Guest Composer/Presenter Angélica Negrón

Guest Composer/Presenter Eve Beglarian

Guest Composers/Presenters
Eve Beglarian
Angélica Negrón

Presenters
Alexandra du Bois (composer, Longy Faculty, Chair of Composition Department)
Kate Pukinskis (composer, Longy Faculty)
Geoff Landman (saxophonist, Longy Faculty)
Andy Kozar (trumpeter, Longy Faculty, member of loadbang)
John Morrison (composer, Longy Faculty)
William Lang (trombonist, Longy Faculty, member of loadbang)
Ashleigh Gordon (violist, Longy Faculty)

Performers
Andy Kozar (trumpet, loadbang)
Jeffrey Gavett (baritone, loadbang)
William Lang (trombone, loadbang)
Rane Moore (bass clarinet, loadbang)
Matt Sharrock (percussion, Transient Canvas)
Amy Advocat (bass clarinet, Transient Canvas)
Corrine Byrne (soprano, Longy Voice Faculty, Chair of the Voice Department)
Spencer Myer (piano, Longy Faculty)
Kemp Jernigan (oboe, Longy Faculty)
Rachael Elliott (bassoon, Longy Faculty)
Hazel Dean Davis (horn, Longy Faculty)
Vanessa Holroyd (flute)
Chuck Furlong (clarinet)

Program Director
Andy Kozar

Assistant Director
Aaron Clarke

Administrative Assistant
Eva Skanse

All registrants will join the lectures via Zoom and view the concerts via YouTube.
The general public will be able to view the concerts via YouTube.

10–10:15am – Welcome Remarks from Divergent Studio Director Andy Kozar

10:15–11:15am – Working With Words, Kate Pukinskis (composer, Longy faculty)
This session explores a few pre-compositional activities and approaches when working with words. We’ll talk about setting text for a solo voice as well as working with multiple voices.

11:30am–12:30pm – Tablature and Prescriptive Notation, Geoff Landman (saxophonist, Longy faculty)
In 1958 Charles Seeger coined the terms ‘prescriptive and descriptive’ notation, defining prescriptive notation most simply as “a blue-print of how a specific piece of music shall be made.” However, composers had long before utilized elements of prescriptive notation. This presentation examines the roots of tablature and prescriptive notation, looking at music by Henry Cowell, John Cage, Heinz Holliger, Giorgio Netti, and Aaron Cassidy.

12:45–2:30pm – Lunchtime Concert
This concert will present works by the 2020 Divergent Studio composers performed by the ensembles in residence (loadbang, Transient Canvas, Longy faculty members, and more) as well as works from the Alone Together project.

2:40–3:40pm – Strategies for Learning Difficult Music, Andy Kozar (trumpeter, Longy faculty, member of loadbang)
Sometimes the music is VERY hard. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes there are ALL the notes. Sometimes there aren’t. Sometimes there are DOZENS of pieces to learn at once. Sometimes there aren’t. Join Andy Kozar, loadbang’s trumpeter, as he discusses strategies for learning very difficult music and juggling the professional realities of making a living as a working musician in 2020.

4–5pm – Groundhog Night – Engaging audiences, losing control, John Morrison (composer, Longy faculty)
Groundhog Night is a piece that features control of the music in real time by some audience members, with others engage in rating the energy of the music just heard. John will give background into the analytical system that spawned the idea, along with a brief history of how the thought developed into a performance paradigm that may be enacted with participants at remote locations

5:30–6:30pm – Mapping Sounds and Words Through Personal Connections, Angélica Negrón (Divergent Studio Guest Composer)
A presentation exploring the composer’s approach to collaboration, text selection, vocal writing and electronics focusing on two recent choral works “Chorus of the Forest”, a site-specific piece for the Thain Family Forest at the NY Botanical Garden & “I Shouldn’t Be Up Here” written for the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

7:15–9pm – Concert #1
This concert will present works by the 2020 Divergent Studio composers performed by the ensembles in residence (loadbang, Transient Canvas, Longy faculty members, and more), works from the Alone Together proect, and music by Eve Beglarian performed by loadbang and all of the Divergent Studio performers.

10-11am – Musical Space Sitting With Silence: Music of Alexandra du Bois – Alexandra du Bois (composer, Longy faculty, Chair of the Composition Department)
Alexandra du Bois will be presenting several works which, from pre-composition through premiere rehearsals, aimed to circumscribe levels and ideas of silence, breath, contemplation, and space within each work. Elements of natural world were considered as well.

11:30am-12:30pm – Collaboration – What Does It Look Like In An Ideal World? – William Lang (trombonist, Longy faculty, member of loadbang)
There are many ways for performers and composers to collaborate depending on situation and location. Join loadbang’s trombonist William Lang, an active solo and chamber commissioner with over 1,000 new works premiered, to learn more about what this process can look like.

1-2pm – AACM and the “Great Black Music” – Ashleigh Gordon (violist, Longy faculty)
Based in Chicago with near 60 years of forward-thinking originality, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is a collective of performers and musicians dedicated to exploring and creating. As omnivorous a musical sensibility falls within its membership, the unifying thread of expression lies in their grounding in Black Music – in the USA, Africa and throughout the world, past and present.