Announcement

It is with sadness that we report the passing of Professor Phil Winsor on 23 January 2012. Prof. Winsor was a member of the UNT composition faculty from 1982 through 2010, during which time he served as co-founder and director of CEMI and as chair of the composition division (1996-97). We share the sentiments of Phil's many friends, colleagues, and former students in conveying our condolences to the Winsor family during this time of mourning and remembrance.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to:

Phil Winsor Scholarship Fund
UNT College of Music
Attn: Beth Jackson
1155 Union Circle #311367
Denton, Tx 76203

About the Program

The composition program at the University of North Texas is one of the largest and most diverse in the nation, with approximately 70 composition students and seven faculty members representing a variety of compositional aesthetics and approaches. Regular guest composer residencies, visiting new music specialists, and dozens of events each year provide students with a rich educational and artistic experience.

An interdisciplinary center within UNT’s Division of Composition Studies, the Center for Experimental Music & Intermedia (CEMI) provides a unique environment for the exploration of time-based arts and is internationally renowned for its long history of innovation, particularly in the realm of electroacoustic music. Students, faculty, guests, and collaborators from a variety of disciplines engage in research, creation, and performance in CEMI’s six production studios and the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater.

Music Now is the weekly composition departmental meeting, an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information about the creation, performance, and understanding of recent music. These forums, which are typically scheduled Mondays at 11:00-11:50 am, feature presentations by UNT faculty and students as well as visiting composers, scholars, and interpreters of new music.

Nova is the new music ensemble of the University of North Texas. In keeping with its mission to present a diversity of musical, aesthetic, and cultural experiences, Nova’s repertoire ranges from 20th century classics to works that incorporate the latest musical innovations. Students in the ensemble have opportunities to work with faculty and guest composers and are occasionally joined by faculty and guest performers. Performances and workshops have included music by composition students as well.

The Spectrum concert series features new solo and chamber works for instruments and voices by student composers; Centerpieces concerts feature works created at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia utilizing new technologies and intermedia.

The Composers Forum is a student organization devoted to coordinating performances and bringing new works to public attention. The organization was formed to foster the spirit of collaboration between composers, performers, and artists of all kinds throughout the UNT community.

The Initiative for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts (iARTA) is an interdisciplinary research cluster represented by faculty from across a wide spectrum of the arts, engineering and sciences. iARTA activities include scholarship, creative research and technical development at the leading edges of emergent media practice; the resulting research areas are represented by diverse forms such as telematic performance, immersive installation, robotic sculpture, mobile networks, and art-science collaboration. The cluster also publishes the MOEBIUS Journal, which explores the intersection of theory and practice in electronic arts.

2012-13 Guest Artists

Upcoming Events

  • Sep
    18
    Music Now
    • Randy Foster, Licensing and Business Development Manager for Naxos [tentative]
    • Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater
    • 11:00am

Recent Division News

  • Faculty composer Jon Christopher Nelson was awarded the International Computer Music Association's 2012 America's Region Award at the International Computer Music Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia in September 2012. This recognition is provided by an international jury that evaluates more than 500 conference composition submissions from around the world in a double-blind, two-tiered adjudication process.

  • Alumna composer Michelle Alonso (BM 2011) has been awarded a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Residency Fellowship for the summer of 2012. The fellowship provides three months of free housing for artists to work at the Foundation, located in Taos, New Mexico.

  • Nine UNT-affiliated composers were selected to participate in the SEAMUS 2012 Conference at Lawrence University, 9-11 February 2012: student composers L. Scott Price and Greg Dixon; alumni composers Ethan Hayden, Chapman Welch, Mikel Kuehn, Daniel Zajicek, Eli Fieldsteel, and Elainie Lillios; and former faculty member Butch Rovan.

  • Alumnus Kevin Walczyk (MM 1991; DMA 1994) has been named the recipient of the ninth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. The competition, organized by the University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts, supports and promotes composers and the performance of their new musical works.

  • Alumna composer Elainie Lillios (DMA 2000), an associate professor of composition at Bowling Green State University, has been awarded a commission from the prestigious Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris. Lillios is only the second American composer in the history of the GRM to be awarded a commission. Lillios’s new work will be premiered in October 2013 at La maison de Radio France in the Salle Olivier Messiaen, as a featured piece on the GRM’s “Multiphonies” concert series.

  • Err Prenne, a video work by alumnus composer Brian Hernandez (MA 2011) has been selected for inclusion at the 2012 International WOCMAT (International Workshop on Computer Music and Audio Technology) conference, which takes place on 30 November and 1 December at the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, Republic of China. The conference includes guest speakers John Chowning, Simon Emmerson, Richard Dudas, among others, as well as sound installations and music and technology exhibitions.

  • This year's International Computer Music Conference, which takes place in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 9-14 September 2012, will include works by several UNT composers. In addition to being presented at the conference, works by faculty members Jon Christopher Nelson (Turbulent Blue) and Panayiotis Kokoras (Construct Synthesis) were selected by an international jury from among 600 entries for inclusion on the conference CD.

  • Faculty composer Panayiotis Kokoras won the 15th International Composition Competition Franco Evangelisti 2012 (Rome) for his work Shatter Cone for amplified violin and electronics. The composition has been selected for the final round and will be performed by violinist Giuseppe Crosta; the prize includes publication of the score by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, a cash prize, and broadcast by Rai Radio3.

  • Alumnus Ricardo Gallo (BM 2002) remains active as a jazz composer and pianist. The Ricardo Gallo Cuarteto will be on a European tour (May-June 2012) and Gallo was featured in an article in the Colombian newspaper El Espectador.

  • Ten UNT-affiliated composers were selected to participate in the SEAMUS 2013 Conference at McNally Smith College in St. Paul, MN, 18-20 April 2013: faculty composers Panayiotis Kokoras and Jon Christopher Nelson; doctoral composer Mark Oliveiro; alumni composers Jon Anderson, Greg Dixon, Eli Fieldsteel, Dave Gedosh, Elainie Lillios, and L. Scott Price; and former faculty composer Butch Rovan.