Christopher Stark

Mischief (Of One Kind and Another)World premiere

Nicholas S. Omiccioli

Invisible WorldsJen Wang

DeltaWorld premiere

⇥ Intermission �

Takuma Itoh

AfterimageWorld premiere

Caroline Mallonée

Shadow RingsWest Coast premiere

Liza White

Groove IIIWest Coast premiere

Travis Alford

Rapscalian TendenciesWorld premiere

The Wild Rumpus Commissioning Project is made possible by the fiscal sponsorship of San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, with funding provided by Subito, a quick advancement grant program of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American

Composers Forum.

Mischief (of One Kind and Another) is a brief, light-hearted work, which takes its inspiration #om Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. As a composer, I have recently become interested in the concept of light and playful music––to offset my darker musical output. I have begun writing works that encompass a narrower scope and employ simpler rhythmic and harmonic ideas. The purpose in doing so is to hopefu'y expand my personal oeuvre of musical techniques. In a sense, Mischief is an etude. The work revolves around a series of repeated chords, and the form is similar to that of a popular song––AABA. Many o f t h e i d e a s r e c u r— t h o u g h i n d i f f e r e nt orchestration––and the melodic and rhythmic ideas are explicit and upbeat. The total duration is four minutes and thirty seconds.

Chr i s topher S ta rk i s a composer o f contemporary classical music deeply rooted in the American West. Having spent his formative years in rural western Montana, his music is always seeking to capture the expansive energy of this quintessential American landscape.

Described as “fetching and colorful” (New York Times), Stark’s music has been performed in concert venues around the world from the Neue Synagoge Berlin to Carnegie Hall. A recipient of the coveted Underwood Commission from the American Composers Orchestra, and winner of the 2011 Utah Arts Festival Orchestra Commission, his music has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today and was recently broadcast as a fan-voted favorite on WQXR’s Q2 Music Re:Sound. Stark has been programmed, rehearsed, and performed by such ensembles as the Sacramento Philharmonic, Brave New Works, the American Composers Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Dinosaur Annex, the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, the CCM Wind Symphony, the Israeli Chamber Project, Juventas!, janus trio, the Momenta Quartet, and members of eighth blackbird. He currently lives in Ithaca, New York where he is a student at Cornell University.

World Premiere

Invisible Worlds (2010) is a dramatic work for flute and piano that was inspired by the eternal darkness of the deep ocean. More information is known about our moon than this arcane habitat. At just under a mile below the surface of the ocean, the only visible light is that produced by the creatures that reside within these depths. This region of the ocean is ca'ed the Bathypelagic Zone and sometimes referred to as the midnight or dark zone. At this depth, water pressure can reach levels close to 6,000 pounds per square inch making research difficult, if not, impossible. This zone only makes up the top third layer of the ocean. Venturing deeper toward the trenches promise no shortage of life and yield a vastly unexplored landscape …

Nicholas S. Omiccioli (b. 1982) is currently a Preparing Future Faculty Fellow at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Product ion Coord inator o f ne wEar Contemporary Ensemble.  Mr. Omiccioli has studied composition with James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, João Pedro Oliveira and Brian Bevelander.  His works have been performed throughout the United States, Italy, Thailand, and China by such ensembles as the Jasper String Quartet, Indaco Quartet, Society for New Music in Syracuse, ConTempo Bei j ing, DuoSolo, Brave New Works, Contemporaneous, Puget Sound Piano Trio, The Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, and the Kansas City Chorale.

Mr. Omiccioli has been commissioned by the Wellesley Composers Conference and Shouse Institute at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.  Some of his recent awards include two nominations for a Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts & Letters, an ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Beijing Modern Music Festival Young Composer Award, 1st place in the Thailand Internation Composition Festival Award, DuoSolo Emerging Composer Award, Brian M. Israel Prize, and multiple awards through the College Music Society.  When not composing, Nick enjoys watching cartoons. 

Delta refers both to the place where a river flows into an ocean and to the Greek letter that, in mathematics, signifies change. Beginning with para'el threads of music, both measured and unmeasured, the piece unfolds as a series of ideas that arise and dissolve, beginning with half-formed snippets of material, but moving toward increasingly pronounced forms and greater expanses over time.

