Viet Cuong, visiting composer
Epoch Percussion Quartet
Ryan Anthony, trumpet
Jens Lindemann, trumpet
Billy Hunter, trumpet
Matthew Sedatole, guest conductor
Jerry Junkin, director
Program
Viet Cuong
Re(new)al (2018) (premiere)
Giovanni Gabrieli, arr. Timothy Higgins
Canzon per sonar primi toni à 8, Ch. 170
INTERMISSION
Peter Meechan
Soliloquies from a Quiet Place (world premiere)
Song of Hope
Biographies
Four percussionists with a passion for performing challenging new percussion works, the Epoch Percussion Quartet came together at the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. Members Andrew Lynge, Nigel Fernandez, Oni Lara, and Cory Fica were students when they created the quartet to perform Dinuk Wideratne’s Invisible Cities with Jerry Junkin and the University of Texas at Austin Wind Ensemble. As they moved forward in their professional careers, they have continued to perform together at the World Youth Wind Symphony, the Interlochen Arts Camp, and the Dallas Winds.
The music of Canadian-based British composer Peter Meechan is performed throughout the world. His music has been commissioned, recorded, broadcast and performed by some of the world’s leading wind orchestras, brass bands, conductors and soloists, including: “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey, Black Dyke Brass Band, Dunshan Symphonic Wind Orchestra, The Band of the Coldstream Guards, RNCM Wind Orchestra, Steven Mead, Jens Lindemann, Ryan Anthony, Les Neish, Linda Merrick, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Rex Richardson, Jacques Mauger and many more.
Meechan’s music is featured on over 100 commercial recordings and has been featured at festivals and clinics globally, including the Midwest Clinic, the International Trumpet Guild, the International Tuba and Euphonium Association, BASBWE conferences, and in 2014 his work “The Legend of King Arthur” was used as the set test piece at the British National Brass Band Championships, held in the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Peter was the first ever “Young Composer in Association” with the prestigious Black Dyke Brass band, where he went on to serve as their “Composer in Residence”, a position he also held between 2012 – 2015 with The Band of the Coldstream Guards. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Royal Northern College of Music, a Master of Arts degree and a PhD (composition), both from the University of Salford. Peter Meechan’s music is principally published by his own publishing house, Meechan Music.
Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the music of Viet Cuong seeks to “leave you breathless” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) by finding ways to breathe new life into time-honored musical ideas. Viet has had works performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as Sō Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, JACK Quartet, Gregory Oakes, Mimi Stillman, Albany Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, and Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, among others. Viet’s music has been featured in diverse venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Aspen Music Festival, New Music Gathering, Midwest Clinic, International Double Reed Society Conference, Boston GuitarFest, US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, and on American Public Radio’s Performance Today. He also enjoys composing for the wind ensemble medium, and his works for winds have amassed over one hundred performances by conservatory and university ensembles worldwide, including at WASBE and CBDNA conferences.
Viet recently entered the Artist Diploma program at the Curtis Institute of Music where he studies with David Ludwig and holds the Daniel W. Dietrich II Composition Fellowship. Viet received his MFA from Princeton University as a Naumburg and Roger Sessions Fellow, and he is currently finishing his PhD there. At Princeton he studied with Steve Mackey, Donnacha Dennehy, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Paul Lansky, and Louis Andriessen. Viet holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts and Oscar Bettison. While at Peabody, he received the Peabody Alumni Award (the Valedictorian honor), as well as the Gustav Klemm Award for excellence in composition. He was a scholarship student at the Aspen, Bowdoin, and Lake Champlain music festivals, and has also been a fellow at the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab, Cabrillo Festival’s Young Composer Workshop, Copland House’s CULTIVATE emerging composers workshop, and the RED NOTE composition workshop. This summer, he will be a resident composer at the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival, where he will write a new work for Alarm Will Sound. Additionally, Viet is among the youngest group of composers ever to receive artist residencies from the Yaddo Artist Retreat, Copland House, Ucross Foundation, and Atlantic Center for the Arts (under Melinda Wagner, 2012 and Christopher Theofanidis, 2014).
Viet was a winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Music Award, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Call for Scores, New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, Cortona Prize, Dolce Suono Ensemble Young Composers Competition, Boston GuitarFest Composition Competition, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize from Ithaca College, Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association Grant, National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project, the Prix d’Été Composition Competition, and the Trio La Milpa Composition Competition. In addition, he received honorable mentions in the 2013 Harvey Gaul Composition Competition and the 2010 and 2012 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prizes. Scholarships include the Evergreen House Foundation scholarship at Peabody, a 2010 Susan and Ford Schumann Merit Scholarship from the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the 2011 Bachrach Memorial Gift from the Bowdoin International Music Festival.