The UMBC Department of Music presents its fall 2007 season, featuring pianist John Novacek, flutist Robert Dick with pianist Ursel Schlicht, contrabassist Mark Dresser, and other noted soloists and ensembles.

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.

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

Thursday, September 20
Robert Dick and Ursel Schlicht, flute and piano
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

Robert Dick, improviser, composer, author, teacher and inventor, is known worldwide for redefining the flute, creating revolutionary visions of its musical role. His music is rooted in free improvisation, new jazz, and classical music, contemporary and traditional. Dick has performed solo concerts throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. He has released numerous solo recordings and performed and recorded with Ursel Schlicht, New Winds, Tambastics, Oscura Luminosa, the Soldier String Quartet, the A.D.D. Trio, King Chubby, Paul Giger, Jaron Lanier, Randy Raine-Reusch, Barry Guy, Mari Kimura, Klaus Kugel and many others. His grants, fellowships and commissions include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Composer Fellowships, a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission, and two Meet the Composer commissions. His pedagogical works, including the book The Other Flute: A Performance Manual of Contemporary Techniques, are considered the standard bearers in their field.

For the past quarter century, Dick has contributed to the evolution of the flute. Since the early 1990s Emerson Musical Instruments has produced the Robert Dick Model bass flute. He is presently collaborating with Brannen Brothers Flutemakers, the leading maker of fine flutes worldwide, in the production of his invention, the Glissando Headjoint®, which does for the flute what the whammy bar does for the electric guitar.

Ursel Schlicht is an internationally active pianist, composer, improviser, scholar and educator. She has played improvised music, jazz, new music and world music throughout Europe, North America, Russia, Mexico and Australia. Recent performances include: Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada), Festival for Creative Music in Seattle (US), International Music Meeting in Monterrey (Mexico), Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival (Australia), Symposium für Aktuelle Music and Jazz Festival Kassel (Germany). Schlicht has written for large and small ensembles, dance theater and improvisational scores for silent film. As an artist-in-residence at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in New York, she created a score for F.W. Murnau’s silent classic film Faust.

Tuesday, October 23
Mark Dresser, contrabass
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

Mark Dresser has been composing and performing solo contrabass and ensemble music professionally since 1972 throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Emerging from the L.A. “free” jazz scene of the early 70s, Dresser performed with the Black Music Infinity led by Stanley Crouch, and included Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, David Murray, and James Newton. Concurrently he was performing with the San Diego Symphony.

After completing B.A. and M.A. degrees at UCSD where he studied with contrabass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky and a 1983 Fulbright Fellowship in Italy with maestro Franco Petracchi, Dresser relocated to New York in 1986 after being invited to join the quartet of composer/saxophonist, Anthony Braxton. Dresser played with Braxton’s longest performing quartet for nine years.

Once in New York, Dresser began working with a wide variety of musicians in the greater New York community including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Anthony Davis, Fred Frith, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, and others. He focused on composing for a pair of cooperative groups, Tambastics with flutist Robert Dick, percussionist Gerry Hemingway, and pianist Denman Maroney and the string trio, ARCADO, with violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Hank Roberts. His current collaborative projects include the trio, C/D/E, master drummer Andrew Cyrille and with multi-reed player virtuoso, Marty Ehrlich, a duo, trio and quartet with hyperpianist Denman Maroney, the Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Helias, a duo with the cello virtuoso, Frances-Marie Uitti, a duo with the gifted drummer Susie Ibarra, and a duo with celebrated trombonist, Ray Anderson.

He has performed and recorded over one hundred CDs with some of the strongest personalities in contemporary music and jazz including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Bobby Bradford, Tom Cora, Marilyn Crispell, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Fred Frith, Diamanda Galas, Vinny Golia, Earl Howard, Oliver Lake, George Lewis, Misha Mengelberg, Ikue Mori, James Newton, Evan Parker, Sonny Simmons, Louis Sclavis, Vladimir Tarasov, Henry Threadgill, and John Zorn. He was nominated for a 2003 Grammy for the performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s CD, Yiddishbbuk. He is professor of music at UCSD.

His program, “Spectral Delivery,” features the following works:
1. Invocation
2. Threaded
3. Bacachaonne
4. K-tude
5. McLagan
6. Ediface
7. Lanette

Sunday, November 11
Tanosaki-Richards Duo, piano and clarinet
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

The Tanosaki-Richards Duo presents a program of music for clarinet and piano, including the Brahms Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 120, No. 2; Out of a blaze of light by Hiroyuki Itoh; and The Wedge is Struck, the Fog Remains by Hiroyuki Yamamoto.

Active since 1982, the Tanosaki-Richards Duo has performed at Symphony Space (NY), the International Electronic Music Plus Festival (Oberlin, OH), the Tokyo American Center, the Kobe International Festivals of Modern Music (Japan), the Music Forum Series at Shobi Conservatory (Tokyo), the Meet the Composer Series at the Center for Computer Music and Music Technology of the Kunitachi College of Music (Tokyo), the Asian Composers Forum (Sendai, Japan), and at more than 20 colleges and universities throughout the US and Japan. They recently performed Masataka Matsuo’s Double Concerto (Hirai V) with the Shinsei Japan Philharmonic under Kazumasa Watanabe, and have recorded the work with the Hamilton College Orchestra (composer conducting) for an Opus One CD. They released a CD of new Japanese music for clarinet and piano through Nine Winds Records.

The Tanosaki-Richards Duo has also performed recitals at the Piacenza Conservatory in Milan, Lincoln Center, the American Academy in Rome, the International Clarinet Association conference in Paris, at FUNMusic in Urbana, Illinois, and have served as visiting artists in residence at the University of Massachusetts, San Jose State University, CNMAT at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Hartt School of Music. They have organized several international symposia on new Japanese music.

