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13th
Annual Ussachevsky Festival Celebrates Legacy of Pioneer
in Electronic Music
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The 13th annual Ussachevsky Memorial Festival of Electronic
Music, consisting of two programs of electronic music, will
take place on Friday, January 28, and Saturday, January 29,
at Pomona College. The festival is presented by the Pomona
College Music Department in memory of composer and Pomona
College alumnus Vladimir Ussachevsky.
• Concerts will be held at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 28, and
at 8 p.m. on Saturday, January 29. Lucy Shelton,
internationally renowned soprano; Rachel Rudich, flute; Todd
Rewoldt, saxophone; and Cynthia Fogg, viola, will perform
works by Thomas Flaherty, Milton Babbitt, Kaija Saariaho,
Steven Ricks, Frank Stemper, and John Drumheller.
• At 4 p.m. on Saturday, January 29, Shelton will give a
lecture titled "Singing Between My Ears," discussing and
demonstrating the music she will be singing.
All events are open to the public and free of charge. They
will be held in Pomona’s Thatcher Music Building, Lyman
Hall, 340 N. College Ave., Claremont. For more information,
call (909) 621-8155.
An international figure in the field of new music, Shelton
sings some of the most challenging repertoire ever written,
with astonishing grace and beauty. The only artist to
receive the International Walter W. Naumburg Award twice, as
a soloist and as a chamber musician, she has performed
repertoire from Bach to Boulez in major recital, chamber and
orchestral venues throughout the world. Highly acclaimed as
an interpreter of new music, she continues to bring new
audiences into the sound world of new works, often composed
for her. Shelton is a 1965 graduate of Pomona College.
Vladimir Ussachevsky, a 1935 graduate of Pomona College, was
one of the most significant pioneers in electronic music,
and one of its most ardent supporters. It is because of a
generous bequest from Ussachevsky that the college’s
Electronic Music Studio contains state-of-the-art equipment
for the production and recording of electronic music.
From 1947 until his retirement in 1980, Ussachevsky taught
at Columbia University, where he began experimenting with
the use of tape recorders to manipulate sounds. Through much
experimentation, he developed the first works of “tape
music,” a uniquely American synthesis of French
musique-concréte and the German pure electronic schools. In
1952, Ussachevsky’s first works of tape music were performed
at a historic concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York City. In 1959, Ussachevsky co-founded the
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and directed its
course for the next 20 years as the leading electronic-music
studio in the United States.
Ussachevsky was the first to combine traditional music
sounds – musical instruments and voice – with taped sounds
from a variety of sources – wind, footsteps, splashing
water, a telephone, animal sounds or people crying or
laughing, to name but a few. Ussachevsky electronically
modulated these sounds through such devices and techniques
as the electronic switch, echo chamber, feedback, ring
modulation, tape loops, speed variation, volume control,
complex mixing and detailed tape editing. By using the
medium of tape music for its unique capabilities,
Ussachevsky developed an instrument with previously unknown
musical possibilities.
The Ussachevsky Memorial Festival is coordinated by Tom
Flaherty, composer, associate professor of music and
director of the Electronic Music Studio at Pomona College
since 1989.
Pomona College is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts
institutions, offering a comprehensive program in the arts,
humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Its
hallmarks include small classes, close relationships between
students and faculty, and a range of opportunities for
student research. For more information on Pomona College,
visit its Website at www.pomona.edu.
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