The 2013 Festival

The 2013 Festival featured guest composer Paul Chihara.  You can view a pdf copy of the 2013 NHMF program here: NHMF Program 2013

  • View pictures from the 2013 gallery installation of electronic music.

Truman State University and Sigma Alpha Iota invite you to experience a day of contemporary music:

New Horizons Music Festival

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Truman State University

The fifteenth edition of Truman’s festival of contemporary and experimental music, this year’s Festival features 6 concerts of music written for a variety of ensembles and media. The programs include works for electronics, chamber music, percussion, wind symphony, and orchestra.

We are pleased to announce that our guest composer for this year’s festival is Paul Chihara [bio, wikipedia, imdb], an internationally renowned composer of concert works and scores for theater, film, and television.  At the close of the festival, the Truman Symphony Orchestra will perform a world premiere by Dr. Chihara, The Truman Dances.

The New Horizons Music Festival will be held on the Truman campus on Saturday, November 2.

For more information email newhorizonsmusicfestival@gmail.com


Tickets and Directions

The Concerts will be held on the Truman Campus in Ophelia Parrish Hall.  Campus maps | Google

General admission for the entire program of 6 concerts is $20. (Concerts cannot be purchased individually. Truman students and employees–free with ID.)

Tickets can be purchased at the event beginning at Noon on the day of the festival at will call just outside the main performance hall.


The Program

*Each of these concerts are around 45-50 minutes long (except the Gallery concert).

Noon – 6:30p. Playing continuously: a gallery of Fixed-media.

Pre-recorded works by international composers. This 1-hour program plays continuously in the Truman Art Gallery and coincides with artwork by Nicholas Naughton.

Concert 1: 1:30p. Truman All-Stars. Timothy AuBuchon, director.

50 minutes of improvisation on acoustic and electronic instruments led by Truman’s director of Jazz Studies.

Concert 2: 2:45p. Gilgamesh & Enkidu by Theodore Moore

An epic work for string quartet and surround audio featuring live electronics by the composer.  This performance has been made possible by a generous anonymous donation.

Concert 3: 4:00p. Chamber music

Performances include Ryo Noda’s Maï for solo saxophone, a work for winds and brass by Shelley Washington, a clarinet solo by Edwin Fattig, and a work for string quartet by Robert Martin.

Dinner: 5p – 6:30p

Concert 4: 6:30p. Chamber music, Chihara, and Wind Symphony with d.j.

This concert includes Paul Chihara’s Clarinet Sonata and Mason Bates’ Mothership for Wind Symphony and electronics (a.k.a. the “YouTube Symphony”). Also on the program is a work for saxophone and piano by Warren Gooch, and an octet by Tim Aubuchon.

Pre-concert event: 7:30p. A conversation with Paul Chihara

Concert 5: 8:00p. Truman Dances.

This concert includes a solo percussion performance by Michael Bump, Scott McAllister’s Devil Sticks, Paul Chihara’s Ami for piano four-hands, and his newly-commissioned work for the Truman Symphony Orchestra, The Truman Dances.  The concert also includes Eddie Mora’s Retrato VI, and a work for cello and vocoder by Charles Gran.

After-concert bar featuring Sidney Snopek III in performance.


About Paul Chihara

It is almost easier to think of Paul Chihara as several different composers. There is the Chihara whose sensitivity to exquisite instrumental color has made him a favorite with such performers as conductor Seiji Ozawa and the Sequoia String Quartet. There is, however, a strong theatrical side to Chihara which expresses itself in works for dance, musical theater and film. And there is Chihara’s love for American popular music of the 30’s and 40’s.
–The Los Angeles Times, Mark Swed.

PAUL SEIKO CHIHARA was born in Seattle, Washington in 1938. He received his doctorate degree (D.M.A.) from Cornell University in 1965 as a student of Robert Palmer. Dr. Chihara also studied with the renowned pedagogue Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Ernst Pepping in Berlin, and with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood. With Toru Takemitsu, Chihara was composer-in-residence at the Marlboro Music Festival in 1971, and also the first composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Neville Marriner, Conductor. More recently, he has served as the composer-in-residence with the Mancini Institute in Los Angeles.

Dr. Chihara’s prize-winning concert works have been performed in most major cities and arts centers in the U.S. and Europe. His numerous commissions and awards include those from The Lili Boulanger Memorial Award, the Naumberg Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Fund, and National Endowment for the Arts, as well as from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New Juilliard Ensemble, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. His commissioned orchestral tone poem CLOUDS was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in their Millennium Concert at Carnegie Hall in 2001. His AMATSU KAZE (for soprano and five instruments) was premiered by the New Juilliard Ensemble at the Why Note Festival in Dijon, France. In February 2002, a concert of his choral music was presented by the Westminster Choir College at Princeton, New Jersey. His An Afternoon on the Perfume River received its world premiere by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in February of 2004. Sir Neville Marriner and the world-renowned guitar virtuoso Pepe Romero recently recorded his Guitar Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra. Active in the ballet world, Dr. Chihara was composer-in-residence at the San Francisco Ballet from 1973-1986. While there, he wrote many trailblazing works, including Shin-ju (based on the “lovers’ suicide” plays by the great Japanese dramatist Chikamatsu), as well as the first full-length American ballet, The Tempest.

In addition to his many concert works, Dr. Chihara has composed scores for over 90 motion pictures and television series. He has worked with such luminaries as directors Sidney Lumet, Louis Malle, Michael Ritchie, and Arthur Penn. His movie credits include Prince of the City, The Morning After, Crossing Delancey, and John Turturros Romance and Cigarettes. His works for television include China Beach, Noble House, Brave New World, and 100 Centre Street. Dr. Chihara also served as music supervisor at Buena Vista Pictures (Walt Disney Co.). Also active in the New York musical theatre world, Dr. Chihara served as musical consultant and arranger for Duke Ellingtons Sophisticated Ladies, and was the composer for James Clavells Shogun, the Musical.

Dr. Chihara’s works have been widely recorded. His compositions appear on many labels including BMG Records, Reference Recordings, CRI, Music and Art, Vox Candide, New World Records, The Louisville Orchestra First Editions Records, and Albany Records.

Dr. Chihara is a Professor of Music at UCLA.