Announcements: Community News

Events of the Past Year

Sara Okamoto and Peter Muir performed a Concert of African-American Music for Piano, with commentary provided by Professor John Graziano, at Elebash Recital Hall on February 14, 2002. The concert was presented by The Graduate Center Programs in Music in cooperation with the Office of Educational Opportunity and Diversity Programs. The concert included works by Thomas Green Bethune, J.W. Boone, R. Nathaniel Dett, Scott Joplin, Artie Matthews, Jelly Roll Morton, Charles Tindley, and Thomas “Fats” Waller.

The Second Elebash conference, “Importing Culture: European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840-1890,” took place at the Graduate Center on April 18-19, 2002. Sessions were devoted to opera, to the performances of Berlioz, Liszt and Schumann in the city, to the various bandmasters whose ensembles gave concerts around the city, to the German musical theater and singing societies, and visiting virtuosi.

The Fifth Annual Graduate Students in Music symposium was held on April 20, 2002. The symposium featured papers by graduate students in the areas of Musicology, Performance Studies, Music Theory, and Ethnomusicology. Professor Philip Rupprecht gave the keynote address.

Students from the Ph.D. and D.M.A. Programs in Music presented the Take Your Daughters to Work Concert in Elebash Recital Hall on April 25, 2002. The program included Traditional Songs from Ireland, France and Germany, performed by Meg Farrell, “Dale’s Blues” by Liz Wollman, and the Andrea LaRose composition, “elementary cool hey!”, performed by Rick Falukner on trombone, Erin Hayes on alto saxophone, Yilien Hsu on flute, Peter Kirn on percussion, Debra Kreisberg on clarinet, Jonathan Malko on tumpet, Pat Muchmore on clarinet, and Jessica Valiente on flute, with Andrea LaRose conducting. Peg Rivers coordinated and hosted the event.

On May 28, 2002, The Graduate Center Contemporary Music Ensemble performed in the Elebash Recital Hall as a part of the New Music May series. The Ensemble’s program included the Manhattan Premiere of Tan Dun’s “Elegy: Snow in June,” Ligeti’s Horn Trio, and new music by Bierman, Donas, Kirn, Thorman, and Tsai.

In celebration of the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association Street Fair on June 1, 2002, the CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral Program in Music presented a free concert in the Elebash Recital Hall. Meg Farrell played Traditional Songs of Ireland and Beyond, and the Amis Woodwind Quintet (Yilien Hsu on flute) performed Paul Hindemith’s “Kleine Kammermusik, op.24, no.2.”

The documentary film Yugodivas, with Aleksandra (Sandra) Vojcic appeared at the Anthology Film Archives on June 5 and July 10. According to the press release, the film is “a close-up look at five New York women. They are painters, musicians and actresses who are talented, self-confident and beautiful. In addition to their friendship, what unites them is their common homeland: the former Yugoslavia. Seen from a distance, far away from wartime occurrences, a surprisingly different perspective offers itself to the viewer.”

The Graduate Center Music Forum included the following programs during Fall Semester 2002: September 10: Workshop on Jobs, moderated by Joe Straus, Shaugn O’Donnell, and Peter Basquin; September 26: Mike Berry on “A Modular Space Approach to Voice Leading in Atonal Music” and Ruth DeFord on “The Mensura of O in the Works of Du Fay;” October 17: Jeffrey Taylor on “With Lovie and Lil: Rediscovering Two Chicago Pianists of the 1920s” and Poundie Burstein on “Beethoven’s False Recapitulations;” December 3: Distinguished Guest David Cohen from Columbia University; and December 12: Workshop on Conference Presentation, moderated by Joe Straus and guests.

Ensemble for the Seícento were finalists in the Dorian/Early Music America Recording Competition 2000 for their recording Forbidden Dance: Dances and Diminutions of the Italian Baroque. The ensemble includes Melissa Fogarty, soprano and baroque guitar; Mauricio Molina, recorders and percussion; Beverly Au, viola de gamba; and Michael Eisenberg, harpsichord and harp. Beth Adelman, writing for Early Music America (Fall 2002) said Forbidden Dance “delivers a delightful lineup of 13 songs and improvisations taken from the chacona (Spanish by way of the Americas), folia (Portuguese), and passacalle (Spanish) dance forms… All the brightness and spirit are vividly captured in a recording that has a detailed but very natural sound. In all, this is exciting dance music you could play at your next party.”

Mannes College of Music hosted the symposium “Music and New York’s Gilded Age” on October 5, 2002. Presentations included Adrienne Fried Block on “Beach and the Brownings,” John Graziano on “Opera in New York’s Gilded Age,” and Wayne Alpern’s “I Have a Drean: The Story of James Reese Europe.”

Sendebar – Kumar Das on percussion; Mauricio Molina on bagpipes, hurdy gurdy, percussion, pipe and tabor; Nina Stern on recorders; Carlo Valte on Arabic lute; and Vita Wallace on vielle - performed a program of Medieval Iberian Music in the Elebash Recital Hall on October 21, 2002, as part of the New York Medieval Festival – Rethinking the Middle Ages / Lire en Fête 2002: Les Moyens Ages. Works included the Cantigas de Santa Marias (c.XIII), composed by King Alfonso the Learned and his multicultural court, as well as selections from the Cantigas d’Amigo, by the Galician troubadour Martin Codax (c.XIII) and the Heulgas codex (c.XIII).

The New York City Graduate Music Student Alliance celebrated its inaugural meeting on October 25, 2002 at the CUNY Graduate Center. Music Graduate Students from CUNY, Columbia, and New York University gathered for a reading and discussion of Nicholas Cook’s Music: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 1998).

The Center for the Study of Free-Reed Instruments and the Science Center of The Graduate Center, CUNY presented “The Science, History, and Music of the Concertina” at Elebash Recital Hall on November 4, 2002. Performers included Allan Atlas, Alla Borzova, David Cannata and Wim Walker.

On December 5, 2002, Antoni Pizà and the Foundation of Iberian Music presented “The New Generation” – an intimate evening of contemporary Spanish chamber music inspired by Antoni Guadí. The Perspectives Ensemble performed world premieres of works by Mauricio Sotelo (winner of the Spanish National Music Prize for 2001), Eneko Vadillo, Juan Manuel Artero, and Robert López. A panel discussion also took place with architects Ángela García de Paredes and Ignacio García Pedrosa.

The Music Program, under the auspices of the Stefan Wolpe Centennial Festival, presented “Stefan Wolpe in New York: A Centennial Symposium and Concerts” on March 14 and 15, 2003. There were panels on the cultural context of Wolpe and his work, the analysis of his “Piece in Two Part for Six Player” which was performed on one of the concerts by Parnassus, and on Wolpe and electronic music as part of concert of electronic music. There was also a piano recital by Katharina Wolpe, the composer’s daughter. Graduate Center participants included Joseph Straus and David Olan who helped organize the events and served as panel moderators. Alumnus Matthew Greenbaum, whose “To Anselm Kiefer” for violin, cello and piano received its premiere at the Parnassus Concert, was also a planer of the conference and a panelist. The symposium and concerts were generously supported by the Baisley Powell Elebash Endowment.