the LotusFlower New Music Project
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the lotusflower new music project

the lotusflower new music project

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 Courtesy of CSUSB Office of Strategic Communications

Published January 28, 2020
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 Soprano Stacey Fraser, Cal State San Bernardino music department chair and professor, will be singing in a world premiere concert, “A Chaos of Light and Motion,” by veteran composer Jack Van Zandt, on Thursday, Jan. 30, at CSUSB.
 
The show, to be held in the university’s Performing Arts Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m., was commissioned by Fraser, who will perform alongside some of Los Angeles’s best musicians, including Grammy Award winning pianist Nadiya Shpachenko.
 
Shpachenko recently won a 2020 Grammy in the Best Classical Compendium category for her album “The Poetry of Places,” which features music from Van Zandt as well as percussionist Cory Hills, who will be performing in Thursday night’s concert. The performance will also feature harpist Alison Bjorkedal, a 2020 Grammy nominee.
 The other performers include: Sara Andon (flute, alto flute, piccolo, bass flute), Cynthia Fogg (viola), Alastair Edmonstone (piano) and Yuri Inoo (vibraphone).
 
“A Chaos of Light and Motion,” conducted by University of California, Riverside orchestra and choral director Ruth Charloff, is based on text written by major English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
 
“Shelley’s works were marked by many interests and influences – especially science, mathematics, and philosophy, including Hinduism and Buddhism – and were often a ‘mash-up’ of numerous ideas of the time,” Van Zandt said in a press release in Composers Edition UK. “The text of the title song, extracted from his drama Hellas, is a wondrous evocation of the scientific achievements of the Age of Reason and explores the crossroads of science and spirituality.”
 
The show will feature four songs: A Chaos of Light and Motion; The Painted Veil; Weave the Dance on the Floor of the Breeze; and The Atmosphere of Human Thought.Tickets for “A Chaos of Light and Motion” can be purchased on the Department of Music website or at the Music Box Office. Music Box Office hours are Monday through Friday, 1-4 p.m.

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Soprano Stacey Fraser and Dancer/Choreographer Faith Jensen-Ismay team up with artistic director Aron Kallay and the Grammy nominated and winning players of the LA based ensemble Brightwork newmusic to present a new staging of critically acclaimed composer Mathew Rosenblum's Falling. This new adaptation of Rosenblum's innovative and provocative work will be presented on the California State University San Bernardino campus in the Performing Arts Recital Hall at 4pm, Sunday October 27th, 2019. This team of artists will perform the work under the baton of Maestro Anthony Parnther, whose current posts include Music Director of the Southeast Symphony and most recently, the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. 
 
Falling (2013), a 25-minute chamber work for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, piano, and pre-recorded audio is based on a James Dickey poem of the same name that traces a flight attendant’s fall from an airplane (based on an actual New York Times article). In this piece, the composer integrates an old LP recorded reading of the poem by the author. The interwoven recorded and sung text and accompanying music kaleidoscopically detail the flight attendant’s intense and transformative psychological and physical journey to the ground. This new staging of the work will incorporate the additional element of dance whereby the flight attendant's act of "falling" is physically depicted by critically acclaimed modern dancer/choreographer Faith Jensen-Ismay. 
 
Lighting design and the digital mapping of projection in real time by CSUSB Professor of Theatre Jason Mann will be an integral component to the telling of the story. The production will also feature the work of talented costume designer and CSUSB Professor of Theatre Andre Harrington. Falling will receive its West Coast premiere at Boston Court in Pasadena on October 5th, 2019 and will have several repeat performances at various venues and campuses including California State University Dominguez Hills on October 15, 2019, The Vine Theatre at the Bernardo Winery in San Diego, CA, on October 19th and 20th, 2019, Meng Hall at California State University Fullerton on February 26th, 2020 and the New Hazlett Theatre in  Pittsburgh, CA on February 28th, 2020. For further information, please visit www.brightworknewmusic.com
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Spiritual Forest, a chamber opera by Japanese composer Koji Nakano will receive its world premiere by the CSUSB Opera Theatre in collaboration with the lotusflower new music project. The work features Stacey Fraser soprano, Gary Barnet, piano, Maggie Parkins of the critically acclaimed LA based Eclipse string quartet, Mr. Kohei Nishikawa master of the shinobue (Japanese transverse flute) from Tokyo, Japan and CSUSB percussion Professor Todd Johnson with stage direction by CSUSB Theatre Professor Dr. Terry Donovan Smith. The work documents the journey of a woman who enters a deep forest where she becomes lost and frightened. Upon waking after a dream, she finds herself embracing her environment and reconnects with Mother Nature. The staged work features costume design by Professor Andre Harrington, lighting design by Professor Jason Mann and photography/projection by CSUSB Art Professor Steve King. 
 
