The Department of Music is pleased to present its eleventh Livewire Festival, an exploration of today’s music featuring faculty artists as well as leading guest composers and performers. 

After a year of isolation, we celebrate our return to togetherness with REWIRED, an exploration of the unique power of music as an art of physical and material presence. Over an intensive three days, October 21-23, we present renowned contemporary ensembles Yarn/Wire and Cantata Profana, host eminent guest composers Robert Morris and Victoria Cheah, and present outstanding faculty and student musicians in a series of concerts.

Thursday evening, faculty ensemble RUCKUS opens the festival with a program called PRESENCE, with music by Robert Morris, Jo Kondo, Robert Carl, Amy Williams, Olly Wilson, and Viet Cuong. Ranging from solo voice with electronics to sextet, the works on this program explore the real-time dialogue central to chamber music: from the intertwined lines of Morris’s Traces and Carl’s Waterlight to the delicate timbral interplay of Kondo’s Aquarelle to the tenor voice in dialogue with itself in Wilson’s Sometimes.

Early on Friday afternoon, UMBC music students curate a program of contemporary music. 

Opening later on Friday afternoon and continuing on Saturday, UMBC music faculty Linda Dusman and Alan Wonneberger join with Information Systems faculty Foad Hamidi and Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility director Tagide deCarvalho toshare their new work Raaz. According to the artists, “Raaz, which means secret in Farsi, is a multimedia bioart installation that centers on the concept of poetry-infused transgenic wine created using genetically modified yeast. The text, a canonical Sufi poem by the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz, is a meditation on timelessness through transformative love.”

On Friday evening, Cantata Profana will present an avant-garde, multimedia salon show that will gradually deconstruct a small instrumental chamber ensemble back into its fundamental theatrical and material components. Along the way, Cantata Profana's core performers will be joined by UMBC faculty Airi Yoshioka and Lisa Cella. The program features work by Claude Vivier, Victoria Cheah, Gleb Kanasevich, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi.

On Saturday afternoon, RUCKUS is joined by additional faculty and student performers to present a special performance of Robert Morris’s Arboretum. This event is presented in partnership with the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture and the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park. Arboretum is a concert-lengthed work that is designed as an immersive experience. Performers move around the Sculpture Park as they play, and audience members are encouraged to move as well, changing their perspective on the work over its duration. The composer describes this work as “a slowing unfolding … the experience of this music is like watching sunsets, clouds passing, or sea changes.” The event also marks the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Joseph Beuys Tree Partnership and will include remarks on the Partnership's history and presence at UMBC and in Baltimore. A limited number of grass beach mats and hot cider will be provided, or bring your own blanket, lawn chairs, and picnic to sit on the lawn.

The festival concludes on Saturday night with a performance by the dynamic piano-percussion quartet Yarn/Wire in a mind-bending program of works by Klaus Lang and Misato Mochizuki. In Lang’s gorgeous work, time seems to stand still; while in Mochizuki’s explosive work, the theatricality of chamber music once more bursts to the fore.

Livewire is produced by the Department of Music with support from CIRCA, the CAHSS Office of the Dean, and the Provost’s Office.

Event Details

• Thursday, October 21, 7:30 p.m. — Ruckus new music ensemble performs works by Robert Morris, Jo Kondo, Robert Carl, Amy Williams, Olly Wilson, and Viet Cuong.
• Friday, October 22, 2:00 p.m. — A performance of works by UMBC student composers.
• Friday, October 22 and Saturday, October 23 — Raaz, an immersive installation by UMBC music faculty Linda Dusman and Alan Wonneberger, with Information Systems faculty Foad Hamidi, and Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility director Tagide deCarvalho.
• Friday, October 22, 7:30 p.m. — Cantata Profana performs works by Claude Vivier, Victoria Cheah, Gleb Kanasevich, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi.
• Saturday, October 23, 3:30 p.m. — Ruckus and friends perform Robert Morris’s Arboretum at the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park.
• Saturday, October 23, 7:30 p.m. — The piano-percussion quartet Yarn/Wire presents a mind-bending program of works by Klaus Lang and Misato Mochizuki.

