How do STEM fields—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—inspire music, and vice versa? This question is at the heart of STEM Arts, a groundbreaking program by the Hopkins Center for the Arts in which innovative young composers “embed” among STEM subject faculty and students and, from that experience, create a new musical work, premiered at Dartmouth. Now in its fourth year, STEM Arts projects have brought together three emerging composers with Dartmouth researchers and students: Fay Wang (2013-14) and the Dartmouth Department of Biological Sciences; Tristan Perich (2015-16) and … [Read more...]
Thayer-made musical instruments make their debut
May 4 was the culmination of the third STEM Arts project by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, this one in partnership with Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. Over a period of about 18 months, composer Molly Herron met with Thayer faculty and students, helped teach a Thayer course on designing and building new instruments, and composed a work using the instruments students in the course built. That piece, Assembly, was performed May 4 in a free concert in the Glycofi Atrium of the Thayer School's MacLean Center. Hop Programming Director Margaret Lawrence gives us a view of the project's … [Read more...]
May Day! A big week for new music!
The first week of May, birds returning, frogs chorusing and buds swelling: what better time for new music at Dartmouth? Not only that, but free new music, involving Dartmouth students and faculty and internationally esteemed visiting artists. First up is the New Music Festival, on Tuesday, May 2, 7 pm, in the Hop’s Spaulding Auditorium. The concert features two ensembles expert in interpreting new and innovative work: Paris’ luminous Ensemble Itinéraire and New York’s International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will perform new musical works by three Dartmouth student composers as well as … [Read more...]
What’s intriguing this spring: Hot tips from Hop interns
Six Dartmouth seniors are beginning their third and final term as Hop Interns - terms in which they spent hours each week learning the ropes of various aspects of the Hop. So when they tell you what most interests them at the Hop this term, you best listen up. Here goes: Performance: Made in China by Wakka Wakka Productions Emily Neely: US-China relations get lots of press, especially these days—but a puppet show highlighting consumerism, human rights and American-Chinese relations? Definitely something different from the nightly news, and a highly relevant must-see! Catherine … [Read more...]
NY premiere of “strangely captivating” Hop-commissioned, math-related music
Music inspired by mathematics and introduced at Dartmouth got an enthusiastic reception in its New York premiere on Friday, March 17. Longitude by Tristan Perich, was performed by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) at The Kitchen, in one of two evenings of Perich's music. Wrote New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini, “ Longitude was written for a six-piece ensemble (violin, viola, cello, clarinet, piano and vibraphone) and two-channel one-bit noise. But the electronic ‘noise’ Mr. Perich has created is strangely captivating. As the performers (members of the excellent … [Read more...]
Engineering inspiration: Thayer meets its composer
Inspired by the ordinary sounds around us, Brooklyn-based composer Molly Herron has written for instruments ranging from full orchestra to flower pot. That flexible turn of mind makes her a good match for students and faculty in Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, with whom she’ll collaborate over the next year to create a new piece of music as the Hop’s next STEM Arts-commissioned composer. On February 23-25, Herron visited Thayer faculty and students as they made and tested things in the Thayer work spaces and laboratories, the first of several developmental residencies that will … [Read more...]
