Celebrating American Composers at Clarice Smith Center

November 6 Program Reveals Four Distinct Visions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Andrew Zender, azender@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151

Friday, November 6, 2009 — College Park, Md. — The UM Wind Orchestra returns to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Dekelboum Concert Hall Friday Nov. 6, 2009 at 8 pm for its second performance of the season in “American Masters: The Road Less Traveled,” conducted by Music Director Michael Votta. This all-American program of prominent (and promising) composers includes Ned Rorem’s Sinfonia, Alan Hovhaness’s Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places with trumpet soloist and faculty artist Chris Gekker, Jennifer Higdon’s Fanfare Ritmico and David Maslanka's A Child's Garden of Dreams.

The concert will open with Ned Rorem’s “Sinfonia.” Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Ned Rorem has been called “the world’s best composer of art songs” by Time Magazine; his catalog of more than 500 works includes symphonies, piano concertos, orchestral/chamber music, operas, choral works, ballets and song cycles.

UMD faculty member Chris Gekker will appear as trumpet soloist on Alan Hovhaness’s Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places. Gekker’s career has taken him to the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, earning praise for his “bright virtuosity, clear tone, and perfect pitch” from the New York Times. Gekker appeared as trumpet soloist on a 1993 release of “Return and Rebuild” on the Koch International Classics label.

Dubbed the “Armenian Bartók,” Alan Hovhaness, an American born of Scottish and Armenian descent, drew inspiration for “Return and Rebuild” from a portrait of Khrimian Kairig, a heroic priest of the Armenian church who resisted religious persecution of his people. Building on this theme, Hovhaness uses the voice of the solo trumpet to represent the human soul calling out to the heavens, yearning for the next spiritual step in its journey.

Jennifer Higdon’s Fanfare Ritmico, described by the New York Times as “…full of percussive boldness and ingenious rhythmic interplay," was co-commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra and the Women’s Philharmonic. Higdon, one of America’s most frequently performed composers, has been hailed by the Washington Post as "a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit,” and her work has been commissioned by symphonies, orchestras chamber groups across the world.

Closing the program is David Maslanka’s A Child’s Garden of Dreams, which draws inspiration from Man and His Symbols, the last work by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology. In Man and His Symbols, a man receives a handwritten booklet from his 10-year old daughter as a Christmas present. Contained in the booklet are a series of richly detailed but hellish dreams the young girl had when she was eight years old, dreams that were at once incomprehensible to her father, deeply disturbing and laden with an air of impending disaster. They were ultimately interpreted as a preparation for her untimely death, which occurred a year later. Maslanka says his composing process changed with this piece because in divining the mystery of each dream, he tried to imagine the literal content as vividly as possible. As a result, he says, “Not only did living images come, but also an eerie sense of their living power.”

Tickets are $27 for the general public and $9 for full-time students with I.D. Tickets are available by visiting www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu or calling (301) 405-ARTS (2787). The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is located at the intersection of University Boulevard (Route 193) and Stadium Drive in College Park, on the campus of the University of Maryland. A parking garage is located across the street from the Center.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support is provided through generous grants from the Leading College and University Presenters Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and from The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.