11:25 a.m., Nov. 1, 2002--New music by four composers will be featured at 8 p.m., Monday, Nov. 4, in the Loudis Recital Hall of the Amy E. du Pont Music Building. “New Music Delaware: Festival of Contemporary Music” spotlights music written by winners of the 2002 Regional Composers Competition sponsored biennially by the Department of Music. Admission is free.

Preceding the performances of the winning pieces, the composers will discuss their works and the process of composition, and respond to audience questions. A reception with the composers and artists will be held after the concert.

Winning compositions on the Nov. 4 program include:

• “None So Sweete As Melancholy,” for solo piano, by Randall Bauer
  
  
• “Awake at Dawn,” for chorus and strings, by Andrea Clearfield
  
  
• “Migrations,” for chamber ensemble, by Alexandra Gardner
  
  
• “Lego Dominatrix,” for solo piano, by Stephen Wilcox

New Music Delaware builds on the Department of Music’s tradition, begun in the 1940s, of recognizing the work and contributions of living composers. Previous featured composers who have visited the University include: Vincent Persichetti, Lou Harrison, Aaron Copland, Joan Tower, Robert Ward and many others.

In 1994, the department began a new festival tradition, an annual regional composers’ competition. UD faculty and student musicians perform these winning pieces at the festival. To date, new compositions by more than two dozen men and women have enriched the festival.

Randall Bauer
Bauer has composed a wide variety of works for symphony orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber groups, chorus, and vocal and instrumental soloists. Bauer has won several national awards for his compositions, including the 2001 ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Bauer’s compositions have been performed by a variety of performers and ensembles in the United States, Europe and South America, with premieres in Berlin, St. Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Philadelphia and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, among others. Bauer is also active as a jazz pianist and improviser, having composed and performed many works for jazz ensemble, and he led the American Heritage Jazz Orchestra on a concert tour to Italy in the summer of 2000.

Andrea Clearfield
Since 1986, Clearfield has served on the faculty of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the associate piano faculty of the Sarasota Music Festival. A native of Philadelphia, Clearfield writes compositions for instrumental and vocal soloists, chamber ensembles, chorus, orchestra and dance that have been performed internationally. She has won many grants and awards, including six ASCAP awards. In December 1998, she won an award from the American Composers Forum for Outstanding Achievement. As a pianist, she performs styles ranging from classical to world music, free improvisation and rock, and enjoys collaborations with other disciplines. Clearfield also is the host and producer of the Philadelphia SALON concert series, featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic and world music, now in its 15th year.

Alexandra Gardner
Composer and sound artist Gardner creates music for performance and concert settings, dance, video, radio and installations. She works with acoustic instruments, environmental field recordings and digital processing to create sonically rich landscapes of shifting rhythms and slowly unfolding aural textures. Also active in the recording industry, Gardner is currently the sound engineer for the radio documentary series “Soundprint,” which airs weekly on National Public Radio. She lives and works in the Washington, D.C., area.

Stephen Wilcox
Wilcox has studied composition with James Primosch, Anna Weesner, Robert Maggio, Erik Lund and Ronald Bruce Smith. Wilcox’s Pop-Up Guggenheim was performed by members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh in 1996, and his music has been recorded by Gregory Wiest on the Capstone label. His 1997 BMI award-winning work, “The Book of Kells,” premiered at the 1996 Midwest Composers’ Symposium.

Article by Lauren Dalton