2017-2018 Guest Artists

Recent Division News

Besieged by an Expert Sun, a multimedia work by graduate composer Alejandro Carrillo, has been selected as part of the 39th Manuel Enríquez International New Music Forum in Mexico City.  Alejandro will perform the work on 24 September 2017 in the National University’s Contemporary Art Museum.

Nothing in the Nothingness, an opera by alumnus composer Daniel Zajicek, was one of eight works selected for performance in Fort Worth Opera’s Frontiers 2017 program on 4-5 May 2017. As part of the performance, Daniel and his librettist, John Grimmett, will be in residence at Fort Worth Opera for a week of rehearsals and workshopping.

Alumnus composer Ilya Rostovtsev (MM 2010) has completed his PhD in Music Composition at UC Berkeley (August 2017), and has accepted a position at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) for the position of an Applied Scientist, where he will be working on new music authoring tools.

Doctoral composer Michael Smith has recently had his work Ictus (2-channel fixed media) selected for performance at numerous events in 2016, including the Bowling Green Graduate Student Conference, the National Student Electronic Music Event (N_SEME), Electronic Music Midwest (EMM), Ars Electronica @ Forum Wallis, and at the Open Circuit Electronic Music and Video Art Showcase, where he was selected as a finalist in their electroacoustic competition.

Alumnus composer Ben Johansen (PhD 2012) has been appointed Lecturer in Composition/Music Technology at Baylor University, beginning in the fall of 2017.

Alumnus composer Joshua Harris (PhD 2013) composed the soundtrack for the film King Rat, which premiered at the Indy Film Fest in Indianapolis in July 2017. The film won the festival's Audience Award.  Also in July 2017, Harris' work Aubade for flute and electroacoustic music was selected for performance at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, where it was performed by UNT alumna Wayla Chambo.

Alumnus composer Chaz Underriner (PhD 2016) has been appointed Assistant Professor of Digital Arts at Stetson University, beginning in the fall of 2017.

In August 2017, Elizabeth McNutt performed three concerts at the National Flute Association Convention in Minneapolis, MN, during which she premiered new works for flute and piano by UNT faculty composers Kirsten Broberg and Jon Christopher Nelson. Dr. McNutt was also a guest artist with the Texas Flute Symposium 2017, where she performed a recital of recent works and led two masterclasses.

Eight UNT-affiliated composers were selected to participate in the SEAMUS 2017 Conference at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, MN, 20-22 April 2017: faculty composers Andrew May and Jon Nelson; student composers Miguel Espinel, Timothy Harenda and Michael Smith; and alumni composers Elainie Lillios, Jon Anderson, and Eli Fieldsteel. Also performing at the conference is faculty flutist...

Alumnus composer Seth Shafer (PhD 2017) has been appointed Assistant Professor of Music Technology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, beginning in the fall of 2017.

Doctoral composer Omar Fraire presented his video installation To be radical is a privilege at the Museo Espacio in the city of Aguascalientes, México. The work was commissioned by the International Festival Ctrl + Ñ in collaboration with the Institute of Culture and the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, for a collective exhibition from August through September 2017. 

Graduate composer Christopher Poovey will have his piece Dripstone, for baritone saxophone and stereo fixed media,​ performed on 15 October 2016 at the Jayu Theater in the Seoul Arts Center as part of the 2016 Seoul International Computer Music Festival.

Landscape Series: 1 by alumnus composer Chaz Underriner (PhD 2016) is one of five works selected (out of 288 submissions from composers in 36 countries) as a finalist for the prestigious 2017 Gaudeamus Award in Composition. His work will receive a performance at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek in September 2017, at which time the award winner will be announced.

Four Glimpses of Desire (چهار نگاه اجمالی ازهوس) (2016) by alumnus composer Daniel Sabzghabaei (BM 2014) was premiered on 28 November 2016 at Romania's Festivalul Internațional Craiova Muzicală, commissioned and premiered by soprano Veronica Anușca and pianist Mihai Murariu.