Jen Wang’s work has been featured at the Wellesley Composers Conference, the International Computer Music Conference, the Bang On A Can Summer Institute, the California EAR Unit Residency at Arcosanti, the Music ’03 and ’04 festivals, and the SPARK Festival. Her commissions include works for the Iktus Percussion Quartet, Coro D’Amici, the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, f lut ist Janet McKay, NeXT Ens, and clarinetist Cristhian Rodriguez; she has also been performed by Lucy Shelton, the California EAR Unit, Onix Ensamble, Eco Ensemble, the New Spectrum Ensemble, and the percussion ensembles of Mannes College and the University of California, Davis. Her

first installation work, Black Cloud (for streaming data and electronics), premiered as part of Panorama, an evening -length multi-media performance featuring choreography by Merce Cunningham and Lisa Wymore.

Jen has been commissioned to write a chamber work for the 2012 Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, as one of the recipients of the Staubach Honoraria, and her percussion quartet, Renderings of Things We Couldn't Take Home, will be featured this March at San Francisco's Other Minds Festival, as part of the Composer Fellowship program. Other upcoming projects include a song cycle for contralto Karen Clark and a piece for piano and electronics for pianist Gloria Cheng. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, where she was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and the Millay Colony of the Arts, where she was a Robert W. Simpson Fellow. She is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (M.M.) and Carleton College (B.A.). Currently, Jen is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has been awarded the Eisner Award in Music, the Nicola de Lorenzo Prize, and the William V. Power Graduate Award. She is founder and co-director of Wild Rumpus.

World Premiere

Afterimage was written as a wedding gi/ for my #iend and ce'ist Kathryn Bates Wi'iams—a gi0 that was only late by a few years. Faced with such a severe writer’s block, I took Stravinsky’s seemingly paradoxical advice of imposing arbitrar y constraints in order to stimulate creativity. The limits that I imposed were idiosyncratic to the possibilities offered by a ce'o: the piece is composed using only natural harmonics, and pizzicato played on the open strings. The strings have been de-tuned to offer a less conventional set of notes, but ultimately, I was le/ with a total of 23 notes to work with. True enough, once this constraint was put into place, I was able to compose relatively quickly.

“A/erimage” refers to an image that remains in one’s vision long a/er the original image disappears. The two playing techniques utilized in this piece remind me such an optical illusion. Natural harmonics have a transparent, mirage-like sound compared to the ordinary velvety sound of a bowed ce'o. Similarly, a pizzicato played on an open string, especia'y when played by just the le/ hand, looks like a sleight of hand on an instrument that usua'y requires two hands to play.

I would like to thank Kathryn for her invaluable musical insights throughout the compositional process. It has been a truly co'aborative effort and I could not have written the piece without her dedication to the piece.

Takuma Itoh (b. 1984) spent his early childhood in Japan before moving to Northern California where he grew up. Currently a student at Cornell University, he has attended the University of Michigan (M.M.) and Rice University (B.M.), and has studied with such composers as Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng. His music has also been performed by Albany Symphony, New York Youth Symphony with Shanghai Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet and Stanford Philharmonia Orchestra, violinist Joseph Lin of the Juilliard Quartet, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Momenta Quartet, New Spectrum Ensemble, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble among others. He is the recipient of four Morton Gould Young Composer Awards including the 2010 Leo Kaplan Award, and has been a fellow at the Pacific Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival. His Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra is published by Theodore Presser, and his Echolocation has been recorded by the H2 saxophone quartet on their CD, Times and Spaces. He enjoys playing jazz piano and has studied with Geri Allen. For more information, please visit www.takumaitoh.com.

World Premiere

Shadow Rings takes  advantage of the acoustical properties of the instruments: of strings, of columns of air. In Shadow Rings, different timbres are combined to make the quartet ring in a new way. Almost every note occurs with a shadow of itself.  Each player reinforces the other players’ sounds, a d d i n g c o l o r, e n ha n c i n g o v e r t o n e s , a n d strengthening the musical message. The quartet begins and ends with literal shadow rings:   the careful listener wi' hear ghost tones in the violin and ce'o, as the players manipulate the ringing of the instruments.

