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Majeski to serve Horne residency
The Department of Music, in association with the Marilyn Horne Foundation, will host soprano Amanda Majeski for a four-day residency next week that will include visits to three local schools, a meeting with UB vocal students and other interested members of the UB community, and a formal recital of art song.
Majeski’s residency is one of several events sponsored this month by the Department of Music. Others include “Rated X,” a program presented by clarinetist and UB faculty member Jean Kopperud and pianist Stephen Gosling, and a faculty recital featuring baritone Alexander Hurd and pianist Alison d'Amato.
Approximately 300 children at Amherst and Williamsville North high schools and at Casey Middle School will hear Majeski sing selected excerpts from her program and talk about the importance of the art-song form during 45-minute sessions at the schools on Tuesday and Wednesday. The students will be encouraged, with the support of the Horne foundation, to attend Majeski’s recital at 8 p.m. Feb. 13 in Baird Recital Hall, North Campus.
Advance tickets for the recital are $12 for general admission; $9 for UB faculty/staff/alumni and senior citizens; and $5 for students. Tickets at the door are $20, $15 and $8.
Majeski, who is pursuing her graduate degree at the Curtis Institute of Music, was a member of the 2008 Merola Opera Program in San Francisco. A 2007 recipient of a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation, she was the first-prize winner of the 2008 Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition Junior Division.
The Robert G. and Carol L. Morris Center for 21st Century Music, in conjunction with the Department of Music, will present the premiere-filled, contemporary music program “Rated X” at 8 p.m. Feb. 12 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.
The following morning, “Rated X” performers Kopperud and Gosling will conduct a master class on chamber music techniques at 11 a.m. in Lippes Concert Hall. The class is free and open to the public.
Tickets for the concert are $5 for general admission and free for UB students with ID.
Both Kopperud and Gosling are widely celebrated musicians. In addition to playing the clarinet, Kopperud adds a theatrical element on stage. She has been highly praised for her performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Harlekin,” a demanding work for dancing clarinetist, and developed the music-theater work “Cloud Walking,” in which she combines her passion for skydiving with her virtuosic musicianship.
Of the works to be performed in the “Rated X” program, Eric Moe’s “Grand Prismatic” was written specifically for Kopperud. The piece is named after Yellowstone Park’s Grand Prismatic Spring and the music reflects this grand, breath-taking phenomenon of beauty in a seemingly hostile environment.
A prolific performer and recording artist, Gosling has received the Mennin Prize for Outstanding Excellence and Leadership in Music and the Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship.
Hurd and d’Amato will perform a program of German Lieder, with music from Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Zemlinsky, Eisler and Mahler—including songs to texts by Goethe and Mösrike—at 8 p.m. Feb. 19 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall.
Tickets are $5 for general admission and free for UB students with ID.
Hurd has mastered a repertoire ranging from Bach to Ligeti. His skillful performances have won him the 2005 Joy in Singing Award, as well as the Vocal Arts Resource Network Song Competition.
D'Amato has a reputation as a dynamic, versatile and innovative artist who combines performance and teaching activities. A recipient of the Grace B. Jackson Prize, d'Amato is artistic co-director of the Florestan Recital Project, a group devoted to the research and performance of song. She also was a driving force behind the creation of the Vancouver International Song Institute.
Tickets to all Department of Music concerts are available at the Slee Hall box office, at the Center for the Arts box office and at all Ticketmaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.
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