Please consult our COVID-19 policies and resources for guidance on attending public performances.
Princeton Sound Kitchen presents ModernMedieval Voices
Presented by Princeton Sound Kitchen
date & time
Tue, Feb 25, 2025
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
ticketing
Free, Unticketed
- This event has passed.
Vocal trio ModernMedieval Voices performs new works by Princeton University graduate student composers.
Program
Onche Rajesh Ugbabe Missa Solaris
Bobby Ge Recluse Song
Kennedy Taylor Dixon incase you forget
Sophie Cash P-38 Lightning
Francisco del Pino Contar
Hope Littwin Songs My Fathers Taught Me
About the Composers
Sophie Cash is a violinist and composer from West Virginia. Her current interests include electronics, sound design and soundtracks, industrial music, improvisation in various genres, and folk music, particularly Appalachian. She has written and produced electroacoustic songs featuring her own vocals and lyrics, and she has made multimedia work with archival footage. Sophie attended Colburn Conservatory of Music for violin performance and University of Michigan and Yale School of Music for composition studies. Past artist residencies have included MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross.
Francisco del Pino is a Buenos Aires–born composer and guitarist with an affinity for music that is meticulous, expressive, and patient. Drawing influence from both classical and vernacular traditions, his work revolves around process and pattern and is usually characterized by an extensive use of counterpoint. Francisco is a PhD candidate in the Music Department and a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities.
Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator whose work, often collaborative in nature, focuses on themes of home, communication, and hybridity. Winner of the 2022 Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the US Navy Band, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra, the Sioux City Symphony, Music from Copland House, Bergamot Quartet, Tesla Quartet, JACK Quartet, and Mind on Fire. He has created multimedia projects with the Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Scattered Players Theater Company, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Princeton University, and holds degrees from University of California, Berkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.
Kennedy Taylor Dixon is a composer, violist, and scholar currently residing in Princeton, New Jersey. Described as a “vibrant musical voice,” Dixon often writes for herself and is also passionate about collaborating with members in her musical community. Recent highlights of her career include recipient of Westminster College’s inaugural Hear and Now Emerging BIPOC Composer Commission (April 2023), Tetractys New Music: Here Be Monsters Commission (May 2023), New Music Gathering performer participant (June 2023), and Bang on a Can Composer Fellow (July 2023). Dixon has worked with numerous artists throughout her career, such as JACK Quartet, Sō Percussion, ~Nois, F-Plus, Boston Children’s Chorus, Parker Ramsey, Michael J. Love, and more. Dixon holds a MA in Music Composition in addition to her dual undergraduate degrees in Viola Performance and Music Composition from Western Michigan University. Dixon is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow.
American composer and music producer Hope Littwin grew up in dance and theater before she took to music, first as a singer-songwriter then as a classical singer and now as a composer and music producer. She loves to collaborate with artists of all kinds on embodied, expressive works. Hope’s compositions fuse chamber music, vocal music, electronics and choreography. She has been commissioned by choirs, chamber ensembles, theater and dance companies to lead the creation of original works that pull from the idiosyncratic desires and abilities of the ensembles that she is engaged with. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. The Daily Princetonian says Hope Littwin’s music explores the “euphoric realm, where the physicality of musical expression is fully embraced— where music is not only something we do, but something we are.” Hope’s original works are available for streaming on band camp and YouTube, her albums can be found on Spotify and iTunes. Find Hope on Instagram @hopelittwin
Onche Rajesh Ugbabe is a composer of Nigerian / Indian heritage, born and raised in Nigeria. His compositions are broadly intercultural and include works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, jazz big band / combos, and electronics. His works have been performed by acclaimed musicians including the Lark Quartet, Ying Quartet, marimbist Robert Van Sice, jazz saxophonist Odean Pope, and the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra. He has also been commissioned by Ensemble Modern (Germany), the Akojopo African Art Music Commissioning Project (USA / Nigeria) where he won second prize for an African art music piece in 2023, and County Hall Arts (UK) where he was joint first-prize winner in its 2024 symphonic concours. He studied music composition at Dartmouth College with Jon
Appleton, Larry Polansky, Charles Dodge and Paul Moravec and attended lectures by Christian Wolff, and was the recipient of numerous awards and grants. He further studied music at the University of Ghana receiving an MPhil in Music Theory and Composition where his research focused on the application of African traditional music elements in orchestral composition, under the guidance of the department’s esteemed Theory / Composition and Ethnomusicology faculty. He has also served as a music producer and audio engineer with a range of artists including Molly Parden, BJ Lomas (female lead of the iconic BT Express), Leslie Ming (drummer for Roberta Flack, Mariah Carey, Madonna, etc.), and Nigerian jazz bass virtuoso Bright Gain Sagbamah. He has performed ethnomusicological research in Nigeria and Ghana, produced a documentary on Nigerian popular music and has spoken on African music at workshops and conferences at Harvard University, the European Conference on African Studies, and the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance world conference amongst others. He is presently a doctoral student in Music Composition at Princeton University.
