MUSIQA Presents World Premiere of Sebastian Currier's DEEP SKY OBJECTS, 9/22

MUSIQA, Houston's leading contemporary classical music organization, opens its fall season with the world premiere of Grawemeyer-award-winning composer Sebastian Currier's Deep Sky Objects at the Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall on Saturday, September 22 at 7:30 PM. The concert offers a dynamic celebration of the intersection of music, poetry and dance.

Deep Sky Objects is set to poetry by Sarah Manguso, whose libretto imagines an intergalactic romance. Commissioned by Musiqa with generous support from Chamber Music America and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the work is scored for soprano solo, piano quintet and electronics; the performance will feature soprano Karol Bennett. Divided and Scattered, a world premiere dance choreographed by Tina Bohnstedt and performed by Houston Ballet II is set to two movements from Currier's Quartetset. Pierre Jalbert's Secret Alchemy for piano quartet and Lera Auerbach's violin-piano preludes complete the program.

The concert's featured artists include soprano Karol Bennett, violinist Lisa Burrell, violist James Dunham, cellist Lachezar Kostov, pianist Tali Morgulis, violinist Maureen Nelson, and the dancers of Houston Ballet II.

Deep Sky Objects will be presented on September 22 at 7:30 PM at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Zilkha Hall (800 Bagby Street). Tickets start at $20 and may be purchased at www.thehobbycenter.org. For more information, visit www.musiqahouston.org or call 713-524-5678.

An American composer whose works have been performed at major venues worldwide by acclaimed artists and orchestras, Sebastian Currier is the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award. He has received many other prestigious awards, including the Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. Currier received a D.M.A. from the Juilliard School; and from 1999-2007 he taught at Columbia University.

An author and poet, Sarah Manguso is the author, most recently, of The Guardians (2012). Her other books include the memoir The Two Kinds of Decay (2008), the story collection Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape (2007), published as one of three volumes in McSweeney's One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box, and the poetry collections Siste Viator (2006) and The Captain Lands in Paradise (2002). Honors for her writing include a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books have been translated into German, Italian, and Spanish. She currently teaches writing at N.Y.U.

Deep Sky Objects was made possible by the Chamber Music America Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.

Musiqa (www.musiqahouston.org) 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. Musiqa is funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and has received its fifth consecutive NEA grant for innovative educational programming.

Major support for Musiqa is provided by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Brown Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund, Anne and Albert Chao, the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Aubrey & Sylvia Farb Community Service Fund of Congregation Emanu El, Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, the Houston Endowment, the Houston Musical Hall Association, R. Stan and Reinnette Marek, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Simmons Foundation, the Strake Foundation, Target, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Vaughn Foundation and the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Family Foundation.

Photo Credit: Amitava Sarka

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