Tufts Announces Upcoming Public Concerts

Sound Icon in a Tufts Composers Concert February 8

The Tufts University Department of Music presents a Tufts Composers concert featuring Sound Icon in the Distler Performance Hall at the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center on Friday, February 8, 2013 at 8 p.m. The concert will feature works by Olga Neuwirth, Giulio Castagnoli, and graduate and undergraduate thesis compositions by Tufts student composers Michael Laurello and Deniz Tetik. Sound Icon is a Boston new music sinfonietta, under the artistic direction of Jeffrey Means, dedicated to performing progressive music that redefines our understanding of what music is and can be.

Olga Neuwirth’s torsion: transparent variation (2001), for solo bassoon, ensemble, and electronics, is a deep expression of complex relationships in sound and space. Drawing inspiration from sculptures by the constructivist Naum Gabo (1890-1977), torsion: transparent variation features an oppositional, recursive relationship between bassoon and ensemble that focuses on the relationships between linear elements and massed sounds. Amidst this musically oppositional relationship are sampled sounds, coming out of voids of silence – these electronic sounds were sampled by Neuwirth from the architectural Voids in Daniel Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Giulio Castagnoli’s Cloches en noir et blanc (1991), for ensemble, is a sonic exploration of the sound of a bell as it rings through four parts of the day. Beautifully atmospheric, Cloches en noir et blanc goes through a continuous cycle of four movements, each one representing a time of day, returning to the beginning at the end of the piece, indicating a complete cycle, ready to repeat.

The Granoff Music Center is located at 20 Talbot Avenue on Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit as.tufts.edu/music/musiccenter or call the Granoff Music Center Box Office at 617.627.3679.

The Rainbow Connection Featuring the Tufts Concert Choir February 9

The Tufts University Department of Music presents The Rainbow Connection featuring the Tufts Concert Choir, directed by Jamie Kirsch, in the Distler Performance Hall at the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center on Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 1 p.m. as part of the Saturday Family and Children’s Concert Series.

The Concert Choir will perform a variety of music centering on the theme of rainbows, including arrangements of “Colors of the Wind” from the Disney movie Pocahontas, “Over the Rainbow,” and “The Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie. Pianist Crystal Godfrey LaPoint and special guest banjo player Rich Stillman will join the Concert Choir for this performance.

The Granoff Music Center is located at 20 Talbot Avenue on Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit as.tufts.edu/music/musiccenter or call the Granoff Music Center Box Office at 617.627.3679.

Tufts University Department of Music and the Handel and Haydn Society Present “The Baroque from England to Italy” February 17

The Tufts University Department of Music is thrilled to announce a concert by members of the Handel and Haydn Society entitled “The Baroque from England to Italy” at Tufts University on Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 3 p.m. in the Distler Performance Hall of the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center on Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus. The concert is part of the Sundays at Tufts-Community Concert Series.

Keyboardist Ian Watson will lead members of the Handel and Haydn Society in a program of Baroque works by Vivaldi, Handel, Purcell, and others that highlight the Baroque concerto. The program will include:

Vivaldi: Sinfonia from Il coro della muse, and Concerto for Two Cellos
Avison: Concerto Grosso in D minor
Durante: Concerto a cinque in A
Handel: Concerto Grosso, op. 6, no. 1
Purcell: Pavane and Chaconne
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3

Founded in Boston in 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society (H&H) is considered America’s oldest continuously performing arts organization and will celebrate its Bicentennial in 2015. Its Period Instrument Orchestra and Chorus are internationally recognized in the field of Historically Informed Performance, using the instruments and techniques of the composer’s time. Under Artistic Director Harry Christophers’ leadership, the mission of the Handel and Haydn Society is to enrich life and influence culture by performing Baroque and Classical music at the highest levels of artistic excellence, and by providing engaging, accessible, and broadly inclusive music education and training activities. H&H’s Period Instrument Orchestra and Chorus present live and recorded historically informed performances of this repertoire in ways that stimulate the musical and cultural development of our Greater Boston community and contemporary audiences across the nation and beyond.

The Granoff Music Center is located at 20 Talbot Avenue on Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus. Tickets are free with a Tufts I.D. card (limit two per I.D.) and $10 for general admission. For more information, please visit as.tufts.edu/music/musiccenter or call the Granoff Music Center Box Office at 617.627.3679.

This concert has been made possible by the Granoff Music Fund.