It's a great week of free music, from trombones to gamelan
During the week of Dec. 5-11, the Cornell Department of Music is presenting six
different concerts -- including the annual
Sage Chapel Christmas Program on Dec. 8 and 9. These events, as well as the majority of
the over 100 events presented by the department each year, are free and open to the public.
Cornell Chorale and Trombone Choir
Both directed by James Miller, the Cornell Chorale and Trombone Choir will offer
a program entitled "American Voices" Friday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m. in Sage Chapel.
The program traces the development of American music from the founding of the nation
to the present day. It explores works of the "Founder of American Music," William
Billings (When Jesus Wept), and the "Father
of American Music," Aaron Copland (I
Bought Me a Cat and Zion's Walls). It
includes settings of a traditional folk song
(Shenandoah) and a sacred folk song from the South
(Wondrous Love) and features two new works: Derek Jacoby's
Requiem, composed last year in memory of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001;
and Pilgrim's Hymn, written by one of
today's pre-eminent composers of opera, Stephen Paulus
(The Postman Always Rings Twice), for the opera
The Three Hermits.
The Trombone Choir presents two American works that open the
program: Walter S. Hartley's Canzona for Eight
Trombones and Fisher Tull's Concert Piece.
A graduate of St. Olaf College, Miller is completing his master of music degree
in conducting at Ithaca College, where he serves as a graduate assistant, working
with four bands, two orchestras and the chorus. In April, Miller will lead the Cornell
Chorale in the premiere of Shawn Allison's latest work,
Ceremony after a Fire Raid, which was commissioned by the
chorale earlier this fall.
Cornell Symphony Orchestra
On Saturday, Dec. 7, at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall, the Cornell Symphony Orchestra,
led by conductor John Hsu, the Old Dominion Foundation Professor of Humanities
and Music at Cornell, presents an all-Beethoven concert featuring his Symphony No. 1 in
C Major and Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, as well as the Overture to
The Creatures of Prometheus, op. 43.
This is a Beethoven year for the orchestra. In October, the ensemble
performed the Second and Seventh Symphonies, and the Third and Sixth
Symphonies will be featured in the CSO's April
2003 concert. This means that a student who began playing in the orchestra his or
her freshman year (1999-2000) will have played all nine Beethoven symphonies
by graduation in May 2003. (The orchestra performed the Eighth Symphony in
May 2000, the Fifth in February 2001 and the Ninth to a packed Bailey Hall last April.)
MIDI Madness
David Borden, director of the Digital Music Program at Cornell, will
present student projects for Macintosh and synthesizer,
Saturday, Dec. 7, at 8 p.m. in B20 Lincoln Hall.
Cornell University Wind Symphony
Music lecturer David Conn will conduct the symphony in a program including
works by Offenbach and Dvorák, Sunday, Dec.
8, at 3 p.m. in Bailey Hall.
Sage Chapel Christmas Program
Conceived in the weeks following World War I by a British army chaplain, the
King's College Cambridge Festival of Lessons and Carols was intended as a balm for
war-weary spirits and as a new approach to the
holiday celebration. As it has for nearly 40
years, Cornell's Sage Chapel Choir, directed by Richard
Riley, will present its own version of the Festival of Lessons and Carols
on Sunday, Dec. 8, and Monday, Dec. 9, both at 8 p.m. The program will be the same
both evenings, but the readers will change.
The form of this year's festival at Sage Chapel conforms to tradition: the format
of readings, choir anthems and congregational hymns will remain, with the content
expressing a spirit of Christian nonsectarian inclusiveness. Members of the Cornell
community will serve as readers, including President Hunter Rawlings, on Sunday;
Katy Payne, research associate, Elephant Listening Project; Fran
Shumway, associate director of engineering admissions; Gary
Stewart, assistant director of community
relations; Robert Fay, professor of chemistry; and Robert Harris, vice provost for diversity
and faculty development. The choir will sing anthems by
Rimsky-Korsakov, Schütz, Byrd, Lutoslawski and
Warlock, among others, in English, Latin, German, Russian
and Ukrainian. The hymns will be rousing renditions of Advent and Christmas
standards, and University Organist Annette
Richards will play the historic 3,850 pipe Aeolian-Skinner organ.
Cornell Gamelan Ensemble
On Wednesday, Dec. 11, at 8 p.m. in B20 Lincoln Hall, the Cornell Gamelan
Ensemble, under the direction of Martin Hatch,
associate professor of music, will present its annual fall performance. The gamelan is
joined by artist-in-residence Raharja and visiting composer Patrick Grant for an evening
of Indonesian arts, sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program and the Department of
Music, with support from the Cornell Council for the Arts. The program will consist of old
and new pieces for Javanese gamelan, featuring new works for gamelan and
synthesizers, with synthesizer performer/composer Grant.
December 5, 2002
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