About ModernMedieval Voices
ModernMedieval was created by Dr Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, a member of the world- renowned vocal quartet Anonymous 4, to explore the worlds of early and new music through lectures, workshops, masterclasses, and performances. ModernMedieval Voices is a project- based all-female ensemble directed by Jacqueline. She is joined by early and new music specialists for concerts and special projects that combine medieval chant and polyphony with music from later eras and new commissions influenced by the poetry and sonorities of music from the Middle Ages. ModernMedieval Voices takes the vocal techniques developed by Anonymous 4 for singing this repertoire and combines them with a fresh approach to programming that introduces this wonderful music to new audiences. The ensemble gave a triumphant debut performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC performing the Hildegard chant O Jerusalem as part of the Al-Quds:Jerusalem concert with MetLive Arts, described by Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal as “exquisitely sung.” ModernMedieval Voices has given performances and residencies at East Carolina University NewMusic Initiative, University of Notre Dame, University of Tampa, FL, Binghamton University, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Pittsburgh Dance Project, Liquid Music in Saint Paul, MN, Princeton Sound Kitchen, Electric Earth Concerts in NH, The Cloisters in NYC, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Dumbarton Oaks, and The National Gallery in DC, The Virginia Arts Festival, VA and the Ecstatic Music Festival in NYC, which was broadcast live on WNYC NewSounds Live, hosted by John Schaefer. They are also featured on the award-winning CD To Shiver the Sky with music by composer Christopher Tin, which received its world premiere performance on May 2022 in Washington DC. Their recording of The Living Word is available on Amazon Music, iTunes and other digital platforms.
About the Composers
Sophie Cash is a violinist and composer from West Virginia. Her current interests include electronics, sound design and soundtracks, industrial music, improvisation in various genres, and folk music, particularly Appalachian. She has written and produced electroacoustic songs featuring her own vocals and lyrics, and she has made multimedia work with archival footage. Sophie attended Colburn Conservatory of Music for violin performance and University of Michigan and Yale School of Music for composition studies. Past artist residencies have included MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross.
Francisco del Pino is a Buenos Aires–born composer and guitarist with an affinity for music that is meticulous, expressive, and patient. Drawing influence from both classical and vernacular traditions, his work revolves around process and pattern and is usually characterized by an extensive use of counterpoint. Francisco is a PhD candidate in the Music Department and a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities.
Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator whose work, often collaborative in nature, focuses on themes of home, communication, and hybridity. Winner of the 2022 Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the US Navy Band, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra, the Sioux City Symphony, Music from Copland House, Bergamot Quartet, Tesla Quartet, JACK Quartet, and Mind on Fire. He has created multimedia projects with the Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Scattered Players Theater Company, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Princeton University, and holds degrees from University of California, Berkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.
Kennedy Taylor Dixon is a composer, violist, and scholar currently residing in Princeton, New Jersey. Described as a “vibrant musical voice,” Dixon often writes for herself and is also passionate about collaborating with members in her musical community. Recent highlights of her career include recipient of Westminster College’s inaugural Hear and Now Emerging BIPOC Composer Commission (April 2023), Tetractys New Music: Here Be Monsters Commission (May 2023), New Music Gathering performer participant (June 2023), and Bang on a Can Composer Fellow (July 2023). Dixon has worked with numerous artists throughout her career, such as JACK Quartet, Sō Percussion, ~Nois, F-Plus, Boston Children’s Chorus, Parker Ramsey, Michael J. Love, and more. Dixon holds a MA in Music Composition in addition to her dual undergraduate degrees in Viola Performance and Music Composition from Western Michigan University. Dixon is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow.
