Charles Wuorinen receives honorary doctorate from UB, conducts Slee SInfonietta at June in Buffalo 2013!

Charles Wuorinen

We’re looking forward to Tuesday, June 4th, when University at Buffalo President Satish K. Tripathi will present June in Buffalo 2013 Faculty Composer Charles Wuorinen with an honorary doctorate from UB. The brief award ceremony will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Slee Hall, after which two recent works by Charles Wuorinen will be performed. First will be Wuroinen’s Piano Quintet, to be performed by the JACK Quartet and pianist Eric Huebner. Wuorinen will then pick up the baton and lead the Slee Sinfonietta in his It Happens Like This, a dramatic and sometimes jocular cantata in which the composer has set text from seven poems by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate. It Happens Like This will feature 12 members from Slee Sinfonietta, who will be joined by four vocalists: soprano Sharon Harms, alto Laura Mercado Wright, tenor Steven Brennfleck, and bass Ethan Herschenfeld.

The Slee Sinfonietta performing Ligeti's Piano Concerto

Charles Wuorinen has been a friend to the Center for 21st Century Music for many years now – his full biography can be found on our new webpage: Slee Sinfonietta Artist Bios, which includes full biographies and pictures of all of the composers, performers, and staff that make up the Slee Sinfonietta.

The Sinfonietta presents a series of concerts each year that feature performances of challenging new works by contemporary composers and lesser-known works from the chamber orchestra repertoire. Founded in 1997 by composer David Felder, and comprised of a core group including UB faculty performance artists, visiting artists, national and regional professionals and advanced performance students, the group is conducted by leading conductors and composers. More can be found on the history of the Sinfonietta at their program archives. 

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Charles Wuorinen to receive SUNY Honorary Doctorate at June in Buffalo 2013!

Our Spring 2013 season here at the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music is off to a rollicking start – Tim Fain’s acclaimed multimedia work Portals was a huge success here at UB last week, and is enjoying very positive reviews. Our friend Daniel J. Kushner wrote a terrific review in the Buffalo News, which you can read here.

We have some exciting news to report: June in Buffalo 2013 Faculty Composer Charles Wuorinen will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the State University of New York! The award ceremony will occur prior to the 75th birthday concert on June 4th, where Wuorinen will conduct the Slee Sinfonietta in a performance of It Happens Like This, his humorous and dramatic cantata on seven poems by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate.

Charles Wuorinen has been a long-time friend of the Center for many years now, and is one of our most frequent faculty composers at the June in Buffalo Festival. For the uninitiated, a few excerpts from his bio shines light on his inspiring history:

Charles Wuorinen with his cat Lepton

“In 1970, Wuorinen became the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize (for the electronic work Time's Encomium). The Pulitzer and the MacArthur Fellowship are just two among many awards, fellowships and other honors to have come his way.

“Wuorinen has written more than 260 compositions to date. His newest works include Time Regained, a fantasy for piano and orchestra based on early music (Matteo da Perugia to Orlando Gibbons) for Peter Serkin, James Levine and the MET Opera Orchestra, Theologoumenon, an orchestral tone poem commissioned for James Levine's 60th birthday, Eighth Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Metagong for two pianos and two percussion. He has recently completed an opera on Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain with libretto by Proulx for the Teatro Real in Madrid. Wuorinen's previous opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1997-2001), based on the novel of Salman Rushdie, was premiered by the New York City Opera in fall 2004.

“His works have been recorded on nearly a dozen labels including several releases on Naxos, Albany Records (Charles Wuorinen Series), John Zorn's Tzadik label, and a CD of piano works performed by Alan Feinberg on the German label Col Legno.

“Wuorinen's works are published exclusively by C.F. Peters Corporation. He is the author of Simple Composition, used by composition students throughout the world.”

Read his full biography at our brand new webpage: Slee Sinfonietta Artist Bios, which includes full biographies and pictures of all of the composers, performers, and staff that make up the Slee Sinfonietta, as well as friends and other guests of the Center.

Below is a terrific video containing excerpts of Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This, performed by Ensemble SIGNAL and conducted by Brad Lubman, and featuring commentary by Wuorinen himself:

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