Musiqa's Strings Outside the Lines Performs at Contemporary Arts Museum Tonight

Musiqa, winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America/American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, presents a free Loft Concert, Strings Outside the Lines, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston tonight, February 27, at 6:30 p.m. The concert's program spotlights several evocative works for strings by a group of groundbreaking contemporary composers, including a tribute to the late Elliott Carter, who passed away at 104 in 2012. Held in collaboration with the museum and in coordination with the CAMH's exhibition, Outside the Lines, the concert also celebrates the museum's 65th anniversary with the world premiere of a quartet by Yann Jaffrennou. The concert, part of Musiqa's ongoing partnership with CAMH, is free and open to the public.

The program features works for various combinations of violins, viola, and double bass. The works include Elliott Carter's "Figment" for solo bass; Paul Chihara's "Duo Concertante" for violin and viola; Fred Lerdahl's "Waltzes for violin, viola, cello and bass" and the world premiere by Jaffrennou of "Quartet for violin, viola, cello and bass."

The concert's featured performers are Paul Cannon, bass; Ingrid Gerling, violin; Ab Sengupta, viola and Julia Sengupta, cello.

The third and final of the season of Musiqa's series of informal, intimate concerts, the concert is presented in conjunction with and in response to the exhibition Outside the Lines, presented on the occasion of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's 65th anniversary. Outside the Lines is a six-part exhibition series conceived as an evolving dialogue on contemporary abstraction. From recent paintings embracing more traditional definitions of abstraction to multimedia works that challenge such notions, these exhibitions showcase the Museum's commitment to chronicling shifts in contemporary art practices by presenting some of the most compelling work being made today and revisiting the historical foundations to which they speak. The exhibition is on view Oct. 31, 2013 - Mar. 23, 2014.

Musiqa's Strings Outside the Lines

Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

5216 Montrose

Houston, TX

6:30 p.m. - Performance

Admission is free

About the Composers:

Elliott Carter, born Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (1908 - 2012), was an American composer who was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, then returned to the United States. After an early neoclassical phase, his style shifted to an emphasis on atonality and rhythmic complexity. His compositions are known and performed throughout the world; they include orchestral, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works. He was extremely productive in his later years, publishing more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100, and over 20 more after he turned 100 in 2008. His last work, "Epigrams for piano trio," was completed on August 13, 2012.

Paul Chihara is an American composer, born in Seattle, Washington in 1938. A Japanese American, he spent several years of his childhood with his family in an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho. Chihara received a B.A. and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Washington and Cornell University, respectively. He received a D.M.A in 1965 from Cornell, studying with Robert Palmer. He also studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Ernst Pepping in West Berlin, and Gunther Schuller in Tanglewood. He was the first composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Neville Marriner, and was most recently part of the music faculty of UCLA, where he was the head of the Visual Media Program. Chihara's prize-winning concert works, which include symphonies, concertos, chamber music, choral compositions, and ballets, have been performed to great acclaim both nationally and internationally. His works are concerned with the evolution and expression of highly contrasting colors, textures, and emotional levels, which are often dramatically juxtaposed with one another Yann Jaffrennou was born in Strasbourg, France in 1952. His works are particularly focused on piano and the purity of sound.

Fred Lerdahl

Alfred Whitford Lerdahl, born in 1943 in Madison, Wisconsin is the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or "musical grammar." He has written many orchestral and chamber works, three of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Lerdahl's influences include Elliott Carter, late Sibelius, early Schoenberg, Bartok, and Stravinsky. Lerdahl has said he always sought "musical forms of his own invention," and to discover the correct form for the expression. His spiral form implies both change and repetition.

About Musiqa: Winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award, Musiqa is a non-profit organization dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Founded in 2002 and led by five composers, Musiqa aims to enrich and inspire the community through programs that integrate contemporary music with other modern art forms. Musiqa celebrates modern creative arts through interdisciplinary concerts that highlight modern music and its connections to literature, film, dance, art, and more. With its innovative collaborations and educational programming, Musiqa strives to make modern repertoire accessible and vital to audiences of all ages and musical backgrounds. To discover more about Musiqa's unique program offerings or to learn how to be a supporter, visit www.musiqahouston.org.

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