Composers from around the world are coming to UNM to present new musical compositions at the 37th Annual John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium. Concerts will be held Sunday, March 30-Wednesday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m., and Tuesday, April 1 at 2 p.m. in Keller Hall, Center for the Arts. Two additional concerts will be held in the main lobby of the Center for the Arts on Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. There will also be opportunities to meet composers and attend lectures and seminars Monday-Wednesday. All events are free and open to the public.
The Composer’s Symposium is one of the longest on-going festivals of new music in the world, and one that has attained a regional, national and international reputation. It is named in honor of John Donald Robb, who served as dean of the College of Fine Arts from 1942-1957.
The 2008 symposium will feature the music of Gordon Mumma, the final composer in a three year series featuring prominent members of the famous ONCE festivals in Ann Arbor, Mich. Mumma, an early innovator in the field of live electronics, composed and performed for many years with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Sunday night’s concert features a performance of contemporary Italian and American composers by Ensemble-in-Residence Duo Alterno.
Other participating composers include Daniel Lentz, Carlo Alessandro Landini and Riccardo Piancentini from Italy, D.J. Wolf from Germany, Yvonne Lee from Massachusetts and Anne Guzzo from Wyoming. Dawn Chambers, Richard Cameron-Wolfe and John Kennedy will also have works performed and UNM composers Richard Hermann, Patricia Repar, Panaiotis, Paul Lombardi, Christopher Shultis and William Wood will have new works premiered as part of the festival.
Steve Peters will present this year’s sound installation, “Filtered Light (Chamber Music 4),” at the UNM Art Museum. “Yada, Yada, Yada: video and music installation” by Panaiotis and Jennifer Predock-Linnell will be on view in the Center for the Arts main lobby.
Topics of daytime seminars include “Composers and the World Wide Web,” “Composition for Beginning Students,” “The ONCE Festival: A Model for the Future?,” and “Composition in a Virtual Reality Environment.”
An event schedule is available at: 2008 Composers Symposium.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu