Commissioned by violinist Anna McMichael for her new Berceuse album project, Oh’s Berceuse for violin and piano present her unique take on the style of Berceuse. Within the piece she combines a traditional Korean lullaby featuring a dark, somber melody and heavy beat with contrasting leggiero melodies on stack of fifths. The piece was premiered by Anna McMichael and pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska at the Port Fairy Music Festival in Port Fairy, Australia on October 13, 2012. It will be performed again at the Mona Fona music festival in Tasmania, Australia on January 18-19th, 2013.
Final stop in the Netherlands before Wrench’s U.S. premiere
Figures in Time was written as a part of the Wrench project conceived by the ensemble Hexnut. The project is based on the merging of new musical ideas with the photography of Edward Burtynsky. The pieces composed for the project discuss the theme transformation of nature by industry in accordance with Burtynsky’s photographs. Figures in Time will be performed on November 4, 2012 in Rotterdam, NL. This is the last opportunity to see the piece in the Netherlands before its North American premiere next year.
Talk at Tufts University
While in Boston for the performance of Black Crow, Oh joins the composers seminar to talk discuss her compositional works and methods. Her talk will focus around her use of percussion and the unmistakable Korean influences in her music.Excerpts of her recent compositions such Black Crow, the Oboe concerto JungGa, the theater piece Words and Beyond; Hwang Jin-Yi, and the opera Lege Wieg (Empty Cradle) among others.
November 5, 2012, 4:30-6:30 PM
Granoff Music Center Room M251
Tufts University
Black Crow Set to Revisit Boston, Massachusetts
After a successful May 2011 with the group Dinosaur Annex, Ms. Oh’s viola concerto Black Crow (2011) is set to return to Boston Massachusetts. The piece, which features viola, bass clarinet and percussion, is being revived by the percussionist Bob Schulz at Tufts University. Black Crow is a piece that displays virtuosic passages on both the viola and percussion, and as such Schultz is featuring the piece in his percussion recital as a part of the Tufts University Community Concert Series.
Violinist Noriko Herndon and clarinetist William Kirkley join the performance, in which Mr. Schulz will be presenting a program of contemporary works for percussion solo, duo, and trio. Along with Black Crow, the dramatic and virtuosic compositions of Luciano Berio, Michael Colgrass and Stefan Hakenberg will be presented. The program will take place in the Distler Performance Hall (room M251) located in the Granoff Music Building at Tufts University.
Fragments returns to New York Alongside Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz
Fragments receives another New York performance by the ensemble, Flexible Music, on November 20nd in Brooklyn, New York. The piece blends pentatonic material played on the inside of the piano and guitar harmonics with pleading microtonal saxophone and slide guitar lines to create a unique tonal effect. The piece will be performed alongside Peter Adriaanz compositions, Fraction and Phrase as well as Mikel Kuehn’s Color Fields. Adriaanz is known as ‘one of the most singular composers active in the Netherlands at the moment’ and his composition Phrase is dedicated to Ms. Oh.
Premiere of Schaduwspel (Shadowplay) (2012) for Orkest de Ereprijs
Since composing Unsung Equilibrium (2005) for the legendary wind orchestra Orkest Volharding, Ms. Oh is again exploring the unique sonorities available within the medium of the wind orchestra. In Schaduwspel, Oh explores the interplay between diatonic melody and non-diatonic elements in reference to an object and its shadow. Ms. Ohs special relationship with Orkest de Ereprijs is deeply rooted; she has been a student and instructor at the International Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn and now the Orkest de Ereprijs will now be presenting one of her mature pieces to Dutch audiences.
Ereprijs will be presenting Schaduwspel as a part of two separate programs. The first includes three violin concertos composed by Hanna Kulenty, Renske Vrolijk, and Kurt Weil. The second will present compositions by Renske Vrolijk, Eric de Clercq and Joe Cutler that will pair the Wind orchestra alongside the diverse organs of Orgelpark Amsterdam.
The performances are schedule as following.
10 Nov, 2012 from 20:15u – 22:00u at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, NL
14 Nov, 2012 from 20:15u – 22:00u at the Musis Sacrum in Arnhem, NL
22 Nov, 2012 from 20:30u – 22:00u at the Deventer Schouwburg in Deventer, NL
Weiße Nächte 2012
Katharina Gross and Arnold Marinissen are to premiere Oh’s new composition Tussenin for cello and timpani (2012) during the Weiße Nächte 2012 in Germany.
Theater an der Ruhr
July 7, 2012 10PM
Raffelbergpark
Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany
“White Nights/Weiße Nächte” in Raffelberg Park has for many years been an integral part of Mülheim culture. As a Summer Festival ‘White Nights’ is known far and beyond the borders of Mülheim.
Since the summer of 2003 – during a heat wave, in which the theater was unplayable – the annual open air theater performances have taken place in the illuminated Raffelberg park, under the open air and free of charge for the visitors. Annually around 4,000 guests make a pilgrimage to the Festival, to witness popular productions from The Threepenny Opera to The Merchant of Venice.
Omnibus Laboratorium- International Young Composers Meeting in Tashkent
The exclusive young composers contemporary music workshop in the central Asia Omnibus Laboratorium will take place October 23-29, 2011 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Seung-Ah Oh has been invited back as one of the composers in residence to give lectures and master classes.
In addition, her piano solo piece, Figures in Time (2011), will receive its Central Asian premiere. Nicholas Phillips gave the world premiere of Figures in Time in Seoul, and KkangNeung Korea in July 2011.
Quatour Bozzini
Nong Hyun Reflected for amplified string quartet (2011) will be premiered by the internationally acclaimed Canadian New Music Specialist Bozzini String quartet.
The world premiere occurs during the Transit Festival in Leuven, Belgium. The subsequent performance will be in Den Bosch, Netherlands during the festival November Music and Montréal, Québec during program called Portrait Pays-Bas.
Nong Hyun is the term for a Korean traditional string-playing technique that involves various left hand techniques after the initial string pluck by right hand.
Ms. Oh was initially interested in how these left-hand techniques could be translated and performed on western string instruments; this became a substantial musical idea in this particular composition. Nong Hyun Reflected is inspired by the idea of four independent lines co-existing in time, echoing the way one’s daily life is surrounded by all types of recognizable and dismissible sounds. Each part is written independently except for a few structural points of the composition until when all four comes together at the end of the piece. Nong Hyun Reflected is also an attempt of a freely and loosely composed sound-scape (music in the air).
CONFRONTATIONS – EXPATS/GUBAIDULINA 80
Seung-Ah Oh has been invited by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Stedelijk Musem to take part in one of the programs celebrating the 80th birthday of Gubaidulina in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. For the opening of the Gubaidulina festival, she will take part in a round table discussion around the theme of Expats, focussing on composers who have moved to other counties in order to pursue their Art. Her duet So-Ri I (2001) will be performed by members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra during this event.