Contact: Thomas Moore
Director of Arts & Culture
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

Note: You may view or download this release as a pdf file.

The UMBC Department of Music presents its spring 2007 season, featuring three series: TNT (Then, Now, Tomorrow: Music for the Adventurous Listener), PRIME (Resounding Traditions) and a Student Concert Series. Returning this year is the bi-annual Music of Japan Today Festival on March 30th, 31st and April 1st.

TNT Series
(Then, Now, Tomorrow: Music for the Adventurous Listener)

Tuesday, February 6
Nota Bena Contemporary Ensemble and the Queens College/Aaron Copland School of Music Percussion Ensemble
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
Free admission
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

The Nota Bene Contemporary Ensemble and the Queens College/Aaron Copland School of Music Percussion Ensemble, both under the direction of percussionist Michael Lipsey, will perform Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire de soldat and John Cage's The City Wears a Slouch Hat (1942), with text by Kenneth Patchen.

The Nota Bene Contemporary Ensemble is dedicated to the performance of twentieth-century music, including classics of the repertory, new music, and faculty and student works. Based at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queen’s College, the ensemble has performed at New York University’s Black Box Theater, the Open Ears Festival Marathon, worked with violinist Todd Reynolds and improvised with Sylvan Leroux of the Fula Flute Ensemble. Recent performances have featured works by Louis Andreissen and Frederic Rzewski.

March 30, 31, and April 1
Music of Japan Today 2007 Festival and Symposium
Complete schedule to be announced.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Western art music has existed for a relatively short time in Japan—it is only since the 1950s, countering Japan’s rush to adopt all that is “Western,” that some composers, led by Yuasa, Mayuzumi, Takemitsu and Ichiyanagi, began to move away from stylistic modeling of nineteenth-century European forms and twentieth-century dodecaphony towards a more individualistic approach. Concerned with reflecting philosophical and musical elements from their own culture, they began to discover and develop their “own music.” The music of these artists reflects a new global confluence of multiple cultures—a powerful cross-fertilization of aesthetics and musical characteristics from both East and West. The music is reflective of a variety of aspects of contemporary Japanese and Western societies, while at the same time deeply rooted in a traditional culture that has evolved over many years.

In Music of Japan Today 2007, UMBC will host a three-day symposium of performances, lecture-recitals, panel discussions, and paper presentations on topics that concern Japanese music from the widest possible range of disciplines and expertise.
Three guest composers of international stature will participate in the symposium: Hiroyuki Itoh, a winner of international composition prizes in Europe and Japan (including the prestigious Akutagawa Award), has been commissioned and performed by major ensembles including the New Japan Philharmonic, the Nieuw Ensemble, and the Arditti Quartet; Hiroyuki Yamamoto, whose works have been performed at Forum ’91 (Montreal), Gaudeamus Music Week ’94 (Holland), and ISCM World Music Days (2000 in Luxembourg and 2001 in Yokohama), has received prizes for his work, including the Japan Music Competition, Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, and Akutagawa Award; and Shirotomo Aizawa, winner of an Ataka Prize, and a composition prize from the National Theater in Japan. He has studied composition in Tokyo, Berlin, and Vienna, and conducting with Seiji Ozawa, among others.

Performances during the symposium will include a broad range of works for different genres (solo instrument, chamber music, computer and electronic music, traditional instruments) by Itoh, Yamamoto, and Aizawa, as well as other Japanese composers. They will include premieres of new works by the guest composers. The performers for these concerts will include faculty and students of the UMBC Department of Music, and guest musicians from the Baltimore/Washington DC area and other international new music centers. This symposium is the sixth in a series of events since 1992 to address Japanese and other Asian musics, organized by Kazuko Tanosaki and E. Michael Richards.

Sunday, April 22
Franklin Cox, cello
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
$7 general admission, $3 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID.
Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Cellist Franklin Cox has performed in numerous festivals and new music ensembles, including the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, the Group for Contemporary Music, and SONOR, as well as at the 1980 and 1982 Spoleto Festivals, the 1983 Banff Summer Chamber Music Festival, the Xenakis Festival and Darmstadt Revisited Festival at UCSD, and at the Darmstadt Festival since 1988, where he received a special citation for cello performance in 1990. He received a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Indiana University, a Master of Arts degree in composition from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in composition at the University of California, San Diego.

