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Harry Partch Festival

Saturday, May 12, 2018 - 7:30pm
$25* ($10 students/seniors) *Or purchase general admission tickets for all three performances for $60 with promo code BUYALL3FOR$60
  • Harry Partch Instrumentarium, photo Steve Korn
  • Partch Instruments
  • Harry Partch instruments at the UW
    The Harry Partch Instrumentarium is in residence at the UW (Photo: Joanne De Pue)

Twentieth century American composer Harry Partch created an original musical world and hand-hewn instruments on which to perform his microtonal compositions, which continue to inspire and influence musicians and composers today. This festival celebrates the music and influence of this unique composer, whose collection of hand-made musical instruments are in long-term residence at the UW under the curatorship of composer and Partch scholar Charles Corey.   

Note: Please allow an extra few minutes for parking as there are multiple events on the UW campus the evening of May 12.


Program Details

Saturday, May 12 

10:30 a.m., Concert 2, UW Tower Auditorium: 
Charles Corey presents the Complete Works for Adapted Guitar and Intoning Voice 
(FREE ADMISSION)

Barstow: Harry Partch 

December 1942: Harry Partch 

Come to Dust: Charles Corey 

U.S. Highball: Harry Partch 

2 pm, Symposium Session, Music Building Room 213
FREE ADMISSION

Andrew Granade: "Going Home: The Persistence of Partch's Hobo Persona" 

Paul West: "Pythagoras, Plato and Partch: Breaking the Chains of a Theoretical Art Form" 

Stephanie Liapis: "Castor & Pollux: a Movement Score" 

7:30pm, Concert 3, Meany Theater
Satire and Sincerity

Y.D. Fantasy: Harry Partch 

Pneuma:  Wei Yang 

The Rose, The Crane, The Waterfall: Harry Partch 

Commentaries on Creation: Paul West 

Dark Brother: Harry Partch

The Wind, The Street: Harry Partch

Ring Around the Moon: Harry Partch

INTERMISSION

The Wayward: Harry Partch 

 


 Tickets: $25* ($10 students/seniors)
*Or purchase general admission tickets for all three evening performances for $60 with promo code: "BUYALL3FOR$60"

Buy Tickets


Artist Bios

 

Charles Corey is an American composer holding degrees in Music Composition and Theory from the University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D.) and Montclair State University (M.A., B.Mus.).  Among his teachers are Robert Aldridge, Trevor Björklund, Patrick Burns, Dean Drummond, Eric Moe, Mathew Rosenblum and Amy Williams. His approach to composition exploits and subverts the relationships that exist between different tuning systems; the results of this process range from pieces that use standard tuning systems in unique ways to works that involve multiple tuning systems working in concert.  His compositions are known for their unexpected, evocative harmonies and their strong dramatic arcs.  His music has been played by a variety of performers including Cikada Ensemble, IonSound Project, Iktus Percussion, entelechron, and Relâche, and his writings have been published in several languages.

Faculty composer Richard Karpen. Photo: Steve Korn

Richard Karpen (b. New York, 1957) is a composer and researcher in multiple areas of music and the arts. His compositions for both electronic media and live performance are widely known, recorded, and performed internationally. Since the early 1980s he has also been in the forefront of the development of computer applications for music composition, interactive performance, and the sonic arts. He is also active as pianist.

Karpen is a Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) and Music Composition at the University of Washington in Seattle. Also at the UW he was founding Director of DXARTS in 2001 and Director of the School of Music from 2009-2020. He has been the recipient of many awards, grants, and prizes, including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bourges Contest in France, and the Luigi Russolo Foundation in Italy. Karpen has composed works for many leading international soloists, such as soprano Judith Bettina, violists Garth Knox and Melia Watras, trombonist Stuart Dempster, flutists Laura Chislett and Jos Zwaanenberg, guitarist Stefan Östersjö, and ensembles such as The Six Tones, JACK Quartet, The Seattle Symphony, and the Harry Partch Ensemble. Karpen is a founding member, with Cuong Vu, of the experimental improvisation ensemble Indigo Mist. As a pianist, Karpen has performed and recorded with Cuong Vu, Bill Frisell, Ted Poor, Steve Rodby, and others. Karpen's compositions and performances have been recorded on a variety of labels including Wergo, Centaur, Neuma, Le Chant du Monde, DIFFUSION i MeDIA, Fleur du Son, Capstone, and RareNoise.

Melia Watras (Photo: Michelle Smith Lewis)

Melia Watras has been hailed by Gramophone as “an artist of commanding and poetic personality” and by The Strad as “staggeringly virtuosic.” As a violist, composer and collaborative artist, she has sustained a distinguished career as a creator and facilitator of new music and art.

The 2024-25 season includes the releases of three recordings featuring her music: her latest album as violist/composer, The almond tree duos; Michael Jinsoo Lim’s solo violin album Kinetic, which features three works by Watras; and Atar Arad’s Partita Party, which includes Watras’s Sarabanda for solo viola. Several world premieres are also waiting in the wings: Broken Bell, a dramatic setting of her compositions within a play written by Sean Harvey, a solo violin work commissioned by baroque violinist Tekla Cunningham, and a new piece by Ha-Yang Kim commissioned by Watras.

