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| REMLABS Alice Pratt Brown Hall 1709 Office Phone: 713-348-4064 Studio Phone: 713-348-5077 Fax: 713-348-5317 |
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THE INTERDISCIPLINARY GUGGENHEIM FELLOW Jessica Stark Media Relations Specialist Email: stark@rice.edu Having been recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Shepherd School of Music's Kurt Stallmann has joined an elite group of professionals who have demonstrated stellar achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. That group includes scores of Nobel, Pulitzer and other prize winners, such as Ansel Adams, Langston Hughes, Henry Kissinger, Vladimir Nabokov and 37 current and former Rice faculty members. Stallmann, the Lynette S. Autrey Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory, is one of only seven composers to receive fellowships this year. He is among 190 fellowship winners selected this year from more than 2,500 applicants for awards totaling $8,200,000. Stallmann hopes to spend the 2009 calendar year producing creative works that use electronic and computer-generated sounds in concert with live instruments and in live performances. He also plans to look into forming a new ensemble to explore musical dialogue using computers and acoustic instruments. "One thing that will remain very important to me is interdisciplinary work involving other mediums -- video, dance, light, movement," Stallmann said. 'Breaking Earth' Stallmann's multidisciplinary work incorporating performance, fixed and interactive electronics and visual elements has earned him the attention of other national organizations and foundations. Meet The Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program has commissioned his current exhibition, "Breaking Earth." For that innovative exhibition, Stallmann collaborated with filmmaker Alfred Guzzetti to create a palette of images, spaces and sounds. The installation, which runs through April 26 at Houston's DiverseWorks ArtSpace, features five screens of projected high definition video and multiple channels of audio. At first, sounds and images are recognizable items from the natural world, like woods, sea, wind, streams and stone. Elements then slowly shift into one another creating an abstracted natural landscape that becomes a landscape of consciousness. "We set out to blur the lines of reality around the things we hear and see everyday," Stallmann said. "We really hope this work has the effect of motivating people to become more aware of the world around them - experiencing the familiar, everyday world as something vivid and fresh - and consequently re-engaging and re-connecting them with their surroundings." "Breaking Earth" builds on Stallmann's history of pioneering works. He devotes his creative energy to the synthesis and connection of the many mediums available to composers today, composing works for acoustic groupings, acoustic/electronics groupings with interactive elements, environmental sounds and purely synthetic sounds. Passing it on But another of Stallmann's passions is perhaps his greatest: teaching. "I urge my students to look inside of themselves to find out what it is they want to contribute to the artistic landscape as it exists in the world today," Stallman said. "That requires a knowledge of what is out there to begin with and an understanding of how the past has led to the present." Stallmann hopes to be able to pass on to students his knowledge of the landscape -- the very landscape his work is significantly impacting. He said that connections and talent are important, but can only take a person so far. "Hard work completes talent," Stallman said. "This is something that most people don't understand. It takes a lot of courage and determination to commit oneself to very personal ideas." Stallmann's ideas earned him the honor of presenting his piece SONA as the closing work of the 2008 Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) National Conference. The organization is devoted to music that involves electronic and digital generation of sound materials for performance. This year, he was also presented with a SEAMUS President’s Award for his contributions to the organization. His colleagues at the conference included two of the other composers who won Guggenheim Fellowships. Stallmann has a great respect for them and other fellowship awardees. "It is an incredible honor to be given an award alongside some of America's jazz giants like Rufus Reid and Geri Allen," Stallman said. "They are among my personal heroes!" The Shepherd School influence Given Stallmann's incredible talent and cutting-edge vision, it's likely that he will be listed as a hero and mentor to many. He is already helping the next generation of artists and musicians leave their marks on the world. "One thing we try to encourage is the development of the creative imagination and a sense of artistic responsibility -- learning to commit oneself to seeing ideas through to completion." Stallmann said. "Students have to become convinced that their ideas and the quality of their ideas are important. Without that conviction, it is hard to invest the many hours of work necessary to bring those ideas into the world." Stallmann credited the Shepherd School of Music and its administration for fostering an environment so conducive of artistic development and collaboration. "Rarely have I seen a school where colleagues are more supportive of one another and where there is a real sense of teamwork," Stallmann said. "Our students are wonderful and the environment is very stimulating. And led by Dean Robert Yekovich, an accomplished creative artist himself, the support offered by the administration is outstanding." About the Guggenheim Fellowships Seventy-five disciplines and 81 different academic institutions are represented by this year’s fellows, with 56 fellows who are unaffiliated or holding only adjunct or part-time positions at universities. Supplemental support for those unaffiliated fellows is provided by the Leon Levy Foundation. Guggenheim Fellowships have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those “who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.” The Guggenheim Foundation provides fellowships for advanced professionals in all fields --natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and creative arts -- except in the performing arts. The fellowships are grants made for a minimum of six months and a maximum of 12 months. Since the purpose of the Guggenheim fellowship program is to help provide fellows with blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible, grants have no special conditions attached to them. The fellows may spend their grant fund in any manner they deem necessary to do their work. |
