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Time: Fall, 2024

Location: SF Bay Area

Role: Composer/collaborator

East Bay: Redline Redefined explores the history of redlining through the lens of 8 East Bay artists and encourages its audience to take a second look at who is included and excluded from conversations about development in modern-day East Bay. We believe the most effective way for audiences to understand who benefits and loses from urban restructuring is by listening to neighborhoods through new ears. This is neither a symphony nor a history tour - it’s a unique artwork that will prompt audiences to consider the foundation on which the East Bay cities are built.

 

Commissioned by thingamajigs

Proud to have Commons Archive, Golden Gate Branch Library, and City of Oakland as our partners for this project. This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of California Arts Council, The Bill Graham Foundation and The Puffin Foundation.

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Time: October 5-6, 2024 (UTC-4)

Location: New York University

Role: Meoark

Sounds of De/Composition is the Fall 2024 conference organized by the Music Department of New York University’s Graduate School of Arts & Science. We invite participants to consider and create sonic traces of mutually constituted biological and social breakdown, uneven distributions of environmental violences across social categories, and (re)new(ed) futurities emerging from discarded or underground sites.

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Time: August 24, 2024 (UTC-8)

Location: Alpine Park, LA Chinatown

Role: Puppeteer

Honoring the past and celebrating the present with Lion Dance, Puppet Shows, Martial Arts, Music Performances, Altar Activations, and Family Fun. Free and open to everyone.

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Time: April 12, 2024 (UTC+0)

Location: Accidental Theatre, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Role: Composer-performer

For forty years Sonorities has led the way for musicians, composers and sound artists from around the world to make and present work for curious listeners.

A biennial festival of sound and music, making a joyful commotion in Belfast since 1981.

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Time: April 5, 2024 (Pacific Standard Time UTC-8)

Location: CCRMA Stage, Stanford University

Role: Meoark

Meoark performs live with special guests at CCRMA.

Meoark (Michele Cheng & Hassan Estakhrian) is a duo from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their music draws inspiration from different genres and cultures of music including funk, rock, experimental, electronic, contemporary classical, and film music. The duo also incorporates custom instruments and audio effects, as well as puppetry, games, and visuals.

Sound Collage: performance workshop with Harvard Art Museums

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Time: March 15, 2024 (Eastern Standard Time UTC-5)

Location: Harvard Art Museum

Role: Improviser-performer (collaborator)

A performance-workshop series curated by Xavier Emmanuel with the Harvard Art Museums titled “Sound Collage.” Beginning on Friday, March 8, 2024, the series will feature collage-making and live ambient sound. 

CCA Freedom of Expression Exhibition at Cornell AAP

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Time: March 11-22, 2024 (Eastern Standard Time UTC-5)

Location: Bibliowicz Family Gallery, Cornell University

Role: Installation

Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) and the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) partner to host an exhibition that explores freedom of expression. In fall 2023, CCA announced a competition open to the Cornell community to propose projects associated with this theme, with the goal of showcasing these projects in AAP’s galleries. CCA selected 15 proposals to receive funding.

ICIT Anniversary Weekend and Concerts

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Time: March 8-9, 2024 (Pacific Standard Time UTC -8)

Location: The University of California, Irvine

Role: Presenter/Composer-performer

Celebrate innovation and creativity with the Department of Music at the University of California, Irvine, as they mark the 15th anniversary of the graduate program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT). This unique program transcends musical boundaries, blending classical composition, computer music, improvisation and jazz under the guidance of a dedicated core faculty. With an emphasis on fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, students receive personalized mentorship to craft cutting-edge projects that redefine contemporary music.

Join us for a celebration of experimental music and innovative musical research by alumni and students of the ICIT M.F.A. and Ph.D. programs.

Past Events (from Archives)

Density 2036: Craig Taborn’s “Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms”

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Time: December 9, 2023 (Eastern Daylight Time GMT-4)

Location: Holden Chapel, Harvard University

Role: Performer

The New York Times called the world premiere of Craig Taborn’s Fromm Foundation-commissioned work Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms “one of the best shows I’ve experienced this season.” Join us for the Boston premiere of this new evening-length quartet, which was written for Professor Claire Chase as part of her ongoing Density 2036 project. Taborn and Chase are joined by Susie Ibarra (percussion), Joshua Rubin (clarinets), and Levy Lorenzo (sound design). For this special immersive performance in the intimate venue of Holden Chapel, Taborn expands the final movement of the work to include members of the Harvard New Music Ensemble.