His program will include Time and Motion Study II by Brian Ferneyhough and the world premiere of Crutch by Aaron Cassidy.

Dr. Cox has studied with Brian Ferneyhough, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa, Steven Suber, Fred Fox, Harvey Sollberger, Fred Lerdahl, and Jack Beeson. He received an Alice M. Ditson Scholarship and Dissertation Fellowship at Columbia University, Regent's Fellowship and a Dissertation Research Fellowship for Outstanding Research at UCSD, a full scholarship to the 1990 June in Buffalo Festival, and full scholarships for the 1988 and 1992 Darmstadt Festivals. He was awarded a Stipendium Fellowship at the 1990 Darmstadt Festival, won 2nd prize in the Los Angeles Arts Commission competition in the spring of 1991, and was co-winner of the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (highest award for composition) in the 1992 Darmstadt Festival.

Thursday, May 3
New Haven Quartet
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
Free admission
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

The New Haven Quartet is comprised of Ayano Kataoka (percussion), Steve Wilson (tenor), James Deitz (percussion), and Josh Quillen (percussion), all graduates of the Yale University School of Music in New Haven. They specialize in interpreting percussion classics by composers such as Toru Takemitsu and Stuart Saunders Smith (professor of music at UMBC) while commissioning new works from young composers such as Mark Dancigers. Their uniquely diverse backgrounds converge to create a group sound like no other.

The quartet's program will include:
• Raintree by Toru Takemitsu
• And Sometimes the Ears/When the Body Betrays by Stuart Saunders Smith
• Lion Lying Down by Mark Dancigers
• …And Points North by Stuart Saunders Smith
• Songs 1-9/Polka in Treblinka by Stuart Saunders Smith

Monday, May 14
Allen and Patricia Strange
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
$7 general admission, $3 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID.
Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Violinist Patricia Strange will present a program of music by composers Allen Strange and Larry Austin, including Strange's Goddess, Heroes: The Boys (Ghost Tracks), Elemental Vamp, SideShow: Six Gothic Images from the Darkside, and Quinault Cathedral, and Austin's Redux.

Allen Strange is one of the leading authorities on analogue electronic music; his Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls (1972) is now a classic text. He also wrote Programming and Meta-Programming the Electro-Organism (1974), the operations manual for the Buchla Music Easel and has documented the 200 Series synthesizers made by Buchla. He co-founded two performance groups, Biome (1967-72), in order to make use of the EMS Synthi, and, with Buchla in 1974, the Electronic Weasel Ensemble. He was president of the International Computer Music Association (1993-98) and has appeared as a guest artist-lecturer throughout the world. With his wife, Patricia, they have recently published The Contemporary Violin: Extended Performance Techniques.

Strange composes for live electronic instrumental ensembles, for live and taped electronics with voices and acoustic instruments, and for the theatre; most of his works for acoustic instruments require extended performance techniques. He is particularly interested in linear tuning systems, spatial distribution of sound, the isolation of timbre as a musical parameter, and composing for groups of like instruments or voices (consorts). Elements of vaudeville, rock-and-roll, country-and-western music, and the guitar techniques of Les Paul are found in his works. His theatre pieces employ various media including film, video, and lighting effects. Strange lives on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound pursuing a full-time career composing and concertizing with his wife.

Patricia Strange is an active performer of contemporary violin literature and has concertized throughout the USA, Canada, Mexico and Europe. With her husband, Allen Strange, she co-founded two live electronic music ensembles, BIOME and The Electric Weasel Ensemble. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from California State University Fullerton and a Masters of Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego. Ms. Strange has held positions in the San Diego Symphony, Opera San Jose, San Jose Cleveland Ballet Orchestra, Mid Summer Mozart Orchestra and was principal second violin with the San Jose Symphony. She has also taught violin and viola at San Jose State University. She and her husband, Allen Strange, have published a book entitled The Contemporary Violin; Extended Performance Techniques, available from Scarecrow Press. She currently lives on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound and remains active as a performer, teacher and director of the SoundScape Contemporary Chamber Players.

