Double Century Doubles

Sheena Phillips based her composition on a traditional bell-ringing method called “doubles,” in which bells were rung with ropes with one person responsible for each bell. Patterns of ringing were developed that were sequential and easy to remember. The sequence would be changed with each repetition with adjacent bells switching places. Methods for six bells, in which up to two pairs of bells can switch from line to line (the last bell always stays put), are called "doubles."

Phillips is a composer and arranger, chiefly of choral and chamber music. A native of Britain, she grew up near London and studied mathematics at Cambridge University. Her music career started with the award-winning Rudsambee Company of Singers in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been commissioned by and performed with many groups, including the National Youth Choir of Scotland, the Choral Project (San Jose, CA), Chicago A Cappella, Zephyr (California), and the Columbus Women's Chorus. Many of her shorter compositions and folk song arrangements have been published by Canasg Music Publishing, Santa Barbara Music Press, Earthsongs, Lorenz, and the National Youth Choir of Scotland. Recent work includes Irish folk song arrangements for VOICES Chorale of New Jersey, “All Quiet Along the Potomac,” a composition for the Columbus Women's Chorus, and a suite of songs about the ocean for the Southern Arizona Women's Chorus and a musical setting of the book The First Music by Dylan Pritchett. After living in Columbus for more than ten years, Phillips moved to New Jersey in 2011.

Canzona 2012 for Chime

Donald Harris taught music at The Ohio State University for twenty-two years, was dean of the College of the Arts from 1988 to 1997, and founded the Contemporary Music Festival at Ohio State in 2000. Prior to joining the Ohio State faculty, he served as a faculty member and administrator at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Hartt School of Music. From 1954 to 1968, Harris lived in Paris, where he served as music consultant to the United States Information Agency and produced the city's first postwar Festival of Contemporary American Music. Harris is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, honors, and commissions over his long and successful career. A documentary about Harris entitled Sonata 1957 was produced by Daniel Beliavsky through opus1films in 2011. The Columbus Symphony Orchestra presented the world premiere of Harris' Symphony No. 2 in April 2012.

March (for Eileen)

“The title is a play on words: the composition is being played throughout the month of March; musically, it is written as a slow march; and lastly, the dedicatee's birthday is in March. I wanted the piece to convey a sense of mourning, much like a funeral march, with the hope that by the composition's end, it might express a more encouraging temperament—much like the fond remembrances of someone lost, the arrival of April, or an ordinary birthday.” —Sue Harshe

Sue Harshe is a founding member of the post-punk band Scrawl, which released seven albums between 1986 and 1998 on such labels as Rough Trade, Simple Machines, and Elektra. More recently Scrawl performed at the 2012 All Tomorrow's Parties festival, held in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Harshe also performs in the rock band Fort Shame, which released a CD in late 2012. Since 2003 she has composed music for seven silent films screened at the Wexner Center for the Arts silent film series. Recordings of her compositions for six shorter films can be found on all three volumes of Kino International's DVD collection of avant-garde experimental cinema. Harshe composed and performed the music for theatrical performances at The Ohio State University in 2010 and 2006, both staged by visiting director Alexander Stillmark.

Wakening

Vera Stanojevic was born in Belgrade (in the former Yugoslavia), where she studied piano, theory, and composition at the Mokranjac School of Music. She received graduate and post-graduate degrees in Music Composition from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts from The Ohio State University. She has won numerous awards for her compositions. Stanojevic's works have been performed at festivals and in concerts in many countries, and have been recorded and broadcast on European and American radio and television.

Brightness Falls From the Air: A Festive Peal for Carillon

“The title comes from a verse of the renaissance poet Thomas Nashe. It seemed apt, both to describe how the sound of the carillon wafts out of Trinity's beautiful tower to bathe the heart of downtown in music, and because I attempt in the piece, to describe the anticipation of the coming of the Messiah, His arrival, and the fulfillment of the promised New Jerusalem in the founding of the church on the day of Pentecost.” —Gerald Harvey

An oft-comissioned composer, Gerald Harvey has been a music educator for more than twenty years and has been honored by his district with the “Great Educator-Mentor Award” and as “Teacher of the Year.” His music has been performed nationally and internationally. In 1996 the WOSU production of his musical I Was Young, Now I'm Wonderful, which premiered in Cologne, Germany, received two Emmy Awards. He performed a group of his songs with the Budapest Chamber Symphony Orchestra in Hungary in 2006. In 2011 Magnificat was awarded the John Ness Beck Foundation Grant and Harvey conducted its European premiere in Las Palmas, Spain. He has conducted several Columbus choral ensembles and church choirs, including the Germania Singing Society, which he led on two European tours. Recent projects include a commission for Opera Project Columbus. Harvey received a BME from The Ohio State University and an MME from Capital University.

