Sounding Out, a forthcoming DVD by lesbian
composers Madelyn Byrne, Renee Coulombe, Linda Dusman, Mara Helmuth,Kristin
Norderval, and Anna Rubin, presenting works which focus on aspects of identity
and integrity related to the composers' multifaceted gender/sexual/creative
identities. This project is funded
by the PatsyLu Fund for WomenÕs Music Projects under the aegis of the Open Meadows Foundation.
Project Description
Six composers propose to publish a DVD to be called Sounding
Out to be published by Everglade.org. Each
composer will contribute a piece that takes advantage of a DVDÕs capacity for
encoding surround sound and/or visual images or video. Each of these composers
will focus on some aspect of identity, and integrity related to their
multifaceted gender/sexual/creative identities. These composers and the proposed titles of their works are:
Madelyn Byrne, composer, Assoc. Professor, Palomar College
Arrival/Coming Home
Renee Coulombe, composer, performer and improviser, Asst.
Professor, UC Riverside
12th Consciousness
Linda Dusman, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Music,
University of
Maryland/Baltimore County (UMBC)
magnificat 4: chiaroscuro
Mara Helmuth, composer, performer and improviser, Assoc.
Professor, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati
Lifting the Mask
Kristin Nordeval, independent
composer, performer and improviser, research fellow at
¯stfold University College,
Norway
A queer tongue
Anna Rubin, composer, Assoc. Professor, UMBC
Emerges Now
Everglade.org is a new DVD publication company started by
Drs. Kristine Burns and Colby Leider.
Please see their support materials.
Quoted
below is a statement by Renee Coulombe that captures the multi-faceted sense of
what we are after in this project:
We
initially decided that the theme of this project could be "coming
out,"which initially meant that each of us needed to do some
soul-searching and actively align ourselves with the outsider, to become the
one who has to raise their hand and say "but wait, that doesn't quite fit
who I am...Ó My own process of coming out continues - I am always questioning
whether what I have been is what I am now and I agree with the notion that once
one is out, living with integrity is a continuously renewing process. Coming out continues to be one of the
most sacred processes in my life, gives me a model for how to live with
courage, and accept those who are different. It has made me far less judgmental of others as I observe my
own process.
The
idea of doing such a project is, in my estimation, particularly interesting at
this historic moment: the very notion of "coming out" has become
reified in our culture – it is
now
ÒokayÓ to come out as gay or lesbian, but what about bisexuals, intersexed or
transgendered folks, queers or members of the BDSM community? It is a moment to assess what coming
out means almost 40 years after Stonewall, to give some historic perspective to
those far younger than we, to assess what it means to each of us 'now' as
opposed to 'then' when even speaking the words "I am a..." made our
hearts race faster.
We
have a perspective not shared by many, and bringing together artistic work
around that perspective - done with an eye toward who we have become - seems
highly beneficial. We feel the
publication of the collection of our combined works, grounded in our feminist
and lesbian/bisexual/transgressive sexual identities, using the most current
digital technologies, has the capacity to reach across a spectrum of audiences
– academic, artistic and diverse age groups.
Biographies
Madelyn
Byrne
Madelyn Byrne is a composer of
both acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Recent work includes Traffic
and In Your Dreams, which Madelyn scored and performed in, playing the laptop
computer and synthesizer. Some recent projects include Dream Tableaux (commissioned by Colin McAllistair), Suite for Piano and
Computer: The Elements (commissioned by
Peter Gach), scoring the documentaries Colors that Grow and Horse Vet, and
the intermedia pieces Spoonful of Hope
and Undefining Queer
Past honors include winning the
Friends and Enemies of New Music Composition Competition, the ASCAP Plus award,
recordings on CRI Records and SoundWalk 2005, and selections for performance at
the Imagine II Festival, the International Computer Music Conferences in Hong
Kong, Beijing, and New Orleans. MadelynÕs music has also received
performances, television, radio, and internet broadcasts throughout the
world. She completed her DMA in Composition at The Graduate Center in
1999 and joined the Palomar College Faculty in the Fall 2000 semester.
Madelyn has also been a guest composer at Columbia UniversityÕs Computer Music
Center.
Renee T.
Coulombe
Renee T. Coulombe is a composer, improviser, and
theorist. Her works have
been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Oceania, and
broadcast internationally on Concert FM 92.5; he has received performances from
such notable ensembles as Southwest Chamber Music in Los Angeles and grants
from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
UCIRA and the Ford Foundation. As
a pianist and improviser, she is founder of the Los Angeles-based Free Funk
collective Erroneous Funk, and has
performed with such luminaries as Jazz Tabla master Badal Roy,
vibraphonist/composer Karl Berger, as well as poet Quincy Troupe. She is an Assistant Professor of Music
Theory and Composition at the University of California, Riverside, where she
founded and directs the UCR Free Improvisation Ensemble. She has written on an array of subjects
in music and culture, including female punk and blues music in Audible
Traces: Gender, Identity, Music, (Carciofoli Verlagshaus: 1999) electronica
of Cornershop in Postmodern
Music, Postmodern Thought (Routledge, 2002). She is a contributing Editor for Open Space
Magazine, and an Associate Editor of Perspectives of New Music.
