2024-2025 Season

Ron Liberti will talk about his artistic process and his path to a successful career as an interdisciplinary artist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Sax, Electronics, and Anti-Heroes

Laurent Estoppey, composer and saxophonist 

Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm

NCSU Students: $5, Faculty & Staff: $10, Others: $12.

Swiss composer and saxophonist, Laurent Estoppey, has devoted himself mostly to contemporary music.

Numerous collaborations with composers have lead to at least two hundred works being composed for/with him. His musical activity is divided between written music and improvisation, and it occurs throughout Europe, the Americas, and South Africa.

He currently works with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and has performed with the Basel Symphony, the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra of the State of Lithuania, the Lausanne Sinfonietta, the NEC – Chaux-de-Fonds-Contrechamps Geneva, and the Staatskapelle Weimar. Estoppey has founded and developed many chamber music groups including: DILEMME, ST15, DEGRE21, 1+1, compagnie CH.AU, and the 4TENORS. Performing with the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet and COLLAPSS (Collective for Happy Sounds) are his main activities in the United States. He is regularly invited to play with the saxophone quartet Basel ARTE Quartet and is a member of baBel ensemBle. A guest musician of the Russian theatrical troupe Akhe, he has performed with them in Geneva, Nice, London, Stockholm, and Mexico City.

His discography includes thirty recordings. He was educated at the Lausanne Conservatory, where he studied with Jean-Georges Koerper.

His interest in all contemporary arts has led him to collaborate with many artists in interdisciplinary projects. As a composer, Estoppey writes music for concerts, sound installations, and video art.

The concert will include 21st-century music for saxophone and electronics, featuring works composed by Estoppey, along with fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music).

 

 

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Voice Plus Viola Plus

Jennifer Beattie, mezzo-soprano

Diana Wade, viola

Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, 7:00 pm

NCSU Students: $5, Faculty & Staff: $10, Others: $12.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie, called a “smashing success” (San Francisco Examiner) and praised for her “warmth” (New York Times) and “exuberant voice and personality” (Opera News), revels in performing new music. She has been a featured soloist with organizations including The National Opera Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Symphony in C, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Jennifer Beattie is a member of various chamber music duos: Albatross, with pianist Adam Marks (artists-in-residence with the Yale college composers), So Much Hot Air, with oboe/ English horn player Zachary Pulse, and SpacePants with Diana Wade. She also serves as co-director of Artists at Albatross Reach, a retreat for the development of weird, wonderful new work and artistic collaborations in northern California.

Violist Diana Wade likes to make strange sounds, usually on the viola. In a recent performance of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VI, Diana was praised for playing with “both athletic and operatic ferocity” and “throwing herself into tremolo passages with a physical force that shook her and a sonic one that practically shook the walls” (Mark Swed, LA Times). Wade enjoys a richly varied musical life in Los Angeles performing with ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Los Angeles Opera. She has worked closely with composers such as Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Kerrith Livengood, and Thomas Kotcheff in the performance of their music. Diana Wade holds degrees and certificates from Temple University, Cleveland Institute of Music and University of Southern California and she studied with CJ Chang, Jeffrey Irvine, and Donald McInnes. Wade plays a viola made by Tetsuo Matsuda in 2004 that she’s lovingly named Fernando.

The concert will include 21st-century music for voice, voice and viola, along with fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music).

 

The concert will include 20th- and 21st-century music for bass, bass and electronics, fixed electronic music (tape music; acousmatic music) and a game!

 

Born in 1979, in Russia, Anatoly Larkin has been studying and making music from around the age of 4. After undergraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, UK,  he completed his doctoral studies in Piano Performance at the University of Minnesota, mentored by Alexander Braginsky. In Minnesota, he was a member of the new-music ensemble, Zeitgeist, premiering works by leading American composers. As an active improviser, he frequently collaborated with trombonist Patrick Crossland, clarinetist Pat O’Keefe and other artists.

In 2005, he moved to Raleigh, NC, to join Zenph, a music technology company.  There he developed a software/manual process, subsequently trademarked as “Re-Performance®”, that made it possible to hear performances of recorded pianists live, through modern reproducing piano technology. He oversaw the recording and production of five critically acclaimed piano albums. In 2010 and 2012, his re-creation of Rachmaninoff’s and Marvin Hamlisch’s pianism (respectively) was featured in ‘Live from Lincoln Center’ PBS telecast, in collaboration with violinist Joshua Bell. 

 Bonnie Thron joined the North Carolina Symphony as Principal Cellist in 2000. She is an active chamber musician and locally has been a guest with the Mallarme Chamber
Players and the Ciompi Quartet. She is a member of Three For All, a clarinet trio with her husband, clarinetist Fred Jacobowitz and pianist Anatoly Larkin. In the Washington DC
area she has been a guest with the American Chamber Players and regularly performs on the Washington Musica Viva series. In summers she plays with the Sebago Long Lake Music Festival in Maine. She was a member of the Naumberg award winning Peabody Trio and played with Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, St. Lukes Orchestra and was the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Denver Symphony. She has played concertos with the North Carolina Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the Vermont Symphony, the New Hampshire Symphony, the Panama National Orchestra and many regional orchestras throughout New England and North Carolina. Thron maintains a large private teaching studio and joined the cello teaching at NC State this season.