CONCERT 3 New Music at The Disco Dolls Studio
FRIDAY, MARCH 6, at 7 pm
*denotes world premiere
Chroma David Acevedo
Sebastian Stefanovic, viola
Everything you hear in this piece is viola. Alongside the live viola, the electronic parts entirely comprise processed clips of viola sounds that a collaborator sent me while I composed, such as plucked pitches and percussive knocks on the body of the instrument. I imagine these various electronic sounds as a team of viola-playing androids, which, when combined with a human violist, creates music that is as mechanistic as it is organic.
Chroma simply means “color” in Greek, and when it’s used in English, it’s a technical term that refers to “a quality of color that combines hue and saturation.” In many ways, this piece is all about color—how many different colors, and how much saturation of color, can you draw from a single instrument, both through its natural sounds and through its electronically processed sounds? This central question animates the music you hear.
David Acevedo is a Philadelphia-based composer, performer, and music educator. His wide-ranging work draws from many different traditions—including jazz, M-Base, Afro-Latin, electronica, metal, hip-hop, and early music—and integrates linear and cyclic concepts to weave hypnotic multimedia narratives. Acevedo’s music has been performed by loadbang, Ekmeles, Unheard-of//Ensemble, line upon line percussion, Erin Lesser, George Nickson, and more. His work has been selected for a wide variety of new music festivals and concert series both across the US and around the world, including loadbang Premieres, CCI//Sessions, the EDME New Music Festival, Longy’s Divergent Studio, CLICK FEST, the Lawrence University New Music Series, precept.concept.percept, the Young Composers Meeting, and the Escuta Aqui! New Music Festival. Acevedo is currently a doctoral student in Music Composition at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds an MA in Music Composition from Stony Brook University and a BA in Music from Columbia University.
crash Dániel Dobri
Julianna Eidle, flute
crash is the feeling that comes when an intense period ends: the momentum suddenly disappears, and the rush is replaced by monotony. At such times, dopamine and serotonin levels drop abruptly, and the previous euphoric state gives way to irritability, impatience, and anxiety. I am intrigued by the question of how one can consciously manage the transition between these two states—both in everyday life and in music. Is there really a need for a transitional, winding-down period, or can sudden shifts sometimes be beneficial?
Dániel Dobri is a Hungarian composer, artistic director, and university lecturer. He studied composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Gyula Fekete, and later took part in post-graduate workshops of Peter Eötvös Foundation led by Peter Eötvös. He earned his doctoral degree in 2026, focusing on the dramaturgical aspects of composition, and has been a lecturer at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music since 2024.
For more than a decade, Dobri has composed music for over sixty stage productions and collaborated with leading theatre directors and choreographers. His work is regularly featured in Central Europe, Italy, France, and the United States. His music has been heard in performances by ensembles such as the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and at international festivals including Romaeuropa and CAFé Budapest. His chamber opera Un’altra Roma has received continuous performances across Europe. In 2024 and 2025, he was an IRCAM fellow in Paris.
He is currently composer-in-residence and contemporary artistic director of the Alba Regia Symphony Orchestra, and the creator of Ask the Composer!, an award-winning interactive orchestral talk show presented in Székesfehérvár, Budapest, Rome, and New York. His music is characterized by interdisciplinarity, spectral thinking, and the integration of acoustic and electronic elements.
My Mother's Right Eye Jumped Matthew Huang Mailman
Yeil Park, cello
So it goes in Chinese superstition, that when one’s left eye jumps, it is a sign of good luck - and one must keep the fact of that jumping to themselves in order to keep that good luck. However, the right eye jumping is an indication of bad luck. In order to protect oneself, they must disperse these bad humors by letting as many people know of the sign. I know this because I always heard about it whenever My Mother's Right Eye Jumped.