 

PRIME Series
Resounding Traditions

Sunday, January 28
Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
$10 general admission, $5 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID.
Tickets are available at the door, cash or check only.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Newberry's Victorian Cornet Band, led by guest conductor and UMBC Director of Bands Jari Villanueva, presents a program entitled Music of the Gilded Age. The music of America's Gilded Age—the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction years from 1865 to 1901—celebrated the country's unprecedented ecomonic, territorial, industrial and population expansions.

The program will feature music by Suppé, Grafulla, Sousa, Pryor, Verdi and others, and will feature solo performances by cornetist Elisa Koehler and trombonist Jared Denhard.

Sunday, February 11
Franklin Cox, cello, and Rachel Franklin, piano
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
$10 general admission, $5 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID.
Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Cellist Franklin Cox and pianist Rachel Franklin join forces to present an afternoon of chamber music. Both artists are members of UMBC’s distinguished music faculty.

The duo's program will feature both Brahms cello sonatas, No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38, and No. 2 in F major, Op. 99.

Franklin Cox has performed in numerous festivals and new music ensembles, including the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, the Group for Contemporary Music, and SONOR, as well as at the 1980 and 1982 Spoleto Festivals, the 1983 Banff Summer Chamber Music Festival, the Xenakis Festival and Darmstadt Revisited Festival at UCSD, and at the Darmstadt Festival since 1988, where he received a special citation for cello performance in 1990. He received a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Indiana University, a Master of Arts degree in composition from Columbia University, and a PhD. in composition at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Cox has studied with Brian Ferneyhough, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa, Steven Suber, Fred Fox, Harvey Sollberger, Fred Lerdahl, and Jack Beeson. He received an Alice M. Ditson Scholarship and Dissertation Fellowship at Columbia University, Regent's Fellowship and a Dissertation Research Fellowship for Outstanding Research at UCSD, a full scholarship to the 1990 June in Buffalo Festival, and full scholarships for the 1988 and 1992 Darmstadt Festivals. He was awarded a Stipendium Fellowship at the 1990 Darmstadt Festival, won 2nd prize in the Los Angeles Arts Commission competition in the spring of 1991, and was co-winner of the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (highest award for composition) in the 1992 Darmstadt Festival.

As a Pro Musicis International Award winner, British pianist Rachel Franklin has given her solo debuts in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, and Jordan Hall, Boston. The Boston Globe enthused about her “beautiful differentiations of color, touch and texture” and described a performance on her solo debut CD as “not inferior...to the recorded performances by Cortot and Rubinstein.” She has also given European Pro Musicis solo debuts in Paris and Rome. At the Wigmore Hall, London, where she has given several recitals, critics applauded her “stunning individuality,” “exquisite dynamic control,” and “amazing power and solidity of technique.” The Washington Post praised her “cool-headed bravura and panache.” In Dublin The Irish Times said: “Of the many qualities that distinguished Rachel Franklin's recital, it was perhaps the intelligence underpinning her creative interpretations that caused her to stand out from so many other young pianists...” She has been featured on NPR's Performance Today, with whom she has given frequent spoken broadcasts. Her recital broadcasts include BBC Radio 3, WQXR and WNYC in New York and WJHU in Baltimore, and Radio Telefis Eireann in Ireland.

Thursday, March 8
Noel Lester, piano
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
$10 general admission, $5 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID.
Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Pianist Noel Lester has delighted audiences and critics alike for his performances throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and through his recordings and radio broadcasts. He appears regularly as a soloist, chamber pianist, and soloist with orchestra. Noel Lester made his European debut in 1991 at the Ernst Barlach Haus in Hamburg and he has since performed extensively throughout the U.K., Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, and Poland. He has participated in international festivals at Maastricht and Belfast. In November of 2000, he made his Asian debut with recitals in Sendai and Tokyo.

