Institute For Advanced Study Announces 2003-04 Concert Series

PRINCETON, N.J. - September 8, 2003: The Institute for Advanced Study has announced the schedule for its 2003-04 music series, entitled “Recent Pasts 20/21.” The series is sponsored by the Institute’s Artist-in-Residence program, and will continue through the 2006-07 season to explore new music and ideas of the 20th and 21st centuries. "During the past century, contemporary western art music has witnessed incredible growth in the multiplicity of compositional styles it encompasses," says composer Jon Magnussen, Institute Artist-in-Residence. "Today it is not uncommon to hear in a single concert influences as diverse as Beijing opera, 12-tone serialism, and rock-and-roll. The confluence of these various influences is changing the concert experience and art music itself is being transformed."

The series has been conceived by Magnussen to explore, through concerts, lectures and symposia, the wide variety of aesthetic perspectives in Western art music of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Opening this year's season will be mezzo-soprano and composer Joan La Barbara, and pianist Margaret Leng Tan, on October 3 at 8:00 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus. There will be a concert talk with the artists, hosted by Magnussen, on October 3 at 4:30 p.m., also in Wolfensohn Hall. La Barbara will perform a solo outdoor concert on October 4 at 7:00 p.m., in the Institute’s Birch Garden. In conjunction with these concerts, composer Christian Wolff will deliver a lecture on October 4 at 5:00 p.m. in the West Building Lecture Hall, entitled "Experiments in Music around 1950 and Some Consequences and Causes (Social-Political and Musical)."

Joan La Barbara explores the traditional boundaries of the human voice, creating works for multiple voices, chamber ensembles, orchestra, and interactive technology. She has developed a unique vocabulary of experimental techniques such as multiphonics, ululation, and glottal clicks that have won her seven National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. In addition to “Three Voices for Joan La Barbara by Morton Feldman,” and “Joan La Barbara Singing Through John Cage” on New Albion, and “Joan La Barbara /Sound Paintings” on Lovely Music, she has recorded for, among other labels, Deutsche Grammophon, Elektra-Nonesuch, New World, and Sony. “ShamanSong” on New World Records is her latest CD release.

Educated at Syracuse and New York universities and Tanglewood/Berkshire Music Center, she acquired her compositional competence as an apprentice with the numerous composers with whom she has worked for three decades, including John Cage and Morton Feldman.

She is director of the Carnegie Hall series, “When Morty Met John,” focusing on the music of John Cage and Morton Feldman, which will culminate this October in New York City.

Margaret Leng Tan, hailed as “the diva of avant-garde pianism” by the New Yorker magazine, is known for performances of American and Asian music that transcend the piano’s conventional boundaries. She is famed as a performer and interpreter of the music of John Cage. The first woman to earn a doctorate from the Juilliard School, she is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Award. She is also the world’s first professional toy pianist, and has inspired composers to create an adventurous new repertoire for her toy pianos.

Composer Christian Wolff, an American born in France, came to the U.S. in 1941 and became associated with John Cage and other "New York School" composers. Almost entirely self-taught as a composer, he earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University, remaining as a teacher in the Classics department until 1970, when he was appointed professor of classics and music at Dartmouth College. He became Strauss Professor of Music at Dartmouth in 1979. His compositions are noted for emphasizing the freedom and dignity of the performer and listener, and a belief that no sound or noise is preferable to any other sound or noise.

The first concert program, entitled "Sonatas, Interludes and Songs," will be performed by La Barbara and Leng Tan and features John Cage’s 1948 masterpiece for solo prepared piano, “Sonatas and Interludes” and Christian Wolff’s “For Prepared Piano.” Also on the program are selected Cage vocal/piano works including “A Flower,” “The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs,” “Nowth upon Nacht,” “She is Asleep,” and “Sonnekus” (with Satie Cabaret Songs).

The second concert, "Electro-Acoustic Music in the Birch Garden," will be performed by La Barbara and will feature Morton Feldman's timeless “Three Voices.” Also on the program are “Music for One (or, “Music for Three by One” with two pre-recorded voices); Solos 49, 52, and 67; “Experiences, No. 2” for voice; “Eight Whiskas;” and “One 7,” all by Cage; and “ShamanSong” by La Barbara, for voice and tape.

Further concerts and lectures in the series will present "An American Collection" by Music from Copland House, the resident ensemble at Aaron Copland’s New York home, now a creative center for American music. The program will include works by Aaron Copland, George Perle, Joan Tower, Sebastian Currier, Derek Bermel, and Pierre Jalbert, and performances will take place November 19 and 21 at 8:00 p.m. and November 23 at 4:00 p.m.

On November 21 at 4:00 p.m. composer George Perle and pianist Michael Boriskin will be featured in the Recent Pasts 20/21 Lecture entitled "All the Right Notes: A Conversation between George Perle and Michael Boriskin."

Scheduled for February 20, 2004 at 8:00 p.m. is a special event on the American life and music of Arnold Schoenberg entitled "Photo Album with Music," featuring Stefan Litwin, piano, and Nuria Schoenberg-Nono, speaker.

On February 21 at 8:00 p.m. and February 22 at 4:00 p.m., Stefan Litwin will perform a concert program of music by J.S. Bach, Alban Berg, Charles Ives, Erich Itor Kahn, Franz Liszt, Stefan Litwin, Arnold Schoenberg, and Stefan Wolpe, entitled "Arnold Schoenberg: Broadening the Circle." In conjunction with these events philosopher Lydia Goehr will present a Recent Pasts 20/21 Lecture entitled "Adorno in Darmstadt" on February 20 at 4:00 p.m.

Concert tickets are free but must be reserved. For ticket information, or further information about the Institute for Advanced Study’s Artist-in-Residence Program, call 609-734-8228 or see www.ias.edu/artist-in-residence.