Graduate composer Christopher Poovey's composition Dripstone for baritone saxophone and stereo fixed media will receive its New York City premiere at the 2017 Bushwick Open Studios at MISE-EN_PLACE, which takes place 23-24 September 2017.

The interactive music and image duo NoiseFold (UNT faculty artist David Stout and Cory Metcalf) recently completed a new work titled The Ten Thousand Things. The work was premiered at the University of New Mexico Arts Lab as part of the John Donald Robb Composer's Symposium in March 2017.

Faculty composer Joseph Klein will present an academic paper titled "Practical Applications of D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s On Growth and Form on Musical Materials and Structures" at the On Growth and Form Centenary Conference, 13-15 October 2017 at the University of Dundee (Scotland).  The paper includes an analysis of three original compositions that are related to Thompson's research: the road in its unfoldings, Occam's Razor, and Interstices.  Klein has also been invited to present a lecture on his work at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.   

Guitar Construction #2: Progressive Fracture, a work by alumnus composer Dave Gedosh (DMA 2009), was selected for performance at several venues in 2016, including the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (13-19 June), the VU Symposium (Park City, UT, 5-7 July), Sound and Music Computing Conference (Hamburg, Germany, 31 August - 3 September), Electronic Music Midwest (Chicago, IL, 13-15 October), and Diffrazioni Multimedia Festival (Florence, Italy, 21-27 November).

Doctoral composer Seth Shafer has been selected as one of three finalists in the Lyra Society's Costello Competition for Composition for his solo harp piece Night in Arcturus Stream. As a finalist, Shafer will compose a new work for solo harp with a chance to win a $1000 prize, a world premiere at the Curtis Institute of Music's Field Concert Hall in May 2017, and a publishing contract with Fatrock Ink Music Publishers.

Andrew May's Ada for electric violin and computer was one of nine works (out of 114 submissions) selected for the 2016 SEAMUS Interactions CD.

UNT faculty artist David Stout, Cory Metcalf and Reilly Donovan premiered a new virtual reality installation titled Vesica Pisces at the CURRENTS International New Media Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico in June 2017. 

Alumnus composer Daniel Sabzghabaei (BM 2014) was one of three winners of the 2017 POLYPHONOS choral composition competition. Daniel will receive a $1,000 commission for a 5-minute new work that the choral ensemble The Esoterics will premiere at the POLYPHONOS Concert in October of 2017. The winners will also receive funds for travel and lodging to the premiere of their work next year.

Alumnus composer Daniel Sabzghabaei (BM 2014) recently received a commission from the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) for a new work for soprano, baritone, and piano to be performed on their Next concert series. The performance will be on 11 December 2017 in NYC at the CUNY Graduate Center inside the Elebash Recital Hall as part of the Bernstein Marathon, celebrating his 100th anniversary.

Graduate composer Bihe Wen's composition Regression was selected as a finalist in MÉTAMORPHOSES 2016. The program will take place on 19 October 2016, during the international festival "L'ESPACE DU SON" in Brussels, Belgium.

Doctoral composer Zach Thomas's composition efflux was selected from among more than 1100 submissions for performance at the Mise-En Music Festival 2017 in New York City, 20-25 June 2017.

In July 2017, Elizabeth McNutt served on the faculty of the Nirmita Composers Workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, where she worked with composers from six southeast Asian countries.

Faculty composer Joseph Klein has been named as one of two 2016-17 Faculty Fellows from the UNT Institute for the Advancement of the Arts. Klein will use his fellowship in the spring of 2017 to complete his large-scale modular chamber work, An Unaware Cosmos, to be premiered at UNT in October 2018.

Faculty composer Joseph Klein will be the featured speaker at two concerts by Orchestra 2001 in April 2018, including the Philadelphia premiere of Frank Zappa's The Yellow Shark at The Fillmore Philly in April 2018.  This residency was supported by a grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, and will also include a program of works by Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and Pierre Boulez.

