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Welcome to the first edition of our newsletter to spread the joy of music making in our community and beyond.
Winter News from CASA
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Music Wall Duo breathes life into CASA creations
Our project with Music Wall Duo had its first live in-person performance on November 20, 2021 in Jacksonville, IL. This edition included works by Brian Bondari, Yvonne Freckmann, Samuel Gaskin, Misook Kim, Timothy Kramer (Stelae*), Ken Metz, Dimitar Ninov, Juan Luis de Pablo Enriquez Rohen (Kaleidoscope*), and Kevin Salfen. *world premieres
Special thanks to Abigail Walsh, Pei-I Wang, and Timothy Kramer!
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CASA Conversations Series on YouTube
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CASA members have fantastic tales to tell from synthesizing Vitamin E, to Loop 410 going up, to the founding of CASA to promote new music making in San Antonio. Watch here to find out our stories interviewed by Brian Bondari!
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Documentary “SA24 - Two Dozen Songs from Now”
Brian Allen’s documentary about the art song project CASAns made together with San Antonio poets and singers, had its public premiere at the 2021 Erie International Film Festival this December. SA24 – Two Dozen Songs from Now – was produced by Brian Allen, Ken Metz, and Kevin Salfen.
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Made in SA VII
In its seventh edition, our series of music written for and performed by young performers branched out from piano to also include violin, viola, clarinet, flute, and marimba! Check out the video of the virtual concert on YouTube.
Thank you to participating teachers, students, composers, and organizers/videographers Ken Metz, Brian Bondari, and Kevin Salfen.
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Opportunities
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New in SA 2022 Student Composition Competition
(Feb. 1st deadline)
The Composers Alliance of San Antonio is proud to collaborate with the USAFBand of the West to provide an exciting new opportunity for student composers of San Antonio. This competition seeks to further establish CASA as a leader for contemporary music in the south Texas region.
***No Entry Fee to participate.
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Two to three student composer finalists will be chosen to refine an existing work or compose a new work to be premiered either by the U.S. Air Force Band of the West’s Woodwind Quintet or Brass Quintet in a masterclass/reading session format. (Works should not require a conductor or mixed media.)
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Each finalist will be paired with a composer mentor from CASA throughout the writing process.
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The featured compositions (4-8 minutes in duration), which must not have received a prior public performance, will be presented at the New in SA concert on May 22, 2022.
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Finalists will provide professional performance materials (i.e., parts) by April 22, 2022. Finalists are expected to attend the performance, which will be live-streamed and recorded at the University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX.
For more information on what to submit, visit our website: casatx.org
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Member News
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Composing from Hospital in Mexico
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On the morning of the first day of November, the day of all the Saints, Juan Luis de Pablo Enriquez Rohen was interned in intensive therapy at the Morelos Hospital in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. He was interned for eight days with a 20 percent chance of survival with grave pneumonia due to COVID19 infection. During his stay at the hospital he was able to compose a small piece for solo viola called “La Mansión Celestial” (The Celestial Mansion). This piece will be performed by the Mexican Society of Violas on their December Concert streamed on Facebook on December 18, 2021.
We are grateful for his continued recovery!
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Art and Music for Worship
This December, Juan Luís proudly finished a set of “Twelve Compositions for the Offertory of the Mass”. This set, composed for piano, voices and oboe is commissioned and funded by CASA members Charles and Margaret Goodhue. This project, which is a very dear project by both composers, includes a set of Thirteen Artworks by Juan Luís’s wife, Ana María Adelyn Delmar Hansen (pictured with project cover art). The artwork is beautiful and done in different techniques. Sometime next year this project will include a full edition for publication and a concert featuring Ana’s artwork and Juan Luís’s music and lyrics. Ana and Juan are both very grateful for this opportunity!
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First Prize Winner at the International Festival of Wind Orchestras (Bulgaria)
Dimitar Ninov won first prize for composition in the “Dance” category for wind orchestra, at the International Festival of Wind Orchestras “Diko Iliev”, city of Montana, Bulgaria (2021). The title is “Orhaniysky Buchemish”, a dance in 15/8 time. Originally from Sofia, Bulgaria, Dimitar teaches music theory and ear training at Texas State University in the city of San Marcos, USA.
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New Vocal Music at Home and on Tour
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Kevin Salfen's Stations of Mychal, a 14-movement song cycle for tenor, viola, and piano, about the life and ministry of Fr. Mychal Judge, on a libretto by Rick Davis, had its premiere tour in September-October 2021, with performances in Manassas, Virginia, San Marcos and San Antonio, Texas, and New York, where it was an official part of the 20-year commemoration of 9/11.
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Pictured above: Richard A. Novak, tenor; Ames Asbell, viola; Joey M. Martin, piano.
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Kevin's Preces and Responses were performed as part of Choral Evensong at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, San Antonio, on October 17 and November 21. Choir of St. Luke's Episcopal Church; Russell Jackson, dir.; David Heller, organ.
