The Washington University Symphony Orchestra and Washington University Chamber Choir will present the 2004 Chancellor’s Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25.
The event will feature the premiere of three new compositions — commissioned for the university’s sesquicentennial — by Harold Blumenfeld, John MacIvor Perkins and Robert Wykes, all professor emeriti from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences.
“The Department of Music is fortunate to have three professors emeriti in theory and composition who are actively composing today,” said concert coordinator Sue Taylor. “It is particularly exciting that, in this, the university’s sesquicentennial year, these composers are making fresh and original contributions to 21st-century music.”
The Chancellor’s Concert is free and open to the public and takes place in Graham Chapel, located immediately north of the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call (314) 935-4841.
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WHO: Washington University Symphony Orchestra and Washington University Chamber Choir WHAT: 2004 Chancellor’s Concert PROGRAM: New compositions Robert Wykes, John Perkins and Harold Blumenfeld, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25 WHERE: Graham Chapel, just north of the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. COST: Free and open to the public INFORMATION: (314) 935-4841 |
Dan Presgrave, instrumental music coordinator in the Department of Music, conducts the 75-member symphony orchestra. John Stewart, director of vocal activities, conducts the 65-member Chamber Choir.
The program will open with Wykes’ Celebration Fanfare. Scored for thirteen brass instruments and percussion, the piece’s rhythmic content is based loosely on the speech rhythms of the University’s Latin motto, Per Veritatem Vis.
Perkin’s After and Before, written specifically for the Washington University Symphony Orchestra, contrasts sections of nostalgic remembrance with active engagement of the present and quiet, reflective looks toward the future. Blumenfeld’s For Sion! Oh Thee: Choral Cycle in Five Parts after Byron is a setting of five Byron poems. Featured performers are soprano Debra Hillabrand and tenor Clark Sturdevant, both graduate students in vocal performance; clarinetist Paul Garritson, who teaches in the Department of Music; and cellist Elizabeth Macdonald, director of strings.
The program concludes with Antonín Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor (‘From the New World’). The piece was written in 1893, during the composer’s time in New York as director of the National Conservatory of Music. This year marks the centennial of his death.
Wykes, who served on faculty from 1955 to 1988, has written for film, theater and modern dance in addition to his concert compositions. His major orchestral works have been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Other credits include musical scores for the Academy Award-winning documentary Robert Kennedy Remembered (1968); the Kennedy Library’s John F. Kennedy: 1916-1963; and Monument to the Dream, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial’s film about construction of the Gateway Arch.
Perkins, who served on faculty from 1970 to 2001, is the composer of some 35 works, including two one-act operas; several songs for voice and piano; and various compositions for orchestra, chorus, chamber groups and solo piano. His numerous honors include the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship; the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters Award; and a commission from the Smithsonian Institute to compose a new work for the United States Bicentennial in 1976.
Blumenfeld, who served on faculty from 1950 to 1989, directed the Washington University/Civic Opera Theatre from 1962-71. He was the first composer to devote extensive attention to the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, culminating with the two-act opera, Seasons in Hell (1996). Last year, the New York City Opera debuted his Borgia Infami as part of its VOX 2003 showcase.