Watras’s much-lauded work as a recording artist spans nearly three decades. The WholeNote notes that her album Play/Write “unfolds an exquisite world in which beauty and dreams flirt with sorrow.” String Masks, a collection of her own compositions including the titular work which utilizes Harry Partch instruments, was praised for “not only the virtuoso’s sensitive playing, but also her innovative and daring spirit,” by the Journal of the American Viola Society. Her compositional debut album, Firefly Songs, was hailed for “distilling rich life experiences into strikingly original musical form” by Textura. Schumann Resonances was described by the American Record Guide as “a rare balance of emotional strength and technical delicacy.” The Strad called 26 “a beautiful celebration of 21st century viola music.” Ispirare made numerous Best of 2015 lists, including the Chicago Reader’s (“Watras knocked the wind out of me with the dramatically dark beauty of this recording”). Short Stories was a Seattle Times Critics’ Pick, with the newspaper marveling at her “velocity that seems beyond the reach of human fingers.” Of her debut solo CD (Viola Solo), Strings praised her “stunning virtuosic talent” and called her second release (Prestidigitation) “astounding and both challenging and addictive to listen to.”  

Watras’s compositions have been performed in US cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bloomington (IN), and countries including Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Wales. She has been commissioned by the American Viola Society, the Avalon String Quartet, violinists Tekla Cunningham, Mark Fewer, Rachel Lee Priday and Michael Jinsoo Lim, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, pianist Cristina Valdés, accordionist Jeanne Velonis, violist Rose Wollman, and has had works performed by artists such as violist Atar Arad, singer Galia Arad, pianist Winston Choi, Harry Partch Instrumentarium Director Charles Corey, violinists Manuel Guillén and Yura Lee, vocalist Carrie Henneman Shaw, percussionist Bonnie Whiting and the ensemble Frequency. Her music has been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and can be found on the albums The almond tree duos; Kinetic; Partita Party; Play/Write; String Masks; 3 Songs for Bellows, Buttons and Keys; Firefly Songs; Schumann Resonances and 26. Watras’s adaptation of John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and can be heard on her Viola Solo album.

For twenty years, Watras concertized worldwide and recorded extensively as violist of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, which she co-founded. The quartet appears on 13 albums, including their recording on the Naxos label, which was honored as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year by The New Yorker.

Melia Watras studied with Atar Arad at Indiana University, earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate. While at Indiana, Watras began her teaching career as Professor Arad’s Associate Instructor, and was a member of the faculty as a Visiting Lecturer. She went on to study chamber music at the Juilliard School while serving as a teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet.

Watras is currently Professor of Viola and Chair of Strings at the University of Washington, where she holds the Ruth Sutton Waters Endowed Professorship. In 2024, the American Viola Society presented Watras with the Maurice W. Riley Award, for her distinguished contributions to the viola as a performer, composer, teacher and leader.

Luke Fitzpatrick

Luke Fitzpatrick is a violinist, composer and improvisor.  He is a founding member and artistic director of Inverted Space, a Seattle-based new music collective.  Recent solo performances include Earle Brown’s Centering with Inverted Space, Alfred Schnittke’s Moz-Art with the University of Washington Chamber Orchestra and Brian Ferneyhough’s Intermedio alla ciaccona in the presence of the composer.  His February 2016 performance of Steve Reich’s Violin Phase was performed with a live electronics system developed by Marcin Pączkowski.  Additionally, he has performed with Deltron 3030, The Penderecki String Quartet, inauthentica, The Parnassus Project, The Moth, The Argento Chamber Ensemble and the California EAR Unit.  His world premiere recording of Vera Ivanova's Quiet Light for solo violin was released on Ablaze Records in 2011.  Luke holds degrees from The University of Washington (DMA), California Institute of the Arts (MFA) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (BM).  His principal teachers include Benny Kim, Mark Menzies, Lorenz Gamma and Ron Patterson.  He is currently Artist-in-Residence at the University of Washington.

Jeffrey Bowen, Composition (Photo: Steve Korn).

Jeffrey Bowen is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music, whose works have been performed by Pascal Gallois, Maja Cerar, Beta Collide, Ensemble DissonArt, and the Luminosity Orchestra, among other ensembles. He was awarded First Prize in the 30th International Composition Competition “Città di Barletta,” and has presented work at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Darmstadt Courses for New Music, the International Computer Music Conference, and as a resident artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His work What Will Sound (was already sound), for violin and electronics, was released by Parma Records in 2020, and recent work has been supported by the Jack Straw Foundation and the 4Culture and Artist Trust organizations.

He is currently based in Seattle, where he teaches music theory, composition, and guitar at Seattle University and is co-director of the Inverted Space Ensemble. He holds a BA in composition and guitar performance from Stanford University, and completed a DMA in composition at the University of Washington under Joël-François Durand.

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