Milanov Conducts Free HAPPY HOUR CONCERT Today

Now in its third year, Happy Hour concerts offer free, informal, after-work concerts performed by the Columbus Symphony, preceded by complimentary appetizers, a DJ in the theatre lobby, and a cash bar. Conducted by the CSO's new Music Director Rossen Milanov, the first Happy Hour concert of the 2015-16 season will be at the Ohio Theatre today, October 29, and will be in partnership with Earshot, The National Orchestral Composition Discovery Network, to present a live Composers' Competition. The CSO will perform four new music compositions from four emerging composers, and ask the audience to vote for their favorite. A professional jury will select an official winner of the competition.

EarShot is a program of the American Composers Orchestra in collaboration with the American Composers Forum, League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA. EarShot helps orchestras around the country to identify and support promising composers in the early stages of their careers, and offer an opportunity for talented and upcoming composers to develop their works with a professional orchestra.

The Columbus Symphony presents Happy Hour: Composers' Competition at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Thursday, October 29. Doors will open at 5:30pm with complimentary appetizers, drink specials, and opportunities to meet CSO musicians. The concert begins at 6:30pm, and will last for approximately 60 minutes with no intermission. Maestro Milanov will add commentary on each of the works throughout the performance. Admission is free. Seating is general admission.

The 2015-16 Happy Hour concert series is presented with support from PNC Arts Alive, a multi-year, $2.5 million initiative of the PNC Foundation that supports visual and performing arts groups with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement in new and innovative ways. Additional support is provided by the Johnstone Fund for New Music and Giant Eagle.

The selected composers, chosen from a national candidate pool, are Rosalie Burrell, Saad Haddad, Patrick O'Malley, and Iván Rodríguez. American Composers Orchestra President Michael Geller says, "The four composers chosen for this unique new program are as talented as they are diverse in their musical styles. Rosie, Saad, Ivan, and Patrick are only in their 20s, but they are incredibly accomplished at what is a very 'tender' young age for composers. Each of them has a really distinctive musical outlook. We can't wait to work with them and the talented musicians at the Columbus Symphony. And I think for listeners in Columbus, who come out for the culminating concert of the program, they will be 'blown away' by the brilliance, energy, and vitality of the music they hear. Years from now, I'm sure we will all look back at the EarShot Columbus Composer Competition as a watershed moment for these composers, for CSO audiences, and for the entire field of American orchestra music."

Of the EarShot readings, Columbus Symphony Music Director Rossen Milanov says, "I am delighted by the partnership of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and EarShot in the first season of my tenure as Music Director in Columbus. My strong commitment to music of our time and career-long support for young composers could not have been expressed better then in this original and meaningful introduction of newly composed works to our audience. I hope that the composers, the musicians, and the audience will develop a better understanding and appreciation of the creative, performing, and listening process."

This program is the result of a new partnership with EarShot, a nationwide network of new music readings and composer development programs. As the nation's first ongoing, systematic program for identifying emerging orchestral composers, EarShot provides professional-level working experience with orchestras from every region of the country and increases awareness of these composers and access to their music throughout the industry. The program is administered by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) with partner organizations the American Composers Forum, League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA.

Rosalie Burrell: Paved with Gold

Rosalie Burrell's music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Lesher Center for the Arts, the All Women's National Brass Convention, and Bush Creek Arts. For the last two concert seasons, she has been the Artistic Coordinator, Composer, and Orchestrator at The Little Orchestra Society, a chamber orchestra that, under the baton of James Judd, performs for young families and children. As an artistic administrator, Burrell plans programs and produces concerts and workshops at venues that have included maximum-security prisons, hospital wards, veteran rehabilitation facilities, and schools. She received her Masters of Music degree from the Mannes School of Music, where she studied with David Tcimpidis, writing primarily chamber music. In 2013, she was a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers competition and won both the Martinu Composition Award and the 2013 Mannes Orchestra Composition Competition. Other accolades include the 2012 Jean Schneider Goberman Award second prize for her piano quartet Secret Gardens.

Of Paved with Gold, Burrell says, "I was taking long walks through New York City; grime and glitter, glass and iron, duality at every turn. I drew a landscape of New York, not as it exists in any physical sense, but in a sweeping, sensory summary. Lines and rectangles colliding, each a duplicate of the last. Between angular clusters I drew the curved shapes of birds, untethered in the air, sometimes spilling out between blocks, or soaring right over the building clusters. I put a pin in that drawing, right above my desk, and began to compose the shape of that abstract skyline. An orchestral landscape, loud and unbridled, paved with gold." www.rosalieburrell.com

Saad Haddad: Kaman Fantasy

Saad Haddad's works have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, and the USC Thornton Symphony. Recent accolades include the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award (2015), the Gena Raps Chamber Music Prize (2015), the BMI Student Composer Award (2014), and the Copland House Residency Award (2014). Haddad focuses on creating compositions that incorporate Arabic musical tradition in a Western context, both in acoustic and electroacoustic mediums. As a first-generation Arab-American living in the 21st century, he is influenced by the disparate qualities inherent between Arab and American cultures. Haddad's music delves into that relationship through the melding of traditional instruments and current advances in technology.

Haddad holds a Bachelor of Music Composition from the University of Southern California where his teachers included composers Donald Crockett, Stephen Hartke, Frank Ticheli, Brian Shepard, and Bruce Broughton. He is currently in his last year at the Juilliard School, pursuing a Masters of Music Composition with John Corigliano.

