Concert Program

14th NIU New Music Festival Night Two

Melinda Wagner Composer Portrait

Gregory Beyer, Artistic Director

Featured Guests
Melinda Wagner, composer
Emma Hospelhorn, flute

Tuesday, October 27, 2026
7:00 p.m.
Boutell Memorial Concert Hall

Scamp (2008)	Melinda Wagner (b. 1957)
NIU Wind Ensemble, Thomas Bough, director
Witness Tree (2026) world premiere 1. Creek 2. Requiem for Mouse 3. Beagle
Gregory Beyer, marimba
My Tioga (2014) 1. Damsel Fly 2. Rock Run 3. Bug 4. Milkweed (memento mori) 5. Mad Bramble 6. Little Church in Nauvoo
Avalon String Quartet Blaise Magnière, violin Marie Wang, violin Anthony Devroye, viola Cheng-Hou Lee, violoncello
INTERMISSION
Introducing Festival Guest Composer, Melinda Wagner
Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion (1998) 1. Sonata-allegro 2. Lullaby 3. Rondo
Emma Hospelhorn, solo flute NIU Philharmonic, Maria Kurochkina, director with guest performers: Ben Melsky, harp Elizabeth Vaguhan, piano and celeste

Program Notes

The title Scamp is a nod to its mischievous character. After the roguish wink of its opening bars, a bright and rollicking scherzo of sorts takes hold. Throughout the piece, the music makes several attempts at a serious turn, morphing into more lyrical passages. A quasi hymn-tune emerges multiple times, trying in vain to calm the skittering arguments between the choirs of winds, but the efforts are repeatedly foiled. The interruptions continue until the scamp at the heart of the piece finally wins the battle once and for all and dashes for the end with one final, incorrigible poke at the ribs. Scamp was commissioned by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, Col. Michael J. Colburn, director. – Melinda Wagner

Many species of trees survive for myriad generations. Some live their noble lives among their arboreal brethren, while others bear witness to the celebrations, missteps—the vagaries of human activity. Traditionally, a “witness tree” is one that is present during a significant historical event, surviving into future generations to “tell the tale.” While composing my own Witness Tree, I drew inspiration from memories of the woods which still stand across the street from my childhood home. Before the days of hovering parents, these woods saw the travels of many children—playing, making forts, hiding and seeking, catching crayfish. Barefoot more often than not, my brother and I learned about ferns and wildflowers there; we got stung by bees, scratched by thorn bushes, and sometimes we got lost. At night, we were often awakened by the neighbor’s beagle, howling through the woods, on the scent. On snowy days, the woods were breathtakingly beautiful; and in the heat of summer they offered a shady refuge. There were no “historical events” to be witnessed in our woods—none beyond the drama of children at play in a world that seemed magical.

Witness Tree does not have a story of words to tell about these things, but rather offers a range of musical gestures. These are at turns playful, whimsical, melancholic, mischievous—and above all, nostalgic. Witness Tree is dedicated to Gregory Beyer, for whom it was composed, and to my brother Mark, with love. – Melinda Wagner

My Tioga
Composing for string quartet can be a daunting project for any composer; the ghosts of Beethoven, Bartók, and other redoubtable artists are usually hovering somewhere nearby! While this genre often brings to mind music of dignity and gravitas, I instead found myself writing music that became increasingly whimsical and nostalgic as I went. When the work was nearly completed, I realized that certain memories I have of the Pennsylvania countryside (Tioga County), where my mother grew up, had been whirling about in my mind. Indeed, each of the resulting six movements evokes for me a moment spent in the hills and valleys of the Endless Mountains in Pennsylvania.

Damsel Fly begins with a sad melody that becomes entwined with the other voices, then dissipates, reminding me a bit of the fleeting visits made by delicate, cobalt-tailed damsel flies as my brother and I fished for blue gills and sunnies (my grandmother called these insects Devil’s Darning Needles).

Rock Run is a part of a beautiful Pennsylvania stream that has, over the years, carved chutes, slides, and ledges out of the bedrock, culminating in various spectacular waterfalls. The music of this movement is appropriately craggy and angular, ending with a receding pulse.

While Bug is never still, with many dynamic shifts and moments of rhythmic complexity, I find it to be purposeful and stubborn, like a Junebug clinging to the porch screen.

In contrast, the music of Milkweed (memento mori) is lilting and melancholy, bringing to mind the delicate parachutes sent out by an expired milkweed.

Mad Bramble, a rushing tangle of notes, makes me remember the thicket of weeds, burdock, and thistle out beyond the barn.

