UTC's Performing Arts Presents Hub New Music Ensemble

  • Thursday, September 10, 2020

The UTC Department of Performing Arts presents a virtual residency with Hub New Music Ensemble. Sponsored by the Ruth S. Holmberg Professor of American Music (Dr. Jonathan McNair), Hub New Music will give a virtual interactive session with UTC students on Sept. 17 at 2 p.m. Hub members will discuss their Art/Music concert project Phantasmagoria, which will be streamed through the UTC website beginning Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m. They will also address aspects of being a musician in the 21st century, and will share the virtual stage with their recently commissioned composer, Michael Ippolito. Then in October, Hub New Music will rehearse, play through, and discuss new works composed by UTC students especially for the ensemble, which includes flute, clarinet, violin and cello.

About the peformers:

Called “contemporary chamber trailblazers” by the Boston Globe, Hub New Music is forging new pathways in 21st-century repertoire. The ensemble’s ambitious commissioning projects and “appealing programs” (New Yorker) celebrate the rich diversity of today’s classical music landscape. In recent seasons, HNM’s performances have been described as “gobsmacking” (Cleveland Classical), “innovative” (WBUR), and “the cutting edge of new classical music” (Taos News).

The UTC residency with Hub New Music has been in the making for a year. Because their Phantasmagoria concert is based around music composed in respond to paintings by Hans Hoffman, the UTC Composition class was adapted to address the same concept. Students chose digital images of paintings from online galleries, discussed the relationships of visual art, color, form, and line, to music. They are writing original works based on their own responses to the paintings they have chosen, with guidance from their instructor, and lots of “live” and video tutelage on writing for the instruments in Hub. For more information on this unique collaborative residency, visit www.UTC.edu/music, or see the UTC Music Facebook page.

Hub New Music brings its passion for adventurous and relevant programming to global audiences as both a quartet and as collaborative artists. Recent projects include Matsuri with shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki and the Asia / America New Music Institute (AANMI); The Nature of Breaking, a 30-minute collaborative work with composer/harpist Hannah Lash; Requiem for the Enslaved, an evening length mass by Carlos Simon supported by Georgetown University’s GU272 Project that honors the lives of 272 African American slaves and their descendants; and a choreographed production of Robert Honstein’s Soul House with Boston’s Urbanity Dance. 

For its visionary programming, HNM was named one of WQXR’s “10 Cutting-Edge Artists that Have Captured the Imagination” in 2016, and has been featured in major press outlets including the Boston Globe, New York Times, WFMT (Chicago), The New Yorker, WBUR (Boston), Houston Chronicle, and several others.

Hub New Music is a group of passionate educators whose approach to teaching melds the artistic and entrepreneurial facets of modern musicianship. Working with student performers and composers at residencies across the country, HNM empowers younger generations of musicians through workshops on building an arts organization, commissioning new work, and developing meaningful collaborations. Residency activities have brought Hub New Music to the New England Conservatory, Princeton, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of Texas-Austin, UC Irvine, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Stetson University, Bowling Green State University, Boston Conservatory, University of Hawaii, and several others. In 2020/21 the ensemble introduces HubLab, a K-12 residency program that uses graphic scores and improvisation to create group compositions with students of all levels. 

Hub New Music recently released its debut album, Soul House, on New Amsterdam Records. On the horizon is the ensemble’s second album with Silkroad’s Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi) and the Asia-America New Music Institute (AANMI), to be released on Toro Records. 

Highlights for the 2020/21 concert season include performances presented by Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Williams Center for the Arts, Texas Performing Arts, Celebrity Series of Boston, Sacramento State Festival of New American Music, and its European debut at the Alba Music Festival (Italy). The ensemble will premiere new works by Christopher Cerrone, Eric Nathan, and Carlos Simon, and tours recent commissions by Hannah Lash, Kati Agócs, Takuma Itoh, and Michael Ippolito. 

Hub New Music owes thanks to its supporters including Chamber Music America, the Cricket Foundation, Boston Cultural Council, the Florence & Joseph Mandel Family Foundation, Johnstone Fund for New Music, Amphion Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Alice M. Ditson Fund for Contemporary Music at Columbia University. The ensemble’s name is inspired by its founding city of Boston’s reputation as a hub of innovation. Hub New Music is exclusively represented by Unfinished Side Productions.

Entertainment
Bessie Smith’s Big 9 Music Fest Returns April 13-14
  • 3/22/2024

The Bessie Smith Cultural Center announces the return of the Bessie Smith’s Big 9 Music Fest, taking place on Saturday, April 13, and Sunday, April 14. The festival will be held along the 200 ... more

Kristy Cox, “Australian Queen” Of Bluegrass, To Perform At WoodSongs Dalton March 30
Kristy Cox, “Australian Queen” Of Bluegrass, To Perform At WoodSongs Dalton March 30
  • 3/22/2024

The WoodSongs Dalton March Concert on March 30 will feature Australian singer Kristy Cox and her band, Grasstime. This regionally acclaimed concert series features emerging and established ... more

The Mountain Opry Will Be Held Saturday At The Bachman Community Center
  • 3/22/2024

The Mountain Opry will be held at the Bachman Community Center, 2815 Anderson Pike in Signal Mountain, this Saturday, starting at 6 p.m. Open stage will be at 8 p.m. The venue features bluegrass, ... more