New Music Festival at ECU set for March 14-18

Published Mar 08, 2012 by
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The 12th Annual New Music Festival begins Wednesday on the campus of East Carolina University and runs through March 18. Sponsored by the ECU School of Music and the Hilton Greenville, the festival features music by contemporary composers.

The New Music Festival brings new musical ideas into the classroom, performance spaces and the community. This year’s event brings together composers from ECU and throughout the world to have compositions performed by acclaimed guest artists and hundreds of School of Music students.

This year’s festival includes performances on piano, tuba, violin, viola, trumpet, percussion, an ECU symphony orchestra and ECU combined choirs concert including a world premiere composition, a wind instrument concert, student composition performances, and a concert by the classical new music group the Jack Quartet.

The festival provides unique opportunities for ECU music students to work closely with world-class performers and composers. Students perform for guest artists in master classes and coaching sessions; guest artists perform student compositions in concerts and in readings, recordings and open rehearsals; and guest composers interact with and instruct students and performers in open rehearsals and private lessons.

Another aspect of the festival is the ECU New Music Festival composition competition, which is open to composers internationally. Each year competition winners have a work rehearsed and recorded by an ensemble of ECU School of Music performers. The 2012 winner is “Seasonal Affective Disorder” by Jessica Rudman of New York City, and her winning composition will be performed by the ECU symphony orchestra.

Since its inception in 2001, the festival has presented more than 300 regional premiere compositions, including 61 world premiere performances.

Here is a schedule of the New Music Festival concerts; all will be in A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall unless otherwise noted:

  • Bugallo-Williams Duo, piano, 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, free.
  • Tom McCaslin, tuba, and Catherine Garner, piano, 7:30 p.m., Thursday, free.
  • JACK Quartet, 7:30 p.m., Friday, ticketed event. Call 1-800-ECU-ARTS
  • ECU NewMusic Camerata: Britt Theurer, trumpet; Chris Nappi, percussion; Melissa Reardon, viola; ECU Wind Ensemble Chamber Players, Scott Carter, Director; Ara Gregorian, violin, 3 p.m., Saturday, free.
  • ECU Symphony Orchestra and combined choirs: Jorge Richter, conductor; Elliot Frank, guitar; John Kramar, baritone, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Wright Auditorium, free.
  • Premiere Performances, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, March 18, free.

For more information, visit www.ecu.edu/music/newmusicfest.