Finally, Little Church in Nauvoo a hymn of sorts reminds me of the white clapboard church that sits atop a nearby hill, surrounded by cornfields. – Melinda Wagner

Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion is a 1998 musical composition by Melinda Wagner, who was awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the work. A concerto for flute and orchestra, it was commissioned by the Westchester Philharmonic Orchestra, who premiered it May 30, 1998, for flutist and conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel. The Pulitzer Prize Music Jury found the work notable for the piece’s flute solo and integration of the orchestral accompaniment. Wagner’s victory was a unanimous decision by the jury. Containing strings, percussion, keyboards, celeste, and harp while omitting brass and woodwinds, the ensemble is similar to that of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. – Wikipedia

NIU Wind Ensemble

Director, Thomas Bough

Flute
Violet Whelchel
Danie Martin (piccolo)
Vicky Gonzalez
Anna Melik

Oboe
Amanda Fujii
Emily Confair
Carly Jackson

Bassoon
Caileen Szostak
Ruby Ferguson
Charles Shilhavy (Contrabassoon)

Eb Clarinet
Eduardo Zamudio

Clarinet
Kelly Nelson
Katelyn Ackland
Kayla Bivin
Christian Martinez
Tommy Akemann
Madelyn Montiel

Bass Clarinet
Nathan Domecki

Percussion
Jonathan Rowe
Morgan Tipton
Christopher Avila
Will Pierce
Adrian Rodriguez
Liam Pummer
Lotus Barnes

Saxophone
Daniel Smith, Soprano
Lucas Schuster, Alto
Dawson McCullum, Tenor
Gray Edelstein, Baritone

Horns
Madeline Miller
Les Stark
Carmen Houde
Sophia Giron

Trumpet/Cornet
Jacob Aldrich
Isaac Lopez
AJ Sullivan
Andrew Clark
Christian Barraza

Trombone
Aiden Ledbetter
Javon Washington

Bass Trombone
Diego Garcia Barranco

Euphonium
Collin Davidenko
Hailey Feddersen

Tuba
Zach Cooper
Sam Okunno

NIU Philharmonic

Director, Maria Kuorchkina

Violins 1	Violins 2	Violas
Gabriel Roethle	Athina Vrettou	Baxter Brown
Noah Mayer	Sam Rehorst	Tim Liu
David Lindo	Keira Specht	Trevor Bitner
Zach Mahan	Chris Bagelman	Vivian Munoz


Cellos	Basses	Percussion	Timpani
Hudson Schill	Brady Jobst	Jonathan Lucke	Jacob Morgan
Kacee Dugas	Phoebe Shaughnessy	Liam Lockhart
Renee Edson		John Wolff

About our Featured Guests

Melinda Wagner

Celebrated as an “…eloquent, poetic voice in contemporary music…” [American Record Guide], Melinda Wagner’s esteemed catalog of works embodies music of exceptional beauty, power, and intelligence. Wagner received widespread attention when her colorful Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. Since then, major works have included Concerto for Trombone, for Joseph Alessi and the New York Philharmonic, a piano concerto, Extremity of Sky, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony for Emanuel Ax, and Little Moonhead, composed for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Championed early on by Daniel Barenboim, Wagner has received three commissions from the Chicago Symphony; the most recent of these, Proceed, Moon, was premiered under the baton of Susanna Mälkki in 2017. Other recent performances have come from the Philadelphia Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the United States Marine Band, BMOP, the American Brass Quintet, the Empyrean Ensemble, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Wagner has received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from ASCAP. Wagner received an honorary doctorate from Hamilton College, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. In 2017, Melinda Wagner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

A passionate and inspiring teacher, Melinda Wagner has given master classes at many fine institutions across the United States, including Harvard, Yale, Eastman, Juilliard, and UC Davis. She has held faculty positions at Brandeis University and Smith College, and has served as a mentor at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Atlantic Music Festival, and Yellow Barn. Ms. Wagner currently serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music.

Emma Hospelhorn

Emma Hospelhorn is a musician whose creative practices resist easy categorization. As a flutist, she has been praised by the Chicago Classical Review for her “standout” and “joyful” performances; as a songwriter, her music has been hailed as “scintillating” by the Chicago Reader and “beguiling” by WNYC. She is flutist and Managing Director of Ensemble Dal Niente, with whom she has premiered and recorded works by composers including George Lewis, Hilda Paredes, Erin Gee, Jeff Parker, Igor Santos, Anthony Cheung, and many more. She writes and performs experimental folk music as Em Spel, and released her sophomore album, Bird or Snake, in March of 2026. She is one half of The Machine Is Neither…, an electroacoustic duo centered around motion-capture technology, which has created works including Terra Lingua (2019/2020) for dancers in motion-capture suits and live instruments, and Tree of Secrets (2018) for audience and listening lamp. Emma performs with a wide variety of improvising ensembles, folk, and pop groups, and additional collaborations include a working duo for instruments and homemade circuits with cellist Katinka Kleijn, as well as stints with Manual Cinema, the Neo-Futurists, Lookingglass Theatre, and Silk Road Rising. She is a co-founder of Musical Bridges to Memory, a musico-social intervention for people with dementia.