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SOLI premieres Postcard Miniatures (San Antonio)
SOLI Chamber Ensemble programmed two pieces from Yvonne Freckmann’s Postcard Miniatures series, Deep True (for Dr. Carolyn True, piano) and Serene (for David Mollenauer, cello) in their concert on September 27th. They are from a series of solo miniatures sent as gifts to 13 musicians that inspire her and with whom she shares a strong connection.
Starting in September the year before (in 2020) Yvonne challenged herself to write a one-page piece per week and send it out by snail mail to each musician as a surprise for them to be able to play at home and someday in a concert. One year later, the seeds of the project sprouted into live performances in the Botanical Garden in San Antonio.
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CASA President wins San Antonio Arts Commission Grant
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Brian Bondari has been awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the San Antonio Arts Commission. The award provides funding for the creation of a new musical composition titled Planetscape: A Suite, which will be premiered by the SOLI Chamber Ensemble on 31 January 2022. Scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, Planetscape is a four-movement suite, serving as the centerpiece of the concert.
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Program note excerpt: Truthfully, music from video games has fascinated me all my life. Having grown up with the likes of Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and other classic games, this kindled an interest in game music that has remained through the present day. And though I find myself with far less time to play the games themselves than I did in my youth, I still enjoy an epic game soundtrack. Now that I have children, I get to share these old (and occasionally newer) games with them, and bask in the nostalgia that the music gave to me all those years ago. Keeping up with modern-day titles has been admittedly difficult for me, but having children does help with that.
So, what does this have to do with the music presented here? Planetscape: A Suite was commissioned by the SOLI Chamber Ensemble. Early in the process, I had the idea that I wanted this commission to relate somehow to video game music. Yes, that sounded like a challenge. The primary connection is that the title of the piece, including all the individual movement titles, are manipulations of different video game titles. Obviously (well, for those with any love of video games), Planetscape is Runescape (or Planescape: Torment). Next is Day Dawns Grim (from Grim Dawn), whose quiet opening reveals a long melody that is developed relentlessly throughout the work. Tomorrow’s Wind (from Morrowind) is the most angular and rhythmically driven movement. An Endless Sky (from Endless Sky) is floating and lyrical, like lying on your back and watching the clouds move over time. And finally, World of Wonder (from World of Warcraft, or maybe Age of Wonders), is an epic and exuberant ballad, weaving together its own theme with a healthy dose of prior thematic material.
The SOLI concert will take place on January 31, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. at the SA Botanical Garden. More information | Tickets
Upcoming performances in Carnegie Hall & Francisco
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Timothy Kramer will have his work, Vanishing Perspectives, performed by cellist Ovidiu Marinescu at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) on Feb. 2, 2022. Information for tickets may be found here.
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More upcoming performances include premieres of new choral works written as composer-not-in-residence for the San Francisco Choral Artists, March 13, 19, and 20 and June 5, 11, and 12, 2022. More information may be found here.
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Mark Frederick Thorvald Gurrola (b. 1993) is an active composer and multi-instrumentalist. He recently received a Master’s degree in Music Composition from the University of South Florida under the instruction of Dr. Baljinder Sekhon and Mr. Paul Reller, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from Texas Tech University under the direction of Drs. Mei-Fang Lin and Peter Fischer.
Mark draws inspiration from nature and other art forms, such as literature, poetry, photography, culinary arts, and cats.
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Dr. Peter Petroff is a pulminologist and pianist who never gave up on his childhood dream of composing. He entered in practice in San Antonio in 1976. and throughout this time, his avocation was composing for the piano. Peter studied with Delores LeBlanc and Marsha Bufler (piano), and with Earl Hoffman (orchestration and composition).
Peter has always been interested in education and has sponsored a piano competition for students in grades 1 through 12 in south Texas since 1996.
The next competition is scheduled for March 2022.
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Happy Holidays & All the Best in the New Year!
The Composers Alliance of San Antonio (CASA) is one of South Texas’s most active, dynamic composers organizations. Since its founding in 1999, CASA has been dedicated to supporting its members and promoting new music, collaborating with many of the region’s most outstanding performers. Through CASA’s educational initiative “Made in SA,” members have written pieces for area piano studios, collaborating directly with teachers and their students. Kefāli Press has published five volumes of these pieces, and a documentary about the project premiered at the 2020 Lift-Off Global Network Film Festival. CASA has also collaborated with regional poets such as 2015 Texas Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla, and their “SA24” project brought together contemporary poets and composers with area performers for the premiere of two dozen new art songs. Throughout the COVID pandemic, CASA has regularly offered virtual concerts and has begun to develop “CASA Conversations,” a series of interviews about contemporary composers and music.
CASA is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Like what you hear and see? Invite others to our casa and forward on our good news!
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Copyright (C) 2021 Composers Alliance of San Antonio. All rights reserved.
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