Monthly Archives: November 2013
New Music Fall Concerts Feature Works By Chinese Grad Student Yanda Zhu and Local Composer Richard Zacharias
The New Music Society Annual Fall Concerts featuring Dana Composers Ensemble directed by Professor Robert Rollin will take place at Bliss Recital Hall, 8:00 p.m., Wednesday, November 13 and 11:00 a.m. Friday November 15 at the Dana School of Music Convocation.
New Music Society
The concerts will focus on Chinese Graduate student Yanda Zhu, who will have several chamber works represented. Zhu, a student from Guang Zhou, China, has attended Dana since Fall 2012, and is planning to finish his Music Composition and Theory Masters degree in December. He has composed a series of pieces derived from animal depictions and two will be performed at these concerts: The Cats performed by Abigail McLaughlin and Natalie Sahyoun, violins and Alison Morris, piano; and The Playful Dolphin performed by Chris Nutter, clarinet and Jerry Rezanka, piano. Two of his other descriptive works will also be played: Sunset Valley performed by Amanda Lawrence, flute; and The Dance of Spring performed by Amanda Lawrence and Kristen Richter flutes, and Samantha Hogan and Colton Randall trombones. Yanda’s Christmas Impressions for two pianos will be presented to Alison Morris and Clay Colley.
The Fall Concerts will also present two world premieres composed by local composer, Richard Zacharias, a community member of the New Music Guild, Inc. It’s My Turn to Have an Evening Off is a violin duet written for and played by Karen Considine, a Dana Graduate student in Musicology and her husband Brendan Considine, a Dana Masters alumnus now employed by the Rich Center for Autism. Both husband and wife are professional musicians very active in the Youngstown Symphony, Warren Philharmonic, Greenville Symphony and the Dana New Music Festival Chamber Orchestra. The Considines are hard-working parents of three lovely young children and frequently spell one another taking care of them. This is the derivation of Zacharias’ comic title. Pardon My Long Slide was written for the Dana student trombone quartet of Mariah Bailey, Samantha Hogan, Andrew Stamp, and Robert Violette.
Dana School of Music
Undergraduate Spencer Reed will perform leading Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Piano Sonata No. 2, “The Fire Sermon.” The work, written in 1970, is in three movements and is experimental in character. After studying at the Sibelius Academy, Rautavaara traveled to the United State to study at the Juilliard School of Music with American composer and editor Vincent Persichetti. He also had master classes at the Tanglewood Festival with Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. He returned to the Sibelius Academy from 1976-1990. His music sometimes employs serial and avant guarde techniques. Rautavaara’s later works have mystical elements and often refer to “angels.” His symphonic music is surprisingly accessible and romantic in spite of his use of advanced techniques.
Both events are free and open to the public.
New Music Society 