Thy Music, Mellow Bell

“This piece begins with a simple melody in an Americana style, evoking a feeling of the hearty pioneer spirit moving west. This melody could also be heard as reminiscent of the sacred chants of old European church music, drawing attention to the connection between the old and new world. As the piece progresses, strains and variations of the melody take on more and more modern harmonizations, drawing it through time. It ends with a restatement of the original melody in the more joyous key of F Major and a celebratory peel of descending triplets. Finally, the last resounding chime recalls the darker and more mournful tone of the beginning, reminding us that our history shapes our future.” —Jacob Reed

Jacob Reed has fifteen years of experience as a drummer and bandleader and working with dancers. He holds a BME and masters degrees in both Music Composition and Music Theory from The Ohio State University. In 2005 he cofounded the OSU New Music Ensemble, a group that presented new works by OSU students alongside more renowned works of twentieth-century composers. While at Ohio State, Reed received numerous commissions from musicians and choreographers to create new compositions and arrangements. A collaboration with choreographer Chad Hall culminated in their 2007 presentation of House of Cards at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. As music director of Hixon Dance, Reed accompanies classes, teaches music for dancers, and composes original works for company performances.

Faith

Mark Flugge, who passed away in 2014, was a pianist, composer, educator, and bandleader in Central Ohio and beyond. His soloist appearances included performing Rhapsody in Blue with the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra (2011), the Capital/Bexley Orchestra (2009), the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (2006 and 2010), and the Westerville Symphony (2004). He was the musical director for Birth of the Cool with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra in 2011 and bandleader for the Opera Columbus production of Kurt Weill’s Berlin to Broadway in 2010. In 2005 Flugge transcribed Thelonious Monk’s Town Hall Concert recording, and subsequently he led performances of the transcribed album. Flugge recorded three CDs: In Love, In Blue on solo piano, February's Promise, and Familiarity. He also recorded four CDs with Columbus singer Dick Mackey and was the featured soloist on the Famous Jazz Orchestra CD Sight Readin' Baby. Flugge was a jazz faculty member at The Ohio State University, the Capital University Conservatory of Music, and the Jazz Arts Group's Jazz Academy, as well as at the Eastman School of Music. He conducted clinics throughout the United States and Germany on jazz improvisation, jazz piano, and the music of Duke Ellington. He earned a BM in jazz composition from Ohio State, and an MM in jazz performance from Eastman.

Theme for Church Chime

Derek DiCenzo has performed in many genres—mostly jazz—and on many instruments (piano, organ, accordion, guitars, bass, drums, steel drum, voice, and more) in Columbus for the past twenty years. He freelances with premier Columbus jazz musicians in small groups, focusing on improvisation, and also with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra and other local performing arts groups, and his own trio. DiCenzo has toured extensively nationally and internationally with Jamaican-born jazz-piano sensation Monty Alexander, as well as Diane Schuur, the Afghan Whigs, and Columbus-native hip-hop star RJD2. He is involved with educational programs such as Reggie Jackson's Making Choices and the Jazz Arts Group’s Jazz Academy. DiCenzo is also an accompanist for silent films at the Wexner Center for Arts.

Finding Chime

Mark Gunderson (aka TradeMark G.) is a musician and artist, perhaps best known as founder of the band The Evolution Control Committee (The ECC) in 1986. He is also a culture jammer, equipment designer, software designer, and organizer. The ECC is best known for its copyright-challenging stance, using found sounds to create new musical works at the risk of copyright violation. The ECC has appeared on air from CNN to C-SPAN and in print from Spin to US News & World Report. The ECC and TradeMark's other bands have given nearly 1,000 live performances at festivals and in concert halls, bars, and galleries across the United States and in Australia, Germany, Holland, England, France, and elsewhere. TradeMark has also given lectures and participated in panel discussions at the University of San Francisco, University of Oregon, Headlands Center for the Arts, and festivals in Barcelona Spain; Utrecht, Holland; and Sydney, Australia.

Between Houses

Brian Harnetty is a musician and artist from Ohio, and his work involves overlooked elements of sound. Many of his pieces transform found material—including field recordings, transcriptions, and historic recordings—into personal sound worlds. For the past several years, this has led to a focus on projects with specific archives, including the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives in Kentucky, and the Sun Ra/El Saturn Creative Audio Archive in Chicago. His music and installations have been performed and shown in America and Europe. Recordings are available on Atavistic Records, Ruminance (Europe), and Scioto Records.

Sky 2 for Carillon

Richard Jordan Smoot received his doctorate in 1986 from The Ohio State University, where he was a Presidential Fellow working in the combined areas of composition, computer music, and music perception. Smoot's compositions have been performed and broadcast throughout the world at performance venues ranging from Lincoln Center and The Downtown Arts Festival in New York City to the ESPN-II sports network to the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic. His catalog includes over a dozen orchestral and large ensemble works, as well as numerous chamber, vocal, electronic, and solo compositions. A classical guitarist, Smoot has composed many works for his instrument. His works are recorded and published by Master Musicians Collective in Boston, Acoma Company of Toronto and by his own company: Sound Endeavors in Columbus. He is a member of Broadcast Music, Inc., the American Music Center, and the American Composers Forum. He has also worked as a consultant in the music technology field and has served as an arts council adjudicator. Smoot was an associate professor at Ohio Northern University and a visiting instructor at The Ohio State University.

I Hear the Bells

Bobby Floyd has performed extensively at major jazz festivals and in concert halls and nightclubs in North America, Europe, and Japan. A Columbus artist, Floyd has been a feature with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra on piano, organ, and keyboards. Floyd has four recordings to date.