Linda
Dusman
Linda DusmanÕs compositions and
sonic art have provided stimulating and thought-provoking listening experiences
for audiences throughout the world. Her work has been awarded by the State of
Maryland in 2004 and 2006 (in both the Music: Composition and the Visual Arts:
Media categories), the Swiss Women's Music Forum, the American Composers Forum,
the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the
Ucross Foundation, among others. During the fall of 2006 she was a visiting
professor of composition at the Conservatorio ÒG. NicoliniÓ in Piacenza, Italy.
As a frequent contributor to the literature on contemporary music and
performance, Dr. DusmanÕs articles have appeared in the journals Link, Perspectives of New Music, and Interface, as
well as a number of anthologies. She is
a founding editor of the journal Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and
Culture, and is as an associate editor for
Perspectives of New Music. Dr. Dusman
serves as Chair of the Music Department at UMBC in Baltimore, and formerly held
the Jeppson Chair in Music at Clark University in Massachusetts.
Mara Helmuth
Mara Helmuth composes for computer and acoustic
instruments, and creates software for music composition and improvisation. Her works have been performed in the
United States and internationally. Collaborations with percussionist-composer
Allen Otte are heard on the Electronic Music Foundation compact disk Implements
of Actuation, and tape works on Open Space
CD 16. She is on the faculty, teaching composition and computer music, at the
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory for Music and director of its
Center for Computer Music. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Columbia
University, and previous degrees were from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. Her electroacoustic music includes Mellipse (1989,1995), Abandoned Lake in Maine (1997) and bugs and ice: A Question of
Focus (2002) based on natural sounds. Her writings have appeared in the
monograph Audible Traces, and in
the Journal of New Music Research
and Perspectives of New Music.
Recent work includes the Staircase of Light interactive installation in Beijing at the
Sino-Nordic Performance Arts Space, an Internet 2 application for improvisation
-- Soundmesh, updates to StochGran, an RTcmix-based granular synthesis application and
an analysis of Barry TruaxÕs Riverrun. She also plays the qin, a Chinese zither.
KRISTIN
NORDERVAL
Kristin
Norderval, soprano, is a composer and improviser who specializes in developing
new works for voice and interactive electronics. Commissions have included
works for Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen, the Bucharest International Dance
Festival in Romania, and jill sigman/thinkdance in New York City. She was the
recipient of a Norwegian State ArtistÕs Stipend (Statens kunstnerstipend) in
2004 and 2005 for the development of new multi-disciplinary work, the American
Music CenterÕs Henry Cowell Award in 2005, and the Jerome Composer's
Commissioning Program in 2006. As a singer Norderval has performed at festivals
throughout the world, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with theater
directors, choreographers, sculptors, filmmakers, installation artists and
other musicians. Her credits as a soloist include performances with the
Netherlands Dance Theater, the San Francisco Symphony, the Oslo Sinfonietta and
the Philip Glass Ensemble. She has recorded for CRI, Nonesuch, Mode, Deep
Listening, Eurydice, Aurora and Point records. Norderval is currently a
research fellow at ¯stfold University College in Norway.
Anna
Rubin
Anna RubinÕs music has been heard and performed on four
continents. She composes
instrumental and electroacoustic music, often with an engaged political narrative.
She has received awards, grants, and fellowships from such organizations as
ASCAP, New York Foundation for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, National Orchestral
Association, Meet the Composer and
the Gaudeamus Foundation. She been
awarded residencies at Harvestworks, Inc., Brahmshaus, and Brooklyn College
Center for Computer Music.
Commissions include those from the EAR Unit, New American Radio, Radio Station WNYC, Abbie Conant, F. Gerard Errante, Thomas
Buckner, and the New England Foundation for the Arts.
She is a member of ASCAP, President of the International Alliance for Women in Music
and board member of the contemporary music journal, Perspectives of New
Music. She has served as panelist
for the New York Foundation for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Arts
International, ICMC, and SEAMUS.
She has a doctorate in composition from Princeton University and her
principal teachers have been Mel Powell, Leonard Stein, Ton de Leeuw and
Pauline Oliveros.
She has taught courses and lectured on women in music and
helped organize one of the first campus festivals of women in music at CalArts
in 1974 as well as one of the first academic courses on the subject. She has taught at Lafayette College and
Oberlin College Conservatory of Music; currently she is an associate professor
of music at the University of Maryland/ Baltimore County.