Eastman Broadband Featured at Miller Theatre, 11/1

On Monday, November 1, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Eastman School of Music - one of the nation's premier music institutions, named "Hottest School for Music" by Newsweek - presents its esteemed contemporary chamber ensemble Eastman BroadBand in concert at Columbia University's Miller Theatre.  Principal conductor Juan Trigos will lead the orchestra and special guests soprano Tony Arnold, pianist Cristina Valdes, guitarist Dieter Hennings, harpsichordist Josephine Gaffke, and percussionist Michael Burritt.

Scheduled at the onset of a Mexican tour that takes the ensemble to the prestigious Festival Internacional Cervantino and Silvestre Revueltas Hall in Mexico City, this concert at the Miller Theatre celebrates "New Music from the Americas" with works by Silvestre Revueltas, Juan Trigos, and Alejandro Viñao, as well as Eastman BroadBand artistic directors Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.  The music on the program explores the composers' interaction with contemporary culture through a number of seemingly diverse perspectives: the musical folklore of Mexico, Spain, and Pakistan; the literature of Juan Rulfo and Juan Trigos Sr; the kinetic sculptures of Arthur Ganson, and the "music of architecture" are all examined through the abstract lenses of these imaginative artists.
 
This performance marks the New York premieres of Zohn-Muldoon's mini-opera NiñoPolilla, Sanchez-Gutierrez's ...Ex Machina, and Trigos' Ricercare de cámara VI.  Also on the program is the New York premiere of Fanfare by the up-and-coming composer Baljinder Sekhon II, commissioned by the Eastman BroadBand.
  
Formed at the Eastman School of Music-one of the world's leading musical institutions-by composers Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, the Eastman BroadBand is a flexible group whose aim is to explore the many facets of contemporary music-making. Its repertoire includes modern classics, such as Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Birtwistle, and Carter, as well as recent music by many living composers.  The BroadBand's performances offer equal doses of the rigor, precision, artistry, uncompromising furor and joy that characterize the wide range of New Music activities at the Eastman School.
 
Among the Eastman BroadBand's recent appearances are those at the Joyce Theatre with the Garth Fagan Dance Company on the New York premiere of Fagan's Edge/Joy, at the SpazioMusica Festival in Cagliari, Italy, and as Resident Ensemble at the 2008 Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico. The ensemble has recorded for Bridge Records. Its principal conductor is Juan Trigos.
 
The Eastman School of Music (www.esm.rochester.edu), located in Rochester, N.Y., is one of the nation's leading music schools, earning top rankings from Kaplan/Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. The school is dedicated to providing students with intensive professional educational and entrepreneurial opportunities in their musical disciplines as well as opportunities for a broader liberal arts education within the context of a university.
 
Established in 1921 by Eastman Kodak Company founder George Eastman as the first professional school of the University of Rochester, the Eastman School educates 500 undergraduate and 400 graduate students annually in performance, composition, jazz studies and contemporary media, music education, theory, conducting, and musicology. Its faculty includes Grammy winners, Guggenheim Fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, and recording artists. Eastman's prominent alumni include opera singers Renée Fleming, Anthony Dean Griffey, Joyce Castle, and the late William Warfield; jazz musicians Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, and Chuck Mangione; composer-conductor Maria Schneider; and composers Dominick Argento, Charles Strouse, Michael Torke, and Jeff Beal.
 
Tickets: $25 general admission, $12.50 students and Eastman alumni. To purchase, visit the Miller Theatre Box Office at 2960 Broadway (at 116th Street) M-F, 12-6PM, call 212-854-7799 or go to www.millertheatre.com.