Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and as a leading ambassador of Chinese music, Chinese-born musician Wu Man creates and fosters projects that give this ancient instrument a new role in today’s musical world.
She has introduced the pipa — the traditional, four-stringed Chinese lute — to new audiences around the world and has commissioned and premiered more than a hundred new works.
Join us for a conversation about Christmas and holiday traditions in communities of the African Diaspora.
This Creative Dialogue is held in conjunction with the presentation of “Christmas Gift!”, an original Nolan Williams, Jr./NEWorks production featuring new and traditional yuletide music and dramatic readings.
This family- and community-oriented event draws its inspiration from the first compilation of African American Christmas themed literature, Christmas Gif': An Anthology of Christmas Poems, Songs, and Stories, which was published in 1963.
In this annual event, director Chris Vadala brings together three ensembles in innovative interpretations of classic and contemporary jazz works, including movements from Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite and other holiday favorites.
An ever-evolving group of musical individualists, Windscape is an “unquintet” whose innovative programs and presentations take listeners on a musical and historical world tour.
They will perform Bach/Kay Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor; Ginastera/Kay Danzas argentinas; and Dvořák/Jolley Quintet in E-flat Major, op. 51.
The UMD School of Music graduate wind quintet SIREN will join Windscape in performing Émile Bernard’s Divertissement for Double Wind Quintet.
Two sound worlds collide in a program that pairs Mozart’s Serenade in B-flat (“Gran Partita”) K. 361 and Varese’s Octandre, Intégrales, Deserts, Hyperprism and Density 21.5.
During Orpheus’s 2011-2012 residency in the UMD School of Music, Orpheus members engaged in coaching sessions, rehearsals and masterclasses, providing students the opportunity to experience the Orpheus conductor-less ensemble performance process.
Orpheus members will join the student performers in bringing these very different works before the audience.
In the first of two concerts celebrating American composer Joseph Schwantner’s 70th birthday, UMWO performs the composer’s recent work for wind orchestra, Recoil.
The fourth and final work from a series of pieces Schwantner composed over 29 years, Recoil exploits the vast tone colors of an expanded percussion section and amplified piano.
The program is rounded out with bold, contemporary fanfares that borrow elements of Renaissance and Medieval music.
Known for his dramatic and unique style, Joseph Schwantner is one of the most prominent American composers today.
Each movement of his trilogy was conceived as an independent piece through three commissions across 29 years.
Schwantner says, “While each work is self-contained, I always envisioned the possibility that they could be combined to form a larger and more expansive three-movement formal design.”
UMWO fulfills the composer’s vision in honor of his 70th birthday, performing the premiere of all three works together, as part of a whole.
If Bach were alive, what music would he put on his iPod? UMWO suggests works by Pergolesi, Kirchner, Britten and Dahl.
Conductor Michael Votta says, “Much like Bach’s compositions, the music on this program tends to take a simple idea and elaborate it.”
The playful theme of Kirchner’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, Ten Winds and Percussion builds through exchanges between solo violin and cello, transforming across two movements.
UMWO uses unique staging to envelop the listener in the intricate textures of the opening piece, Gabrieli's Canzonas and Sonatas.
With John Adams's cartoon-influenced Chamber Symphony, Strauss's youthful, jaunting Serenade and Rands's ritualistic Ceremonial to follow, this is not your garden-variety wind orchestra concert.
Composer Vincent Persichetti wrote that, outside the pop field, “Band music is virtually the only kind of music in America today... which can be introduced, accepted, put to immediate and wide use, and become a staple of the literature in a short time.”
In this concert, the UMD Wind performs these repertoire essentials.