The Harvard New Music Ensemble

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Time: December 5, 2023 (Eastern Daylight Time GMT-4)

Location: Paine Hall, Harvard University

Role: Performer

The Harvard New Music Ensemble (led by Professor Claire Chase) presents a concert featuring the world premiere of a newly commissioned work for eco-instruments and ensemble by the multimedia artist Phyllis Chen, alongside ensemble works by Matana Roberts, Susie Ibarra, and Pauline Oliveros. As a grand finale, guests from the Berklee School of Music, the Longy School of Music, and the greater Harvard community join ensemble members in a performance of Terry Riley’s iconic 1964 masterpiece “In C.” 

Creative Practice & Critical Inquiry Showcase

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Time: December 4, 2023 (Eastern Daylight Time GMT-4)

Location: Paine Hall, Harvard University

Role: Composer/Performer

Collaborative works from students (and beyond) in Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry featuringFabian Almazan, Victor Arul, Marleigh Belsley, Michele Cheng, Hassan Estakhrian, Micah Huang, Xavier Hadley, Seiyoung Jang, Alec Whiting

Sound, Meaning, Education: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations 

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Time: October 20-22, 2023 (Eastern Daylight Time GMT-4)

Location: University of Guelph, Ont., Canada

Role: Composer-performer & presenter

International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) / University of Guelph,

Concert performance- Meoark

Workshop presentation

Ensemble Evolution 2023

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Time: June 26-29, 2023 (Eastern Daylight Time GMT-4)

Location: Manhattan, NYC, U.S.

Role: Composer-performer

Co-Directed by International Contemporary Ensemble Artists and CoPA Faculty Members Fay Victor and Rebekah Heller, Ensemble Evolution is a summer intensive, presented in collaboration with The New School's College of Performing Arts (CoPA) in New York City.

Decolonial Love: Learning to Redream Dangerously Again

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Time: May 13-14, 2023

Location: Cornell University

Role: Panelist (Panel I - Identities)

How might we learn to redream dangerously again?

Join us for a two-day symposium that brings together scholars, creative writers, and activists to discuss and envisage how the theories, practices, and visions of the roles of love, identity, and land are complexly intertwined with (trans)national structured challenges.

With a commitment to "learning to redream dangerously again" during a historical moment of an unceasing remonstration of the intersectional inequality and injustice entrenched in the United States and other localities, the 2023 cohort of the Einaudi Center's Global Racial Justice graduate fellows will host the "Decolonial Love" symposium. The symposium aims to reconstruct and reimagine the multifacetedness of individuals and the complexity of their ties with the self, others, and the natural world through the lens of coloniality and decoloniality.

Hosted by the Einaudi Center as part of its inequalities, identities, and justice global research priority, and co-sponsored by Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge, the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, and the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

JACK Studio

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Photo by Shervin Lainez 

Time: January 28, 2023 (EST)

Location: Manhattan, NY, U.S.

Role: Composer & Puppeteer

In a day-long affair, JACK presents five premieres by JACK Studio artists.

Amy Brandon: new work (world premiere)
Michele Cheng: new work (world premiere)
Joy Guidry: new work (world premiere)
X. Lee: new work (world premiere)
Njabulo Phungula: new work (world premiere)

INT-ACT 2022: New Act, Vocality and Transmutation

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Time: December, 2022 (Indochina Time GMT+7)

Location: Bangkok Art & Culture CentreBangkok, Thailand

Role: Composer-performer

Call for Art Works:
Anselm McDonnell, Tim Reed, Mavan Tag, Marco Dibeltulu, Steven Whiteley, Alvin Leung & Christine Drake-Thomas, Robert Lisek, Serge Bulat, Eddie Borbon, Minato Sakamoto, Pao Chutijirawong, NUUM Collective, Jacob Elkin & Zak Ma 


Call for Projects:
Michele Cheng & Hassan Estakhrian, Giordano Bruno, elekhlekha

MATA Festival 2022

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Time: May 4, 2022 (EDT)

Location: Roulette, Brooklyn, NY, U.S.

Role: Composer/Performer

2022 Panelists
Sugar Vendil, Mark Thomas Taylor Composer, Fay Victor, Marta Sanchez, Brandee Younger, Joshua White, Cooper Moore , and Ben Gerstein.

2022 Featured Composers
John Aulich | Laura Brackney | Michele Cheng | Wajdi Abou Diab | Christian Dimpker | Francisco del Pino | Nina Fukuoka | Cameron Graham | Vicente Hansen | Nyokabi Kariũki | June Young Will Kim | Travis LaPlante | Shuyu Lin | Piyawat Louilarpprasert | Shara Lunon | Fernanda Navarro | Jess Rowland | Naftali Schindler | Hakan Ulus | Mengmeng Wang | Christopher Williams

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Girls of Yellow Diamonds: Songs of Asian-American Women

Time: March 11, 2022 (EST)

Location: The Academy of Vocal Arts, Philadelphia, PA, US

Role: Composer / Piece: I can't understand a word you're saying

Details coming up soon

Reimagining Accessibility and Inclusivity in Virtual Events I CARE IF YOU LISTEN "Casting Light" essay series #3

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July 28, 2021

"Why not use the positive aspects of digital platforms to create something totally new and free from unnecessary comparisons, or reimagine our existing platforms in ways that intentionally diversify experiences? How can we transform our educational and performance spaces in more equitably accessible and equally inclusive ways?"


