American composer and pianist Martin Hennessy wins first annual UMD Opera Composition Contest

American composer and pianist Martin Hennessy has been named winner of the first annual University of Maryland (UMD) Opera Composition Contest. As the recipient of this award, Hennessy will receive a commissioning grant to collaborate with librettist Tom Rowan on their adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Young King, a parable that addresses wealth and income inequality.

The Concert Across America to End Gun Violence

On Sunday, September 25, 2016, we will remember the victims of America’s gun violence epidemic as part of The Concert Across America. We will be singing for peace to raise the volume on the national effort to save lives from gun violence. Imagine the impact of hundreds of thousands of people across the nation raising their voices in song for one day, one purpose. TOGETHER we will raise awareness about the importance of preventing gun violence. Join us as we come together to end gun violence, advocate for justice and usher in peace. 

Mamela Nyamza: Performance and Conversation

Join South African guest artist Mamela Nyamza in conversation, celebration, and performance of "PARKS OF ROSES," the new dance theater work she has been creating throughout her three-week TDPS residency in collaboration  with students and alums. 

Inspired by Rosa Parks and the histories the US and South Africa share of apartheid and segregation, the audience will have an opportunity to experience Nyamza's extraordinary alchemy in transforming oppression into art that challenges, confronts, disarms, heals.

Nyamza says,

Music in Mind: Beethoven at the Threshold - Opuses 95, 96, and 97

Three of Beethoven’s most consequential works encompassing three different chamber music genres and wildly contrasting landscapes are dramatically juxtaposed in one exciting evening.

Working in reverse order and affirming the broad, pivotal stylistic changes afoot, the expansive, soaring “Archduke” Trio will feature Bucknell piano professor Qing Jiang, UMD cello professor Eric Kutz, and David Salness, violinist and Director of Chamber Music Activities in the School of Music.

Music in Mind: Commissions and Classics

In preparation for their international tour to Europe and the Middle East, The Murasaki Duo perform beloved classics and newly commissioned pieces. The program includes British composer David Obson’s frenetically energetic Sonata for Cello and Piano, as well as  a new work by Ethan Haimo, which Eric Kutz describes as “dark in many ways, like all the facets of a smokey diamond.”

Eric Kutz is the recipient of The Barbara K. Steppel Memorial Faculty Fellowship in Cello.

 

Music in Mind: Xiang Gao, violin

Xiang Gao is recognized as one of the world's most successful performing artists of his generation from the People's Republic of China. His musical integrity and virtuoso technique have gained accolades from audiences and reviewers around the world, and he has performed for many world leaders. Most recently, Gao was a featured soloist performing for the Chinese President Hu JinTao and the visiting King Carlos I of Spain.

Music in Mind: Duo Down the Danube

The Stern/Andrist Duo takes a musical cruise from Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest to Bucharest. The river carries us predictably eastward, but there is no even keel with this music. Schubert hides the greatest profundity and intimacy behind flashiness and humorously overblown grandeur in his Rondo in B Minor. Dohnányi follows the path of decadence only to arrive at childlike innocence in his Sonata in C-sharp Minor. Bartók finds opportunities for suave voice-leading in the gritty outpourings of a gypsy band in his Rhapsody No.1. Enescu's Sonata No.

The Community Foundation in Prince George's County 2016 Civic

The Civic Leadership Awards were established to recognize, honor and promote outstanding community leadership in Prince George's County, Maryland. The Awards salute individual servant leaders who work tirelessly to enhance the quality of life in the county. These community guardians steadfastly commit and dedicate themselves in service to Prince George's County and its residents. The Awards reception provides an opportunity to celebrate the invaluable contributions of honorees and County's nonprofit sector.

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