The music of Caroline Mallonée has been heard in New York City at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Tenri Cultural Center, and Tonic, as well as at the Tribeca New Music Festival, Long Leaf Opera Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Chapel Hill Arts Festival, 21st Century Schizoid Music Series, Durham Downtown Music Festival, New Music New Haven and at Boston’s Jordan Hall. Her music has been performed in the U.S., the Netherlands, Wales, England, Iceland, Japan, Italy and Mexico, and has

been broadcast several times over National Public Radio on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion.” Recent commissions include new works for Firebird Ensemble (Boston), Present Music (Wisconsin), Ethos Percussion Group (New York), Friends School of Baltimore, and Monadnock Music (New Hampshire).

Ms. Mallonée holds a Ph.D. from Duke University, a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. A Fulbright award recipient, she spent a year in The Netherlands studying with Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. She is the director of the Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat, a week-long festival for composers and improvisers that takes place in June and is on the faculty of the Walden School Young Musicians Program for students 10-18.

West Coast Premiere

Groove III, part of a family of pieces that includes short solo piano movement Groove, solo piano piece Groove II, and mixed septet Groove Excursion, explores the repetition of musical figures, while altering characteristics such as the length of notes, the orchestration and timbres used, and the location of rhythmic emphasis.   In working this way, I am striving to create music that is engaging and propulsive and, at the same time, unified, elemental, meditative, and maxima'y focused.   A musical motive becomes, rather than a stepping stone to something new, an object to be fu'y examined and experienced in its own right.

Liza White's music has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, Fifth House Ensemble, members of the Charlestown Symphony Orchestra, the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, ALEA III under Gunther Schuller, and many other world class musicians.  Liza has won awards including the Craig and Janet Swan Pr ize , the Margaret Blackburn Composition Competition, and an Emil and Ruth Beyer Award from the National Federation of Music Clubs.  She has participated in the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, New Music on the Point, California Summer Music, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College, and she has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Hambidge Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Liza has studied at Boston University, the New England Conservatory of Music, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Royal College of Music in London, England.  Liza co-founded and co-directed Embryonic NOISE!, a Boston area concert series featuring works by emerging composers, and has also taught general music in the Boston Public Schools.  She is currently living in Chicago, working toward a Doctor of Music degree in Composition at Northwestern University and teaching composition, music theory, and aural skills at Northwestern, Access Contemporary Music, the Merit School of Music, and People's Music School.  See www.lizawhitemusic.com for more information.

West Coast Premiere

rap‧scal‧lion (rap skal´yən),   n.   1.   a rascal; rogue; scoundrel.   2.   one who is playfully mischievous.

We a' have them: those devious little traits and mischievous tendencies that we keep hidden in polite company. Sure, we cover them with a' the trappings of “sophisticated” society, and imagine ourselves as being above such primitive, juvenile behavior.   But sti', we a' have them, and every now and then they seem to find their way to the surface…

Travis Alford (b. 1983) is a composer, trumpet player, and improviser in the Boston area. His compositions have been performed at venues across the United States and beyond including the June in Buffalo Festival, Symphony Space in NY, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, the International Trumpet Seminar in Kalavrita, Greece, the NewMusic@ECU Festival, Jordan Hall in Boston, Slosberg Hall at Brandeis University, and Taplin Auditorium at Princeton, by groups such as the Meridian

Arts Ensemble, the Lydian String Quartet, Benjamin Herrington’s “Little/Big Project”, the New York Virtuoso Singers, ECCE, L’Arsenale, Second Instrumental Unit, and members of the New York New Music Ensemble. 

Travis is currently Adjunct Instructor Gordon College and an Affiliated artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He holds degrees in theory and composition from the New England Conservatory and East Carolina University, and is currently an Irving Fine Doctoral Fellow at Brandeis University. He has studied composition with Eric Chasalow, David Rakowski, Lee Hyla, Edward Jacobs, Mark Richardson, and Melinda Wagner. He has studied trumpet formally with Trent Austin and Britton Theurer, and informally with Brian McWhorter and Jon Nelson. He has also studied Contemporary Improvisation with Tanya Kalmanovitch. Travis resides in West Newton, MA with his lovely wife, Lauren and their dog, Toby.

