Columbia Announces Series By Julia Wolfe and Signal

MILLER THEATRE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY welcomes the new year with the continuation of two celebrated series: 

Julia Wolfe's Composer Portraits series continues Thursday February 3 at 8:00PM. Signal premieres a new multimedia work by this innovative New York City musician. Tickets are $25 or $15 for students with a valid ID.

Provocative and intense, Bang on a Can founder Julia Wolfe's music combines minimalist techniques-repetitive rhythms, sustained harmonies-with a rock sensibility. Her Cruel Sister is a grisly tale of sibling rivalry, inspired by a haunting English ballad. A collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison, Fuel examines the impact of globalization.

From Miller Theatre Director Melissa Smey: "We are thrilled to welcome New York City's own Julia Wolfe to the Composer Portraits series this February for a look at her distinctive and inventive work, including a fascinating collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. Later in the month, Le Poème Harmonique returns to take us on a fabulous journey to explore music from 17th-century Spain and Italy."

The Early Music Series returns on February 19 at 8:00PM with Esperar, Sentir, Morir. Miller Theatre favorite Le Poème Harmonique returns with a program of Spanish and Italian folk music at Church of St. Mary the Virgin (145 W 46th Street).  Tickets are $35 or $21 for students with a valid ID.

Julia Wolfe's music has been heard at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, Settembre Musica (Italy), Theatre de la Ville (Paris), Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall, and has been recorded on Cantaloupe, Teldec, Point/Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca. Wolfe has been a recipient of numerous grants, including awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and a Fulbright to the Netherlands. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Yale, and Princeton. Wolfe joined the New York University Steinhardt School's composition faculty in the fall of 2009. She is co-founder of New York's music collective Bang on a Can.

Signal is a large ensemble dedicated to performing the music of our time with energy, virtuosity, and passion. Signal performs under the musical direction of Brad Lubman, who founded the group along with cellist and co-artistic director Lauren Radnofsky. In the fall of 2008, Signal gave two sold-out performances of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and You Are (Variations) at Le Poisson Rouge (LPR) in New York City. Capacity crowds greeted Signal's return to LPR for a series of three concerts in the spring of 2009. The 2009-2010 season brought a tour with Helmut Lachenmann and the U.S. premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's chamber opera The Corridor. Signal will also perform at the University at Buffalo as a visiting resident ensemble. In October 2010, Signal performed Evan Ziporyn's music at Zankel Hall as part of Carnegie Hall's "Making Music" series.

Brad Lubman has led major orchestras in Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, and the United States. Among these are the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, RSO Stuttgart, WDR Symphony Cologne, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Finnish Radio Symphony, and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. In addition, he has worked with some of the most important European and American ensembles for contemporary music, including Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Musik Fabrik, ASKO Ensemble, Chicago Symphony MusicNOW, and Steve Reich and Musicians. Lubman has conducted at new-music festivals across Europe, including those in Lucerne, Salzburg, Berlin, Huddersfield, Paris, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Oslo. He is noted for his ability to master challenging new scores in a variety of settings, a skill honed during his tenure as assistant conductor to Oliver Knussen at the Tanglewood Music Center from 1989-1994. That aptitude has earned him the opportunity to premiere works by Michael Gordon, Jonny Greenwood, Meredith Monk, Michael Nyman, Steve Reich, Augusta Read Thomas, Julia Wolfe, and others.

Le Poème Harmonique, a group of soloists who came together in 1998 under the direction of Vincent Dumestre, centers its artistic activity on music of the 17th- and the early 18th-centuries. The group's vocal and instrumental interpretations are enriched by other disciplines, with actors and dancers joining its singers and musicians in programs of chamber works. The ensemble holds fast to the sources of early French and Italian music through exploration of its relationships with traditional or folk music. Since it was founded, Le Poème Harmonique has made many concert tours in Europe and other parts of the world, including Latin America and the Far East, but the ensemble continues to devote much of its activity to the Haute-Normandie Region. Highlights from the past three seasons include the exceptional success of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Baroque Carnival in Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Cité de la Musique), Lyon (Théâtre des Célestins), Brussels (Bozar), Prague (National Theatre), Budapest (Spring Festival), San Francisco (Calperf Festival), among others. Other highlights of the group's season include long term engagements in Brussels and San Francisco, and first appearances at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and at major festivals in Boston and Granada.

In 1997 Vincent Dumestre formed Le Poème Harmonique, a chamber ensemble and orchestra specializing in the Baroque repertoire, for which he is the artistic director. In 1999, the French music magazine Diapason voted Vincent Dumestre ‘Young Talent of the Year' for his work with Le Poème Harmonique. In March 2002, Vincent Dumestre received the Antonio Vivaldi International Record Award from the Cini Foundation in Venice for Cavalieri's Lamentations. At the Cannes Classical Awards he was nominated with Claire Lefilliâtre in the category 17th- and 18th-century Songs or Vocal Recitals' for the Delalande Tenebrae program. In 2004, Vincent Dumestre and Le Poème Hamonique received the Caecilia Press Prize and the annual Klara Radio Prize in Belgium for the recording Nova Metamorfosi. In 2005, the recording of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme was awarded the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros, after previously being voted ‘Choc de l'Année 2005' by Le Monde de la Musique and receiving the ‘Diapason d'Or Arte'. In 2004, Vincent Dumestre was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

Columbia University's Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall.  For tickets, the public should call the Miller Theatre Box Office at 212/854-7799, M-F, 12-6 pm.  Tickets can also be purchased online at www.millertheatre.com.