Reporter Volume 25, No.17 February 17, 1994

By MARK WALLACE
Reporter Staff

David Felder, Birge-Cary Chair of Music at UB, was officially
installed Feb. 10 as composer-in-residence for the Buffalo
Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), the Greater Buffalo Opera Company (GB0),
and WBFO-FM, in a Live Radio Forum broadcast by WBFO from Allen Hall.
	The forum featured a musical performance and a panel
discussion on such issues as the importance of presenting in Western
New York what has become known as "new music." On the panel were John
Bauser, executive director of the BPO; Maximiano Valdes, music
director of the BPO; Gary Burgess, artistic director of the GBO; David
Benders, WBFO program director; and Ted Wiprud of Meet The Composer,
the national composer services organization that is sponsoring the
residency.
	"It's my great pleasure to be in this position," Felder said.
"I want to bring new music to all of Western New York. I'm glad to be
working with the people who have done so much for new music in
Buffalo."
	Felder defined "new music" as "music in the art music
tradition written for audiences in the classical music tradition."
Felder distinguished new music from what he called "music for
entertainment" in that new music is created primarily for artistic
value and not for the entertainment marketplace and the money that can
result. But, Felder added, that did not mean that it wasn't
entertaining.
	Maximiano Valdes of the BPO said that Felder will be a
"liaison to the community. We want to put our orchestra together with
others, to prove we care about new music," Valdes said.
	But, Valdes said, the perception that the BPO had not been
interested in new music in recent years was "incorrect." Bad luck, as
well as financial difficulties that had forced the cancellation of
four new music events this season, had been partly responsible for
that perception, he said. "Last season we did not do enough new music
at Kleinhans," Valdes said. "But appointing David Felder is an
indication of how much we do care about new music."
	John Bauser pointed out that new music is often seen as
difficult, and that orchestras today are often faced by significant
challenges regarding finances and audiences.
	Felder's residency is one of only six nationwide "New
Residencies," grass-roots composer-in-residence programs for community
organizations that are designed and supported by Meet The Composer,
said Ted Wiprud. Wiprud said that Meet The Composer was glad to
support "imaginative use of music in the community" through residences
that can "put music to use. This residency is part of a national
movement that Meet The Composer is sponsoring," Wiprud said. "Our
emphasis has been on putting a human face on this music." The five
other residencies are in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Cal., San
Antonio, Tex., St. Paul, Minn. and Eugene, Oregon, Wiprud said. 
	Presented during the forum was a variety of the innovative,
cutting edge music that Felder will be bringing to Western New York.
The performances, mostly composed by Felder, featured such things as
Velcro tap dancing ("unlike traditional tap dancing, what's important
is the sound you make when you lift your feet off the floor," said the
dancer and composer of the piece, Paul Elwood); a piano piece in which
the pianist, Amy Williams, did not sit in front of the piano but
leaned into it in order to play it, and a percussion performance by
Kirk Brundage that was designed to be hooked up to innovative video
technology to cast changing visual images according to the changing
sounds.
	Other performances included a solo violin piece by Ansgarius
Aylward, and a vocal performance by Gary Burgess that was part of a
video opera by Felder called "The Ark." All the pieces, Felder said,
"can tell you something about how I make music and think about music."
	With Felder as a composer-in-residence, anything can happen in
musical performances in BuffaloQand just might.
	Felder said that one thing he wanted to do with new music
during his residency was "to reach kids, to bring in an audience from
school age up through college. Music can make a real impact on
children's livesQit's not just something for the elite," he said.
Students from schools around the area attended the forum on Felder's
invitation.
	In describing his music, Felder said "I'm very interested in
particular kinds of energies." His music, he said, can be both "very
dynamic and muscular" but also "very lyrical," and can switch between
the two quickly.
	"Music is organized sound," Felder said. "As long as there is
an intent behind the making, there is music."
	The on-air forum was the first of a series of collaborative
ventures in Western New York in connection with the residency. These
will include an interview series designed by Felder that will air on
WBFO, the June in Buffalo Festival from June 5-12 that will feature
performances by internationally renowned composers and virtuoso
performers, and a performance by the BPO of Felder's "Six Poems from
Neruda's Alturas" at Kleinhans on March 11-12. There will also be
performances of two new orchestra works and a one-act opera, all of
which use advanced video technology and will draw on a varety of
performance and artistic resources in Western New York.