PMP’s second panel discussion in the New Fronties in Music series, Composers’ Voices: Crossing Disciplines and Cultures, brought together five significant composers known for their innovative, boundary-blurring projects. Moderated by Frank J. Oteri, composer and Editor of the American Music Center’s web magazine NewMusicBox, the event featured Robert Ash-ley, Fred Ho, Tania León, Mikel Rouse, and Bright Sheng.

Each panelist was able to take a substantial portion of time to present audio-visual samples of their work, from Ashley’s 1980s opera for television, Perfect Lives (he described a fu-ture marriage between the two as “the most natural thing there is”), to Sheng’s mythological Silver River, a music theater work performed by an actress, a Chinese opera singer, a Western baritone, dancers and instrumentalists, including a pipa player. León shared a section of her cross-cultural percussion piece, Drummin’, and Ho presented his comic-book inspired “martial arts ballet” epic, Journey Beyond the West: The New Adven-tures of Monkey. Rouse acknowledged that Ashley’s work, including Perfect Lives, had been a direct influence on his own composition and offered video from Dennis Cleveland, perhaps the first and only talk show opera.

These extraordinarily inventive composers spoke freely about their aims and visions, often returning to the matter of place, the myth of America. Things heated up during the question and answer session over matters of fighting and dancing, but the group settled down again for a nice lunch in the Bok Room.

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PMP hosted a full-day symposium at the Col-lege of Physicians of Philadelphia to address significant streams of innovation within the current professional music field. The symposium consisted of two panel discussions, Interdisci-plinary Art: New Directions, and Chinese Currents in Contemporary Music, with a break for a catered lunch. The symposium was attended by approxi-mately sixty individuals, including a class of composition students from the University of the Arts. Both discussions were moderated by Frank J. Oteri, composer and Editor of the American Music Center’s web magazine NewMusicBox, and were accompanied by audio-visual samples of the panelists’ work.

The morning panel presented nationally prominent panelists with wide-ranging expertise in interdisciplinary art, encompassing composi-tion, direction, production, and management: David Lang, composer and Co-artistic Director of Bang on a Can; Miya Masaoka, composer, koto player, and performance artist; Bob McGrath, Director, Ridge Theater; Joe Melillo, Executive Producer, Brooklyn Academy of Music; and Alisa Regas, Associate Director, Pomegranate Arts. A number of the panelists described their drive to pursue the kind of work that interested

EXPANDING HORIZONS

I’m trying to create a living comic book. I deal with fantasy, action, adventure and mythic stories. And I’m not afraid of dealing with conflict, assassins and warfare. Fred Ho

I’ve been propagandizing for opera for TV for the past twenty years. Musically, I’m mainly interested in trying to find some new way to put American language to music, which has been called everything from ‘it’s not singing, it’s just talking’ to the first rap. Robert Ashley

The real essence of [interdisciplinary]

collaboration is actually about

humility, about acknowledging that

other people know things that you don’t

know. You have to lay yourself open to

trusting others. David Lang

[NEW FRONTIERS IN MUSIC]

INTERDISCIPLINARY ART: NEW DIRECTIONS

CHINESE CURRENTS IN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2004

[NEW FRONTIERS IN MUSIC]

COMPOSERS’ VOICES:

CROSSING DISCIPLINES AND CULTURES

FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2005

Photo: Frank J. Oteri, Bright Sheng, Mikel

Rouse, Tania León, Robert Ashley, Fred Ho

them, despite critical and financial risks often posed by large-scale interdisciplinary projects. Mr. Lang spoke specifically about problem-solv-ing as a prominent aspect of such collaborative work.

The afternoon panel included Jon Jang, composer, pianist, and Artistic Director of the Pan Asian Arkestra; Zhou Long, composer and Music Director of Music from China; Ken Smith, music journalist for Gramophone and the Fi-nancial Times; and Min Xiaofen, pipa player and vocalist, as well as a Sony, Verve, and Avant recording artist. This discussion explored the influence that Chinese and Chinese-American composers have had on Western composition, as well as how the panelists themselves had found unique blends and marriages of Eastern and Western soundscapes. Mr. Jang spoke about how the history of Asians in San Francisco came to shape projects of his, and Ms. Xiaofen gave a striking, impromptu vocal performance of a song she’d woven together from a Chinese folk song and a jazz standard.

Photos, left to right:

David Lang. Photo: Peter Serling

Min Xiaofen, Jon Jang, Frank J. Oteri,

Ken Smith, Zhou Long.

Joe Melillo, Executive Producer,

Brooklyn Academy of Music

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