Students, faculty and alumni of the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) are helping the Society for New Music (SNM) present its 2023-24 season.
Highlights of SNM’s 52nd season, which features members of VPA’s Setnor School of Music, include the world premiere of a score to the 1915 silent drama “A Fool There Was” (Sept. 26), an audience-participatory work by former Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer-in-residence Augusta Read Thomas (Oct. 14) and a staged opera about Syracuse folk and blues legend Elizabeth “Libba” Cotton (Jan. 21, 2024).
Founded in 1971, SNM is the only year-round new music organization in New York state outside of Manhattan. The Syracuse-based nonprofit also is a longtime University partner, with creative and performing artists participating in 30-some concerts and workshops a year.
Regular tickets are $20. Student and senior citizen tickets are $15. Audience members 18 and under are free of charge. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit societyfornewmusic.org.
The 2023-24 schedule is as follows:
Tuesday, Sept. 26, 7 p.m.
Screening of the 1915 silent film “A Fool There Was” with a live performance of a new score
W. Carroll Coyne Center for the Performing Arts at Le Moyne College (1419 Salt Springs Rd., Syracuse)
Loren Loiacono
SNM will screen the 1915 silent classic “A Fool There Was” accompanied by the world premiere of a soundtrack by Loren Loiacono, assistant teaching professor in the Sentor School of Music. Based on the Rudyard Kipling poem “The Vampire,” the film was risqué for its time and established actress Theda Bara as the quintessential “vamp” (short for “vampire”).
Loiacono, whose music is described as “plush … elusive” (The New York Times), is the recipient of numerous honors, including the prestigious ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Critics regard her as an emerging orchestral voice as well as a prolific creator of chamber and vocal music.
SNM commissioned Loiacono to write the score via a grant from Onondaga County, administered by CNY Arts with assistance from the Le Moyne College Film Studies Program.
The event is co-sponsored by the Le Moyne College Film Studies Program, SNM and Syracuse International Film Festival. Additional support comes from Le Moyne College’s music, visual and performing arts, and film studies programs.
Saturday, Oct. 14, 2 p.m.
Audience-participatory performance of Augusta Read Thomas’ “Resounding Earth: A Sonic Landscape”
Thornden Park Amphitheater (Thornden Park Drive, Syracuse)
The 2023-24 Syracuse Symposium continues its yearlong look at “Landscapes” with an outdoor performance of Augusta Read Thomas’ “Resounding Earth: A Sonic Landscape.” Scored for percussion quartet, the four-movement work calls for more than 500 bells of different shapes and sizes and from different cultures and time periods. Attendees are invited to bring their own bells, contributing to “mini soundscapes” throughout the park before, during and after the piece.
Hailed as a “true virtuoso composer” (The New Yorker), Thomas is the University Professor of Composition and founding director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition at The University of Chicago. The Pulitzer Prize finalist also was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1997-2006).
Sunday, Nov. 5, 4 p.m.
World premiere of Ryan Chase’s “lake effects”
Park Central Presbyterian Church (504 East Fayette St., Syracuse)
Heather Buchman leads the Society Players in the world premiere of “lake effects” by Ryan Chase. The National Endowment for the Arts commissioned the Colgate music professor to write the work, which calls for piano, percussion, woodwinds and strings.
Natalie Draper
The program includes the second performance of “Evolutions,” a three-movement work for Pierrot ensemble by Natalie Draper, assistant professor of music composition, theory and history in VPA; the world premiere of Marc Mellits’ “David,” composed in memory of David Stam, Syracuse University librarian emeritus and a longtime SNM executive committee member; and the American premiere of “Southern Air” by Jin Ping G’92, a professor at the China Conservatory of Music.
Buchman is Symphoria’s education and outreach conductor as well as director of the Hamilton College Orchestra and Chamber Music Program.
Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024, 4 p.m.
Staging of the opera “Libba Cotten: Here This Day”
CNY Jazz Central (441 East Washington Street, Syracuse)
Kyle Bass
Librettist Kyle Bass, a longtime affiliate of Syracuse Stage and VPA’s Department of Drama, reprises his 2021 chamber opera about local music legend Libba Cotten. With a score by SNM-commissioned composer Mark Olivieri, the work celebrates the life and legacy of Cotten, a self-taught, Grammy-winning folk and blues artist who recorded the landmark song “Freight Train.” Buchman conducts the nine-piece Society Players.
Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
“Vision of Sound: An Evening of Music and Dance”
Palace Theater (2384 James St., Syracuse)
SNM presents the 18th edition of “Vision of Sound,” celebrating new music and dance throughout Central New York. Buchman conducts the Society Players in music by SNM-commissioned composers Nicolas Scherzinger, associate professor and chair of Syracuse’s music composition program, and former Syracuse music professor Sally Lamb McCune.
Nicolas Scherzinger
Other SNM-commissioned composers on the program are Octavio Vazquez and Paul Leary, music professors at Nazareth University and SUNY Oswego, respectively. Composers Daniel Thomas Davis and Ivan Malcolm round out the bill.
The program will be repeated at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, on Saturday, Feb. 17, at 4 p.m. and at Nazareth University in Rochester on Sunday, Feb. 18 (2 p.m.).
Sunday, May 5, 2024, 4 p.m.
Music by winners of the Brian M. Israel/Sam Pellman Competition
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (220 East Fayette St., Syracuse)
Another SNM springtime tradition, this concert features music by winners of the Brian M. Israel/Sam Pellman Competition. Co-sponsored by SNM and the New York Federation of Music Clubs, the competition honors the memory of SNM-commissioned composers Israel and Pellman—who died in 1986 and 2017, respectively—by providing opportunities for young, New York-based composers.
Buchman conducts the Society Players in music by 2023 Israel/Pellman winners Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei and Benjamin Rieke. Other prize-winning composers on the program are David Fulmer, Christopher Auerbach-Brown and Armando Bayolo.
“The success of the Society for New Music is a testament to not only the hard work of many people, but also the growing popularity of contemporary classical music,” says Neva Pilgrim, longtime host of “Fresh Ink” on WCNY-FM, who also has served as artist-in-residence at Colgate and Syracuse universities.
SNM’s connection to Syracuse University, she explains, has resulted many collaborations, notably with the Humanities Center’s Syracuse Symposium and Hendricks Chapel’s Malmgren Concert Series.
“SNM is a creative laboratory for students and faculty alike,” Pilgrim adds.
Case in point: Samuel Evans, a master’s student of composition, has served on SNM’s board with flutist and composer Jaclyn Breeze G’23. When they’re not helping provide direction for the organization, they often can be found participating in SNM events, like the Young Composers’ Pop-Up concerts at University United Methodist Church.
Other SNM regulars include past or current VPA professors Jim Abbott G’16 (sound recording technology), Rob Bridge (percussion), Janet Brown G’93 (soprano), Kelly Covert (flute), Julia Ebner ‘04 (soprano), Laura Enslin (soprano), Zeke Leonard (design), London Ladd ’06, G’22 (art), Ken Meyer (guitar), Spencer Phillips (bass), John Raschella (trumpet), Sar Shalom-Strong G’98 (piano) and Greg Wood (cello).
“The Society for New Music helps shapes—and is shaped by—the region’s cultural landscape,” Pilgrim continues. “We seek to inspire collaboration, which, in turn, fosters a sense of community.”