A native of Hershey, PA, Matthew Huang Mailman (b. 2005) is a composer currently based in Evanston, IL. His music seeks to explore the intersection of using mathematical and computational processes in an intuitive way to express lived experience, often drawing on his mixed-race Chinese heritage. His works have been performed by the Orkest de Ereprijs, Quasar Saxophone Quartet, and members of the Houston Symphony and Ballet, among others. They have been featured at festivals such as the Ostrava New Music Days (CZ) and Young Composers Meeting (NL). Upcoming performances include a premiere by the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble and performances of other works at the Arizona State University’s PRISMS Contemporary Music Festival, Heidelberg University’s New Music Festival and Symposium, and CAMPGround26. He has been recognized by the Foundation for Modern Music and The American Prize. Matthew currently studies at Northwestern University, pursuing a BM in Music Composition with Jay Alan Yim, Ania Vu, Jessie Montgomery, and Alex Mincek, while concurrently working towards a BA in Cognitive Science with a minor in artificial intelligence.
CORE Asher Lurie
Kevin von Kampen, director
USF Percussion Ensemble
CORE is designed to push the limits of the modern percussionist. The composition consists of recurring rhythmic loops and overlapping patterns, creating an uncommon feel and displacement of time. It is a product of post-minimalist development techniques combined with progressive/math rock. A vibraphone is at the center of the design, surrounded by four multi-percussion setups. Each multi-percussion setup belongs to a percussionist who shifts back and forth from their individual setup to a section of the vibraphone. The vibraphone also sits at the center of the musical composition, with a solo beginning halfway through the piece and recurring themes throughout.
Asher Lurie (b. 2003) is a composer, percussionist, and guitarist from Dallas, Texas. He is the winner of the Tribeca New Music Young Composer Competition and the Composers Concordance Composition Competition, and a finalist in The American Prize, musicON Composition Competition, and The Sound Ensemble Composition Competition. His music, shaped by his Jewish heritage and studies in neoclassical metal, blends aggression with dreamlike serenity. Lurie has worked with Sandbox Percussion, Unheard-of//Ensemble, arx duo, Time for Three, Latitude 49, and Pathos Trio, and participated in festivals including highSCORE, soundSCAPE, Cortona Sessions, Brevard, and the UGA New Music Festival. A graduate of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, he studied composition with Scott Stinson and with resident composers Matthias Pintscher, Chen Yi, and Marcos Balter. Lurie is currently pursuing his Master’s in Composition at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he studies with Pierre Jalbert.
Ethereal Oasis Bo Huang
Sini Virtanen Cabaoglu, violin
Ethereal Oasis portrays the psyche of the urban captive, bound by salary, loans, and obligation, yet yearning for the tranquility of nature. But within the city’s unrelenting cycle, is true escape possible? As the music unfolds, the answer emerges: such escape is ultimately an illusion.
Bo Huang is a composer whose work navigates the intersections of sonic architecture, cultural memory, and narrative expression. Her music has been performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia by ensembles including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Modern, and IEMA Ensemble, as well as by soloists such as violinist Hae‑Sun Kang and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler. She has been an active participant in festivals and artistic academies, notably Festival Mixtur, the Ensemble Musikfabrik Virtual Brass Academy, IRCAM ManiFeste, and the Lucerne Festival Academy. Bo received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in composition from the Eastman School of Music and is currently pursuing a DMA degree at the University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music.
Intermezzo Jacob Sudol
Intermezzo (revised 2025) is a work for performed live electronics that makes use of a digital instrument I created and initially used as part of three previous works. The sound sources for this work all consist of a number of recordings I made of a so-called “Mikrophonie” tam-tam – a gong that is nearly two meters in diameter and named after its use in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s compositions “Mikrophonie” and “Mikrophonie II.” I recorded my good friend the percussionist Stephen Solook playing this instrument at the University of California San Diego over the course of six hours using a number of microphones that were each no more two or three inches from the instrument itself.
The live electronics solely consist of various categories of these recordings – e.g. “rubbing,” “scratching,” “mysterious,” etc. – that are slowed down to specific ratios based on Fast Fourier Transform analyses of two other bells and diffused in a surround field following statistical algorithms based on the slowed down movements of individual particles within gasses or liquids. The performer does not have direct control over the sounding results, but simply controls a possible range of sounding materials that progressively descends and becomes denser before finally fading away of its own accord.
