On today’s episode, I interview Elizabeth McNutt, flutist, concert curator and founder of Sounds Modern. Sounds Modern partners with a local modern art museum to present concerts which pair contemporary music with contemporary art allowing for conversation between the artistic disciplines to bring a greater depth of understanding and appreciation to the public.
Topics in this episode include:
The value of early exposure to new music
Bringing musicians into the visual art world and visual artists into the music world
Partnering with an art museum
Reinterpreting art through a musical lens
Program notes help listeners and viewers make the connection between music and art
Crowdsourcing knowledge to find new pieces because Google does NOT, in fact, know it all
Pros and Cons of doing free concerts
Pros and cons of daytime concerts
The value of new music concerts
The most innovative and least predictable concert music series in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Sounds Modern has been exploring links between contemporary music and visual arts for over a decade. Sounds Modern reaches beyond the traditional context of classical music, collaborating with modern art presenters and other non-traditional venues to share adventurous new music with adventurous new audiences. Conceived and directed by virtuoso flutist Elizabeth McNutt in collaboration with The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Sounds Modern adds a sonic dimension to the ideas represented in the galleries, and brings the artwork to life in the concert hall.
Passionately devoted to the music of the present, flute virtuoso Elizabeth McNutt is internationally recognized for her performances of innovative contemporary and electroacoustic music. She has collaborated with such recognized figures as Pierre Boulez, Harvey Sollberger, Roger Reynolds, Philippe Manoury, Russell Pinkston, Gerhard Staebler, Joji Yuasa, Pauline Oliveros, George Lewis, and Joan Tower. She has premiered countless works and performed in Europe, Asia, and throughout the U.S. Her solo CD pipe wrench is on the EMF Media label; her other recordings are on the CRI, Centaur, SEAMUS, Navona, and Ravello labels. Her festival appearances include Sonorities (U.K.), Women in Music Today (Korea), Darmstadt (Germany), Third Practice (VA), Electronic Music Midwest (IL), Scotia (Nova Scotia), Norfolk (CT), and Arcosanti (AZ). McNutt has performed “cyber-flute” repertoire more than a dozen conferences of the International Computer Music Association and Society of Electro-Acoustic Music United States. She frequently performs as part of the Calliope Duo with pianist Shannon Wettstein; she also directs the Sounds Modern series based at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Dr. McNutt (DMA, UCSD) is committed to scholarly research, with articles published in Organised Sound, Flutist Quarterly, and Music Theory Online; she sometimes blogs about new music at newmusicpioneer.com. She has received grants and fellowships from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, USArtists International, Open Meadows, Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute, Earle Brown Music Foundation, and American Composers Forum, among others. Dr. McNutt is part-time faculty of the University of North Texas, where she teaches flute and directs the new music ensemble Nova.
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