Borromeo String Quartet to Open Edward T. Cone Concert Series at Institute for Advanced Study

Borromeo String Quartet, photo by Christian Steiner
Princeton, NJ - Tuesday, October 26, 2010

From string quartets to marimba, the Institute for Advanced Study’s 2010-11 Edward T. Cone Concert Series, curated by Artist-in-Residence Derek Bermel, will offer an interesting selection of musical experiences. Known as the Harmonic Series, the season will explore the wide variety of aesthetic perspectives in art music, especially of the 20th and 21st centuries.

“In building this season's program, we've invited world-class performers to play a wide range of repertoire, ranging from 19th and 20th century classics to groundbreaking works of the 21st century, jazz and world music,” said Bermel.

The opening concerts will be performed by the Borromeo String Quartet on November 5 and 6.  The quartet will be joined by guest artists Paul Neubauer on viola and Fred Sherry on cello, with Bermel performing on clarinet.

Works on the program are scheduled to include Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, Bermel’s Soul Garden and Coming Together, Milton Babbitt’s More Melismata, Variações sobre temas populares by Andreia Pinto-Correia and Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 6.

The remaining concerts will include Mallet Madness on December 10 and 11, featuring Joe Locke on vibraphone, Lisa Pegher on marimba and Bernard Woma on Dagara gyil (African xylophone). They will perform works by Locke, Lansky, Woma and more. On February 4 and 5, 2011, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider will trace more than a century of American concert music, with Dvořák's American Quartet (String Quartet No.12 in F) as its centerpiece. Other works on the program are scheduled to include Bermel’s Amerikanizálódik, Don Byron’s Four Thoughts on Marvin Gaye, John Cage’s In a Landscape, Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) and Colin Jacobsen’s Achille’s Heel. The final concerts of the season, The End of Time, will take place on March 11 and 12, 2011.  Performers Edward Arron on cello, Bermel on clarinet, Steven Copes on violin, Stephen Gosling on piano and Tara O’Connor on flute will perform Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time and Béla Bartók's Contrasts.

Concert talks, providing discussions of the music on the program and related topics, will be held each Friday following the 8 p.m. performance and each Saturday preceding the 8 p.m. performance at 6:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall.

Concert tickets are free but must be reserved online at www.ias.edu/air/music. For further information about the Institute’s Artist-in-Residence program, visit the website or call (609) 734-8228.

About Edward T. Cone

Noted composer, teacher, pianist and author Edward T. Cone earned his undergraduate and MFA degrees at Princeton University and was affiliated with its music department for more than 50 years.  A Founding Friend of the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Study, he had a close and long-standing relationship with this institution.  During his lifetime, he was a tireless supporter of the arts and humanities at the Institute and elsewhere.  The Institute’s concert series has carried the Edward T. Cone name since 2007.

About the Artist-in-Residence Program

The Artist-in-Residence program was established at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994 to create a musical presence within the Institute community and to have in residence a person whose work could be experienced and appreciated by scholars from all disciplines. Pianist Robert Taub was the first Artist-in-Residence from 1994 to 2001, followed by composer Jon Magnussen, who served as Artist-in-Residence from 2000 to 2007, and Paul Moravec, who served as Artist-in-Residence from 2007 to 2008 and Artistic Consultant from 2008 to 2009.

Jon Magnussen introduced Recent Pasts 20/21, a series of chamber music concerts and lectures that explored the contemporary musical landscape and the many points of view that define it. Paul Moravec curated Tradition Redefined, exploring the wide variety of aesthetic perspectives in art music, especially of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Derek Bermel, named Artist-in-Residence in 2009, is a composer, clarinetist, conductor, jazz and rock musician. The 2001 winner of a Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, Bermel came to the Institute from a three-year position as the American Composers Orchestra's Music Alive Composer-in-Residence.

About the Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support fundamental research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty of no more than 28, and it offers all who work there the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.

The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 6,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Some 33 Nobel Laureates and 38 out of 52 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf or MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.