This concert features the round robin performances between Ken Ueno, James Fei and Viola Yip on megaphone, analog and digital electronics.
The Artists
Ken Ueno
A recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize, Ken Ueno (b. 1970), is a composer/vocalist/sound artist who is currently a Professor at UC Berkeley, where he holds the Jerry and Evelyn Hemmings Chambers Distinguished Professor Chair in Music. Ensembles and performers who have played Ken’s music include Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, Mayumi Miyata, Teodoro Anzellotti, Aki Takahashi, Wendy Richman, Greg Oakes, BMOP, Alarm Will Sound, Steve Schick and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Nieuw Ensemble, and Frances-Marie Uitti. His music has been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MusikTriennale Köln Festival, the Muziekgebouw, Ars Musica, Warsaw Autumn, Other Minds, the Hopkins Center, Spoleto USA, Steim, and at the Norfolk Music Festival. Ken’s piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, was featured in their repertoire for over ten years, with performances at such venues as Queen Elizabeth Hall in England, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and was aired on Italian national radio, RAI 3. Another work, Pharmakon, was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons. A portrait concert of Ken’s was featured on MaerzMusik in Berlin in 2011. In 2012, he was a featured artist on Other Minds 17. In 2014, Frances-Mairie Uitti and the Boston Modern Orchestra premiered his concerto for two-bow cello and orchestra, and Guerilla Opera premiered a run of his chamber opera, Gallo, to critical acclaim. He has performed as soloist in his vocal concerto with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project in New York and Boston, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Lithuanian National Symphony, the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, and with orchestras in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and California. Ken holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. A monograph CD of three orchestral concertos was released on the Bmop/sound label. His bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music.
James Fei
James Fei (b. Taipei, Taiwan) moved to the US in 1992 to study electrical engineering. He has since been active as a composer and performer on saxophones and live electronics. Works by Fei have been performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, MATA Micro Orchestra and Noord-Hollands Philharmonisch Orkest. Recordings can be found on Leo Records, Improvised Music from Japan, CRI, Krabbesholm and Organized Sound. Compositions for Fei's own ensemble of four alto saxophones focus on physical processes of saliva, fatigue, reeds crippled by cuts and the threshold of audible sound production, while his sound installations and performance on live electronics often focus on electronic and acoustic feedback. Fei received the Grants for Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2014 and he is president of Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation. Fei has taught at Mills College in Oakland since 2006, where he is Professor of Electronic Arts, Director of the Center for Contemporary Music and Head of the Art and Technology Program.
Works by Fei have been performed at Merkin Hall, The Kitchen, Knitting Factory, Tonic, Roulette, Experimental Intermedia, MATA Festival, Engine 27, The Stone, Issue Project Room (all New York), SFMoma, Empty Bottle (Chicago), Akedemie der Künste (Berlin), Beurs van Berlage (Amsterdam), Steim (Amsterdam), Overtoom 301 (Amsterdam), JFC Club (St Petersberg), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Shinjuku Pit Inn (Tokyo), Osaka Arts–Aporia, Bridge (Osaka), and National Recital Hall (Taiwan). Fei has lectured at Columbia University, Wesleyan University,The Art Institute of Chicago, Taipei Normal University,Taipei National University of the Arts, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Theremin Center (Moscow), Pro Arte (St. Petersberg), Krabbesholm (Denmark), IAMAS (Ogaki, Japan) and NUAS (Nogoya, Japan).
Viola Yip
Viola Yip is an experimental composer, performer, improviser, sound artist and instrument builder. She has been interested in creating new self-built instruments and sound works in the intersection of composition, performance, improvisation and sound art, exploring various relationships between media, materiality, space and our musical bodies in experimental music.
Viola recently receives an Honorary Mention from Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (ZKM). She is also a recent recipient of Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta (München) stipendium, Projektstipendien Junge Kunst /Neue Medien für Musik 2021 from the Rathaus München, as well as a special grant INITIAL from Akademie der Künste Berlin.
Viola's instruments and performances has been presented in major music festivals and concert series in New York: New York University, Abrons Arts Center, Center for Performing Research, Brooklyn Studio for Dance, Issue Project Room, Look and Listen Festival, ShapeShifter Lab, Kimmel Galleries, The Old Stone, Weird Wednesday on Thursday in Barbes, 2nd Annual Female Composers Festival at Spectrum, The Cell, Secret Theater and Flushing Town Hall; Missouri: MOXsonic Festival in University of Central Missouri; Chicago: University of Chicago, Elastic Arts, Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Frequencies Festival in Constellation, Arts Club of Chicago; Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Boston and Cambridge (MA): Third Life Studio and LilyPad, Boston Conservatory and Brandeis University; Cycling 74 Expo; Bang On A Can Festival; Ohio: Bowling Green State University; Pittsburgh: Carneigie Mellon University; Baltimore: Peabody Institute; Ithaca: Cornell University and Electrozone; Buffalo: PAUSA Art House, Saratoga Spring: Super Dark Thursdays; Los Angelos: OUTHAUS; San Diego: University of California San Diego; Texas: TEDXSMU, Southern Methodist University; Montreal: NoHay Banda series; Toronto: 918 Bathurst; Mexico: University of Guanajuato; Hong Kong: Radio and Television Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Center, Tung Nam Lou Hotel, SAAL, Artouch, Hive Spring Gallery; Beijing: Aotuspace and Miji concerts; Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts Gallery; Kuala Lumpur: KLEX Festival; United Kingdom: Sonic Lab in SARC at Queen University Belfast, Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Huddersfield University; Italy: soundSCAPE festival and HIGHSCORE festival; Portugal: Estalagem da Ponta do Sol Residency for Contemporary Music and Electronics in Madeira; Belgium: Orpheus Insitute in Ghent, QO-2 in Brussels; Netherlands: De Tanker in Noord in Amsterdam; The Helicopter Project Space in the Hague; Switzerland: Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Unternehmen Mitte in Basel; Cologne: Alte Feuewache in Cologne, ON Musik Köln, Fuhrwerkswaage; Moers: Schlosspark in Moers, Düsseldorf: Glashaus in Worringer Platz in Düsseldorf; Darmstadt: Darmrstädter Fierenkurse; Berlin: Radialsystem, Willows Nest, Loophole, Börnestudio 45, Kek Lo Cafe, West Germany venue, Kühlspot, Exploratorium, Spektrum and Universität der Kunste Berlin.