Performances: June 16th and 17th, 2017
Venues: Lincoln Recital Hall (Room 75) at Portland State University
Submission Deadline: 11:59 PM PST, Monday, Jan 23rd, 2017
Eligibility: All Cascadia members in good standing (make sure your dues are paid up for 2017, thank you). Concert theme: Celebration of the music and legacy of composer Lou Harrison in the 100th anniversary year of his birth in Portland. Concerts will include music by Harrison and by Cascadia members.
Instrumentation: Three groupings are possible: The Venerable Showers of Beauty gamelan plus an optional solo voice or instrument, or the Portland Percussion Group percussion quartet plus an optional solo voice or instrument, or up to five instruments or voices with preference given to those that easily accommodate alternative (to equal temperament) tunings such as Just Intonation. Solo instruments with the VSB must be compatible with the appropriate gamelan scale. Submitted works must be entirely acoustic, with one exception: preference will be given to electronic keyboards tuned to alternative tunings over standard piano. Composers shouldn’t feel a need to submit retro Harrison tributes, but should submit their best and most characteristic work. (Tributes are acceptable too.)
Soloists to play with the gamelan or the percussion quartet must be identified by the composer (Cascadia can assist), acceptable to the ensemble, and available to rehearse at the ensemble’s regular rehearsal times.
Depending on fundraising results, there may be a fee for composers of the works selected, up to $100. Any such fee will be announced by the end of December. Additional musicians in the third category may be added at the composer’s expense.
Gamelan must be notated in gamelan cipher notation. Two basic guides to this and other aspects of writing for gamelan are available here:
http://sumarsam.web.wesleyan.edu/Intro.gamelan.pdf
http://members.efn.org/~qehn/tutor/
Free font downloads are available here: http://www.gamelan.org/library/index.shtml
On Wednesday, September 28th, 2016, at 7:00 PM there will be a workshop at the World Music Room, Evans Music Building, Lewis & Clark College, to provide an introduction session for any composers interested in writing for the VSB gamelan. RSVPs are requested by September 25th at vsbgamelan@gmail.com. Composers interested in writing for gamelan but who are not experienced in it are strongly encouraged to attend. A review workshop for (mostly) finished works in December or January is under discussion.
Submission procedure: Anonymous submission. Remove or blank out anything on the score or other submitted media which identifies the composer. Check authorship, copyright notices, logos, program notes, performance notes, and so forth. However, DO include the duration of the work prominently displayed on the score. Scores which don’t meet these requirements by the submission deadline will not be considered.
Composers may submit up to two works, but at most one can be performed. Preference will be given to works under 12 minutes.
Submit the following through the submission form on the Cascadia website:
Score in PDF format, anonymous but displaying duration.
Recording if available (MIDI is OK if none is) in MP3 format. A link may be submitted instead, but make sure nothing in the link or the player window identifies the composer.
Text file in standard format (such as .txt, .doc, .rtf or .pdf), with the title, composer, program notes, bio, and any other information pertaining to the piece which may be of interest. These won’t be accessible to the selection committee. If there’s some aspect of the score or recording you feel needs an additional explanatory note (not a program note), indicate that in the submission form’s annotation text box. REQUIREMENT for composers submitting in the third Instrumentation category: Include in the form’s annotation box a short explanation (50 words or less) how your work relates to Harrison’s music or legacy. Keep it simple, e.g. “The work is written for string quartet tuned to Just Intonation.”
Lyrics Permission – If there are lyrics which are not in the public domain, include a text file in a standard format showing you have permission to use them.
Selections will be announced by February 6th, 2017, and parts are due the end of the same week. Questions? Please contact Jeff Winslow at jeffw@rdrop.com. Gamelan questions? Please contact VSB’s director, Mindy Johnston at vsbgamelan@gmail.com Thank you and good luck! Jeff Winslow for Cascadia Composers (chapter of NACUSA)