Electroacoustic works Contemplating Larry by alumna composer Elainie Lillios (DMA 2000) and Regression by graduate composer Bihe Wen were two of thirteen prizewinners selected from a pool of 109 composers from 25 different countries in the Concours de Composition Acousmatique Métamorphoses 2016. The prizewinning works are included on the CD recording Métamorphoses 2016, released in February 2017.

Graduate composers Michael Smith, Jacob Thiede, Bihe Wen, and Jinghong Zhang will have works presented and performed at the National Student Electronic Music Event (NSEME 2017), 10-11 March 2017 at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA.

Alumnus composer Daniel Sabzghabaei (BM 2014) was selected as a VocalEssence ReMix Composer Fellow. He will be working with Minnesota's premier choral ensemble VocalEssence and composer mentor Timothy Takach in various workshop sessions on two new commissions for a cappella chorus: one will be premiered in the fall 2017 at the Minnesota ACDA conference, the other at McNally Smith College in the spring 2018.

Alumnus composer Daniel Sabzghabaei's 2017 POLYPHONOS commission work The Blue Booby, on a text from James Tate, will be performed three times (6-8 October 2017) by Seattle's leading choral ensemble The Esoterics on their concert GRAVITAS: Investigating Gravity.

NoiseFold (UNT faculty artist David Stout and Cory Metcalf) exhibited "Transform Series One," a show of glass sculpture utilizing generative digital techniques to visualize virtual vessels, at the Form & Concept Gallery in Santa Fe (July 2017). NoiseFold's glass plasma sculptures were recently featured in New Glass Review (38), published by the Corning Museum of Glass.  This work was made possible by an invitation for a guest artist residency at the Pilchuck Glass School, where Stout and Metcalf worked with two of Dale Chihuly's gaffers to create a large body of work in glass, and taught a class in "Transcoding Glass." 

Faculty Composer Andrew May’s composition Abstraction with Reference has been selected for performance on 10 March 2017 in the Open Space Festival of New Music at the University of Northern Colorado (Greeley, CO).

Alumnus Composer Jonathan Camacho (BA 2008) recently composed the complete soundtrack to the film What Carter Lost, which premiered on ESPN on 24 August 2017 as a part of the Emmy Award Winning 30 for 30 series on ESPN. The film focuses on the 1988 Dallas Carter High School Football team that was featured in the movie Friday Night Lights. What Carter Lost can be seen on rotation on ESPN, as well as on the ESPN App and the ESPN 30 for 30 website. 

Doctoral composer Jacob Thiede received an Honorable Mention from the Flute New Music Consortium in the "Flute and Accompaniment" category for his composition, And Everything In-Between. The Flute New Music Consortium, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit organization whose members live around the world and perform newly commissioned pieces and outstanding works from the composition competition in individual recitals, as well as at FNMC-organized events at regional and national flute festivals.

NoiseFold (UNT faculty artist David Stout and Cory Metcalf) presented The Ten Thousand Things at Southern Oregon University, Oregon Center for the Arts, where they were joined by the Left Edge Collective (former UNT faculty composer David Bithell, trumpet and electronics; and Terry Longshore, percussion) in May 2017.

Doctoral composer Michael Smith has been selected as a finalist in the 2017 ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Composer Commission Competition for his work Ictus.

Alumnus composer Daniel Sabzghabaei (BM 2014) was recently selected as a composer fellow for the 2017 Intimacy of Creativity Festival in Hong Kong. Daniel will be working in collaboration with Master of the Queen’s Music, Judith Weir, co-founder/associate artistic director of the New York Festival of Song, Michael Barrett, acclaimed tenor Jonathan Blalock, and internationally renowned composer and artistic director of IC 2017 Bright Sheng on performances of his cycle, Four Glimpses of Desire (چهار نگاه اجمالی ازهوس) (2016).

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Upcoming Events

Sep
22
Music Now

Guest composer Ethan Wickman

Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater
11:00am
Sep
25
Music Now

2017-18 Composer-in-Residence Bruce Broughton

Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater
11:00am
Oct
02
Music Now

Faculty composer Joseph Klein: "Practical Applications of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's On Growth and Form on Musical Materials and Structures"

Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater
11:00am
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