FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sarah Snyder
ssnyder3@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151
November 21, 2012 – College Park, MD – If Bach were alive today, what music would be on his iPod? The UMD Wind Orchestra (UMWO) will suggest some answers in their concert, Music from Bach’s iPod, on December 6 at 8 p.m. at the Clarice Smith Center. The performance will include works by Kirchner, Britton and Dahl, and UMWO will also give the world premiere of Early Light by student composer Mark Nowakowski, the winner of the UMD School of Music’s WALSUM Award for New Music.
About Music from Bach’s iPod
UMWO’s 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. Dahl describes his Sinfonietta as an arch, where “the sections of the first movement correspond, in reverse order and even in some details, to the section of the last.” In Britten’s Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury, the tangled melodic lines, scored for three trumpets, gradually synthesize into a unified sound through repetition.
The WALSUM Award Composition: Early Light
WALSUM Award Winner Mark Nowakowsk is a DMA candidatewhose compositions have been recently performed by the Kronos Quartet, the Voxare Quartet, the Cracow Brass Quintet, Vox Musica of Sacramento and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.
Commenting on his piece, Nowakowski says, “Early Light is an intensely personal statement regarding our particular national character and mission. … It moves between fragile and gentle landscapes, torrents of rage and brutality and the grand vistas which might all be thought to represent both our natural resources as well as the towering stature of our foundational thought.”
Walter Summer — composer, musician, artist and philanthropist — established the WALSUM Award in 1995 to foster excellence in the field of new music and advance the careers of young composers. The award is offered biennially to University of Maryland School of Music students who show excellence in musical composition.
Tickets
More information can be found on our web site. Tickets for this performance are $25/$10 (Students/Youth), and can be purchased online or by calling (301) 405-ARTS (2787).
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The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Learn more about the Clarice Smith Center's donor support.