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Wuorinen to appear with Slee Sinfonietta
Composer Charles Wuorinen will conduct the Slee Sinfonietta next month in a program celebrating his music.
Renowned composer Charles Wuorinen, a fixture on the American music scene for more than four decades, will appear next month at UB with the Slee Sinfonietta in a program celebrating Wuorinen’s music.
The concert, presented by the Department of Music in conjunction with the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, will take place at 7:30 p.m. April 19 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.
Other Department of Music-sponsored concerts in April include a performance by the New York New Music Ensemble on April 21 and a recital featuring UB faculty members Tony Arnold and Alexander Hurd on April 23.
Wuorinen will conduct the Sinfonietta, UB’s professional chamber orchestra, in performances of John Bull’s “Salve Regina” (1961, rev. 1997), as well as his own compositions “The River of Light” (1996), “Fifty Fifty” (2002) and “Metagong” (2008).
“The River of Light” is the third piece from Wuorinen’s ballet “The Dante Trilogy.” “Fifty Fifty” was written for composer/conductor Oliver Knussen to celebrate his 50th birthday. “Metagong,” scored for two percussionists and two pianists, was commissioned by the New York New Music Ensemble (NYNME) and premiered in 2010 in New York City; The UB performance will feature pianists Stephen Gosling of NYNME and UB pianist Eric Huebner, along with UB percussionist Tom Kolor and Daniel Druckman, percussionist with NYNME and principal percussionist of the New York Philharmonic.
Advance tickets 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.
A composer since the age of 5, Wuorinen in 1970 became the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music for “Time’s Encomium,” an electronic composition written on commission from Nonesuch Records. The Pulitzer and MacArthur Fellowship are just two of the numerous awards, fellowships and other honors he has received to date.
He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Wuorinen has written more than 250 compositions to date and his works have been recorded on nearly a dozen labels. He is the author of “Simple Composition,” used by composition students throughout the world.
The Department of Music’s April concert schedule will continue on April 21 with the New York New Music Ensemble performing the fifth concert in this season’s Slee/Visiting Artist series at 7:30 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall.
Advance tickets 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.
Members of the ensemble also will hold composer workshop sessions from 10 a.m. to noon and from 1-3 p.m. on April 20 in Lippes Concert Hall. Separate master classes for winds, strings and percussion/piano will be held at 4 p.m. that same day; specific locations being posted. All residency activities are free and open to the public.
The ensemble, whose members include clarinetist Jean Kopperud, UB associate professor of music, will perform works by Ricardo Zohn Muldoon, Alejandro Viñao, Charles Wuorinen, Alexandre Lunsqui, Tania León and Mario Davidovsky.
Since 1976, the New York New Music Ensemble has commissioned, performed and recorded the music of important and upcoming composers. NYNME has been recognized and supported by significant American foundations, among them the Jerome Foundation, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Mary Flagler Cary Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, among others. It has taken part in numerous college residencies, appeared at major festivals—including UB’s June in Buffalo—and traveled to Europe, Asia and South America to perform, teach and record.
Rounding out the music department’s April concerts will be a faculty recital featuring UB vocalists Tony Arnold, soprano, and Alexander Hurd, baritone, with noted pianist David Breitman, in a rendition of Hugo Wolf’s “Italian Songbook.”
The recital will take place at 3 p.m. April 23 in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus.
Wolf’s colorful songs about love in all its guises—joyful and despondent, requited and unrequited, sincere and sarcastic—are based on a collection of Italian folk poems from a German translation by Paul Heyse.
Tickets are $10 for general admission; $5 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, senior citizens and non-UB students; and free to UB students with valid ID.
Tony Arnold, assistant professor of music, is a winner of the Gaudeamus International Interpreters Competition and recently performed in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded extensively for Bridge Records and Naxos, and has received a Grammy nomination.
Alexander Hurd, also an assistant professor, is a winner of the Joy in Singing Competition and has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Speculum Musicae. He is a frequent recitalist in concert halls from New York City to Yokohama, Japan, and has recorded for Bridge and Centaur records.
David Breitman is the recital partner of baritone Sanford Sylvan, and the pair has received several Grammy nominations for their work together. Breitman is on the faculty of Oberlin Conservatory.
Tickets for all Department of Music events can be obtained at the Slee Hall box office, the Center for the Arts box office and at all TicketMaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.
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