Jacob David Sudol uses new technologies to create intimate compositions that explore enigmatic phenomena, the inner nature of how we perceive sound, as well as novel connections between Eastern and Western musical cultures. His music has been performed over 200 times by many prestigious ensembles and performers across North America, East and Southeast Asia, and Europe. Since 2010 he has also been in the Misty Shore Duo, a piano/electro-acoustic duo with his wife Chen-Hui Jen. In addition, a chapter that Dr. Sudol wrote on his music is published in the Oxford University Press Handbook of Spectral Music.
Dr. Sudol is currently an Associate Professor of Music Technology and Composition at Florida International University and Coordinator of the Music Technology Area, where he was also awarded a Faculty Award for Research and Creative Activities in 2016. He also was awarded a 2015-16 Fulbright Fellowship to research and teach in Taiwan.
No Sugar * Lansing McLoskey
I. No artificial sweeteners added
II. It’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine.
Performers:
Sini Virtanen Cabaoglu, violin
Sebastian Stefanovic, viola
Yeil Park, cello
2,000 years ago the declining Roman Republic was facing existential threats from external foes, an ongoing economic crisis, and internal political strife. Cicero delivered an oratorio to the Roman Senate in 63 BC, condemning Cataline; a populist aristocrat who had plotted for the assassination of elected officials and the burning of Rome itself. Memmius’ “Against a Corrupt Oligarchy” speech was delivered to the people of Rome in c.110 BC. Though technically a democracy, Rome at the time was in practice an oligarchy with many elected leaders winning their positions through bribery, extortion, corruption, and assassination, and governing with self-interest and exploitation in mind rather than the good of the republic.
Sound familiar?
In the second movement, the audience channels these speeches via their cellphones.
But living in sadness and pessimism does no good. It’s not good for the heart, mind, or soul, nor does it help the world be a better place.
So in the middle of the movement, the cellist starts “singing” (with his/her cello) the melody from J.S. Bach’s cantata BWV 21 “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis” (“I had much sorrow in my heart”):
Was helfen uns die schweren Sorgen,
Was hilft uns unser Weh und Ach?
Was hilft es, daß wir alle Morgen
Beseufzen unser Ungemach?
Wir machen unser Kreuz und Leid
Nur größer durch die Traurigkeit.
What good are our heavy worries,
What good are our woes and sighs?
What help is it, that every morning we bemoan our troubles?
We only make our torment and suffering greater through our sadness.
In the end, however, even the balm of J.S. Bach cannot completely extinguish the rage one can feel at times, as manifested by the cellist in a rather surprising act.
Lansing McLoskey has been described as "a major talent and a deep thinker with a great ear," "an engaging, gifted composer writing smart, compelling and fascinating music," and "a distinctive voice in American music.” McLoskey’s music has been performed in 22 countries on six continents, and he has won over 36 awards including a 2019 GRAMMY. Other awards include The American Prize, two Copland House Awards, the Charles Ives Award for Orchestral Composition, two awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, commissions from the Fromm Foundation, NEA, Barlow Endowment, and a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship. Recent commissions include Network for New Music, an opera for Guerilla Opera, ensemberlino vocale(Berlin), Ensemble 96(Norway), Boston Choral Ensemble, WordSong, and violinist Miclen LaiPang. The 2025/26 season includes premieres in Boston, Miami, Berlin, Italy, and Oslo. His music is released on 17 CDs and published by Theodore Presser Co., Mostly Marimba, Subito Music, and American Composers Press. McLoskey is an avid surfer, cyclist, and fly fisherman.
CAMPGround26 People
Board: Eunmi Ko, Kevin von Kampen, Katherine Weintraub, Zach Hale
Technical Director: Zach Hale
Live Streaming/Video: Robert Voisey
Photo: Patrick Chin Ting Chan
Intern: Wren Whalen, YoungJun Lee, James Larkins
Head Usher/Volunteer: Hannah Lanese
Volunteer: Sean Mcbride, Demetrius Galindez