Momenta Quartet: Music by Manena Contreras, Ileana Pérez Velázquez, and Arthur Kampela

Manena Contreras was born in 1966 in Caracas. She holds a doctorate of musical arts, a master’s degree in composition, and a master’s degree in choral conducting from the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University. Contreras also received a degree in law from the Universidad Santa María in Caracas, where she also attended the Escuela de Música Ars Nova under the guidance of María Eugenia Atilano. Contreras has been honored with many different awards including the Presser Foundation Award; the 2008 SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Competition Region III award; the Dr. John Henry Heller, Jr. Award for excellence in composition; the European International Competition for Composers Ibla Grand Prize 2001 as a Distinguished Musician; and the Dr. B. Stimson Carrow Tribute Award for outstanding pedagogical potential combined with a high standard of performance ability. Her music has been performed and recorded in Europe, South America, and the United States by orchestras and ensembles including the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, Orquesta Uninorte in Paraguay, Temple University Symphony Orchestra, the Momenta, Dalí, Madison and Arcos de Venezuela string quartets, Iroma3 woodwind trio, and the Temple University Concert Choir. Contreras has also worked in musical production, having written music for documentaries, videos, and jingles. More recently, Contreras' first album Instantes was released by Centaur Records. Currently, she is working as a freelance composer and a lecturer for the music theory department at Temple University.

Ileana Pérez Velázquez’s music has been heard in concerts and international festivals in Cuba, the United States, Mexico, and throughout South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Her music has been praised for everything from her “imaginative strength” (Paul Griffiths, 1999) to her “evocative and dynamic” style (Edward Ortiz, 2002).

Born in Cienfuegos, Cuba in 1964, Pérez Velázquez received her B.A. in piano and composition from the Higher Institute of Arts (ISA), Havana, Cuba in 1987. When she moved to the United States in 1993, she was already recognized as one of the up-and-coming talents in Cuban composition, winning several national composition awards in Cuba, including the first prize of composition for chamber music in the contest of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and the first music composition prize from the first national competition of the Youth Music of Cuba (Juventudes Musicales).

After obtaining her Master’s in 1995 in electroacoustic music from Dartmouth College—where her teachers included Jon Appleton, Charles Dodge, and Larry Polansky—Pérez Velázquez began her doctoral studies at Indiana University, studying with Claude Baker, Eugene O’Brien, and Marta Ptaszynska. Soon after receiving her D.M.A. in 2000, Pérez Velázquez was a recipient of a 2000 Cintas Fellowship in composition, administered by Arts International, NY. She was on the faculty of Portland State University for two years (1998-2000), and since 2000 she has been associate professor of music composition and electronic music at Williams College.

Pérez Velázquez has written numerous acoustic and electroacoustic works that reveal the depth and scope of her artistic imagination. Often inspired by extra-musical stimuli—ranging from the poetic to the psychological, the natural to the supernatural—she writes music that, while challenging for both performer and listener alike, is deeply expressive; her music may be uncompromising in its demands, but it also remains intensely dramatic and poignantly evocative. Whether she is writing for acoustic instruments, for electronics only, or a combination of the two, her music is always powerfully communicative. Her rich harmonic language and rhythmically intricate, multi-layered textures reveal her debt to her Cuban heritage.

Pérez Velázquez's music has been featured in numerous festivals, such as the Festival Sonidos de las Americas Cuba at Weill Recital Hall, by the American Composers Orchestra Chamber Players; Sonic Circuits XII International Electronic Music Festivals at Berklee College (American Composers Forum); Bowling Green State University New Music Festival; New Music Miami Festival; Festival of Women Composers International, Pittsburgh; “Music From Almost Yesterday” concert series, Milwaukee; Third Practice Electronic Music Festival in VA; Indiana University’s “Crossroads of Traditions: a Latin American music festival” at Indiana University; and the Dartmouth College New Music Festival. The list of international festivals that have also featured her music is equally impressive, including Q-ba Festival in The Netherlands; New Music Festival of the Tres Cantos Auditorium of Madrid, Spain; International Festival of Contemporary Music in Bogotá, Colombia; VIII Forum of Caribbean Composers in Venezuela; 4th International Festival of Electroacoustic Music, Santiago de Chile; III International Festival of Asuncion, Paraguay, II Festival Iberoamericano de Guitarra in Beirut, Lebanon; and at a concert of the International Musical Academy "Masters of Pontlevoy," Ivry-sur-Seine, France. Her music has also been performed in National Conferences of the Society of Composers Inc. and the College Music Society, by the Chamber Music of the League of Composers New York, ISCM, at the IAWM Congress, and by the ensemble Sequitur.

Writing largely to commission, Pérez Velázquez has written works for numerous performers and ensembles, including Joan La Barbara, Sally Pinkas, Tom Chiu, Iliana Matos, Pola Baytelman, Thierry Mirogglio and Ancuza Aprodu, the Flux Quartet (by the Hopkins Center of Dartmouth College), Quartet Eco (Madrid, Spain), Insomnio ensemble (the Netherlands), the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet (by the Jerome Foundation), Aguava New Music, the instrumental ensemble Nuestro Tiempo from the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba (Casa Editorial de Cuba), and the Berkshire Symphony. She is currently working on a composition for Continuum Ensemble New York. Albany Records released a CD of her music in January 2008.

