Much more to come in the Spring 2013 season at the Center!

We’re almost midway through the 2012-2013 season at the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music. We’ve already had two exciting Slee Sinfonietta concerts featuring Robert Treviño, Yuki Numata, Daniel Pesca, and Daniel Bassin, a visit by composer James Romig from Western Illinois University, a tribute to documentary filmmaker Bruce Jackson featuring original music by David Felder, a recent residency by new music ensemble Norbotten NEO, and a slew of other concerts, performances, and projects.

We’re really looking forward to the next half of the season, which will feature one of our largest Slee Sinfonietta concerts ever, including guest performances by some of contemporary music’s leading musicians, including Ensemble SIGNAL, conductor Brad Lubman, soprano Laura Aiken, bass-baritone Ethan Herschenfeld, and percussionist Tom Kolor. The Spring Slee Sinfonietta concert will feature the premiere of David Felder’s Les Quatres Temps Cardinaux, a large work for about thirty musicians and ten channels of electronics, and which is Felder’s second commission from the Koussevitsky Music Foundation. We asked Felder about the commission, and he was kind enough to let us in on some of the details, “An interesting aspect of the piece is that I have audio recordings of the poets reading their poems, and can use their voices as source material. Most of the readings will be substantially electronically transformed... Often the phonemes from the spoken poems will be translated into instrumental analogues, or processed into bell sounds or other timbres. The texts will also be carried, to a large degree, by the singers. It’s been a really big project – projecting to be about 40-45 minutes.”

Ensemble SIGNAL

Many other events will be happening in the spring: we’ll have a visit from French composer Phillipe Hurel, a brief cameo by composer Josh Levine, hailing from Oberlin, Ohio, a visit from University of North Carolina composer and UB alumn Alejandro Rutty, and a guest appearance from percussionist Patti Cudd from the University of Wisconsin. We’re also looking forward to a residency from the terrific French new music ensemble Court-circuit, who will offer a fresh concert of new music pieces as well as perform UB graduate composer works.

Most important, of course, will be June in Buffalo 2013, which will be the inaugural year of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute, and which will feature an exciting performance faculty comprised of cellist Jonathan Golove, pianist Eric Huebner, the virtuosic and tremendously popular JACK Quartet, percussionist Tom Kolor, and the incredible Talujon Percussion Ensemble. This will be the first year for young performers of new music to study, workshop, and collaborate with some of the leading interpreters of contemporary music at June in Buffalo.

A lot more will be happening in the upcoming months, and we'll be sure to keep you posted. Details on the University at Buffalo Spring Season, June in Buffalo 2013, and other information about the Center's events posted below:

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