Guest artists visits for English 416/616: Shakespeare: Text and Performance

Instructor: Prof. Osherow

                                                     Sept. 7                  

        Paige Hathaway, Set Designer (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

                                                     Sept. 21                

             Matt Nielson, Sound Designer/Composer (Pericles)

                                                     Oct. 5                

         Devon Painter, Costume Designer (Measure for Measure)

                                                     Oct.12              

                     Aaron Posner, Director (Measure for Measure)

                                                     Nov. 2                

                         Casey Kaleba, Fight Director (Coriolanus)

                                                     Nov.16                 

                         Rosa Joshi, Director and Artistic Director

                                         Tyler Fauntleroy, Actor

                                             (Henry IV, Part 1)

                                                      Nov. 30              

                           Kate Eastwood Norris, Actor (Macbeth)

These artists will join ENGL 416/616 via zoom at 7:30 PM on the date of the event.

They will discuss their work staging Shakespeare, usually with attention to a specific text being read in ENGL 416/616.  

Please contact Dr. Osherow for a zoom link by 5PM on the day prior to the event: <mosherow@umbc.edu>. 

All interested students and faculty are welcome to attend. 

These guest visits are sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities and the Department of English.

Annet Couwenberg: Sewing Circles is opening tomorrow, September 30!

The exhibition will be on display at the CADVC until December 11. 

Stay tuned to learn more about our Oct 5 Sewing Circles event, “Cleft: An Art & Engineering Collaboration.”

The gallery is opened Tues — Sat, 10am to 5pm. Tickets for tomorrow evening’s opening reception are sold out. 

Learn more about the artist, the exhibition and upcoming events here: https://cadvc.umbc.edu/current-exhibitions/

Thank You!

Thank you to those who joined us for last week's conversation with Mary Popeo! We'll have more invited speakers throughout the semester - keep an eye on our calendar here on myUMBC, or on our website, for more information! 

Thank you, too, to those who entered our t-shirt design contest! Our celebrity judge, Dr. Jacob, will review the entries and we'll announce the winner soon. 

Princeton University Graduate Programs Info Session

Are you thinking about grad school? ...not sure if you're thinking about grad school? Together with the Asian Studies Council of Majors, we'll welcome Dr. Anna Shields, Professor of Chinese Studies and Chair of Princeton's East Asian Studies Department, to campus at noon on Friday, October 1, to learn about available graduate opportunities. 

Princeton offers a variety of options, including their graduate program and the Princeton in Asia fellowships - the session will be an excellent opportunity to ask Dr. Shields for insight and information. We'll have refreshments and other giveaways for those joining us in person, and will also stream the event online for those who can't make it to campus. For more info, check out the myUMBC post!

. I want to personally invite students to the Political Science Council of Majors' (advised by Dr. Tom Schaller) first semesterly, All-Majors Interest Meeting being hosted on Wednesday, September 29th from 11-12 AM in PUP 354. This will be the Council's in-person meeting after 2 years!! The event will be an opportunity to introduce students to the Council, provide departmental resources, engage students with other POLI students, and brainstorm civic initiatives for the year.

The UMBC Political Science Council of Majors aids the Political Science department to address the needs of undergraduate students, build an inclusive community of scholars, and enhance the cultural life of all undergraduates in the department. The Council works directly with department faculty and professors to create avenues of interest for the student body and strives to aid students to succeed both within the realm of Political Science and the larger UMBC community. Moreover, we are working to strengthen civic engagement, access to resources and opportunities, and addressing any departmental issues that may arise.

Past achievements of the Council:

-Student Voting Registration, Know-your-Reps, and Civic Engagement

-POLI Senior Graduation Ceremonies led by Dr. Carolyn Forestiere

-Panel on Biden's Foreign Policy sponsored by both POLI and Global Studies 

-Diversification of Department curriculums and syllabi led by Dr. Carolyn Forestiere

-Representing the POLI department 

Contact Rehman Liaqat (me) (RLiaqat1@umbc.edu) or Zoe Smith (ZSmith4@umbc.edu) for any questions or concerns.