World Premiere

WILD RUMPUSWild Rumpus is dedicated to the development of new music through collaboration with young/emerging composers. By creating a space for experimentation, risk-taking, and dialogue, we hope to be challenged and excited by the music we make, and to support the artistic/technical growth of the composers who work with us. We want to share this process in a way that sparks the curiosity and intelligence of our audience and draws them into the adventurous, eclectic world of new music.

Calisa Hildebrand fluteCalisa Hildebrand is a freelance orchestral and chamber musician in the bay area. Her passion for contemporary music has led to the premieres and commissions of a variety of pieces for mixed instrumentation. Calisa is recognized for her diverse, engaging and exciting performances that challenge the traditional classical music model.

Calisa currently resides in San Francisco, where she graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Professional Studies Diploma and studied with Timothy Day. Previously, she studied with Jill Felber at UC Santa Barbara, and Dr. John Barcellona at Cal State University Long Beach.

Sophie Huet clarinet, co-directorClarinetist Sophie Huet recently earned her Master's degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music studying with Luis Baez. Prior to her studies in San Francisco, she earned her BM in clarinet performance and BA in English at the University of Michigan, where she studied with Fred Ormand and Monica Kaenzig. An avid proponent for new music, Sophie has performed with Nothingset Ensemble, San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s New Music Ensemble, as well as the Magik*Magik Orchestra, and is a member of the New Spectrum Ensemble. She has also premiered works by Michael Daugherty, Eliza Brown, and Sahba Aminikia and performed in masterclasses with Mark Nuccio, Daniel Gilbert, Eli Eban, and David Krakauer.

Naomi Hoffmeyer harpHarpist Naomi Hoffmeyer’s recent performances around the Bay Area include appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, Ensemble Parallèle, the University of California Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, and the American Philharmonic of Sonoma County. She participated in the Round Top International Festival Institute in Round Top, Texas in June and July 2011. Ms. Hoffmeyer has an avid interest in contemporary music and is dedicated to promoting the composition of new works for the harp. She has appeared in premier performances of works by local composers, including solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works by Ronald Caltabiano, Stefan Cwik, Sarah Stiles, and Conrad Susa, as well as the works you will hear tonight.

Naomi won first prize in the Advanced Division of the American Harp Society National Competition in 2009. She graduated with honors from the Interlochen Arts Academy in 2006, where she studied with Joan Raeburn Holland. She continued her studies with Ann Hobson Pilot at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and with Douglas Rioth at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and also counts among her primary influences Karen Gottlieb, Heidi O’Gara, and the late renowned harp pedagogue Alice Chalifoux. While maintaining an active musical schedule, Naomi Hoffmeyer is an enthusiast of the culinary arts and holds certification in Pâtisserie and Baking from the California Culinary Academy.

Margaret Halbig pianoPianist Margaret Halbig recently completed a Doctorate in collaborative piano from UC Santa Barbara.  During her time there, she worked as a pianist for Opera Santa Barbara and was on faculty at Westmont College.  This summer, Margaret relocated to the bay area and is working as a freelance musician.

Margaret holds degrees from the University of Evansville in Indiana as well as the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory.  She has also studied at the University of Kansas and the Music Academy of the West. 

Dan VanHassel electric guitar, composer, co-directorDan VanHassel is a composer and multi-instrumentalist living in Oakland, CA. His music is deeply grounded in his experience performing in rock bands as well as orchestras and chamber ensembles. Often highly rhythmic, his works embrace noise and chaos as well as the simplest of tonal materials. Some of today’s top emerging performers have championed his music including pianist Keith Kirchoff, saxophonist Michael Straus, flutist Laura Heinrichs, and bassoonist Dana Jessen. Ensembles such as Steve Schick’s Red Fish Blue Fish Ensemble, Ensemble SurPlus, the Virginia Intercollegiate Band, the Ohio University Percussion Ensemble, and the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic have also performed his work. Also active as a performer and improviser, Dan was a founding member of the new music ensemble Agenda, the free-improv group Output, and the composers collective Test Pattern. He also was a co-founder of the ‘Embryonic Noise’ concert series in Boston, devoted to the music of emerging composers, as well as the ‘Comprovised’ music series spotlighting contemporary improvisation. He has been educated at institutions including Carnegie Mellon University, the New England Conservatory, and is currently studying at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Stephanie Bibbo violinStephanie Bibbo began playing the violin at the age of four in Cape Cod Massachusetts. Stephanie received her B.M. in violin performance from New England Conservatory as a pupil of Marylou Speaker Churchill, and she earned her M.M. and P.S.D. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, under the private instruction of Ian Swensen, where she was honored for her musicianship in the New Music Ensemble. Ms. Bibbo has performed with orchestras and chamber music ensembles in various venues throughout Europe and the United States, notably

