New College of Florida and The Hermitage Artist Retreat are collaborating to offer a “Meet the Composer” series on the New College campus in 2008-09. Four of the Hermitage’s Composers-in-Residence will offer free community discussions and demonstrations in the College Hall music room at 7:00 pm: Daniel Levy (November 18); Nico Muhly (February 10), Wang Jie (March 17) and Mandy Fang (April 21).

“New College is the perfect partner for the new music being created at the Hermitage because the College is creating the audience and interest in the music of today,” states Hermitage Executive Director Bruce Rodgers, in a reference to the College’s ground-breaking contemporary music series, New Music New College.

The Hermitage Artist Retreat nurtures creativity in mid-career writers, painters, poets, playwrights, composers, translators, sculptors, and artists working in digital media. All Hermitage artists are nominated by a national artist selection committee and are asked to perform two services to the community that allows them to share their work and themselves with our Southwest Florida community.

2008-2009 Program

Free community discussions at College Hall at 7:00 pm
The Event is Free
No advanced reservations; first-come, first-served
Information (941) 487-4155 or email events@ncf.edu

Tuesday, November 18: Daniel Levy

Theater and film composer Daniel Levy grew up in rural Ohio, playing jazz and popular music for celebrations of all stripes. A graduate of the music composition program at Miami University, he moved to New York in 1986, and has since composed music for over 40 NYC and regional theatrical productions and concerts presented at Manhattan Ensemble Theater, La MaMa, Dance Theater Workshop, HERE Arts Center, BAX, New Dramatists, Cucaracha, the York Theater, Shakespeare & Co.  His opera The Singing (with playwright Lenora Champagne) won the prestigious Richard Rogers Award in 1999. His latest opera-theater work The Martian Chronicles was presented August 7-11 2008 at Fordham University Lincoln Center. In 2006, Daniel outed himself as a film composer, completing scores for 4 award-winning short films with graduate students at Columbia University and preparing scores for veteran Hollywood film composer Marcelo Zarvos on The Good Shepard, The Air I Breathe, Ira and Abby, You Kill Me, and Trainwreck. Daniel's work has received support from the Richard Rogers Foundation, Loewe Foundation, Henson Foundation, Harburg Foundation, Jerome Foundation, New Dramatists, Goethe Institute, Vanden Heuvel Foundation and Meet The Composer.  BM Miami University, Music Composition, MFA NYU/Tisch Musical Theater Writing. Member: Manhattan Producers Alliance; Teaching Artist: Lincoln Center Institute, Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and Musicians For Harmony. Website: www.daniellevymusic.com.

Tuesday, February 10: Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly is a contemporary classical music composer born in 1981 in Vermont and currently living in Chinatown in New York City. A graduate of Columbia University and The Juilliard School with undergraduate degrees in English and Music Composition, Muhly studied under John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse. He has also worked alongside Bjork in collaboration in the DVD single Oceania in 2004 and Philip Glass as an editor, conductor, and keyboardist. In 2006 he released his first album of works, titled Speaks Volumes. Muhly is currently working on an opera for the Metropolitan Opera with librettist Craig Lucas.

Tuesday, March 10: Wang Jie

Wang Jie is at the forefront of a new wave of Asian composers. Born and raised in Shanghai during the economic expansion which followed the Cultural Revolution, her music is richly orchestrated, rhythmically vibrant, and always imbued with the sensibility of her heritage. The New York Times calls Jie’s work “introspective” and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review described it as “scrupulously crafted composition that embraces both Chinese and Western modern classical expression.”

Beginning with her first public performance as a pianist at age five, Jie’s musical talent was cultivated by some of China’s most distinguished composers. In 2000, she moved to the United States to begin composition studies at the Manhattan School of Music, where she was the first composer in the history of the school to receive a full scholarship. She received her Master’s degree in composition there, graduating with honors in May 2007. Wang Jie is a composer of the Artist Diploma program at the Curtis Institute of Music, and currently studies with Richard Danielpour.

Tuesday, April 21:  Mandy Fang (Fang Man)

Born in China, Fang Man --Mandy Fang is the Americanized version of her name-- is currently a freelance composer living in New York City. Her original concert music has been performed by outstanding orchestras and ensembles, including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (Japan), Orchestre National de Lorraine (France), Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Festival Chamber Orchestra, Music From China Ensemble, and Cassatt String Quartet, among others. In 2007, she won the 3rd prize of the Toru Takemitsu Award for her work Aqua In Memoriam Toru Takemitsu for large orchestra, which was premiered by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra under Chikara Iwamura in Japan. In October, Ambush From Ten Sides for Guitar and Live Electronics was premiered at Espace de Projection IRCAM- Centre Pompidou. She was named the winner of the Underwood New Music Readings by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) in 2006 with a commission from ACO for composing a clarinet concerto, which will be premiered at the Carnegie Hall in February 2009. 

She is currently working on a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association for a new work for chamber orchestra with electronics, which will be conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at Walt Disney Hall in April 2009. Fang Man has appeared at many music festivals and workshops, such as the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Centre Acanthes (France), June in Buffalo Festival, Bowdoin Summer Festival, Minnesota Orchestra Reading and Composers Institute. She is a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, where her primary teachers are Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra. She has also studied with Samuel Adler, Qigang Chen, George Crumb, Marc-Andre Dalbavie, Pascal Dusapin, Du Ming-xin, David Felder, Brian Ferneyhough, Mauro Lanza, Mikhail Malt, Yan Marez, Tristan Murail, Aaron Jay Kernis, Wolfgang Rihm, Alessando Solbiati, Richard Toensing, Michael Theodore and Ye Xiao-gang.