The Cornell University Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Mark Scatterday, will perform Karel Husa's Music for Prague 1968 today, May 7, at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall. The free performance will celebrate the composition's 30th anniversary.
Also on the program are works by Kabalevsky, Woolfenden, Thorne, Bernstein and Hindemith.
From his cottage overlooking Cayuga Lake, Husa wrote the piece soon after the Soviet Union invaded his home country of Czechoslovakia. Music for Prague 1968 is the most widely performed piece in the Husa repertoire, but it has hardly been heard in the Czech Republic. The piece was banned by the Communist government and not heard in that country until the 1989 election of Vaclav Havel and the first non-Communist government in 40 years. That's when Husa returned to guest conduct the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of the piece.
One of the most recent recordings of Music For Prague 1968 is a performance by the Temple University Wind Symphony under the direction of Arthur D. Chodoroff. Husa was guest conductor for that performance, and the recording is included on a CD produced by Albany Records in 1997.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Husa won the 1993 Grawemeyer Award for his Cello Concerto and the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for music for his String Quartet No. 3.
Husa, the Kappa Alpha Professor of Music Emeritus, taught at Cornell from 1954 to 1992.
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