New Arts Collaboration

Cosmic Cliffs

NAC x Emerging Composer 2023

Why we find it is critical to support new music/arts by emerging artists ?

NAC x Emerging Composers aspires to be a program that nurtures and supports emerging composers, giving them the opportunity to showcase their unique artistic voices and contribute to the cultural tapestry of our society. By bringing together the talents of these rising stars and merging them with the wonders of technology, piano music and sound art, we aim to create an unforgettable experience that captivates, inspires, and leaves a lasting impact on our audience.

Sarah Wald

Rhapsody on "Rahel Lastimoza"

for piano and electronics

This piece is based on the Moroccan Sephardic ballad “Rahel Lastimoza.” The ballad tells the story of a governor’s wife, and it became popular at weddings and pilgrimages. It contains deeply rooted cultural messages about marriage and women’s fidelity in traditional Moroccan Sephardic communities. The piano part represents a young Sephardic bride who struggles between her connection to her community and her sense of rebelliousness.

Cosmic Cliffs

for piano and interactive media

Cosmic Cliffs finds inspiration in and uses imagery from NASA’s James Webb Telescope (public domain footage). Through the software Max’s MSP and Jitter capabilities, both the audio and video interact with the performer during the performance, and the performer has opportunities to “play” with the media components with the help of gyrOSC (accessible as a smartphone app).

Cole Reyes

Hold Close and Let Go

for piano and electronics

This piece was inspired by the poem “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver. We each process grief differently, with no singular, clear path to healing. We must navigate holding tight the memories we cherish while also letting go of their presence in the physical realm.

Xuesi Xu

Meteor Shuttle

Meteor Shuttle is a dynamic piano composition dedicated to Ryuichi Sakamoto that takes the listener on a high-energy journey through the bustling streets of New York City. Inspired by the composer's experience navigating the busy city, the piece incorporates elements of electronic dance music to create a unique and modern sound. The piece captures the essence of this experience, offering listeners a glimpse into the excitement and chaos of city living.

Donate to the NAC x Emerging Composer 2023 program by June 2nd 2023:

newartscollaboration.org/fundraiser

Fields of Repression

FIELDS OF REPRESSION, for prepared piano and found sound

Released on September 2nd, 2022

graphic score by Gloria Damijian, performed by Ting Luo & Gloria Damijian

The piece will encourage the players to confront themselves with feelings of discomfort and transform them into a creative process. I mainly focussed on terms and questions almost everyone deals with from time to time – or even constantly – during the artistic practice: why * no * anxiety * how * fatigue * self-doubt * failure * pressure

NAC x Aries Mond

Sound artist Aries Mond joins a collaboration with NAC.

Ting will perform and release five piano and electronics pieces by Aries Mond, in 2022 - 23 season.

Watch the first two pieces epl & Guild, premiered at the Mosswood Sound Series: youtu.be/XqJ9iIUvt-c

NAC x Emerging Composer 2022

Ritual and Evocation at the Stone Garden

''The title of this piece is meant to depict a scene of an ancient ritual from times long ago. What is meant to be gained or evoked from this ritual is uncertain.

I am deeply fascinated by the concept of stone gardens, while they are seemingly fixed in place, movement and pattern can be noticed in their design, in a way creating a beautiful, aesthetic paradox.''

POETIC MOVE

Composer x Visual Artist

belinda reynolds, composer, living, oakland, composition — BELINDA REYNOLDS

WORDS

"Dynamics and tones of the audio collage, with a recording of the poem Words written by pianist Ting Luo, to create the musical ‘DNA’ of the solo piano part."

video artist, visual art, http://www.videosavant.net/, exhibition, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Communication — CHARLES WOODMAN

Jean Ahn, UC Berkeley, Ensemble Ari, Pianist Lecturer — JEAN AHN

FOOTSTEPS

" A piano suite with recording tape and digital imaginaries."

NO. 1 Snow

NO. 2 Crossroad

NO. 3 Sand

NO.4 Asphalt

NO. 5 Mars

Singapore artist, visual designer, Berlin, architecture, digital imaginary — JO HO

JULIE BARWICK

Around

"Mix and blur the sounds that have surrounded me: distant construction, simple household sounds, and even the nearby sounds of nature in an urban environment with virtuosic piano technique. "

''External and internal spaces began to blend, allowing the mind to sink into the place where dreams, memories, and fragments of our previous selves were waiting to be unearthed and brought into the light.''

NICKI DAVIS

Hypothesis

''Each piece projects an ongoing present, expressing moments with particular shapes and phenomenons.''

I. Purified

II. Breath

III. Shudder

LORAINE WIBLE

How Deep is the Valley

"How Deep is the Valley is a work for piano and electronics in which the performer interacts with a Max MSP patch to process the amplified piano. The piece is a brief meditation on insignificance and displacement, as if from the view of a nomad with no place to rest. "

JOSHUA CURRY

LE NUOVE FORME

''LE NUOVE FORME is a long, continuous, but not linear process in which the composer explored the potential of an object-oriented composition method, musically speaking a dialogue between evolution and motionlessness.''

''In her work she is interested in exploring a momentary nature of time and space, and the conflicting forces that shape land and humans.''

DANNY CLAY

Six Threads

"A six one-minute movements for piano in the style of 'Threads' where musician and video engage in a dialogue that explores the relationship between live and recorded sound and movement. This a series of "video-moments musicaux’’ for live music and pre-recorded music. "

(1) Prelude

(2) Polyphony

(3) Videogame

(4) Garlic

(5) Loops

(6) Window

Mu Absence

"Unlike European landscape paintings, in Japanese landscape paintings, by placing “ma” in the center of the painting, it expresses the distinctive spatio-temporal aesthetics found in Japanese expressions. Mu Absence seeks to identify the imperceptible within the degrading reverberations between two notated sounds of the piano. The multi media work explores the Japanese homonym with meanings such as "nothing", "dream", and "naught"."

Cornkind

Cornkind was originally an improvisation inspired by the poem of the same name by Frank O’Hara. This piece is a melancholic exploration of every day sounds (where sometimes musical instruments are treated as ‘found’ sounds), and as a new acoustic arrangement, retracing old steps and finding new ones.

NAC Benefit Event

Pianist Eunmi Ko performed Angular by Ting Luo, saturation temp! by Emily Koh, In the Fog from In the Deep Heart’s Core by Vera Ivanov, I am going mad(libs) by Anthony R. Green at the benefit concert.

FIELDS OF REPRESSION performed by pianist/composer Gloria Damijian and pianist Ting Luo, is featured as one of the premieres on NAC Benefit Event.

The piece encourage the players to confront themselves with feelings of discomfort and transform them into a creative process. I mainly focussed on terms and questions almost everyone deals with from time to time – or even constantly – during the artistic practice: why * no * anxiety * how * fatigue * self-doubt * failure * pressure.

Lost in..for piano and electronics by Ting Luo, in collaboration with visual artist Marco Pinter, is featured as one of the premieres on NAC Benefit Event.

The piece is an ambient mix of soundscapes taken from the streets of San Francisco. The dancer dancing among the crowds, meaning one’s solitude in urban life. The visuals incorporate thermal photography of a dancer painting with the heat of her body; superimposed and intermixed with found scenes of cities with pedestrians, traffic, noises, and so on.