In the third installment of ACF and I Care if You Listen (.com)'s Casting Light series, Michele Cheng speak with artists about their experiences with virtual concerts over the last year and imagines a hybrid future for concerts, festivals, and lessons. With streaming, "institutions have a unique opportunity to address the many problems that have been ignored long before the pandemic," Cheng writes. 

- American Composers Forum

ICMC International Computer Music Conference

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Time: July 25-31, 2021 (Listening Room)

Location: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile (Virtual Conference)

Role: Composer/Performer

Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency #182

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Time: June 27-July17, 2021

Location: Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL

Role: Associate Artist

"We are in our first week of Residency #182 and proud to be hosting composer Marcos Balter, writer/cultural critic Carol Becker, cartoonist Phoebe Gloeckner, and 19 Associate Artists from across the United States." - Atlantic Center for the Arts eNewsletter July 2021

New Music USA Creator Development Fund

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April 6, 2021

I'm excited to share that “A Different Reality”― an intermedia project for solo marimba and electronics written for the incomparable percussionist/collaborator Ian Rosenbaum― has been selected as part of the New Music USA #CreatorDevelopmentFund. This project is an expansion of a work initially commissioned and premiered by National Sawdust. I’m so thankful to National Sawdust for the initial opportunity to carry out this work and to New Music USA for the support. Can’t wait to bring this project to fruition!

The project is supported by New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund with major support from Howard Gilman Foundation, The Amphion Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Sony Music Group, Cheswatyr Foundation, The ASCAP Foundation, and BMI Foundation. The work is also made possible through donations to the New Music USA Endowment.

Pamela Z + fff ensemble

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Time: March 19, 2021 (Pacific Daylight Time)

Location: CCRMA Live, Stanford University, U.S. (Virtual streaming)

Role: Performer (fff ensemble)

Denning Artist in residency Pamela Z and members of the fff ensemble present a joint concert.

Register here for an after-concert panel with Pamela Z and the members of the fff ensemble, joined by special guests Margaret Schedel and Jocelyn Ho. The discussion will begin at 6pm PDT and will focus on performance with technology from a feminist perspective, including the Women's Labor project.

National Sawdust New Works Commission

Time: December 10, 2020

Location: National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY (Virtual performance)

Role: Composer

National Sawdust Ensemble performance will stream on Facebook and the Live@ digital stage on Thursday, December 10 at 5pm Eastern

JACK Quartet performance will stream on Facebook and the Live@ digital stage on Friday, December 11 at 5pm Eastern

New Works Commission winners:
Daniel Sabzghabaei, Eddie Codrington, Jessie Cox, Nicholas Tran, Nina Shekhar, Rajna Swaminathan, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, Ted Moore, Yaz Lancaster, Golnaz Shariatzadeh, Baldwin Giang, Bethany Younge, Clifton Joey Guidry III, Finola Merivale, James Diaz, Julie Herndon, Kelley Sheehan, Manjing Zhang, Mario Layne Fabrizio, and Michele Cheng.

Seoul International Computer Music Festival 2020

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Time: October 30, 2020 (KST)

Location: Jayu Theater, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea

Role: Composer/Performer

Seoul International Computer Music Festival(SICMF) is a sonic-art performance embracing musical instruments, electronics, audiovisuals, multimedia, etc. as well as a special event showing new approaches and possibilities to combine music with technology finely, opening every autumn in Seoul. From starting in 1994 as the first computer music festival in Asia to its 27th festival this year, SICMF played over a thousand of high-end works and has grown as the major stage leading the global computer music trend.

A number of works from all over the world are applied every year and carefully selected for the festival. This year's concerts will perform 21 foreign works and 15 Korean works. Particularly, a pioneer in the field of Computer Music and the co-founder of Audacity, Roger Dannenberg, as the keynote speaker, and the Music Technology team at Carnegie Mellon University are invited for our valuable opportunities of international exchange. We hope that SICMF2020 can strengthen the place of Korea as a field of computer music and can contribute to the advancement and the further progress of computer music in the world.

