform worldwide in a wide variety of mu-sical styles. Lewis was a member of Tito Puente’s last working ensemble. Artists with whom Lewis has recorded and performed include: Dizzy Gillespie, Machito, Tito Puente, Fania All Stars, Larry Harlow, Celia Cruz, Eddie Palm-ieri, Charlie Palmieri, Ruben Blades, Hector Lavoe , Willy Colon, Chico O’Farrill, Johnny Pacheco, David Byrne, Marc Anthony, Phyllis Hyman, Grover Washing-ton Jr., Janis Ian, Tito Nieves, and The Mighty Sparrow. He has performed on over 150 recordings produced by labels that include Fania, Vaya, Epic, Colum-bia, RCA International, Polygram Latino, and EMI/Capitol. A composer, recording artist, and educator, violinist Diane Monroe bridges the traditions of classical composition and jazz improvisation. She has ap-peared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Zurich, Switzerland’s Tonhalle, Alice Tully Hall, the Apollo Theater, and the Kennedy Center. As a chamber art-ist, Monroe has performed with Arnold Steinhardt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Cecil Licad. She was a member of the Beaumont String Quartet, and co-founded both the Kasimir String and Amabile Piano Quartets. As an improviser, she has toured for over a decade as first violinist of the Max Roach Double Quartet and the Uptown String Quartet. She was a member of the String Trio of New York, and has performed on stage with Max Roach, Percy Heath, John Blake, Dave Grusin, Joe Lovano, Reggie Workman, Wycliff Gordon, Uri Caine, Jim Ridl, and Tom Lawton. Monroe is frequently called upon to premiere new works by com-posers such as David Baker, Andrew Rudin, and Anthony Davis. Her original compositions have been commissioned by music and theater ensembles such as The Core Ensemble, Relâche, and the Tapit/New Works Theater Company. Monroe has received many distinguished awards including the Bristol-Mey-ers Squibb Residency Award, the Alan and Wendy Pesky Residency Award from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and the Robert Trotter Chair Position at the University of Oregon at Eugene. Last year she received two Creative Connec-tions/Composer grants in one season, and she has been awarded numerous Meet the Composer grants. Diane Monroe studied at Oberlin Conservatory and Philadelphia Musical Academy, earning her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance. She continued her studies at Michigan State University, and was awarded a degree in Performance from The Curtis Institute of Music.

Anuradha Sridhar is a renowned violinist of South Indian classical music (i.e., Carnatic music). She was trained by her mother Lalgudi Srimathi, a legendary violinist, the sister and disciple of the violin maestro Lalgudi G. Jayaraman. Teaming up with her mother, Anuradha has given violin duets in venues in India, Singapore, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. Anuradha received the best violinist award from the prestigious Music Acad-emy of India’s Chennai for her performances in its December music festival concerts during the years 1979, 1982, 1984, and 1999. She has enjoyed musical forays both in the Indian and the mainstream world. She has been featured as lead violinist in a Hollywood score, for an Indie film titled “The Book of Stars” by the popular music director Richard Gibbs. She has improvised music for “Mugangal” and “Kanmani,” Tamil and Malayalam language pop albums, respectively. Anuradha has also ventured into thematic concerts which re-quired painstaking research; she thrives on unearthing complicated rhythm structure, rare ragas, and forgotten compositions. Anuradha is the founder of Solfa Creations, an organization dedicated to propagating Carnatic mu-sic and its composers. In fall 2000, Solfa released the first ever animated CD-ROM on Saint Thyagaraja that received rave reviews from Carnatic music aficionados around the world. A versatile teacher, in 1989, Anuradha launched Trinity Center for Music in the San Francisco Bay Area “to groom stellar stu-dents and propagate the esthetics of Carnatic music in the United States,” she observed. Trinity Center has been featured in the San Francisco World Music festivals since 2007. In April 2009, the Trinity Center received the first prize in the Best School Competition, judged by stalwarts of Carnatic Music at the Cleveland Aradhana Celebrations.

