By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
There never was any doubt that the New Music Festival would return to Bowling Green this week.
Last year, the festival had to move online – this year in only slightly reduced form the festival is back on the Bowling Green State University campus,
“We’re still an integral part of the fabric” of the College of Musical Arts, said Kurt Doles, who organizes the festival in his role as director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music. “It was never even considered that it would go away. It couldn’t go away. We couldn’t let it die.”
This is, after all, is a center for lovers of contemporary music. “Magnetic North for new music lovers points to Bowling Green, Ohio,” said Pulitzer Prize winner composer David Lang, who was featured guest composer in 2012.
And Augusta Read Thomas will reprise her role as featured guest composer. Last year, all the performances were presented virtually.
[RELATED: Composer Augusta Read Thomas: ‘It’s important that artists are supported and able to do their work’]
The bones of the festival will be in place, though there will be a couple fewer concerts. Nothing will be staged downtown at the Cla-Zel, he noted. Everything will be in Kobacker Hall, except Thomas’ composer’s talk, which will begin the festival Thursday (Oct. 21) at 1:30 p.m. in Bryan Recital Hall(Click to see full schedule.)
The guest performers will be violist Michael Hall, pianist Marianne Parker, both from Chicago. They will perform music by Thomas and others at 8 p.m. Friday.
There were limits on the size of the ensembles that could assemble during the pandemic. That precluded, Doles said, hearing, any of Thomas’ large scale choral and orchestral pieces. Those will be performed in the closing concert Friday at 8 p.m. with the BG Philharmonia. This is the only ticketed event.
It is a “moral victory” to be able to stage the festival after a year in which “everyone has been put through the wringer,” he said.
Still last year was a victory in its own way. All the videos had to be produced in six months. Rather than simply planting a camera and filming the performers, Michael Laurello used multiple angles and evocative lighting to create short films that were visually captivating. (Most of the 2020 performances are available to view on the College of Musical Arts YouTube channel.)
“It was very encouraging to see the high level of quality we could put out,” Doles said. Laurello “is just a genius.”
And, he added, more people viewed the videos than have attended concerts.
Still digital does not replace live performance, though that dimension will continue to be part of the festival.
Doles expects smaller attendance this year. “It will be a little quieter with fewer people. Fewer of the composers whose work will be played will be attendance. People aren’t ready to travel.”
That does not include Nancy and Rick Johnson who will make the three-hour drive from their home in Michigan to attend.
They first learned of the festival when their son Sam Johnson visited as a prospective student. He ended up attending the University of Michigan to study composition. But his parents have become what Doles describes as “super fans.”
They were surprised to be told of that sobriquet. In an email, they wrote: “It is purely because at the end of the festival we already look forward to the next.”
Their son’s interest in composition sparked their own fascination with contemporary music. The BGSU festival “features works by many current composers, providing a smorgasbord of contemporary music.”
The focus on one composer also allows for hearing a range of their works from intimate chamber works to large scale orchestra pieces.
“The performances by faculty, students and guest musicians are top-notch,” the Johnsons wrote.
They find it stimulating to be around so many young and committed musicians.
“The informal atmosphere provides an opportunity to meet the guest composers and other composers who are present. Visiting the campus during breaks and dining downtown is a bonus,” the couple wrote. “The entire experience is cozy; a perfect blend of hip and small-town life.”
The guest composer shares their esteem for the event. Last year in an interview conducted over Zoom, Thomas told Doles: “The festival that you run is exceptional and really important.”