Haddad's Kaman Fantasy takes its name from 'kamanjah,' the Arabic word for 'violin.' The piece is an exploration of the Arabic 'maqamat' (sets of scales) and rhythms in a Western classical context. The music embraces both traditions, often swaying back and forth between Arabic and Western idioms. Haddad says, "As a first-generation Arab-American, I have often found myself shifting between both cultures in the way that I think and act, sometimes voluntarily, most times not. Kaman Fantasy is a reflection on those experiences." www.saadnhaddad.com

Patrick O'Malley: Even in Paradise

Patrick O'Malley is a composer whose works explore the musical interplay between emotion, color, energy, and landscape. Currently living in Los Angeles, O'Malley grew up in Indiana, where he cultivated an interest in composition from hearing music at the local orchestra, studying piano and double bass, film scores at the movie theater, and even MIDI compositions for videogames being written at the time. His works span many of the contemporary mediums for classical music (orchestra, chamber ensembles, vocal music, film scores etc.), and have been performed across the US as well as in France and Germany. Most recently, O'Malley has been recognized and/or performed by organizations including the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Next on Grand National Composers Intensive with Wild Up, the Society of Composers Inc., The American Prize (3rd place in orchestral music, and finalist in wind band and chamber music, 2014), the Boston New Music Initiative, ASCAP's Morton Gould Award (finalist in 2012 and 2014), and Fulcrum Point New Music Project. O'Malley is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in composition at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music.

Of Even in Paradise, O'Malley says, "The Latin phrase 'Et in Arcadia Ego' is a wonderful little line that nobody seems to know the actual meaning of. The words essentially translate, 'I am also in Arcadia,' and are most famously known as the subject of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin from the 17th century. I first encountered the subject when reading an essay by the art historian Erwin Panofsky, in which he traces the evolution of interpretation of the phrase by artists. The main point of his thesis is that the phrase originally was seen as a memento mori, conveying the warning that even in paradise, there is also death. Over time, this meaning was gradually reversed: even in death, one may find paradise. Panofsky's analysis, as well as the various artistic interpretations of the phrase, immediately struck me as a source for musical elaboration. The resulting piece is an abstract reaction to the Latin subject and its various artistic guises." www.patrickomalleymusic.com

Iván Rodríguez: Luminis

Aspiring young conductor and composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez is zestfully embarking on an exciting career. At age 15, Rodríguez's inner passion for composition comes from his inherent musical curiosity and explorations of sound and texture as he learned how to play the saxophone, harp, piano, violin, and vocalize at the Escuela Libre de Música (ELM) Antonio O. Paoli in his native Caguas, Puerto Rico. His first piece, Ogoshness, for chorus and string orchestra, was premiered in 2007 by the ELM Antonio O. Paoli choir when Rodríguez was 17. Since then, Rodríguez has composed for internationally acclaimed trumpeter Luis "Perico" Ortiz, and John Rivera Pico selected two of Iván's Crípticos for inclusion on his album featuring contemporary classical guitar music from Puerto Rico and Cuba. His music has been performed in Uruguay, Brazil, US, and Italy where the San Juan Children's Choir performed his Madre Luna - taking the 2014 Rimini International Choral Competition First Place Prize with the judges noting the integral part his composition played in their decision. In July 2015, Rodríguez assisted Maestro Eduardo Marturet in preparing a major concert by the Miami Symphony Orchestra. He is currently working on a commission for guitar, cello, and harp for Elisa Torres Pérez, noted principal harpist of Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, which will be premiered at Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in December and is inspired by award-winning artist Rafael Trelles' painting Exodo II.

Rodríguez holds a BA in composition from Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, studying composition and conducting with renowned Puerto Rican composer Alfonso Fuentes and conductors Rafael E. Irizarry, William Rivera, Roselín Pabon, and Genesio Riboldi. Beyond the walls of the conservatory, his cultural involvement and leadership was recognized by the Puerto Rico Chapter of Junior Chamber International with the 2014 Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World Award.

Of Luminis, Rodríguez says, "Luminis is a set of fantasy variations on original musical motifs. The Latin term "luminis" represents the possession of light. Throughout the piece, the original motifs remain relatively unchanged. However, the surrounding musical environment changes constantly. As the variations develop, they progressively describe the encirclement of light by darkness. Even when describing musically what could be total darkness, the original motifs remain relatively untouched. This is intended to give light a ubiquitous quality to state that regardless of the conditions surrounding it, the energy emanating from this point - whatever it may symbolize for us individually - reinforces an inextinguishable radiance and omnipresence. As the two elements of light and darkness are opposite in that one is the absence of the other, the effect of no change on the original motifs despite the constant change of the musical variations might suggest that, although opposite in nature, they conceive their existence within the same vertex."

About CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov

Respected and admired by audiences and musicians alike, Rossen Milanov is the new Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and begins his tenure with transformative and creative ideas for new programming and expanding the orchestra's reach to new audiences.

Recently completing his first season with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra to enthusiastic acclaim, Milanov is also the Music Director of the Princeton Symphony and of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias (OSPA) in Spain. During the 2015-16 season, he is dedicating the Princeton concert season to the creativity of women, showcasing the compositions of some of the most respected emerging female composers, such as Anna Clyne, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snyder. With OSPA, he celebrates the orchestra's 25th anniversary with 25 new works and premiere performances in Spain. He will also be conducting a new production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" at the Zurich Opera.

Milanov studied conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where he received the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship.

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