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Time: August 15, 2020

Location: Irish Sound, Science & Technology Association (Virtual conference)

Role: Composer / Piece: Blursday

The worldwide spread of COVID-19 and the associated social changes have impacted our lives in a manner that has no precedent in recent times. How has the initial shock changed our professional and personal relationships? Does this pandemic mark a permanent change to how we work and share? Is this a societal event that will soon be normalised?

 

ISSTA has invited international artists working with sound to share their responses to this situation as composers and performers. We have curated a series of three concerts featuring live performance and fixed media works in audio and video formats. We feel that this selection of work demonstrates a range of changing methods of individual practice, collaboration, and sonic discovery made during 2020.

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Time: April 25-26, 2020

Location: London, England (Virtual conference)

Role: Presenter

The eavesdropping season culminates in a weekend-long symposium which will be an opportunity for local and visiting artists alike to reflect together on 'creative activism: radical responses within new music'. The symposium is designed to be open, inclusive and positive in its approach to this theme: the programme will feature a broad variety of papers, presentations, performances and discussions reflecting the diversity of issues and responses within the international new music scene. Special guests Marlo De Lara and Sarah Nicolls will be offering their thoughts on resistance and activism, and Extinction Rebellion activist Cathy Eastburn will be filling the chapel with the therapeutic resonances of a gong bath focusing on reconnection. The programme will also feature several discussions and a selection of shorter contributions gathered through a Call for Papers.

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Time: February 28, 2020

Location: Gigant, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands 

Role: Composer / Piece: Peeter & the Woolf (Premiere)

Young Composers Meeting is an intiative by orkest de ereprijs to give young professional composers a chance to compose for an ensemble and develop their talents, knowledge and professional network. It is organised by orkest de ereprijs, the Gaudeamus Foundation and Podium Gigant Apeldoorn.

We proudly present the participants of the 26th Young Composers Meeting 2020:
Liesbeth Decrock (Belgium), Isabelle Riche (Canada), Xiaoran Jiang (China), Inga Magnes (Iceland), Wilson Leywantono (Indonesia), Yayi Wira Pamungkas (Indonesia), Vlad Chlek (Russia), Polina Korobkova (Russia), Victoria Benito (Spain), Thanakarn Shofield (Thailand), Emily Abdy (UK), Lara Agar (UK), Georgia Denham (UK), Michele Cheng (USA), Robert Fleitz (USA), Martin Mayo (USA).

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Time: Saturday, Sep 21-22, 2019

Location: Emerson Paramount Theatre, MA

Role: Composer (Prelude) / Piece: I can't understand a word you're saying

Two children, worlds apart—one flies, one walks—to America.
Two girls, divergent lives—one green card, one undocumented—in America.
Two women—different struggles, disparate hopes—for America.
Two friends, shared dreams, one journey—through America.

Time: Wednesday, July 6, 2019

Location: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, France

Role: Composer / Piece: Emotional Games

Time: Tuesday, June 18, 8:00 PM, 2019

Location: Casa Obscura, Montreal, Quebec

Role: Composer / Piece: 101 Fun Exercises for Old Couples

Joignez-nous pour une soirree musicale, un petit fete pour les oeuvres contemporaines pour la clarinette et clarinette basse. Cette programme inclus des oeuvres de compositeurs et compositrices de Montreal et Amerique-nord comme Colin Frank et Julien Claudinion. Ne manquez pas cette spectacle!

Time:

CONCERT 1: Friday, May 31, 7:30 PM, 2019

CONCERT 2: Saturday, June 1, 7:30 PM

Location: Bing Concert Hall, Stanford, CA

Role: Composer / Piece: Speed Dating (Ambisonics premiere)

Free admission

Please join us for the second installment of our epic concert series "The Lord of the Bings: The Two Bings". We will present two different evening programs of multichannel immersive music, soundscapes, and visuals in Bing Concert Hall Studio. Our GRAIL sound system will be deployed again in a 3D setup for a selection of pieces from CCRMA and around the Middle-earth.

UCI Illuminations: Asian Immigration as Creative Muse

Time: Tue, Feb 26, 2019, 5 pm

Location: Winifred Smith Hall, University of California, Irvine

Role: Performer & Composer / Piece: Speed Dating

Free Admission

I Dream, therefore I Am explores interrelated aspects of immigration, Asian American, and dream. Do “dreamers” (DACA), 1.5 generation, and recent immigrants share similar immigration experience or have distinctive “American dreams”?  How is their dream shaped, nurtured, pursued, or crushed? Do memories, nostalgia, or broken dreams inspire artistic creation? Do we all have the right to dream? With live music, theatre, poetry, puppetry, and improvisation, dreams are created and shared in front of your eyes. The program includes original music composed and performed by Michele Cheng and Shih-Wei Wu, dramatic work by Theatre Woks, puppetry by Chee-Hann Wu, and text by Daphne Lei.

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