FETA and Center for Visual Communication present:
FM FEME. Frost Electronic Music Ensemble
A concert featuring Frost Electronic Music Ensemble, Greg Evans and Alec Druth in live solo and group performances. The program also includes radio dramas composed by the Frost students for the occasion.
Miami, You Made it Weird. Diana Wade, viola with Jennifer Beattie, voice
Horse videos, Thomas Edison, french fries, loud breathing, and maybe a little viola playing. Violist Diana Wade presents a program of works by Beglarian, Norman, Saariaho, Sciarrino, Schankler, and Wade
March 3, 2018
7-9:30PM
Center for Visual Communication
541 NW 27th St, Miami, FL 33127
About the Artists:
Frost Electronic Music Ensemble (FEME).
Based at University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, FEME creates and performs experimental music written for computers, instruments and sounding objects. FEME artistically explores both established and home-made developed technologies. The ensemble has participated in stationary and mobile events in Miami since 2014. Juraj Kojs, director.
Diana Wade, viola
Violist Diana Wade likes to make strange sounds, usually on the viola. In her performance of Berio’s Sequenza VI, Diana was praised for playing with “both athletic and operatic ferocity” and “throwing herself into tremolo passages with a physical force that shook her and a sonic one that practically shook the walls” (Mark Swed, LA Times). If none of this is ringing a bell, then you may recognize her for saying “Shia LaBeouf” in that internet video.
Diana enjoys a richly varied musical life that she is cultivating in Los Angeles. Not only can she be heard recording for film and television, but also performing with ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, wild Up and appearances in series such as Jacaranda, Tuesdays @ Monk Space, and the Hear Now Music Festival.
Recently, Diana has found herself turning to composition. Her bizarre vocal fry extravaganza “Fry on Fry” has been tickling audiences all along the West Coast. Current projects include a new work for the duo So Much Hot Air and an arrangement of Garth Knox’s Jonah and the Whale for Diana and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie. This season, Diana has been invited to attend the retreat Artists at Albatross Reach as a violist and composer where she will be collaborating with fellow artists on the development of weird, fun new work.
Formerly a founding member of the Argus Quartet, Diana has collaborated with Anthony Dean Griffey, David Shifrin, and the Brentano Quartet and worked with composers such as Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, Andrew Norman, and Thomas Kotcheff in the performance of their music.
Diana holds degrees and certificates from Temple University, Cleveland Institute of Music and University of Southern California and she studied with CJ Chang, Jeffrey Irvine, and Donald McInnes. Diana plays on a viola made by Tetsuo Matsuda in 2004 that she’s lovingly named Fernando. In the rare moment that she’s not playing viola, Diana enjoys writing lists, running, and wishing she were an opera singer.
Jennifer Beattie, voice
Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie, called a “smashing success” (San Francisco Examiner) and praised for her “warmth” (New York Times) and “exuberant voice and personality” (Opera News), revels in performing everything from traditional to brand-new classical repertoire, as well as engaging in ongoing collaborations with performance, visual, jazz, folk, and theater artists. Her projects this season include creating the role of Anna in the world premiere of Lembit Beecher’s opera Sophia’s Forest (http://lembitbeecher.com/treeofsound/), written for chamber orchestra (including the award-winning Aizuri Quartet) and electronically-controlled sound sculptures; championing art song written by women & performing with drag queen Cookie DiOrio on her series “The Art of the Heel” (http://fringearts.com/2017/08/17/art-heel-interview-cookie-diorio/); and developing the The Black Queen project (http://queen.black/), an historical discovery/storytelling epic featuring electronic, classical and Slovakian-folk music with composer Juraj Kojs, pianist Adam Marks, and collaborators from four countries, which premieres in Miami in the Fall of 2018.
Jennifer has been a featured soloist with organizations including The National Opera Orchestra at the Kennedy Center; The Philadelphia Orchestra; Opera Philadelphia; the Columbus Symphony Orchestra; Symphony in C; Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Brooklyn Art Song Society; the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago; Malibu’s Stotsenberg Recital Series w/ John Musto at the piano; the National Arts Club NYC; Argento Chamber Ensemble at the Park Avenue Armory; JACK Quartet; Aizuri Quartet; Argus Quartet; and the Lake George Music Festival.
As an important voice in new American music, Jennifer has collaborated with and premiered works by such composers as Tom Cipulloand as vocalist-in-residence for several seasons at the New Music on the Point Festival. Jennifer is a member of chamber music duos Albatross, with pianist Adam Marks (artists-in-residence with the Yale college composers); and So Much Hot Air, with oboe/ English horn player Zachary Pulse. She also serves as co-director of Artists at Albatross Reach, a retreat for the development of weird, wonderful new work and artistic collaborations in northern California.