The Cornell Gamelan Ensemble will present "An Evening of Indonesian Music," featuring Balinese and Javanese musicians and dancers this Friday, May 7, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. Sponsored by the Department of Music and the Southeast Asia Program, the performance includes music and dances from Java, Bali and Sunda -- three of the most vibrant and diverse artistic traditions in Southeast Asia. Visiting artists will be directed by I Gusti Agung Ngurah Supartha, one of Indonesia's most prominent Balinese dancers, as well as a leading dance and music teacher, choreographer and composer. The event is free and open to the public.
On Sunday, May 9, at 3 p.m. in Bailey Hall, the Cornell Symphony Orchestra (CSO) will present a concert under the direction of guest conductor Will Crutchfield. Crutchfield is on the faculty of the Juilliard School. His other principal affiliations are with New York's Caramoor International Festival, where he has conducted 10 productions as director of opera, and the Manhattan School of Music, where he is director of the Handel Project. He also is a music critic who writes occasional pieces for the New Yorker, and he appears frequently as a broadcaster on the Texaco Metropolitan Opera radio network.
The first half of the performance features Mozart concert arias Per pietà, non ricercate, Un bacio di mano and Misera dove son, Gluck's "O del mio dolce ardor" from Paride ed Elena, three Mahler songs and three songs by Hugo Wolf. Student vocal performers include Gary Moulsdale, Joseph Gregorio, Calvin Warren, Rebecca Marques, Arsenia Soto and Rebecca Plack.
During the second half of the concert, Dennis Chang performs Béla Bartók's Third Piano Concerto with the CSO. This concerto, sensuously autumnal in mood, was Bartók's last composition. He died before finishing the piece, and a close friend, Tibor Serly, completed the last 17 measures.
Soprano Judith Kellock closes the program with Richard Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder ("Four Last Songs"). Kellock, a world-renowned performer and teacher at Cornell, has been described by critics as "a singer of rare intelligence and vocal splendor, with a voice of indescribable beauty."
Also on Sunday, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall, five works by composer and doctoral student Paul Osterfield will be performed. The pieces are: Six Vignettes for solo clarinet; Khamsin for string quartet, evoking the hot, dry Saharan wind; Phantasmal Dawn for violin and marimba; Jabberwocky for soprano, tenor and piano, inspired by the nonsensical Lewis Carroll poem; and Temporal Disturbances for clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Osterfield received his master of music degree in 1996 at Indiana University and his bachelor of music degree in 1994 at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Last June he was named a winner in the 46th Annual BMI Student Composer Awards. He also received an ASCAP Foundation Grant to young composers in 1994, took second place in the National Federation of Music Clubs' Young Composers' Competition, also in 1994, and placed first in the Library of Congress' Young Creators' Contest in 1990.
His works have been performed by the Chiron Ensemble, at the June Buffalo festival and by the Cleveland Orchestra for its "Family Key Concert" series. His Ithaca Fanfare had its premiere May 2, when it was performed by the Cornell Symphonic Band.
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