PANEL 2: THE EXPLODING COMPOSER

A guitarist, composer, band leader, and software programmer, Nick Didkovsky is the principle author of the computer music language Java Music Specifica-tion Language (JMSL) (www.algomusic.com). Didkovsky has composed music for Bang On A Can All-Stars, Meridian Arts Ensemble, California EAR Unit, PRISM Quartet, New Century Players, Ethel, Electric Kompany, ARTE Quartett, and Fred Frith Guitar Quartet (of which he is a member). In 2003, Minne-sota Public Radio commissioned Didkovsky to design a JMSL version of the Rhythmicon, an electronic musical instrument originally designed by Henry Cowell and Leon Theremin in 1930. It is hosted at www.musicmavericks.org/rhythmicon, and was featured on The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon (Innova). In 1983, Didkovsky founded the avant-rock octet, Doctor Nerve, which joins the furious energy of rock with intricate composition, some of which finds its origins in rich software systems of his own design. Nick’s approach to combining human and machine creativity is his unique fingerprint in a musical world that pushes the boundaries of rock music, algorithmic composition, and contemporary music. Didkovsky’s Punos Music record label offers CD releases of his more extreme musical projects. His trio, Bone, with bassist Hugh Hopper and drummer John Roulat, released their first record on Cunei-form Records in 2003. Didkovsky has received numerous awards, including a fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts, and grants from The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation, and the Aaron Copland Fund. Didkovsky resides in New York City, where he teaches computer music composition at New York University and Columbia University, and serves as director of bioinformatics of the Gensat project at The Rockefeller University.

Consistently heralded by critics as one of the most original composers in his field, altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa’s contributions to contemporary jazz have earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship, commissions from the Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund, Chamber Music America, and the American Composers Forum, and a win in the 2011 Downbeat international Critics Poll. The Jazz Journalists Association named him Alto Saxophonist of the Year three con-secutive times from 2009-2011. As a performer, Mahanthappa has led or co-led seven groups to critical acclaim. His 2010 release, “Apex” (Pi), with alto saxophone legend Bunky Green, featuring Jason Moran and Jack DeJohnette, was lauded as one of the year’s best recordings, and the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, the Boston Globe, and other publications hailed the group’s rhythmic dynamism and exuberant interaction. His release for Pi Recordings, Kinsmen, featuring Carnatic saxophone legend Kadri Gopalnath, was named one of the Top Jazz CDs of 2008 by over twenty news sources, including the New York Times, NPR, BBC, Boston Globe, slate.com, JazzTimes, and the Village Voice. Since the 2009 release of Apti, the tabla and guitar-studded Indo-Pak Coalition has provided a more playful take on Mahanthappa’s sym-biosis between the music of his ancestors and the jazz he grew up listening to. Other projects currently include trios MSG and Mauger, and the quintet Dual Identity. Most recently Rudresh has signed a multi-record deal with the major European label ACT Music + Vision. Though the formats vary widely, Rudresh seeks to explore new musical territory and “to address what it is to be Indian-American by digesting Indian music on my own terms.” By meticu-lously searching for a new swath of musical possibilities, Rudresh casts a wide net, incorporating inspiration from the gamut of his experiences.

Awarded First Prize by the prestigious Luxembourg International Composi-tion Prize, Huang Ruo has been cited by the New Yorker as “one of the most intriguing of the new crop of Asian-American composers.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese folk, Western avant-garde, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “dimensionalism.” Huang Ruo’s writing spans from orchestral, chamber music, opera, theater, and modern dance, to sound installation, multimedia, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. Ruo’s music has been performed and premiered by many ensembles, in-cluding the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Brandenburger Symphoniker, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Asko Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Quatuor Diotima, Ensemble Intégrales, Dutch Vocal Laboratory, and the Tang Quartet, under conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, Ed Spanjaard, Xian Zhang, and Ilan Volkov. Huang Ruo has received awards and grants from the ASCAP Foundation, Presser Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Argosy Foundation, Greenwall Foundation, Meet The Composer, NYSCA, Chamber Music America, American Music Center, Aaron Copland Award, and Alice M. Ditson Award. Huang was admitted into the Shanghai Conservatory of Music’s composition program, studying with Deng Erbo at the age of twelve. He subsequently earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Composition from the Juilliard School. Huang Ruo is currently a member of the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase, as well as a guest professor in composition at the Guangzhou Xing-Hai Conservatory of Music.