wild Up

Christopher Rountree, conductor

Saturday, August 11, 8:00 PM    

(pre-concert Panel Discussion, 7:15)
 

Tickets: $12 general admission, $5 for UCLA faculty, staff, and students.

Call 310-825-2101 for tickets
or purchase online here

wild Up is a 24-member experimental classical/contemporary ensemble comprising of Los Angeles musicians committed to creating visceral, thought-provoking happenings. The group, led by artistic director and conductor Christopher Rountree, unites around the belief that no music is off limits, and that a concert space should be as moving as the music heard in it: small, powerful and unlike anything else. wild Up's projects are meant to bring people together, defy convention and address the need for heart-wrenching, mind-bending experiences.

The August 11 concert is the culminating performance of the second Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute (JCOI), presented by The American Composers Orchestra (ACO) and Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University (CJS), in cooperation with The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and EarShot, the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network

The program features music by JCOI mentor composers and includes George Lewis’s The Will to Adorn which takes its title from a 1934 essay by Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression;” Anne LeBaron’s Telluris Theoria Sacra (Sacred Theory of the Earth) depicting the chaos that preceded creation and inspired by Thomas Burnet’s 1681 text of the same title; Nicole Mitchell’s “dense, dramatic, and daring” (JazzHouse.org) Before and After (Nuclear War); Alvin Singleton’s Almost a Boogie for string trio, bassoon, horn, and piano; and Derek Bermel’s Three Rivers which combines both notated and improvised music. In addition, wild Up offers selections from its own eclectic repertoire including Art Jarvinen’s Egyptian Two-Step which features harmonica and compressed air cans; Andrew Tholl’s corpus callosom which shines a spotlight on the drum set as a prominent part of the ensemble; Brian Ferneyhough’s L’chute d’lcare inspired by the celebrated painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Breughel; and Tom Johnson’s Narayana’s Cows based on a numerical sequence resulting from a mathematical question cow reproduction posed by Narayana, an Indian mathematician from the 14^th century.

About JCOI

JCOI brings together 38 jazz composers at various stages in their careers chosen from a national pool of applicants, to explore the challenges of writing for the symphony orchestra. Composers working in jazz, improvised, and creative music have been selected based on their excellent musicianship, originality, and potential for future growth in orchestral composition.

JCOI is a new development in the jazz field. While many jazz composers seek to write for the symphony orchestra, opportunities for hands-on experience are few. JCOI aims to provide new resources for both jazz and classical music, promoting the emergence of composers trained in both jazz and new orchestral techniques. Participants in JCOI will study with leading composers, conductors and performers in a curriculum designed and led by George Lewis (JCOI Director; Columbia University), Anthony Davis (University of California, San Diego), Anne LeBaron (California Institute of the Arts), Paul Chihara (UCLA), Nicole Mitchell (University of California, Irvine), James Newton (UCLA), Alvin Singleton (ACO advisor, Improvisation), and Derek Bermel (ACO Creative Advisor).