Department of Music and BPO collaborate to commemorate Lukas Foss

BUFFALO, NY – Lukas Foss (1922 – 2009) was a composer, conductor, pianist, and visionary whose legendary contributions to the Buffalo arts scene were transformative. From 1963 to 1970, Foss served as the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), championing the works of living composers and 20th century music. In 1964, he co-founded and served as co-director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the University at Buffalo where he ushered in innovative works and performances for more than two decades.

“Lukas Foss had a long and vital connection to the Department of Music and its faculty. As co-founder of the Rockefeller-funded Center of the Creative and Performing Arts (along with UB Music Department Chair Allen Sapp), he was crucial to the project of bringing to UB a truly astounding list of guest composers and performers (the Creative Associates, as these guests are often called) for ground-breaking work in the field of New Music,” said Jonathan Golove, associate professor and co-director of the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21^st Century Music.

A musical prodigy, the German-born Foss began playing harmonium (a keyboard instrument similar to an organ) as a toddler and began composing at the age of 7 and was first published at the age of 15. "When he was 23, Foss became the youngest composer ever to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship." (“Composer, Conductor Lukas Foss Dies At 86 : NPR - NPR.org”) Throughout his career, Foss would become a became a pioneer in the inclusion of improvisatory and chance elements into classical composition.

"Foss was a versatile and prolific composer who left an indelible impression upon the Buffalo arts and music scene in the 60s and 70s that continues to inspire," says Robin Schulze, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and member of the BPO Board of Trustees. "We are excited and pleased to be part of the celebration of Foss’s legacy."

In commemoration of what would have been his 100th birthday this year, the BPO and the Department of Music are celebrating the life and works of Foss through six concerts, including a performance at the prestigious Carnegie Hall:

·         Friday, Sept. 30 – BPO Coffee Concert, 10:30 a.m. at Kleinhans Music Hall. Program and ticket information are available here.

·         Saturday, Oct. 1 – The Lukas Foss Legacy – BPO performance, 7:30 p.m. at Kleinhans Music Hall. Program and ticket information are available here.

·         Monday, Oct. 3 – Lukas Foss Centennial Celebration at Carnegie Hall – performance, 7 p.m. in Carnegie Hall. Click here for more information.

·        Wednesday, Oct. 5 – Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music/Department of Music performance, talk, and viewing of Foss documentary, 6:30 p.m. at DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York City

·         Tuesday, Oct. 25 – BPO/Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music/Department of Music collaborative event – at 7 p.m. at Slee Hall. 
 
According BPO’s website, Buffalo hosted the First Festival of the Arts in 1965 and a sequel in 1968 during Foss’s tenure as music director of BPO, and both events featured the glittering stars of the avant-garde in music, art, dance, and writing and brought thousands of spectators and rave reviews from the national press. Foss was known for working  closely with new talent and performing alongside small groups of virtuosic performers to create forward-looking works of electrifying spontaneity. (“Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall”)

“Foss’s musical collaborations with the Creative Associates were top-notch and widely heralded, and the concert we will present in New York City is an echo of the many programs Foss brought to NYC with the Creative Associates. Through his combined activities with UB and the BPO, it’s fair to say that Lukas played a significant role in placing Buffalo on the map internationally among centers for contemporary classical music. He was also personally important to many at UB, past and present,” Golove said.

BPO Music Director JoAnn Falletta will lead the program at Carnegie Hall, featuring the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Downtown Voices, along with soloists Amy Porter, flute and BPO Concertmaster Nikki Chooi, violin. (“BPO at Carnegie Hall - BPO - Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.”) Faculty performers from the Department of Music, including pianist Eric Huebner, cellist Jonathan Golove, percussionist Tom Kolor, clarinetist Michael Tumiel, pianist Michael Serio, and soprano Tiffany Du Mouchelle, will present rarely heard, but fascinating music directly from this important facet of Foss’s improvisatory chamber music oeuvre.

According to Falletta, the Lukas Foss era is generally regarded as a golden age of modernism in Buffalo, a time when the BPO played more new music than all the other orchestras in the country combined.

 “Under Lukas, our orchestra became known for the wildest and most imaginative programs of new music that was happening anywhere. He talked about BPO constantly – it was such a happy time of his life because he felt free to really be creative and do things he wouldn’t be able to do anywhere else. We have to celebrate the person he was; a maverick and a force of nature who believed so strongly in new music and young composers that he actually made Buffalo the epicenter of the new music world,” Falletta said.