Tan Dun (b. August 18, 1957) is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, well known for Ghost Opera, with the Kronos Quartet; the film score to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; and the recent Metropolitan Opera commission of The First Emperor.
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Perceiving the Performing Arts - Music Section of Exam - 5/20/10
Please write about audio-visual excerpts from the above three works of Tan Dun, i.e.
Ghost Opera (1994) [opening c. 5 minutes]
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2003) [interior c. 2 minutes]
You may additionally write in reference to aspects of musical style, relating the pieces to one another and to other composers and works, as well as discussing cross-disciplinary concerns re dance and drama.
Each excerpt will be played twice, with further repetitions at the conclusion, if so desired.
Mark Alburger (born April 2, 1957) is a San Francisco Bay Area composer and conductor. He is the Founder and Music Director of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra as well as Music Director of San Francisco Cabaret Opera.
He is also Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal.
Mark Alburger was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied composition with Gerald Levinson and Joan Panetti at Swarthmore College; Jules Langert at Dominican University of California; and Roland Jackson, Thomas Flaherty, and Christopher Yavelow at Claremont Graduate University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in Musicology in 1996. He also studied privately thereafter with Terry Riley. Alburger is best known for his use of troping techniques, combining structures and musical passages from a wide variety of pre-existing works across cultures and eras.
He is an extremely prolific composer with a large opus list, including many concerti, operas, song cycles, symphonies, and a ten-hour theatrical setting of the Bible.
As a music journalist, he has published interviews with many composers across the new music scene, including such notables as Henry Brant, Earle Brown, George Crumb, Anthony Davis, Paul Dresher, Philip Glass, Ali Akbar Khan, Joan La Barbara, Steve Mackey, Tod Machover, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, Erling Wold, and Christian Wolff, and is a contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of American Music.
Dr. Alburger currently resides in Northern California with his partner Harriet March Page, mezzo-soprano and Artistic Director of San Francisco Cabaret Opera.
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Mice and Men, Op. 45 (1992)
Act 5, Scene 1 (The Barn): Jus' feel that hair
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San Fernando Hub: I. Fresno (Op. 48)
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Twelve Preludes and Fugues ("Topical"): Xb. Gonna Rock His World (Op. 60)
Mark Alburger (b. 1957, Upper Darby, PA) is an award-winning, eclectic composer of postminimal, postpopular, and postcomedic sensibilities. He is Music Director of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco Cabaret Opera / Goat Hall Productions, Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music, Music Critic for Commuter Times, and Instructor in Music Theory and Literature at Diablo Valley College.
His principal teachers were Gerald Levinson, Joan Panetti, Jules Langert, Christopher Yavelow, Tom Flaherty, and Terry Riley.
Alburger has written 181 major works over the past 36 years, including chamber music, concertos, oratorios, operas, song cycles, and symphonies.