Recent performances include Theatro Sao Pedro in São Paulo, Brazil; Thalia Hall in Chicago; Big Ears Festival in Knoxville; the Walt Disney Concert Hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight; Forum for New Music Mexico City; the Library of Congress; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC. Emma is the recipient of a 2022 composer’s fellowship at the Eastern Frontier Foundation’s Norton Island Residency, a 2025 Individual Artist Grant from Chicago DCASE, and a 2025 Illinois Arts Council Grant. Emma holds a PhD in Learning Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where her research focuses on spatial and embodied learning in musical contexts. She also holds degrees from Columbia University and CUNY Queens College, and was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2007-2009.

About our other Composers and Performers

Ben Melsky

Dedicated to connecting audiences to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, Chicago-based harpist Ben Melsky is Executive Director and harpist of the internationally-acclaimed Ensemble Dal Niente. In close collaboration with composers and performers he encourages the creation of new work to break pre-conceived notions of the harp’s capabilities, activating new techniques, sounds, and performance practices. Ben is a core member of the Grossman Ensemble, the resident ensemble of the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition–an initiative spearheaded by composer Augusta Read Thomas– comprised of thirteen of the country’s leading contemporary music specialists. And since 2011, Ben has served as principal harpist of the Joffrey Ballet.

Tōru Takemitsu

Tōru Takemitsu was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu was admired for the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre. He is known for combining elements of oriental and occidental philosophy and for fusing sound with silence and tradition with innovation. He composed several hundred independent works of music, scored more than ninety films and published twenty books. He was also a founding member of the Experimental Workshop in Japan, a group of avant-garde artists who distanced themselves from academia and whose collaborative work is often regarded among the most influential of the 20th century.

Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson is the Director of Choral Activities at Northern Illinois University and the Founding Artistic Director of the professional vocal ensemble Cor Cantiamo (2009-2025). As a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Artworks grant recipient, he has been recognized for his artistic leadership, whose ensembles represent “choral artistry at its finest” (Lauridsen). He is a committed champion of contemporary choral music and dedicated to addressing social justice issues through interdisciplinary concert events. Johnson is the 2020 recipient of the Harold Decker Award, given by the Illinois American Choral Directors Association to celebrate his career of quality leadership and service to the art of choral music.

Saunder Choi

Saunder Choi is a Los Angeles-based Filipino-Chinese composer and choral artist. Winner of the 2024 American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Raymond Brock Prize for professional composers, his works have been performed internationally by various groups including Conspirare, the Philippine Madrigal Singers, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Pacific Chorale, Pacific Symphony, World Youth Choir, Brightwork New Music, People Inside Electronics, and many others. As an arranger and orchestrator, Saunder has written for Tony-Award winner Lea Salonga, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Auburn Symphony, Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa, Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Saunder believes in music as advocacy, using the media as a platform for diversity, equity, inclusion, justice. His compositions are focused on narratives and conversations surrounding immigration, racial justice, LGBTQ+ advocacy, climate justice, and representations of his identity and roots. He is currently Director of Music at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena and a composition teaching artist with the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Thomas Bough

Dr. Thomas Bough conducts the Wind Ensemble, Wind Symphony, and Huskie Marching Band at Northern Illinois University. His 35 years of teaching experience includes 7 years as a high school band director in Mesa, Arizona. As a Yamaha artist and Denis Wick Ambassador, he leads dozens of clinics and workshops per year across the country. He has presented four times at the Midwest Clinic, twice at the International Society for Music Education, as well as the International Women’s Brass Conference, and eighteen different state music education association conferences. His compositions are published by Alfred Music, Cimarron Music Press and JW Pepper. Recent commissions include music written for Olivet Nazarene University, Kappa Kappa Psi, the Alloy Horn Quartet, the Alliance Brass Quintet, the University of San Diego, Creston High School, and Hubble Middle School. His compositions include concerti for each brass instrument. Hear his music at www.tombough.com.

NIU Wind Ensemble

The NIU Wind Ensemble represents the top wind, brass and percussion players at Northern Illinois University. They perform a broad variety of literature, spanning both traditional and emerging band literature, as well as music arranged or composed by NIU faculty and graduate students. The band has a long history of outstanding performances, especially when featuring our many gifted faculty as soloists. The Wind Ensemble has been the featured ensemble each year at the Northern Illinois University Concert Band Festival, sponsored by the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps, since the creation of the event. The Wind Ensemble is a distinguished part of the School of Music at Northern Illinois University. Learn more at www.niu.edu/music.