Boston’s Symphony Hall, San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.  She has performed many different styles of music from baroque to contemporary, genres of rock, soul, and traditional Persian music as well as collaboration with world renowned musicians such as Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Jodi Levitz and the Shams Ensemble.  Besides her love for performance Stephanie has a great passion for teaching, she has been teaching students of all ages and hopes to continue to do so for many years to come. 

Michelle Kwon violoncelloBay Area native Michelle Kwon holds B.A. and M.M. degrees in Violoncello Performance from Stanford University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. A passionate ensemble player, she has collaborated with artists such as Kenny Endo and the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble, John Vanderslice, and bands Death Cab for Cutie and Hauschka, and has worked with Joel Krosnick, Menahem Pressler, Russell Sherman, and the St. Lawrence and Cypress String Quartets. An equally enthusiastic orchestral player, she recently performed at Carnegie Hall with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and along with the Fresno Philharmonic, she plays with the Oakland East Bay and Monterey symphonies, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and the Magik*Magik Orchestra of San Francisco. She has worked with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Stefan Asbury, Herbert Blomstedt, and Michael Tilson Thomas. She is currently pursuing a career in chamber music with her piano trio, The Delphi Trio (www.thedelphitrio.com). Her other interests include folk music and percussion, archery, and cooking.

Kathryn Bates Williams violoncelloHailed by the New York Times as a “cellist with a beautifully rounded sound,” Kathryn Bates Williams has performed with various ensembles across the country. She is the current cellist of the award-winning Del Sol String Quartet, a group which mirrors her commitment to new music and collaborative projects across disciplines and cultures. She is also co-founder and cellist of the New Spectrum Ensemble, whose mission is to bridge the gap between contemporary and standard repertoire, while also breaking down the barrier between audience and performer. She was the cellist of the New Fromm Players at Tanglewood from 2008 to 2010, where she was called “the revelation of the concert” (Christian Carey, Sequenza 21).

Ms. Williams has a B.M. from Rice University Shepherd School of Music, under the direction of Norman Fischer, and a M.M. in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory. She currently resides in San Francisco with her husband, talented chocolatier Shawn Williams of Au Coeur Des Chocolats. 

Jen Wang composer, co-director(see above)

ThanksDominique Pelletey & San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music

Tod Brody & American Composers Forum, SF Chapter

Sean Dougall

Edmund Campion

Center for New Music & Audio Technologies (CNMAT),UC Berkeley

Mala Bingham, San Francisco Girls Chorus

Ken Ueno

Next ConcertJune 8, 2012

Including world premieres of music by:

Jenny Olivia Johnson

Nomi Epstein

Florent Ghys

Yao Chen

Dan VanHassel

At Wild Rumpus, we believe that supporting the creation and performance of new music is one of the ways we can ensure a future that includes concert music as a living, vibrant art form.  If you agree, please consider joining us in our work. Gifts to Wild Rumpus commission composers, rent rehearsal spaces, book concert halls, and support musicians. They foster they growth of developing artists, and bring new music into being.

$25 ($2/month)rents rehearsal space for one hour.

$300 ($25/month)supports a musician for one concert.

$50 ($4/month)prints and binds scores and parts for one concert.

$150 ($12/month)rents and tunes a piano for one concert.

$300 ($25/month)supports a musician for one concert.

$600 ($50/month)rents space for all the rehearsals for a concert.

$800 ($65/month)rents a concert hall.

$1000 ($80/month)commissions a new work.

Tax-deductible donations can be made online at http://www.wildrumpusmusic.org/give/ or by check (made out to "San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music") that you may hand-deliver to the box office at this concert or mail to: 1226 20th Ave. #3, San Francisco, CA 94122. If your employer offers matching grants for your charitable donations, please let us know!