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Dan Cook, Composer
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The White Ribbon, Brackenridge Park, San Antonio. The White Ribbon around the tree honors the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote. Mary Eleanor Brackenridge was the first woman in San Antonio to register to vote.

Project 19.19: Sarah Kirkland Snider

August 18, 2020

Snider’s music represents a unique musical voice moving past concepts such as genre using every tool available to present music primarily concerned with emotion and storytelling.

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Danny Kaye, A Song is Born (1948)

Project 19.18: Maria Schneider

August 10, 2020

Who deserves the blame for opening the Pandora’s Box of technology that allowed music (and other art forms) to be freely shared worldwide amongst anyone with enough access? Maria Schneider is on a mission to bring these issues to our attention and demonstrate how to use these technologies to allow artists to make a living doing something other than performing on stage 365 days a year.

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Still images from Viking Eggeling's Symphonie Diagonale (1924)

Project 19.17: Olga Neuwirth

August 3, 2020

Olga Neuwirth teaches us that it's more important to decide which language and setting are more critical (or efficacious) for the expression of ideas than it is to try to cram an idea into a predetermined musical genre, instrumentation, or performance setting.

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Project 19.16: Caroline Mallonee

July 29, 2020

The simplicity on the far side of complexity.

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Presentation by School for Poetic Computation, Day For Night, Houston, TX, 2015.

Project 19.15: Unsuk Chin

July 25, 2020

Her music is based on a musical syntax that shares certain similarities with computer programming languages.

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With the sun shining through, pinwheels spin in the wind on Alan and Nicole Milligan's "Better Angels." (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Project 19.14: Du Yun

July 21, 2020

These are dangerous times for our better angels.

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NASA photograph of one of the two identical Voyager space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched in 1977. NASA / Public domain

Project 19.13: Caroline Shaw

July 18, 2020

While Shaw may adore the music of J.S. Bach’s time, she incorporates her cosmopolitan musical sensibilities at will into her compositions, creating a sonic world that is at once recognizable and modern.

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How Black Hole Winds Blow; Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Project 19.12: Anna Thorvaldsdóttir

July 13, 2020

She can find inspiration in the microscopic or macroscopic, biological or geological, or in the inner space of dreams or the depths of outer space.

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at the San Antonio Botanical Garden

Project 19.11: Angélica Negrón

July 11, 2020

Angélica Negrón sings whatever she feels like singing and, in the process, helps to shape the world around us all.

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Shoreline of Port Aransas Beach in Texas

Project 19.10: Melinda Wagner

July 7, 2020

Her concertos for orchestral instruments elevate a form that has been around for centuries and would make any principal musician in any modern symphony orchestra dream of calling her up and having her write a showpiece to remember.

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Milky Way Viewed From the International Space Station

Project 19.9: Mary Kouyoumdjian

June 30, 2020

Musicians have always loved the stars.

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Indeterminacy - Ninety Stories by John Cage

Project 19.8: Jessie Montgomery

June 27, 2020

Montgomery has maintained her enthusiasm for string performance by expanding the possibilities in composition for string music.

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Tower Bridge © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Project 19.7: Joan Tower

June 23, 2020

Tower's music defines a bridge from serialism, through the realms of minimalism, neo-romanticism, and spectralism, into the land of contemporary classical music.

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Project 19.6: Ellen Reid

June 20, 2020

One can sense the theme of dualistic push/pull throughout the piece.

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Peak, R. (1961). West Side Story (poster). United Artists.

Project 19.5: Tania León

June 16, 2020

Perhaps I am overstating Tania León’s connection to Leonard Bernstein, but her story lifts us ALL up at a time when our country is in desperate need of a reminder of what truly makes it great.

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Interior of dome with “Glimpses of the U.S.A.” showing on seven custom screens

Project 19.4: Paola Prestini

June 12, 2020

It’s a challenge to come up with a creative adjective to describe the productivity of Paola Prestini.

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Project 19.3: Nicole Lizée

June 9, 2020

It's the realization of a new dimension hidden in the source material, brought to the awareness of those of us hanging out in Flatland without her vision.

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Wang Xianzi Imitation by Tang Dynasty

Project 19.2: Joan La Barbara

June 5, 2020

Traditionally, instrumentalists work very hard to emulate the human voice.

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Superior mirage of the boats painting

Project 19.1: Nina C. Young

June 3, 2020

There is a moment at the end of Fata Morgana that gets me every time. The mirage appears to resolve into a simple, clear vision (solo horn) only to be disturbed by the mirage's reality crashing down loudly and discordantly on the observer before everything comes to an end. It's a beautiful, chilling metaphor for so much these days.

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