Ken Ueno
Ken Ueno | |
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Born | 11 January 1970 (age 51) |
Awards |
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Ken Ueno (born January 11, 1970 in Bronxville, New York) is an American composer.
Career[]
He studied at the United States Military Academy. He graduated from Berklee College of Music with a B.M. in Film Scoring/Composition Summa Cum Laude, from Boston University with a M.M., from Yale School of Music with a M.M.A., and from Harvard University with a PhD.[citation needed]
He taught at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.[1][2] He is co-director of Minimum Security Composers Collective.[3]
Works[]
He has composed orchestral works, for jazz big band and woodwind quintet, and two dance pieces for the Boston Conservatory.[4] He performed at the Flea, New York City.[5]
Ueno has collaborated with violist Kim Kashkashian and percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky on the works Hypnomelodiamachia for viola, percussion, and electronics (2007), and Two Hands, a Kashkashian commission, for viola and percussion (2009). A monograph compact disc of three works for soloist(s) and orchestra, Talus for viola and orchestra, On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis for solo throat-singer and orchestra, and Kaze-no-Oka for biwa, shakuhachi, and orchestra, was released by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project in 2010.[6] Ueno has also written for such ensembles as the So Percussion Group, Bang on a Can All-Stars, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Del Sol String Quartet,[7] Prism Quartet,[8] and eighth blackbird.[9]
Ueno's compositional approach frequently involves extra-musical modeling, including using images, cultural phenomena, or architecture as the basis for structural decisions, somewhat analogous to the use of architectural proportions in Renaissance music. Kaze-no-Oka, for example, reflects in part the structure of the Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki's like-named project[dead link].[10] His Talus is, in a manner of speaking, a biography of a traumatic event in the life of its soloist, violist Wendy Richman, who shattered her ankle in a ten-foot fall.[11] He is keenly interested in the process of exploring unique, in some sense irreproducible, sonic events linked to the performers for which his music is written.
As a performer, Ueno is active as a throat-singing vocalist and performing with live electronics.[12] He is an accomplished guitarist.
In 2010, he was awarded the Berlin Prize residential fellowship in Music Composition at the American Academy in Berlin.[13]
Awards[]
- 2010 Berlin Prize[14]
- 2007 Rome Prize
- Fromm Music Foundation grant
- Aaron Copland House grant
- Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording grant
- National Endowment for the Arts grant
- Belgian-American Education Foundation
- First Prize in the 25th "Luigi Russolo" competition
- Harvard University grant [15]
Discography[]
- "Ken Ueno: Talus", BMOP/sound, BMOP1014 [16]
- "I screamed at the sea until nodes swelled up, then my voice became the resonant noise of the sea", in New Dialects, Centaur CRC 3038, Gregory Oakes, 2009 [17]
- "Synchronism Six-Zero", in One Minute More, Transatlantic Foundation for Music and Art B001J54A8S, Guy Livingston, 2008 [18]
- "Scrapyard Exotica," by Del Sol String Quartet, Sono Luminus (2015) (featuring "Peradam" (2012)
References[]
- ^ "New Faculty Profile: Composer Ken Ueno Seeks Balance, Passion" Archived 2010-06-20 at the Wayback Machine, University of California, Berkeley. Kate Rix
- ^ Molly Sheridan (July 21, 2008). "Decoding Ken Ueno". New Music Box. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
- ^ "MINIMUM SECURITY COMPOSER/CO-DIRECTOR: KEN UENO". Retrieved July 17, 2010.
- ^ "American Composers Orchestra - June 4, 1999 - Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions". Americancomposers.org. Retrieved 2010-07-20.
- ^ "Ken Ueno & Du Yun at the Flea". Sequenza 21. May 1, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
- ^ "Ken Ueno: Talus | BMOP". www.bmop.org. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
- ^ Times, The New York (2015-10-07). "Classical Playlist: Conrad Tao, 'Scrapyard Exotica' and More". ArtsBeat. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
- ^ Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna da (2016-06-14). "Man, Can You Hear That Crazy Forest Green?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
- ^ "PSNY: Ken Ueno Biography". www.eamdc.com. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
- ^ From Ueno's performance notes, KenUeno.com
- ^ From Ueno's performance notes, KenUeno.com
- ^ "Ken Ueno—". EMPAC—Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
- ^ "Berlin Prize in Music Composition Fellow - Class of Fall 2010, Class of Spring 2011". American Academy in Berlin. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
- ^ "The American Academy Names 2010 - 2011 Berlin Prize Recipients" Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine, The American Academy in Berlin
- ^ "Ken Ueno". Boston Music Orchestra Project. Retrieved July 17, 2010.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Ken Ueno: Talus", DRAM
- ^ "recordings". gregory oakes. 2002-12-29. Retrieved 2010-07-20.
- ^ "Downloads: One Minute More". Guylivingston.com. Archived from the original on 2009-12-17. Retrieved 2010-07-20.
External links[]
- Artist's website
- "Careers in Composition: Alumni Interview with Ken Ueno", Berklee College
- "Ken Ueno Interview", Composition Today
- "Ken Ueno (throat singer) and Joan Jeanrenaud (cello) @ BAM/PFA"
- "On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis", University of California, Berkeley, Sounds of the Music Department
- "Spotlight Session: Decoding Ken Ueno", Counterstream Audio
- "Music Now Class performs Ken Ueno's Piece for Pieces of Paper"
- American Academy in Berlin
- "Biography and recording/info on 2015 composition Zetsu" "San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
- 1970 births
- Living people
- American male composers
- 21st-century American composers
- American musicians of Japanese descent
- Berklee College of Music alumni
- Boston University College of Fine Arts alumni
- Yale School of Music alumni
- Harvard University alumni
- University of Massachusetts Dartmouth faculty
- University of California, Berkeley faculty
- Berlin Prize recipients
- People from Bronxville, New York
- Musicians from New York (state)
- 21st-century American male musicians