Music Alive! Concert On November 7 and November 10
“MUSIC ALIVE!” CONCERT AT BARD COLLEGE FEATURES WORKS BY COPLAND, SCHNITTKE, TOWER, TSONTAKIS, AND PREMIERE BY CONOR BROWN ON NOVEMBER 7 AND NOVEMBER 10
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard College Conservatory of Music and Music Program present “Music Alive!”—a free concert in Bard Hall featuring performances of works by Copland, Schnittke, Bard professors Joan Tower and George Tsontakis, and a premiere by Bard student Conor Brown on Wednesday, November 7, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, November 10, at 5:00 p.m. No reservations are necessary; however, seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis.
This is the second year that Joan Tower, one of America’s preeminent composers and Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard, has organized the “Music Alive!” concert, which features performers and composers drawn from the College’s Music Program and the Conservatory of Music. “Our Music Alive! ensembles concentrate on music taken from the 20th and 21st centuries, which include a mix of living composers and masterpieces like Appalachian Spring, drawn from the repertoire,” says Tower. “The students have learned to love this music and play it with commitment and passion—a very encouraging thing for me to watch develop in rehearsals. I think this concert will be exciting both from a musical and performance point of view.”
The performances include Tower’s Petroushskates (1980), performed by violinist Tian Zhou, flutist Sarah Elia, clarinetist Renata Rakova, cellist Alysha Glenn, and pianist John Boggs; the premiere of Bard student Conor Brown’s Gloaming (2007), performed by the composer, a clarinetist; Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet (1940), performed by violinists Fangyue He and Yue Sun, violist Leah Gastler, cellist Emanuel Evans, and pianist Allegra Chapman; George Tsontakis’s Requiescat (l996), performed by violist Lin Wang and pianist Joan Tower; and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring (1943), conducted by Joan Tower and performed by violinists Yang Li, Yue Sun, Tian Xu, and Agnieszka Peszko; violists Lin Wang and Xinyi Xu; cellists Brent Lewis and Rachel Becker; bassist Xinyue Zhang; flutist Jo Brand; clarinetist Sarah Wegener; bassoonist Nicole Hedinger; and pianist Shun-Yang Lee.
Joan Tower received a B.A. from Bennington College and M.A. and D.M.A. degrees from Columbia University. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Koussevitsky Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest. She won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 1990 and has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic; St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and National Symphonies; the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir Quartets; the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; and Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Aspen, and LaJolla Summerfest, among many other festivals. Her CDs have been released on Naxos, Koch International, Delos, and d’Note Records. Tower was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998 and the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. She was composer in residence with the St. Louis Symphony, with conductor Leonard Slatkin, from 1985 to 1988, and has been composer in residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s since 1997. She was recently named the first composer for a major orchestral consortium project, sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet the Composer; the resultant work, Made in America, has been performed by 65 orchestras in 50 states and has been released on CD by Naxos. This summer Scarecrow Press published Joan Tower: The Comprehensive Bio-Bibliography by Ellen K. Grolman. Tower has taught at Bard since 1972.
For additional information, call the Music Program at 845-758-7250.
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(10/25/07)
Editor's Note: To download high-resolution (300 dpi jpeg) press photos, click on thumbnail images below. Images of Joan Tower, credit Noah Sheldon.
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