American composer and music producer Hope Littwin grew up in dance and theater before she took to music, first as a singer-songwriter then as a classical singer and now as a composer and music producer. She loves to collaborate with artists of all kinds on embodied, expressive works. Hope’s compositions fuse chamber music, vocal music, electronics and choreography. She has been commissioned by choirs, chamber ensembles, theater and dance companies to lead the creation of original works that pull from the idiosyncratic desires and abilities of the ensembles that she is engaged with. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. The Daily Princetonian says Hope Littwin’s music explores the “euphoric realm, where the physicality of musical expression is fully embraced— where music is not only something we do, but something we are.” Hope’s original works are available for streaming on band camp and YouTube, her albums can be found on Spotify and iTunes. Find Hope on Instagram @hopelittwin
Onche Rajesh Ugbabe is a composer of Nigerian / Indian heritage, born and raised in Nigeria. His compositions are broadly intercultural and include works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, jazz big band / combos, and electronics. His works have been performed by acclaimed musicians including the Lark Quartet, Ying Quartet, marimbist Robert Van Sice, jazz saxophonist Odean Pope, and the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra. He has also been commissioned by Ensemble Modern (Germany), the Akojopo African Art Music Commissioning Project (USA / Nigeria) where he won second prize for an African art music piece in 2023, and County Hall Arts (UK) where he was joint first-prize winner in its 2024 symphonic concours. He studied music composition at Dartmouth College with Jon
Appleton, Larry Polansky, Charles Dodge and Paul Moravec and attended lectures by Christian Wolff, and was the recipient of numerous awards and grants. He further studied music at the University of Ghana receiving an MPhil in Music Theory and Composition where his research focused on the application of African traditional music elements in orchestral composition, under the guidance of the department’s esteemed Theory / Composition and Ethnomusicology faculty. He has also served as a music producer and audio engineer with a range of artists including Molly Parden, BJ Lomas (female lead of the iconic BT Express), Leslie Ming (drummer for Roberta Flack, Mariah Carey, Madonna, etc.), and Nigerian jazz bass virtuoso Bright Gain Sagbamah. He has performed ethnomusicological research in Nigeria and Ghana, produced a documentary on Nigerian popular music and has spoken on African music at workshops and conferences at Harvard University, the European Conference on African Studies, and the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance world conference amongst others. He is presently a doctoral student in Music Composition at Princeton University.
About ModernMedieval Voices
ModernMedieval was created by Dr Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, a member of the world- renowned vocal quartet Anonymous 4, to explore the worlds of early and new music through lectures, workshops, masterclasses, and performances. ModernMedieval Voices is a project- based all-female ensemble directed by Jacqueline. She is joined by early and new music specialists for concerts and special projects that combine medieval chant and polyphony with music from later eras and new commissions influenced by the poetry and sonorities of music from the Middle Ages. ModernMedieval Voices takes the vocal techniques developed by Anonymous 4 for singing this repertoire and combines them with a fresh approach to programming that introduces this wonderful music to new audiences. The ensemble gave a triumphant debut performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC performing the Hildegard chant O Jerusalem as part of the Al-Quds:Jerusalem concert with MetLive Arts, described by Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal as “exquisitely sung.” ModernMedieval Voices has given performances and residencies at East Carolina University NewMusic Initiative, University of Notre Dame, University of Tampa, FL, Binghamton University, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Pittsburgh Dance Project, Liquid Music in Saint Paul, MN, Princeton Sound Kitchen, Electric Earth Concerts in NH, The Cloisters in NYC, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Dumbarton Oaks, and The National Gallery in DC, The Virginia Arts Festival, VA and the Ecstatic Music Festival in NYC, which was broadcast live on WNYC NewSounds Live, hosted by John Schaefer. They are also featured on the award-winning CD To Shiver the Sky with music by composer Christopher Tin, which received its world premiere performance on May 2022 in Washington DC. Their recording of The Living Word is available on Amazon Music, iTunes and other digital platforms.