After a busy first few months in 2015, April didn’t slow down at all! My paper, “Björk’s Biophilia Project: Building Ecological Awareness Through Music and Technology,” was accepted through a peer-reviewed process for presentation at the Balance-Unbalance International Conference. I presented the paper along with participating in a performance of Alvin Curran’s “Maritime Rites” on Tempe Town Lake (shown above) and Mason Bates’ “Difficult Bamboo” on the final evening closing concert.
Later in the month, I presented two recitals to complete the final recital requirements for my DMA degree. One of the recital programs was of George Crumb’s “Music for a Summer Evening” and Bela Bartok’s “Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion,” both of which I have been hoping to perform for years. I was lucky enough to find performers who were willing to collaborate on such a big project in Eric Retterer, Drew Quiring, and Dongfang Zhang. Below is a picture of a portion of the large percussion setup for the Crumb. 