UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. —American Brass Quintet, winner this year of Chamber Music America’s highest honor, will perform works from the Renaissance to the 21st century in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Penn State’s Schwab Auditorium on the University Park campus. The performance is the cornerstone of a three-day residency at Penn State that includes a variety of free engagement events at the University Park and Altoona campuses.
The concert, part of the Center for the Performing Arts Classical Music Project, features Renaissance madrigals by Italian Luca Marenzio; chansons by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prés; five works by 19th-century German Ludwig Maurer; Fantasia and Rondó, a composition by Osvaldo Lacerda who, in 1963, became the first Brazilian composer to earn a Guggenheim Fellowship; Copperwave, a quintet-commissioned work by Grammy Award-winning contemporary American composer Joan Tower; and Cadence, Fugue, Fade, a piece written for the quintet by American Sebastian Currier that has its world premiere in New York City two weeks before being performed at Schwab.
Tickets for the Schwab concert are $42 for an adult, $12 for a University Park student and $32 for a person 18 and younger. Tickets are available online at http://cpa.psu.edu or by phone at 814-863-0255 or 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets also are available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays), Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays), HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk (11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays) and Bryce Jordan Center (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays). A grant from the University Park Allocation Committee makes Penn State student prices possible.
“The high priests of brass” (Newsweek) have amassed a discography of 50-plus albums and premiered more than 150 contemporary works. Tours have taken the quintet, founded in 1960, to five continents and all 50 of the United States.
The ensemble, in residence at The Juilliard School since 1987 and the Aspen Music Festival since 1970, features trumpeters Raymond Mase and Kevin Cobb, hornist David Wakefield, trombonist Michael Powell and bass trombonist John D. Rojak.
To listen to a Center for the Performing Arts interview with Rojak, go to http://bit.ly/1dR08aZ.
To read a Classical Music Project blog post by Cobb, go to http://bit.ly/19VhIrE.
The quintet is the 2013 recipient of Chamber Music America’s Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award for “significant and lasting contributions to the field.”
Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring Mase and Rojak, is offered in Schwab one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders.
The Norma and Ralph Condee Chamber Music Endowment sponsors the presentation. WPSU is the media sponsor.
Free related activities
The quintet is scheduled to participate in master classes and a classroom visit at University Park, plus a program for residents at Centre Crest Nursing Home in Bellefonte. A performance and other activities at Penn State Altoona, along with additional engagement programs in Altoona, also are planned.
To learn more about the residency activities that are free and open to the public, go to http://bit.ly/19a1nTp.
The media can download photos of American Brass Quintet, at http://cpa.psu.edu/press.
The Center for the Performing Arts' Facebook page is available at http://facebook.com/pscpa.