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Pulitzer-Prize winners to headline June in Buffalo faculty
Annual festival to take place June 4-10 at UB
By PHILIP REHARD
Reporter Contributor
HARBISON
June in Buffalo, the annual festival and conference dedicated to emerging composers, will take place June 4-10 at UB and offer an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, open rehearsals and master classes with faculty composers—three of whom have won the Pulitzer Prize—as well as afternoon workshops and evening concerts open to the general public and critics.
This season's festival is titled "Music for Voices/Music for Quartets." David Felder, Birge-Cary Chair in Composition at UB, serves as artistic director of the festival, which is sponsored by the Center for 21st Century Music and the Department of Music, both at UB.
REICH
This year, 20 students were accepted from a pool of 95 applicants from the U.S., Argentina, Belgium, Germany, Israel, Italy, Scotland, Taiwan, and Turkey, and from such universities as Harvard, Yale, Brandeis, Vassar, Northwestern, University of California-San Diego, UB, University of Chicago, University of Sydney and the New England and San Francisco conservatories. Each of the emerging composers will work closely with the distinguished faculty of five internationally renowned composers, and will have one of his or her pieces performed during the festival.
WUORINEN
Serving as faculty members this year, in addition to Felder, who has long been recognized as a leader in his generation of American composers, are:
John Harbison, who won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in music and is one of America's most distinguished artistic figures. He has written for every conceivable type of concert performance, ranging from the grandest to the most intimate pieces that embrace jazz, along with the pre-classical forms.
Steve Reich, who has been called "America's greatest living composer" (The Village VOICE), "the most original musical thinker of our time" (The New Yorker) and "among the great composers of the century" (The New York Times).
Roger Reynolds, who has responded to the variety in the contemporary world with a uniquely diversified output of music ranging from the purely instrumental and vocal to engagement with computers, video, dance and theater. Reynolds received the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his orchestral composition "Whispers Out of Time."
Charles Wuorinen, who has been a forceful presence on the American musical scene for more than four decades. In 1970, Wuorinen became the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music.
REYNOLDS
Works by the June in Buffalo emerging composers, as well as the faculty composers, will be presented by resident ensembles and soloists who are recognized as some of the world's leading contemporary music performers. Performing this year will be the Arditti String Quartet, Europe's pre-eminent interpreters of modern music; the adventurous New York Virtuoso Singers, directed by Harold Rosenbaum, UB visiting associate professor; red fish blue fish, the resident percussion ensemble from the University of California-San Diego directed by Steve Schick; UB's own Slee Sinfonietta, directed by Brad Lubman; Paris-based bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood; and award-winning soprano Lucy Shelton. The festival will conclude this year with a free concert by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Click here for the schedule of concerts that are open to the public.
Tickets to all June in Buffalo concerts can be obtained at the Slee Hall box office from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, at the Center for the Arts box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at all Ticketmaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.