Additional guest artists include performances by Grammy nominated pianist Nadia Shpachenko, Canadian soprano Anne Harley, American soprano Kirsten Ashley Weist and Canadian guitarist Steve Thachuk, as well as additional chamber works by revered composers Emilie LeBel, Jack Van Zandt and Chinary Ung. 
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the lotusflower new music project presented Miss Donnithorne's Maggot by Peter Maxwell Davies in collaboration with Brightwork newmusic on February 2nd, 2018 at California State University San Bernardino and February 9th, 2018 at the Boston Court Performing Arts Centre. !

photo credit: Robert Whitehead
costume design: Andre Harrington

When: February 2nd, 2018, 7:30PM
Where: California State University San Bernardino

When: February 9, 2018 8:00PM
Where: Boston Court Performing Arts Centre
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http://www.bostoncourt.com/events/364/descent-into-madness-miss-donnithornes-maggot-and-other-cautionary-music

Featuring: Brightwork newmusic and Stacey Fraser, soprano

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 The lotusflower new music project in collaboration with CSUSB Opera Theatre will present an evening of dramatic chamber music works featuring pieces by some of the country’s most influential contemporary music composers on January 27th, 2017 at 7:30pm in the CSUSB Performing Arts Recital Hall. Musicians and artistic team include CSUSB professor and soprano Dr. Stacey Fraser, as well as some of LA’s top new music players and designers. Critically acclaimed tenor and performance artist Timur Bekbosunov (http://www.theoperaoftimur.com) will stage direct one of the featured works on the program, Still Life After Death by Cambodian American composer, Chinary Ung. 
 
Bekbosunov is well known in the contemporary across opera circle across the country and abroad. His company The Opera of Timur Productions is currently collaborating with Margaret Cho on a musical show "Love, Honor, Obey" and co-producing with Timur and the Dime Museum a new composition "Artaud in the Black Lodge" by David T. Little for Beth Morrison Projects. 
 
Still Life After Death will feature violinist Andrew Tholl, cellist Ashley Walters, clarinetist Phil O’Connor, flutist Sarah Wass, pianist and past CSUSB faculty member Dr. Cho Eun Lee, bass-baritone James Hayden and Grammy winning percussionist Nick Terry of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet.  Dr. David Rentz, Chaffey College professor and fellow new music specialist, will conduct the work. CSUSB professor Jason Mann will light the production and Hollywood designer Lee Frank Perez will costume the piece.  The CSUSB performance of Still Life will be adapted to film by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Sandra Powers.
 
Two of the other featured works include UC Riverside composer Paulo C. Chagas’ Too much love and UCR scholar in residence Martin Jaroszewicz’s City in the Sea, which were recently, premiered to critical acclaim at the Culver Center in Riverside this past December 2016.
 
Too much love by Paulo C. Chagas and City in the Sea by Martin Jaroszewicz are from a larger work entitled “Trauma, Loss, and Transcendence,” a multi-media performance that is dedicated to the victims and survivors of the tragic San Bernardino mass shooting. The pieces present an immersive and interactive sound and video installation, and feature soprano, percussion and live-electronics. The two works address the grief, the trauma, and the loss of loved ones while proposing a path for transcending suffering. The works were composed specifically for Fraser and Grammy nominated composer Justin Dehart, also of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet.
 
“Trauma, Loss and Transcendence” represents the first outcome of Chagas’ and Jaroszewicz’s cutting-edge research in emerging technologies for interactive music and multimedia.
 
Other chamber works featured on the program include the world premiere of a new piece entitled Seven Prophetesses for soprano and harp by Fromm winning composer Moshe Shulman and featuring Canadian soprano and Scripps professor Dr. Anne Harley and Grammy winning harpist Alison Bjorkedal.
 
The evening of chamber music at CSUSB will also include Autumn Song by Steven Goss for flute and guitar featuring Sarah Wass and Canadian guitarist and CSUSB Northridge music professor Dr. Steven Thachuk and Noturno for solo piano by Paulo C. Chagas featuring CSUSB’s own Dr. Alastair Edmonstone. 

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Trauma, Loss and Transcendence: The San Bernardino Mass Shooting Hyperobject:
A Music Performance and Hyperobject Interactive Installation for the victims of the San Bernardino Mass Shooting  


December 1st, 2016
The Culver Centre for the Arts, Riverside CA

January 27th, 2017
CSUSB Performing Arts Recital Hall

Paulo Chagas, composer
Stacey Fraser, Soprano

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The Seven Deadly Sins

February 6th, 2016, 7:30pm
CSUSB Performing Arts Recital Hall

February 13th, 2016 7:30pm
The Vine, Rancho Bernardo Winery, San Diego, CA


West Coast Premiere Two Piano and Percussion Adaptation
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Stacey Fraser, Anna I
Faith Jensen-Ismay, Anna II
Andres Valenzuela, Family
Erick Valencia, Family
Keinan Hernandez, Family
Kevin Blickfeldt, Family

Dr.ChoEun Lee, PIano
Dr. Wen-ting Huang, PIano
Craig Shields, Percussion

Carol Damgen, Director
Faith Jensen-Ismay, Choreographer
Jason Mann, Lighting
Andre Harrington, Costume
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​Synergy: Two Voices Combine


Pacific Asia Museum, March 7, 2015, 7:30PM

Pasadena, CA

Works by Sean Heim, Chinary Ung, Chen Yi, Koji Nakano, Chou Wen-chung, Lin Shi-cheng and Chih-Chen Wei

Featuring guest artists Nick Terry and Justin Dehart percussion, Sarah Wass, flute, Lara Wickes, oboe, Ashley Walters, cello, Jillian Risigari-Gai, harp, Taiwanese pipa player Yun-Han Su, and Conductor Dana Sadava.

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