University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

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By PATRICIA DONOVAN

Published: May 19, 2010

June in Buffalo, the internationally celebrated festival and conference for emerging composers of new music, will celebrate its 35th anniversary this year.

The festival, which will take place May 31 through June 6 on the UB North Campus, once again will offer a brilliant program of afternoon and evening concerts, master classes, open rehearsals, lectures, seminars and installations featuring some of the finest composers and performers of new music in the world. Among them are Steve Reich, Augusta Read Thomas, Olivier Pasquet, Bernard Rands, David Felder, Roger Reynolds, the Arditti Quartet, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble SurPlus, Ensemble Labortorium—the list goes on.

The festival was founded at UB in 1975 by Morton Feldman, a pioneer of “indeterminate music,” a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers, who included John Cage, Christian Wolff and Earle Brown—all of whom were involved with June in Buffalo from its inception.

June in Buffalo (JIB) soon evolved into one of the most influential educational and performance conferences of its kind in the world, and for the past 25 years has been directed by David Felder, Birge-Cary Chair in Composition in the UB Department of Music and long recognized as a leader among his generation of American composers.

Conference information and a schedule can be found on the Web site of the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, which co-sponsors the festival with the UB music department.

During its many years, June in Buffalo has introduced and/or promoted the careers of scores of composers who were, at the time, “emerging.” They include James Rolfe, Butch Rovan, Paul Stanhope, Aaron Jay Kernis, Augusta Read Thomas (who returns this year as a member of the June in Buffalo faculty), Steve Reich (whose music was first performed here in 1976 and also returns as a faculty member this year, along with an evening-long program of his work) and others too numerous to mention.

Past faculty members have included Samuel Barber and Donald Erb, Lukas Foss, John Cage, Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Philip Glass, Nils Vigeland, Harvey Sollberger, Charles Wuorinen, Joji Yuasa, Roger Redgate and Brian Ferneyhough, among others.

JIB concerts feature outstanding new works of the finest caliber presented at the highest level of performance by internationally acclaimed musicians who specialize in new music and serve as performance faculty for the festival. This year, featured performers include:

•  The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of JoAnne Falletta.
•  The Slee Sinfonietta, a professional chamber orchestra in residence at UB, co-founded in 1997 by Felder and conductor Magnus Martensson (now music director of the Scandinavian Chamber Orchestra of New York), which specializes in the performance of pre-classic and recent contemporary music.
•  The Arditti Quartet led by Irvine Arditti, whose performances are marked by uncompromising finesse and authority, and which enjoys a worldwide reputation for spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th-century music.
•  Ensemble SurPlus, one of the world’s leading ensembles associated with the “new complexity”—music that is often atonal, highly abstract and dissonant in sound.
•  Ensemble Labortorium, a contemporary music ensemble formed by musicians from 14 countries on five continents under the direction of maestro Pierre Boulez.
•  Signal, New York City’s new-music “supergroup,” a flexible army of 13-30 musicians who combine the intimacy of chamber music with the power of a compact orchestra.

Each of the invited composers will have one of his/her pieces performed during the festival. Evening performances will feature faculty composers, resident ensembles and soloists renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music.

As in past years, June in Buffalo 2010 will feature an intensive schedule of events open to the general public and critics. The JIB Web site indicates which events are free and which require an admission fee. Tickets for those concerts may be obtained at the Slee Hall ticket office. Call 645-2921 for ticket information.