There is no shortage of music variety this month as the Department of Music spotlights six performances between Dec. 5 and 11. All are free unless otherwise noted.
Tonight at 8:15, the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble presents "A Taste of Indonesia X." Under the direction of Martin Hatch, associate professor of music and Asian studies, members of the advanced and first-year gamelan ensembles perform Indonesian gamelan music on gongs, drums, bronze and wood xylophones and strings.
This Friday, clarinetist and saxophonist Wendell Harrison, who has played with Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, will join the Cornell University Lab Ensembles for a performance at 8:15 p.m. in Barnes Hall. Under the direction of Karlton Hester, the ensembles will perform music by Duke Ellington, Charles Rouse, Hester and Harrison in a program titled "Jazz from 1960 to 1995."
Harrison took up the clarinet when his soprano saxophone was stolen 16 years ago. His talent has been honored with numerous awards and has landed him gigs playing for Fitzgerald, Vaughan, Lou Rawls, Woody Shaw and Eddie Jefferson. He has released 15 albums on a small independent label, Wenha, and has produced books and tapes on teaching methods.
On Saturday, the Cornell University Wind Symphony, under the direction of Mark Scatterday and David Conn, will offer a program of Bach, Shostakovich and three composers of contemporary music: Angel Lizak, a law student at the University of Chicago, Stephen Bulla and Yuichi Abe. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor is arguably the most well-known classical music work ever. The entire work was featured in Disney's Fantasia. Bulla's Firestorm was inspired by the Persian Gulf war and the U.S. mission, Desert Storm.
Highlighting the week is the annual Sage Chapel Christmas Program. There will be two performances this year, Sunday and Monday. Both begin at 8:15 p.m.
The choir, under the direction of Thomas J. Folan and accompanied by Annette Richards on the organ, will perform seven anthems, including "The Blessed Son," "The Holly and the Ivy" and "Ding Dong Merrily on High." The audience also is invited to join the choir in the singing of traditional carols, including "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "O Come All Ye Faithful."
The program alternates between guest readings from the biblical book of John
on the Christmas story and carols from the choir. Sunday's readers will include
Cornell President Hunter Rawlings and Dean of Students John Ford. Monday's featured
readers are Cornell President Emeritus Frank H.T.
Rhodes and Vice President for Student Affairs Susan Murphy.
The performances are free, but the chapel choir is asking for donations at the door to support the production of a compact disc recording of the Christmas program, which will be recorded in the spring.
Electronic music gets an airing on Tuesday, Dec. 10, at 8:15 p.m. in 301 Lincoln Hall. That's when senior lecturer David Borden directs students in a live performance of their final projects for the course Learning Music Through Digital Technology.
Harvard's Robert Levin and Cornell's Malcolm Bilson present a fortepiano concert for four hands featuring the works of Franz Schubert in a performance Wednesday, Dec. 11, at 8:15 p.m. in Barnes Hall.
Levin, the Dwight P. Robinson Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard, is renowned for his restoration of the classical period-practice of improvised embellishments and cadenza and for his mastery of the classical musical language most noted in his performances of Mozart and Beethoven.
Bilson, the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music at Cornell, has been at the forefront of the period instrument movement for more than two decades.