From October 24 through 27, UMBC’s department of music celebrates the tenth anniversary of its fall Livewire festival, an annual event that explores the classical music of our time through concerts, lecture-recitals, paper presentations, multimedia installations, and conversation.

This year’s festival, Livewire 10: Rewind / Fast Forward, features guest composers Mercedes Otero and Mischa Salkind-Pearl, who earned a post-baccalaureate certificate in contemporary American music at UMBC in 2007. Public performances will feature the Inscape Chamber Orchestra, the Third Practice ensemble, sopranos Susan Botti and Tony Arnold, clarinetist Gleb Kasenevich, the Ruckus faculty ensemble, and UMBC students.

During its ten years, including events this forthcoming weekend, Livewire has presented works by hundreds of composers and has featured dozens of leading new music performers from around the world. Additionally, the festival has attained statistics that position it as a leading national voice in new music:

• 426 compositions
• 36 world premieres
• 4 United States premieres
• 73 electro-acoustic works
• 250 chamber pieces
• 87 solo (unaccompanied) works
• 16 electronic compositions

“Ten years of the Livewire festival speak to the commitment of UMBC and the music department here to embracing the ever-changing present while we continue to teach the past,” says Linda Dusman, chair of the department. “The liveliness of engagement of our students and faculty at this time of year has become a verb: we all are livewired at the end of October!”

While many college and university music programs across the country focus primarily on the music of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, faculty at UMBC have embraced the exploration of the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. UMBC’s faculty have been advocates of new music for decades, stretching well beyond the inaugural Livewire festival in 2010.

“Before Mobtown Modern hit the scene or the Evolution Contemporary Music Series evolved,” critic Tim Smith noted in The Baltimore Sun during a previous Livewire, “Baltimore-area fans of new sounds could get an earful at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where the music department continues to champion adventurous repertoire.”

For Livewire’s 10th anniversary, major financial support was provided by the Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts (CIRCA), with additional funding from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the Office of the Provost.

A complete schedule for Livewire 10: Rewind / Fast Forward can be found on the Arts and Culture Calendar.

Featured image: Members of the Ruckus ensemble perform in 2016. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC’s student-run radio station WMBC has waxed and waned over the years. When I joined the organization as a bright-eyed freshman in the Fall of 2014, there were only four shows across 12 members – including the officer corps. Despite not having a number on the dial, WMBC was in the right place at the right time to ride the wave of the newly energized art form of podcasting. WMBC turned things around by connecting with on-campus partners and local musical acts, growing to 58 shows a week in the Fall of 2017 run by over 200 members. This station that made people ask “Who?” a few years prior now made them say “Wow”! It had transformed into a hub of campus culture and into the beating heart of student life. Sadly, the station today has been off-air for almost a year now, and a lot of momentum has since been lost.

WMBC has always thrived most when the members understood it, and when they felt invested in it. Back in the 70s, members were paid to be in the station, similar to how the student paper pays its editors and staff.  In the 90s, members weren’t paid, but they were still invested in the dream. In the 2014-2017 upturn, a lot of the energy came from the shared dream of myself and Evie Hoff (Assistant Station Manager), and from many sleepless nights and passionate conversations on how to make this thing work. I personally built a station program with state-of-the-art capabilities for podcasting and broadcasting, and so I understood it. Together, along with the combined efforts of hundreds of UMBC students, faculty and staff, we forged something great – a new WMBC which put on concerts, shared campus events, and provided opportunities for students to truly find their voices as members of the UMBC community.

I urge you, the reader, to imagine a more vibrant UMBC where you have a voice not limited to what the administration decides to give you, but one that is claimed as your right to free expression as a student. Crank the amp and bring out the sound of WMBC – the uncensored student-run, freeform radio voice of UMBC. If you want to bring this station to life, email Jason Loviglio, the organization advisor at loviglio@umbc.edu. The hardware and software are there for you to make your dreams into reality, and all you have to do is to dust it off, throw the switches, and make yourself heard!

Nova DasSarma was Station Manager of WMBC from 2014-2017 and Software Manager from 2017-2018. She can be reached by email at nova@noblejury.com.

Learn more about Kuali Protocols for IRB during short workshops sponsored by UMBC's Office of Research Protections and Compliance!