PRIME Series
Resounding Traditions

Saturday, September 29
Janice Jackson, David Smith and Nancy Beith
Soprano Janice Jackson, tenor David Smith and pianist Nancy Beith will perform an all-German program featuring music of Wagner and Beethoven, including selections from Wagner’s Wesendonck lieder, Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, and selections from the first act of Die Walküre by Wagner.

8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission to be announced. Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

Saturday, October 27
Faculty Chamber Ensemble
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

Thursday, November 15
John Novacek, piano
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

Pianist John Novacek regularly tours the Americas, Europe and Asia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist; in the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras.

Mr. Novacek’s program will include:
• Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
• Elliott Carter’s Piano Sonata
• Le baiser de l’enfant-Jésus from the Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen
• Quejas, o maja y el ruiseñor from Goyescas by Enrique Granados
• Franz Liszt’s Rhapsodie Espagnole

John Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, 92nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space, Washington’s The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Hollywood Bowl and Royce Hall, while international venues include Paris’ Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Salle Gaveau and Musée du Louvre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, as well as most of the major concert halls of Japan. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals, here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival and those of Cape Cod, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Colorado College, Ravinia, Seattle, SummerFest La Jolla, Wolf Trap, BBC Proms (England), Braunschweig (Germany), Lucerne and Menuhin (Switzerland), Majorca (Spain), Sorrento (Italy), Stavanger (Norway), Toulouse (France) and Sapporo (Japan).

Often heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, John Novacek has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and, as both featured guest composer/performer, on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. He is also frequently seen and heard on television, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Entertainment Tonight and CNN International.

John Novacek is a much sought-after collaborative artist and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Emmanuel Pahud, Truls Mork and Leila Josefowicz. He has given numerous world premieres and worked closely with composers John Adams, John Harbison, George Rochberg, John Williams and John Zorn.

John Novacek took top prizes at both the Leschetizky and Joanna Hodges international piano competitions, among many others. He studied piano with Peter Serkin, Bruce Sutherland and Jakob Gimpel and chamber music with Jamie Laredo and Felix Galimir, and occasionally coached with Gary Graffman and Isaac Stern.

John Novacek’s own compositions and arrangements have been performed by the Pacific Symphony, The 5 Browns, Concertante, Millennium, Harrington String Quartet and The Three Tenors. He has recorded over 30 CDs, encompassing solo and chamber music by most major composers from Bach to Bartók, as well as many contemporary and original scores. Mr. Novacek records for Philips, Nonesuch, Arabesque, Warner Classics, Sony/BMG, Koch International, Universal Classics, Ambassador, Pony Canyon, Four Winds, Arkay, Virtuoso and EMI Classics. CD titles include Road Movies (2004 Grammy nomination as “Best Chamber Music Performance”), Great Mozart Piano Works, Spanish Rhapsody, Novarags (original ragtime compositions), Classic Romance, Hungarian Sketches, Intersection, Romances et Meditations and, with Leila Josefowicz, Americana (Gramophone: “Editor’s Choice”), For the End of Time, Shostakovich and Recital (BBC Music Magazine: 5 stars/June 2005’s chamber choice).

Sunday, November 18
UMBC Symphony Orchestra
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall

Admission is free.
Public information: 410-455-ARTS

The UMBC Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of E. Michael Richards, will perform Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 (the “Reformation”) and other works.

Student Recital Series

Sunday, November 18
The UMBC Jazz Ensemble (Big Band) directed by Jari Villanueva.
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Thursday, November 29
The UMBC Percussion Ensemble directed by Tom Goldstein.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Saturday, December 1
The Jubilee Singers directed by Janice Jackson.
7 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Donations accepted. 410-455-ARTS.

Sunday, December 2
The UMBC Camerata directed by David Smith.
3 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Wednesday, December 5
The UMBC New Music Ensemble directed by Stuart Saunders Smith.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Thursday, December 6
The UMBC Wind Ensemble directed by Jari Villanueva.
8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free. 410-455-ARTS.

Special Events

Saturday and Sunday, October 27 and 28
Sixth Annual High School Chamber Music Festival
The Department of Music presents the Fifth Annual High School Chamber Music Festival, in which 25 selected students from the mid-Atlantic region will gather at UMBC for a weekend of performances, coachings and new musical experiences. For information contact Dr. Lisa Cella at 410-455-1405.

November 28 – December 9
The Threepenny Opera
The Departments of Theatre and Music jointly present one of the ground-breaking music-theatre works of the twentieth century, The Threepenny Opera. With music by Kurt Weill and text and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, this cheerfully vicious satire of corruption and greed in the Weimar Republic set box-office records at its original Berlin run (1928-1933), from where it quickly spread to become a popular hit throughout the Western world. Weill’s jazz-inflected score, which includes such now-famous songs as “Mack the Knife,” “Pirate Jenny,” and the “Solomon Song,” deeply influenced both classical and popular music composers and, in effect, expanded the idiom of music-theatre as a form. Threepenny is performed here in the English version by Marc Blitzstein.

Directed by Xerxes Mehta, with musical direction by David Smith, sets and costumes by Elena Zlotescu, lighting by Terry Cobb. Conducted by Jari Villanueva.
Performances:
Wednesday, November 28, 8 pm (preview)
Thursday, November 29, 4 pm (free to the UMBC campus community)
Friday, November 30, 8 pm (opening night)
Saturday, December 1, 8 pm
Friday, December 7, 8 pm
Saturday, December 8, 8 pm
Sunday, December 9, 4 pm
All performances will be held in the UMBC Theatre.
Ticket prices to be announced; tickets will be available through MissionTix.

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 can 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.