His radio recitals include NPR, the BBC, RTE Dublin, SDR Stuttgart, Radio France, on the nationally-syndicated show, “A Note to You,” produced by WGBH-Boston, over WQED Pittsburgh, WNYC, and many others. As a recording artist, he may be heard on the Centaur, Elan, Koch International, Museum of Modern Art, RWYA, and Sonora labels.

The program will feature works by Beethoven, Scarlatti, and Brahms, plus a historical survey of ragtime, from its roots to today.

Sunday, March 11
UMBC Symphony Orchestra
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
Free admission.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

The UMBC Symphony Orchestra performs under the direction of Wayne Cameron. The program will feature the winners of the High School Concerto Competition and the Department of Music Concerto Competition performing Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85; Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61; Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, Op. 21; and Béla Bartók's Violin Rhapsody No. 1.

Sunday, April 15
Tiemann-Belzer Duo
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
$10 general admission, $5 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID.
Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Exploding on the scene with their debut CD Crypto, the Tiemann-Belzer Duo is an unusual jazz ensemble featuring percussionist Scott Tiemann and saxophonist Matt Belzer. By boiling down a more traditional instrumentation to only the melodic and rhythmic placeholders, the group creates a distinctive sound—a disciplined and creative approach to performance. Featuring new compositions by Belzer, who recently joined the UMBC music faculty, this group is a collaborative effort by musicians who have developed that heightened awareness of each other for which jazz musicians strive.

Sunday, May 6
UMBC Symphony Orchestra
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
Free admission.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

The UMBC Symphony Orchestra performs under the direction of Wayne Cameron. The program will feature Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E minor ("From the New World"), and pianist Rachel Franklin performing the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15.

Monday, May 7
UMBC Chamber Players
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall
Free admission.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

The UMBC Chamber Players perform under the direction of E. Michael Richards. The program will feature music of Beethoven, Rorem, Prokofiev, Matsudaira, and others.

Student Recital Series

March 2 & 3
The Vocal Arts Ensemble directed by David Smith.
7 pm both evenings, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Thursday, April 26
The UMBC Jazz Ensemble (Big Band) directed by Jari Villanueva.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Saturday, May 5
The Jubilee Singers directed by Janice Jackson.
7 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Donations accepted. 410-455-ARTS.

Tuesday, May 8
The UMBC Percussion Ensemble directed by Tom Goldstein.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Wednesday, May 9
The UMBC New Music Ensemble directed by Stuart Saunders Smith.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Thursday, May 10
The UMBC Wind Ensemble directed by Jari Villanueva.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Saturday, May 12
The UMBC Camerata directed by David Smith.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Tuesday, May 15
Department of Music Honors Recital.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Additional Information

Telephone
MissionTix box office: 410-752-8950
Public information: (24 hour recorded message): 410-455-ARTS
Media inquiries only: 410-455-3370

Web
UMBC Arts website: http://www.umbc.edu/arts
UMBC News Releases: http://www.umbc.edu/news
MissionTix: http://www.missiontix.com/

Directions
• From Baltimore and points north, proceed south on I-95 to exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Fine Arts Building.

• From I-695, take Exit 12C (Wilkens Avenue) and continue one-half mile to the entrance of UMBC at the roundabout intersection of Wilkens Avenue and Hilltop Road. Turn left and follow signs to the Fine Arts Building.

• From Washington and points south, proceed north on I-95 to Exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Fine Arts Building.

Parking is available after 3:30 p.m. on weekdays and all day during weekends in gated Lots 16/9A for a 50¢ fee, quarters only. From any campus entrance, circle around Hilltop Circle (the road the encircles the campus) to Hilltop Road. Take Hilltop Road toward the center of campus. The Fine Arts Building will now be directly in front of you. Proceed through the stop sign. The road will curve to the right. If Lot 16 is full, you may also pay to park in Lot 9A, which sits on the hill immediately above Lot 16—return to the stop sign and turn left toward Lot 9A, and then to the gate.

Online campus map: http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/campusmap/

Images for Media
High resolution images for media are available online:
http://www.umbc.edu/newsevents/arts/hi-res/ or by email or postal mail.