OME Friday @ 6:30p: Timbre

The 7th Annual OME New Music Festival is four days of creative music making and performance in Phoenix, AZ.

loadbang: New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang is building a new kind of music for mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice. Since their founding in 2008, they have been praised as ‘cultivated’ by The New Yorker, ‘an extra-cool new music group’ and ‘exhilarating’ by the Baltimore Sun, ‘inventive’ by the New York Times and called a 'formidable new-music force' by TimeOutNY. Creating 'a sonic world unlike any other' (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), their unique lung-powered instrumentation has provoked diverse responses from composers, resulting in a repertoire comprising an inclusive picture of composition today. loadbang has premiered more than 300 works, written by members of the ensemble, emerging artists, and today's leading composers.

Emily Mehigh, clarinet: Emily Mehigh is a freelance musician based in Chicago, Illinois. She is best known for creating a series of calls for scores that are free and inclusive to all composers. Her most recent call for scores asked for clarinet works of all kinds, but preference was given to composers who were women, transgender, or those whose gender does not conform to the binary. A sampling of these works will be performed at the Oh My Ears festival and The College Music Society conferences in Flagstaff, Arizona and Rochester Hills, Michigan. Although mostly a solo performer she has collaborated with many musicians in the Chicago area. Most recently she worked with musicians as part of the UnTwelve organization to perform music by composers who are women, non-binary, genderqueer, gender-non-conforming (GNC), or agender. She recently has attended festivals such as SPLICE, Fresh Inc., Orford Contemporary Workshop, and PRISMA.

Devon Osamu Tipp, shakuhachi and electronics: Shaped by sonic sensitivity from a young age, Pittsburgh based composer/performer Devon Osamu Tipp creates unorthodox musical environments from ostensibly incompatible realms. A PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh, Tipp’s music draws influence from his Japanese and Eastern European roots, his experiences as a jeweler and painter, and his studies of gagaku and hogaku in Japan and the US. His compositions focus on rhythmic and timbral transmutation of cyclical materials, ranging from the orchestral, to string basses prepared with honey stirrers, to concerti for traditional Japanese instruments. He received his BMus from Montclair State University, where he studied composition and microtonal music with Dean Drummond, and shakuhachi with Elizabeth Brown. His compositions have been featured at the Soundscape Festival, Bowdoin Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Sävellyspaja Summer Composition Masterclasses, and the Tokyo International Double Reed Society Conference.