Avalon String Quartet

The Avalon String Quartet has performed in major venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St Y, Merkin Hall, and Bargemusic in New York; the Library of Congress and National Gallery of Art in Washington DC; Wigmore Hall in London; and Herculessaal in Munich. Other performances include appearances at the Bath International Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Caramoor, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, NPR’s St. Paul Sunday, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Dame Myra Hess Concerts, Los Angeles Music Guild, and the Ravinia Festival. The quartet’s diverse performance projects – and their recordings on the Cedille, Bridge, and Albany labels – have showcased a repertoire ranging from Beethoven, Bartok, Brahms and Berg to Stacy Garrop, Harold Meltzer, Leo Sowerby and Florence Price.

Maria Kurochkina

Maria Kurochkina is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Orchestras at Northern Illinois University, where she leads the NIU Philharmonic and teaches conducting and orchestral studies. Her work spans symphonic, operatic, and contemporary repertoire, with a particular interest in historically informed interpretation, underrepresented repertoire, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her operatic credits include productions of The Consul with Chicago Summer Opera, Alice Tierney at the Boston Fringe Festival, and Gianni Schicchi with the Boston University Opera Institute, as well as the world premiere of R. Yunusov’s chamber opera Steps at the Diaghilev Festival. Her current projects include collaborations with Chicago Nova Opera and the development of new orchestral and interdisciplinary initiatives at NIU. Kurochkina holds a DMA in orchestral conducting from Boston University and a Specialist Degree from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where her teachers included James Burton, William Lumpkin, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and Igor Dronov.

NIU Philharmonic

The Northern Illinois University Philharmonic Orchestra is the primary orchestral ensemble of the NIU School of Music, bringing together undergraduate and graduate musicians in the study and performance of orchestral repertoire. Its programming ranges from core symphonic works to contemporary music and lesser-known repertoire, with an emphasis on stylistic awareness, ensemble communication, and professional orchestral training. The Philharmonic regularly collaborates with faculty and guest soloists and participates in choral, operatic, and interdisciplinary productions throughout the academic year. The ensemble continues to expand its repertoire through performances of music by composers from a wide range of periods and backgrounds. For this New Music Festival performance, the Philharmonic is represented by members of its string and percussion sections.

About the NIU New Music Festival

Created in 2008 by Dr. Gregory Beyer, the Northern Illinois University New Music Ensemble is a performance group dedicated to historically groundbreaking music of the 20th Century and the emerging musical voices of the 21st Century. Each November, the ensemble presents a multi-concert Festival featuring prominent guest composers, performers, and thematically connected compositions to expose students and the NIU community to excellence and diversity in contemporary classical music making. With its flexible instrumentation allowing it to present diverse repertoire, the NIU NME has to date presented concerts of music by Luciano Berio, Olivier Messiaen, Steve Reich, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Augusta Read Thomas, Chinary Ung, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Alex Mincek, Eric Wubbels, Kate Soper, Shulamit Ran, Elainie Lillios, Alexis C. Lamb, Judith Shatin, Jessie Montgomery, David M. Gordon, Joseph Klein, George Crumb, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, Erik Griswold, Anthony Pateras, Gerard Grisey, Fred Sturm, Matt Ulery, Christopher Adler, David Lang, Dawn of MIDI, and many others. At its festivals, student members of the NME have interacted directly with many of these composers and have performed alongside luminous guest artists such as the Wet Ink Ensemble (NYC), Yarn/Wire (NYC), Clocked Out Duo (Australia), Matt Ulery (Chicago), Dane Richeson and Marco Albonetti, the nief-norf Project (Tennessee), the Flannau Duo, Amy Wurtz, Elainie Lillios (BGSU), Joseph Klein (UNT), Calliope Duo (Texas), Beyond This Point (Chicago), and many others.

About the New Music Festival Director

Fulbright Scholar, composer, educator, and “prodigiously talented percussionist” (Chicago Classical Review), Gregory Beyer is a contemporary music specialist who blends the disciplines of orchestral, jazz, and world music into a singular artistic voice. He is the Artistic Director of Arcomusical, a non-profit organization spreading the joy of the Afro-Brazilian berimbau and related musical bows. To date, Arcomusical has released four albums of original music. Beyer is Professor and Director of Percussion Studies at Northern Illinois University School of Music, where he directs the New Music Festival and the Percussion Ensemble. He is a core member of the Chicago-based new music ensembles Dal Niente and the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition. Greg is proud to endorse Pearl/Adams drums and mallet instruments, Sabian Cymbals, Innovative Percussion mallets and sticks, and Evans drumheads.

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