Festival 52 | March 17-18th, 2023

The School of Music at Ball State University is pleased to feature guest composer James Romig, Khasma Piano Duo + Chris Craychee, and Biggs Schmidt-Swartz Duo at the 52nd Annual Festival of New Music, on March 17-18, 2023.

James Romig endeavors to create music that reflects the fragile intricacy of the natural world, where isomorphic pattern and design exert influence on both small-scale iteration and large-scale structure, obscuring boundaries between content and form. Critics have described his work as “rapturous, slow-moving beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle), "developing with the naturalness of breathing" (The New Yorker), and “profoundly meditative... haunting” (The Wire). His Still, for solo piano, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize. He is a two-time Copland House award recipient and has served as artist-in-residence at national parks including Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Petrified Forest. Guest composer presentations include visits to the Eastman School of Music, the Cincinnati Conservatory, SUNY Buffalo, the Clyfford Still Museum, and the American Academy in Rome. His scores are published by Parallax Music Press, and recordings have been released by New World Records, Navona, Blue Griffin, Relapse, Sawyer Editions, and Perspectives of New Music. Romig’s primary teachers were Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, and he holds degrees from the University of Iowa (BM, MM) and Rutgers University (PhD). He has been on faculty at Western Illinois University since 2002.​

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