MUSIC

Contemporary music group Musiqa presents The Art of Conversation, a unique blend of music and theater with the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet (pictured, Photo Credit: Richie Hawley) performing a program of Houston composers including two world premieres by composer Kurt Stallmann and Rob Smith, as well as quartets by Karim Al-Zand and Marcus Maroney. Interwoven with the music are two ten-minute one-act plays by Michael Hollinger.

Musiqa presents The Art of Conversation Saturday, March 26, 2011. Preconcert Talk: 7:00 p.m. Performance: 7:30 p.m. Location:  The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Zilkha Hall.

From its earliest origins, the string quartet has been regarded as the perfect medium for both lively and refined musical interaction, often likened to a “conversation” among companions or actors in a play. As part of Musiqa’s ongoing mission to incorporate other art forms into their concerts, The Art of Conversation presents composed musical dialog among the members of the Enso String Quartet as well as scripted dialog among the actors in the one-act plays.

At 7:00 p.m., Musiqa’s Artistic Director Anthony Brandt presents “New to New Music?” a pre-concert talk geared especially for those new to contemporary classical music. 

With a 2010 Grammy nomination for “Best Chamber Music Performance,” the Enso String Quartet has quickly become one of the country’s most accomplished young ensembles. Shortly after the group’s inception at Yale University in 1999, Enso had success at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and has consistently received high praise for performances ever since.

The quartet’s debut recording was described by Strad Magazine as “an auspicious start to their recording career,” and was followed by the recent Grammy-nominated release of the quartets of Alberto Ginastera. MusicWeb International summed up this album as “playing of jaw-dropping prowess revealing masterpieces of the 20th century quartet literature … seek out this group – they are clearly bound for greatness.” The disc was selected as one of MusicWeb’s Recordings of the Year for 2009.

In addition to the success of their recordings, the Enso String Quartet’s live concerts have been highlighted by audiences and critics alike - for their “edge-of-the-seat vitality few groups maintain throughout a performance” (Houston Chronicle), “thrillingly athletic performance” (Washington Post) and “neat, well balanced and lyrical…lively and intelligent” playing (Gramophone). The group is equally at home in many styles, and is committed to the classics of the string quartet repertoire as well as being strong advocates for new music. www.ensoquartet.com.

Kurt Stallman devotes his energy towards synthesizing many of the mediums available to composers today. His works include pieces for acoustic ensembles, acoustic/electronic groupings with interactive elements, environmental sounds, and purely synthetic sounds. As a composer and improviser, he enjoys frequent collaboration with improvising musicians and artists from other disciplines. The American Academy of Arts and Letters recently recognized his work by awarding him a 2009 Goddard Lieberson Award. In 2008 he received a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Current projects include a Fromm Music Foundation commission for chamber orchestra with live electronics and video. www.trigonmusic.com/kurtstallmann.html.

The music of Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand has been called “strong and startlingly lovely” (Boston Globe). His compositions are wide-ranging, from settings of classical Arabic poetry to scores for dance and pieces for young audiences. His works explore connections between music and other arts, and draw inspiration from diverse sources such as 19th century graphic art, fables of the world, folksong and jazz. The themes of many of his pieces speak to his middle-eastern heritage as well. Al-Zand’s music has enjoyed success in the US, Canada and abroad and he is the recipient of several national awards, including the Sackler Composition Prize, the ArtSong Prize and the Louisville Orchestra Competition Prize. He holds degrees from Harvard and McGill Universities and is currently on the faculty of the Shepherd School of Music (Rice University) in Houston. Al-Zand is a member of Musiqa’s Artistic Board.

Marcus Karl Maroney studied composition and horn at The University of Texas at Austin (B.M.) and Yale School of Music (M.M., D.M.A.). His principle composition teachers were Joseph Schwantner, Ned Rorem, Joan Tower, and Dan Welcher. In 1999, he received a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center, the First Hearing award from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (for Those Teares Are Pearle) and an ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer’s award. Other awards and fellowships followed, including: a Charles Ives Scholarship from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Music 2000 Prize from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, further awards from ASCAP, a residency at the Copland Houst and consecutive Woods Chandler Memorial awards from Yale University. The Utah Symphony recently premiered Maroney’s Three Pieces for String Orchestra, and he was recently named the winner of the inaugural College Orchestra Directors Association Composition Contest. Maroney is a member of Musiqa’s Artistic Board.

Bridging modernism and American pop and jazz idioms, the innovative and highly energetic music of Rob Smith is frequently performed throughout the United States and abroad. His music has received numerous awards, including those from the Aaron Copland House, ASCAP and the National Band Association. He has received commissions from the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program, the American Composers Forum (as a part of their Continental Harmony project) and several nationally renowned university wind ensembles, among others. In 1997, he was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to Australia, which led to a teaching position at the University of Wollongong in 1998. Commercial recordings of his music are available by the Society for New Music (Syracuse, NY), Rutgers University Wind Ensemble, saxophonist Jeremy Justeson, Austrian toy pianist Isabel Ettenauer, and the University of Houston and Texas Christian University Percussion Ensembles. Currently, he teaches at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and director of the AURA Contemporary Ensemble. Boosey & Hawkes, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, C-Alan Publications, and Skitter Music Publications publish his music. Smith is a member of Musiqa’s Artistic Board.

Playwright Michael Hollinger is currently an assistant professor of Theatre at Villanova University nd a resident playwright at New Dramatists. He received a Bachelor of Music in viola performance from Oberlin Conservatory in 1984 and a Master of Arts in theatre from Villanova in 1989. Because of his background as a musician, Hollinger considers his plays compositions. He is quoted as saying, “Plays are music to me; characters are instruments, scenes are movements; tempo, rhythm and dynamics are critical; and melody and counterpoint are always set in relief by rests—beats, pauses, the spaces in between.” www.michaelhollinger.com.

Founded in 2002, Musiqa is a non-profit organization dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Led by five composers, Musiqa aims to enrich and inspire the community through programs that integrate music with other art forms. Musiqa celebrates the creative arts through inter-disciplinary concerts highlighting connections between music and literature, film, dance, theater, and visual art. With its innovative collaborations and educational programming, Musiqa strives to make modern repertoire accessible and vital to audiences of all ages and musical backgrounds. www.musiqahouston.org.

Major support for Musiqa is provided by the Baxter Fund, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Aaron Copland Fund, Anne and Albert Chao, the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, the Houston Endowment, the Houston Music Hall Association, Hollie and Miles Loveless, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Powell Foundation, R. Stan and Reinnette Marek, Jane and Dick Schmitt, Edward and Carrie Shoemake, the Simmons Foundation, the Strake Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, Marsha and Sidney Wallace, the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Family Foundation, Young Audiences of Houston, and Target.

This concert is presented with support from the Alley Theater.