The JACK Quartet kicks off the June in Buffalo Performance Institute with Feldman's String Quartet No. 1 at Buffalo's historic One M&T Plaza!

The Center for 21st Century Music is gearing up for the first year ever of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute, which invites performers with an interest in contemporary music to take part in an intensive 10-day festival of concerts, master classes, and seminars. Held on the campus of the University at Buffalo, the 2013 Performance Institute invites pianists, string players, and percussionists as well as pre-formed string quartets and percussion ensembles to apply. All participants will have the opportunity to study and collaborate with Performance Institute faculty and perform as well as attend June in Buffalo composer workshops and concerts. The Performance Institute coincides with the annual June in Buffalo Festival for composers and will run from May 30th - June 8th, 2013.

The JACK Quartet

There is still time to apply to the June in Buffalo Performance Institute – the postmark deadline is February 15, 2013. More information can be found here. 

The opening weekend of the June in Buffalo Performance Institute will be jam-packed with events. The Institute kicks off on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m., when the JACK Quartet will offer a concert of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 1, at One M&T Plaza. One M&T Plaza is a special historical building and office tower in downtown Buffalo which was designed and built in 1966 by Minoru Yamasaki, who was the architect for the World Trade Center in New York City. The concert will also be part of the Center for 21st Century Music’s Music in Buffalo’s Historic Places series, and will open with a brief presentation by UB Professor of Architecture, Brian Carter, who in 2011 published the book, M&T Bank, about the history and design of the building.

Friday’s and Saturday’s concerts will both take place at 8:00 p.m. in Slee Hall, at the University at Buffalo. On Friday, May 31, pianist Eric Huebner will premiere Velocity and the Grain of Time for solo prepared piano by Eric Wubbels, as well as give a world premiere of a new work by Roger Reynolds. The next day on Saturday, June 1, Talujon Percussion Ensemble will perform Steve Reich’s Drumming, and other works recently commissioned by Talujon. 

Eric Huebner

The opening weekend will conclude on Sunday, June 2, at 6:00 p.m., at the Pausa Art House in Allentown, Buffalo, one of Buffalo’s liveliest areas. There, the June in Buffalo Festival will throw a welcome party for faculty and participants and offer special guest performances.

After the weekend is over, the Performance Institute will coincide with the larger June in Buffalo Festival, which runs June 3 – 9, and which features an all-star lineup of composer faculty, including: Raphaël Cendo, 
David Felder, 
Brian Ferneyhough, 
Augusta Read Thomas
, Charles Wuorinen
, and Yehudi Wyner. The week will be filled to the brim with concerts and performances by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, 
Ensemble Linea, 
Ensemble Signal, 
Slee Sinfonietta, 
Talea Ensemble, JACK Quartet
, Talujon Percussion Ensemble, and students of the Performance Institute.

Link to this post here.