Meridian Arts Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble to Perform at June in Buffalo Festival for Emerging Composers

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- "Music & Text" -- whether as impetus, source, or language -- will be the theme of June in Buffalo, the annual festival and conference dedicated to emerging composers, being held June 3-8 in Slee and Baird halls, North Campus.

The Department of Music in the UB College of Arts and Sciences will present June in Buffalo, which last year marked its 25th anniversary.

Providing an extraordinary opportunity for composers to work with professional musicians and a distinguished faculty, June in Buffalo offers an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, master classes, panel discussions and open rehearsals, as well as afternoon workshop/performances and evening concerts open to the general public and critics.

Each of the invited composers will have one of his or her pieces read or performed during an afternoon workshop presentation and will receive a recording for future study and demonstration purposes. Performances will feature resident ensembles and soloists who are renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music.

Free daytime concerts will be presented in a workshop format and will feature performances of works by emerging composers. Concerts to be presented in the evenings, which will include performances of June in Buffalo resident composers' works by June in Buffalo resident ensembles, will be ticketed. Tickets for these concerts can be obtained from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Slee Hall box office, from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday at the Center for the Arts box office and at all Ticketmaster outlets.

Resident composers for June in Buffalo will be David Felder, Birge-Cary Professor of Composition at UB and artistic director of June in Buffalo since 1985; Pulitzer Prize-winner John Harbison; Jonathan Harvey, who has a reputation of being one of the most skilled and imaginative composers working in electronic music today; Philippe Manoury, who developed a concept of "virtual scores," and Bernard Rands, a major figure in contemporary music who has won the Pulitzer Prize and the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award.

Performing as resident ensembles will be the Baird Trio, featuring UB faculty members Stephen Manes, Movses Pogossian and Jonathan Golove; the Meridian Arts Ensemble, which has established itself as one of America's finest chamber ensembles through its innovative, diverse repertoire and critically acclaimed performances; the New York New Music Ensemble, which has emerged as one of the world's premier 20th-century chamber music groups that performs for both the specialist and the uninitiated audience; Quatuor Bozzini, an award-winning string quartet dedicated to performing quartet music of all kinds, and Slee Sinfonietta, the professional chamber orchestra-in-residence at UB that performs a series of concerts each year dedicated to lesser-known repertoire, particularly that of the pre-classic era and the most contemporary music.

Appearing as special guest artists for June in Buffalo will be soprano Tony Arnold, the only vocalist ever to be awarded First Prize in the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition, the oldest and most important competition for performers of contemporary music; Stephen and Frieda Manes, who have been performing piano four hand music for almost 40 years to critical acclaim; Ian Pace, a pianist whose uncompromising commitment to musical modernism and unique combination of intellectual conceptualism and spontaneity in performance have won much admiration, and Augusta Read Thomas, a member of the composition faculty at Northwestern University and composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until 2000.

The schedule for June in Buffalo is:

June 3

4 p.m. o Baird Recital Hall o Chamber Music. No admission charge

8 p.m. o Baird Recital Hall o Ian Pace, piano. All tickets are $5

June 4

4 p.m. o Baird Recital Hall o Solo Workshop and Tape/Electronics. No admission charge

8 p.m. o Slee Concert Hall o Slee Sinfonietta with Tony Arnold, soprano, and Ian Pace, piano. Tickets are $12, general; $9, UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; $5, students

June 5

4 p.m. o Baird Recital Hall o Bozzini String Quartet. No admission charge

8 p.m. o Slee Concert Hall o New York New Music Ensemble. Tickets are $12, general; $9, UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; $5, students

June 6

4 p.m. o B1 Slee Hall o New York New Music Ensemble

No admission charge

8 p.m. o Slee Concert Hall o Bozzini String Quartet. Tickets are $12, general; $9, UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; $5, students

June 7

4 p.m. o Baird Recital Hall o Baird Trio. No admission charge

8 p.m. o Slee Concert Hall o Meridian Arts Ensemble (brass & percussion). Tickets are $12, general; $9, UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; $5, student

June 8

9 a.m. Slee Concert Hall o Meridian Arts Ensemble. No admission charge

For more information, call 645-2921 or visit the June in Buffalo Web site at http://www.wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/music.