Arthur Kampela (b. 1960 in Rio de Janeiro), is internationally recognized both as composer and virtuoso guitar player. He is the winner of the 1995 International Guitar Composition Competition (Caracas, Venezuela) as well as the 1998 Lamarque-Pons Guitar Composition Competition (Montevideo, Uruguay). He has received commissions and awards from the New York Philharmonic, the Koussevitzky Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation Rio Arte Foundation, and fellowships from the Brazilian Government (CNPq) and Columbia University, among others.           

Kampela has broken new ground in two ways. First, in his native country he has fused popular and vernacular styles with contemporary textural techniques. His 1988 CD "Epic..." uses popular music forms deconstructing samba, jazz,  and musical theater, with new music resources creating a true hybrid genre. Second, he has worked with new extended techniques for acoustic instruments. In his series of "Percussion Studies" for solo guitar, Kampela has created an entirely new playing technique which he extended to many acoustic instruments. His "tapping Technique" exploits timbre, pitch, texture, and complex rhythmic designs where ergonomic considerations take a prominent thematic role.

Some recent achievements include: Premiere of "Happy Days," for flute and electronics at the Slam Festival in Seattle; "Elastics II" for flutes, guitar and electro-acoustic sounds and "Percussion Study V" for viola alla chitarra and electroacoustic sounds at the Museu of Modern Art of Strasbourg, France by the Linea Ensemble; Premiere of "Antropofagia" at the ISCM 2006 (World Music Days) by the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin and Wiek Hijmans on electric guitar; Presentation of "Layers..." and "Exoskeleton" by the Linea Ensemble, from Strasbourg in their "Champs Libres" series (2006) in a "Kagel - Globokar - Kampela" program; debut of “Percussion Study IV” for solo viola (played “alla chitara”); "KLANG," trio for bass clarinet, harp, and percussion played by Speculum at Merkin Hall NYC; a series of concerts with his new music band at Schwaz (Austria), Strasbourg, Satalla and The Cutting Room (NYC), Escritório de Música (São Paulo), Morelia Guitar Festival and UNAM (Mexico) among other places; Festival Archipell in Switzerland with his piece "Quimbanda" for electric guitar; "Sonidos de las Americas" at Carnegie Hall, NYC; guest composer for the "AVANTI" Ensemble, Helsinki; Helsinki Biennial with Bridges" for viola played by Paul Silverthorne; "Phalanges" for harp solo by Anne Bassand at the 'Kammermusiksaal des Kongresshauses', Zurich; Festivals 'Synthese' (Switzerland), 'Aquila'(Italy) and at the 'ICMC' (Canada) with his piece "TEXTORIAS" for computer-generated guitar.

Kampela's works have been performed in the leading forums for contemporary music in South America, Europe, Asia, and the United States. His pieces were recorded by many interpreters of new music. Most recently, pianist Pianist Jenny Lin recorded his piano tour-de-force "Nosturnos" opening her CD "The Eleventh Finger" released by Koch label. Locally, Kampela's compositions have been performed at Weill Hall (part of Carnegie Hall), Merkin Concert Hall, Miller Theater, Mannes College, 92nd Street Y, Americas Society, and at local underground clubs and spaces such as Satalla, The Cutting Room, and Cornelia Street Café. He has toured extensively with his band playing in places as diverse as Mexico City, São Paulo, Strasbourg, and most recently at the Outreach Festival, in Schwaz, Austria.

The Momenta Quartet has premiered over fifty works in the past seven years and has collaborated with over 80 living composers. Praised by The New York Times for its “focused, fluid performance” and by Sequenza 21 for its “fire, fantasy, and absolute musical commitment,” Momenta has given over 100 concerts since 2004. Of these, 60 took place in New York City at such venues as Roulette, The Stone, Le Poisson Rouge, Issue Project Room, Tonic, BargeMusic, Symphony Space, Americas Society, Asia Society, and the Austrian Cultural Forum. The quartet is celebrated for its innovative programming, juxtaposing contemporary works from widely divergent aesthetics with music from the classical canon.

Highlights of Momenta’s past seasons include its recent residency through Ohana Arts in Honolulu; international appearances at the 2008 ¡Vamos! Festival for Latin American Arts (UK), the National Museum of Singapore and Jakarta’s Taman Ismail Marzuki; the world premiere of Brazilian avant-garde composer Arthur Kampela’s extremely complex “A Knife All Blade” (1998) in 2010; the 2008 ¡Vamos! Festival for Latin American Arts (UK); the National Museum of Singapore and Jakarta’s Taman Ismail Marzuki; an ongoing residency at Temple University; and performances at Columbia, Cornell, Yeshiva and Hawaii Pacific Universities; the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies; City University of New York; Mannes School of Music; the Boston Conservatory; Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, Kingsborough, Lehman and Haverford Colleges; and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (U.K.).

The Momenta Quartet has recorded for Centaur Records, Furious Artisans, MRS Classics, and Albany Records. The quartet has been broadcast on WQXR, Music for Internets, and Austria’s Oe1 radio.