Music Department

A Face for Radio Video Series with WAMC Northeast Public Radio's Sarah LaDuke

A virtual kick-off event for the festival, WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s Sarah LaDuke interviewed artists and faculty participating in this year’s Modfest, and checked in with the staff of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center during “Late Night at the Loeb.” LaDuke spoke with the following guests:

• Chris Burney from New York Stage & Film, who previewed the Powerhouse event for Modfest, Mexodus, and its unique collaboration
• Bart Thurber, Director of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, discussed the upcoming exhibition, Women Picturing Women: From Personal Spaces to Public Ventures that will run February 6–June 13, 2021
• Andre Bouchard from Indigenous Performances Productions, who discussed how the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center engages with more native artists and hosts an indigenous artists panel to take place on February 4 during Modfest, as well as a visit later in the semester by Delanna Studi and her devised play, And So We Walked.
• Drew Minter from the Music Department, who discussed how imagination has shaped his teaching and practices as an artist during these strange circumstances as he reflected on the fall semester and his process for preparing for an upcoming virtual cabaret 

Watch a recording of the event.

Mexodus is inspired by the estimated 4,000-10,000 enslaved people in the Southern part of the United States who pursued a journey into Mexico instead of looking north. This under-told chapter of the Underground Railroad is an exploration of Black and brown bodies standing together against oppression.

With the support of New York Stage and Film, artists Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson are releasing one track a month for a year. Starting their work at the beginning of the global pandemic, they have been creating and recording the score separately, their musical collaboration facilitated through technology. Having released six tracks over the past six months, they will now come together to record the seventh track live as part of MODFest and share their methods of collaboration and creation during this time.

During this webinar event, both artists will be in conversation with the dramaturg for the project, Tlaloc Rivas, who will speak with the collaborators about their process and upcoming trip to Poughkeepsie to record another track for their concept album. There will be a Q&A portion of this event. 

Moderated by interdisciplinary artist Storme Webber, several native artists will have a dialogue around the complicated relationship between land and art, land acknowledgements, and other current issues facing institutions and indigenous artists. Panelists are still being confirmed but may include:

• DeLanna Studi, Cherokee performance artist, activist and winner of the 2016 Butcher Scholar Award from The Autry Museum of the American West, has written AND SO WE WALKED: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears

• Andre Bouchard (of Kootenai/Ojibwe/Pend d’Oreille/Salish descent) is an internationally recognized agent, producer and consultant who was born and raised on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana.

• Mali Obomsawin is a musician, activist, and citizen of the Abenaki First Nation at Odanak. She is a bassist, songwriter, composer, and singer, with an eclectic background in pop, free/avant-garde music, and American roots styles. As an Indigenous liberation activist and scholar, she has most recently published her work in Smithsonian Folklife Magazine and the Boston Globe. She received a B.A. in Government and Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College in 2018. 

Watch Live on Zoom at: https://vassar.zoom.us/j/98702880708

Innovative Textures

Filmed at Poughkeepsie’s historic Bardavon Theater, the Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet will perform Three Song Suite by Flying Lotus, String Quartet No. 3 by Chris Rogerson, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw’s Three Essays. The concert will be followed by a live Q&A during which the musicians will discuss the opportunities and challenges of being freelance artists during a global pandemic. 

This commission of Chris Rogerson’s String Quartet No. 3 has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.