Loading

PORTRAIT CONCERT: Featuring Compositions by OLIVIA KIEFFER neoPhonia new music ensemble

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

8:00 pm

Kopleff Recital Hall

Special Guest Performers: Laura Gordy, piano | Amy O’Dell – toy pianos | Nan Kemberling, cello

Nickitas Demos, Artistic Director

In Conversation with Olivia Kieffer

Nickitas Demos & Olivia Kieffer

Nickitas Demos
Olivia Kieffer

Four Thunder Sheets & Lion Roars (2016)

Hiroaki Kataoka (b. 1983)

Amy O’Dell, toy piano • Thayer Naples, guitar • Patrick Tabeek, viola • Nan Kemberling, cello

PLAYING CHANGES

Excerpts from a book of 72 short toy piano solos composed between 2016-2019

Laura Gordy, piano

Who We Are Along the Way

Tape Piece

All the Noise and Things I Could See

The Little Wind-Up Horse That Could

Thrasher

Dig!

Geometric Meters (2018)

Joycelyn Jackson, flute • Claudia Romero, clarinet • Nan Kemberling, cello

Playing Changes (2016-2019)

Amy O’Dell, toy piano

A Fort in the Forest

Drum and Bass

Girl Absolutely

Round and Unround

The Warmth of Soup

Rack Details

Pattern Study No. 1 (2022)

Andrew Gaillard, alto sax • Bryant Le, soprano sax Patrick Tabeek, viola • Olivia Kieffer, keyboard

Olivia Kieffer

Olivia Kieffer is a composer, percussionist, and educator. A native of Wisconsin, her music has been described as “immediately attractive,” “like a knife of light,” and “honest, to the point, and joyful!”

She is currently a DMA candidate in Music Composition at University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL), and living in Bloomington IN. Her musical mentors have included percussionists Allen Otte and Stuart Gerber, and composers Marc Mellits, Douwe Eisenga, William Susman, Jon Welstead, Charles N. Mason, and Lansing McLoskey. She is the newest member of smol ensemble, a quintet of percussionists and pianists. Olivia is former adjunct music faculty at Reinhardt University (2009 – 2017), where she taught percussion and World Music. She studied percussion at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Georgia State University, and she studied music composition at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and University of Miami.

She feels at home in both the classical and rock worlds and was an active performer in Atlanta’s vibrant contemporary classical music scene for over a decade, including her work as bandleader and drummer for the 7-piece chamber rock band Clibber Jones Ensemble. She is a long-time member of the Chix With Stix Percussion Group. She also performed regularly with the Terminus Ensemble and Bent Frequency, and 2015-2017 was co-director of the Reinhardt Contemporary Arts Festival and Atlanta’s SoundNOW Festival, as well as serving on the Music committee at Eyedrum Music & Art Gallery, where she curated the Composer’s Concert Series.

Olivia is perhaps best known for her toy piano books which contain 127 miniatures; “The Texture of Activity,” and “Playing the Changes,” and for her post-minimalist concert band piece “…and then the Universe exploded.” Since 2012, her compositions have been performed both nationally and internationally. She has been commissioned by Mid America Freedom Band; guitarists Darren Nelsen and Matthew Linder; percussionists Brandon Dodge, Nathaniel Gworek, and Colleen Phelps; toy pianist Amy O’Dell; GremlinsDuo; A/B Duo; fivebyfive; The New Music Conflagration; saxophonist Nicki Roman; tubists Bill Pritchard and Josh Sevigny; the Deuson Pilkington Duo; the SENSORIA series at UW-Milwaukee; Bent Frequency Duo Project; flutist Laura Lentz; the “Pop Rock in Metal” sax quartet consortium; Duo 305; the Forage & Flourish Festival; Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, smol ensemble, and Kontra Duo.

She can be heard as a drummer and percussionist on albums by Clibber Jones Ensemble, the Boston prog rock band Perhaps, the Georgia Brass Band, and the Emory University Wind Ensemble. Her compositions are on albums by toy pianists Amy O’Dell and Jacob Mason, tenor/guitar duet Deuson Pilkington Duo, chamber rock band Clibber Jones Ensemble, woodwind duet GremlinsDuo, and saxophonist Nicki Roman.

Her projects and compositions have been highlighted in Journal for the International Alliance for Women in Music; ArtsAtl; TomTom Magazine; Wide Circles podcast,; WABE-FM (90.1); listening to ladies; Moving Classics TV; Music, Polyphony, and Polyrhythm; and the 1track podcast. She is a guest contributor to NewMusicBox and EarRelevant. In 2017 Olivia was Composer in Residence at the Florida International Toy Piano Festival and the Mana Saxophone Institute.

Olivia is facilitator for the Percussive Arts Society Diversity Alliance Leadership subcommittee, serves on the Percussive Arts Society Composition Committee, is on the advisory board for fivebyfive, and is a member of the International Alliance for Women in Music.

Founded in 1996, the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble promotes the music of established contemporary composers, presents important chamber works of the late 20th/early 21st Century, hosts significant guest artists and provides an opportunity for the performance of music by emerging young composers. The ensemble features a flexible instrumentation comprised of GSU Faculty, GSU Students, and area professional musicians. To date, the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble has given 82 premieres and commissioned new pieces by such composers as Theodore Antoniou and Yiorgos Vassilandonakis. The group has been the featured guest ensemble at the 2014 National Conference of the National Association of Composers – USA (NACUSA); the 2008 National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI); the Third Biennial Contemporary Music Symposium in 2001 at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; and the 1998 SCI Region IV Conference. The ensemble was cited in the April 2004 issue of GRAMOPHONE Magazine and has been featured on broadcasts by NPR affiliate WABE-FM 90.1. The name neoPhonia is loosely derived from two Greek words meaning “new voices.”

Credits:

Created with images by Rawpixel.com - "Colorful UV light background" • teerawit - "Abstract Curved Shapes. Black Circular Background." • Karl Mills - "Paint blast abstract liquid art" • Pixel-Shot - "Keys of stylish grand piano" • flashmovie - "Abstract flying in futuristic corridor with triangles background, fluorescent ultraviolet light, colorful laser neon lines, geometric endless tunnel, blue pink spectrum, 3d illustration" • athitat - "Abstract star and nebular and galaxy on sky background" • Rawpixel.com - "Blurred neon lights background"