During the spring of 2015, Drs. Kristin Ditlow and Karola Obermüller began planning the first installments of a contemporary music exchange. This exchange would bring American contemporary music to Germany, and likewise sponsor performances of contemporary German music in New Mexico.
The project quickly expanded to include Professors Eric Lau and Scott Ney, with performances in Nürnberg and Darmstadt and master classes in Würzburg.
darabq1summer2015 from Kristin Ditlow on Vimeo.
The program included compositions by Volker Blumenthaler, professor for composition and theory at Nuremberg Hochschule für Musik, Cord Meijering, director of Akademie für Tonkunst, Darmstadt; UNM Music Faculty Karola Obermüller, Jose-Luis Hurtado, Peter Gilbert, and Richard Hermann; and noted composers Olivier Messiaen, Lori Laitman, Milton Babbitt, and James Beale.
The Nürnberg performance was hosted by Monika Teepe and Volker Blumenthaler while the Würzburg Hochschule für Musik hosted master classes for percussion and saxophone. The Akademie für Tonkunst, Darmstadt, was the host for the Darmstadt solo “klavierabend.”
Future performances and exchanges are being planned for the coming season.
2016 Composers’ Symposium: Indigenizing Art Music
The 45th Annual John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium will take place March 28 – April 1, 2016. Indigenizing Art Music: Experiencing the sound of Native American influences in new music
John Marchiando Featured on UNM Proud
UNM Faculty member John Marchiando is the most recent member of the faculty to be highlighted on the UNM Proud website. John is an amazing teacher and trumpet player and we are thrilled to have him on our faculty.
Musicology Colloquium Series: Musicology and the Exhausted Nation
Taking the case of Mexico as a test ground, this talk will take stock of some of the results of musicology’s brief infatuation with nationalism, and address the gains made as well as the opportunities lost.