March Music Schedule Includes Traditional African Music, Faculty and Student Recitals

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- African Alchemies, a program that includes traditional African music, as well as new music inspired by its melodies, will be performed at 8 p.m. March 29 in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus.

The concert, organized by Martin Scherzinger. professor of musicology at the Eastman School of Music, will be free of charge.

Scherzinger has assembled a talented group of musicians performing on both western and African instruments: violin, cello, piano, marimba and mbira -- the classic instrument of Zimbabwe consisting of flattened metal prongs fastened at one end to a wooden resonator body, played by plucking with the thumbs.

Scherzinger also will lecture at UB on March 28, time and location to be announced.

The Department of Music's concert schedule for March also will include two faculty recitals, and numerous student concerts.

Glenn Einschlag, prinicipal bassoonist for the Buffalo Philharmonic and adjunct professor at UB, will present his first recital as a faculty member at 8 p.m. March 9 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus. Einschlag's UB colleague, pianist Jacob Greenberg, will accompany him on an all-20th century program that includes Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6, one of a cycle of works paying homage to the music of Bach and the folkloric music of Brazil.

Tickets are $5; UB students are free with ID.

Getting his start in the New Jersey Youth Symphony and the pre-college division of the Juilliard School, Einschlag assumed his full-time responsibilities as principal bassoonist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1999, and has since appeared as a soloist, performing Weber's Andante and Hungarian Rondo with guest conductor Paul Ferington. He also has taken on the summer position of principal bassoonist with the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder under the baton of Michael Christie. Locally, Glenn performs regular chamber music recitals with BPO principal clarinetist John Fullam and Fredonia pianist Don Rebic as part of the group Tremani, and has performed several Vivaldi bassoon concerti with Ars Nova Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Marylouise Nanna.

Einschlag was a fellowship participant at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he performed in the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra with Seiji Ozawa and studied chamber music with Julius Levine; he also has played at the Spoleto Festival and with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

A founding member of the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the all-brass group that appeared on the Slee/Visiting Artist Series earlier in the season, trumpeter and UB faculty member Jon Nelson divides his time between New York City and Buffalo.

He will present a recital at 8 p.m. March 22 in Baird Recital Hall that features the premiere of newly commissioned works by UB faculty member Jeff Stadelman and New York City-based composer/performer Kirk Nurock, as well as works by Emil Harnas, Birtwistle, Scarlatti, Kagel, and Morton Feldman. Guest artists and UB colleagues Jacob Greenberg (piano), Tony Arnold (voice) and Cheryl Gobbetti Hoffman (flute) also will perform.

Tickets are $5; UB students are free with ID.

Internationally recognized as a player, composer and arranger, Nelson's diverse experiences include performances with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the STX-Xenakis Ensemble and the British rock group Duran Duran.

As a founding member of the Meridian Arts Ensemble, he was instrumental in the commissioning of more than 30 new works for the ensemble, frequently venturing into jazz, rock and experimental idioms. With the Meridian, he collaborated with Milton Babbitt and Frank Zappa, as well as with numerous folk and ethnic artists from around the world, and appeared at more than 35 international festivals in Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and the United States.

As an arranger, he has transcribed and adapted works by J.S. Bach, Jimi Hendrix, Don van Vliet, King Crimson and Frank Zappa. His arrangements have been performed and recorded by the Cologne Stadt Ballet, the Ethos Percussion Group and Dweezil Zappa; his compositions and arrangements are published by The Zappa Family Trust and Manduca Music.

The Department of Music also will present concerts by its student performers. All concerts are free of charge. The schedule:

• Voice Students Recital, noon, March 3, Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall.

• UB Symphony, Magnus Mårtensson, conductor, 8 p.m., March 8, Lippes Concert Hall, Slee Hall.

• Composers Concert, 8 p.m., March 10, Lippes Concert Hall.

• Mus.B. Recital: Kevin Moehringer, trombone, 8 p.m. March 21, Baird Recital Hall.

• Computer Music, 8 p.m. March 30, Black Box Theatre, Center for the Arts.

Tickets to all Department of Music concerts can be obtained at the Slee Hall box office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, in the Center for the Arts box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at all Ticketmaster outlets.