Feb. 20, 2007 issue
Dillon is featured guest of EMU's Music Now Fest

By Leigh Soltis

 

While many fans of modern music may be planning to attend Taking Back Sunday at the Convocation Center, or tuning in to Justin Timberlake on the radio, Eastern Michigan University prepares to celebrate contemporary music of a different variety.

One of the most highly regarded festivals of its kind in the Midwest, Music Now Fest offers three days of programs showcasing the work of a distinguished living American composer, as well as providing a unique, hands-on insight into contemporary music. This year, Music Now Fest is scheduled Feb. 21-23.

Dillon

Lawrence Dillon, composer-in-residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts, is this year's featured guest. Dillon has been composing since the age of seven. In 1985, at the age of 26, he was the youngest composer to earn a doctorate in the history of the Juilliard School in New York, N.Y.

Dillon has produced an extensive body of work that has been commissioned, performed and broadcast by major ensembles and festivals throughout the Americas and Europe. Poised between tonality and atonality, Dillon's works are soulful, vivid, uninhibited and coherent, honoring the rich compositional traditions of the past.

The biennial Music Now Fest began in 1979, organized by EMU music professors Anthony Iannaccone and Max Plank. Past guest composers include Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, Karel Husa, Libby Larsen, Vincent Persichetti and Peter Schickele.

"The creation of serious classical music (classical as distinguished from pop/rock, not as distinguished from baroque, Renaissance, Romantic, etc.) did not cease with the death of Beethoven or Stravinsky. The best music, literature and art of each era capture and interpret, reflect, filter or capture significant aspects of the period in which they were conceived," said Iannaccone, professor of composition at EMU. "The world of popular culture usually communicates aspects of the human experience in a very direct and commercialized manner, while classical or so-called high culture does this in more subtle, deeper and complex ways. Students and faculty in a university should have access to both worlds. Music Now helps, substantially, to make that possible by providing an opportunity to experience excellent performances of a broad range of high quality modern music."

The 2007 Music Now Fest schedule is:

• A faculty recital kicks off Music Now Fest, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 8 p.m., Pease Auditorium. The opening recital sets the stage for the festival, with a variety of new works by composers Whitney Prince, Joshua Bornfield, Nikola Resanovic, Alberto Ginastera, Steve Reich and Anthony Iannaccone. Faculty artists include members of the Eastern Winds: David Pierce, bassoon; Willard Zirk, French horn; Kimberly Cole-Luevano, clarinet; Kristy Meretta, oboe; and Julie Stone, flute; as well as pianists Garik Pedersen and Kathryn Goodson, and percussionists John Dorsey and guest Cary Kocher.

MAKING MUSIC: Lawrence Dillon is deep in thought as he works on one of his compositions. Dillon, a composer-in- residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts, will be the featured guest during EMU's Music Now Fest.

• EMU welcomes Lawrence Dillon, Thursday, Feb. 22, 11 a.m., Pease Auditorium. Dillon will present  "Furies and Muses: Composing in the 21st Century."

• An open rehearsal of "Amadeus ex machina" follows at 1 p.m., with Dillon and the Symphony Orchestra, directed by Kevin Miller in Pease Auditorium.

• An open rehearsal with the University Choir, directed by Bradley Bloom, is scheduled at 3 p.m., also at Pease Auditorium.

• "Chamber Music of Lawrence Dillon" will be presented Thursday, Feb. 22, 8 p.m., Pease Auditorium. The concert features "Furies and Muses," "Dunigan Variations," "Big Brothers" and "Façade." Sponsors Willard Zirk and Denise Root Pierce will premiere winning compositions in the New Chamber Works for Horn competition. Other participants include faculty members Daniel Foster, Diane L. Winder, David M. Pierce, Julie Stone, John Dorsey, Garik Pedersen, Anne Beth Gajda and Amy Wagner King; flute students Josephine Denys and Alyson Patrash; with guests Anne Ristich, violin; Antione Hackney, viola; and Mark Kieme, saxophone.

• Events for Friday, Feb. 23, begin with an open rehearsal of "Blown Away," with Dillon and the Wind Symphony, directed by Scott Boerma, 11 a.m., in Pease Auditorium.

• Later that day, Dillon participates in a conversational exchange with a composer's panel and audience members about the compositional process and his life as a composer, 2 p.m., in the Alexander Recital Hall.

• The Symphonic Band, under the direction of Mark Waymire, hosts an open rehearsal Friday, Feb. 23, 4 p.m., Pease Auditorium.

• Music Now Fest '07 concludes with a concert by EMU's major performing ensembles. The program, scheduled at 8 p.m. in Pease Auditorium, features Dillon's "Blown Away," performed by the Wind Symphony; and his award-winning "Amadeus ex machina," performed by the Symphony Orchestra. Other works include "Ogoun Badagris," by Christopher Rouse, performed by the Percussion Ensemble; "Spiel," by Ernst Toch, performed by the Symphonic Band; and a piece by Iannaccone, performed by the University Choir. Admission is $8 for adults, $4 for students and seniors. Tickets are available at the door, at the EMU Convocation Center, 487-2282; or Quirk Theatre Box Office, 487-1221.

For more information about Music Now Fest, call 487-2255 or visit www.emich.edu/musicdance.