Friday Music Series 2016-17
The Georgetown University Music Program’s Friday Music Series features free concerts on select Fridays at 1:15 p.m. in McNeir Hall, New North Building, *unless otherwise indicated.
FALL 2016
Friday, September 23 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Marlissa Hudson, soprano
Marvin Mills, piano
The Music of Margaret Bonds
A collaboration between the GU Music Program, Lauinger Library Special Collections, and African-American Studies Program
Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-72) was a concert pianist and composer, who created works in a broad range of genres. A native of Chicago, Bonds studied at Northwestern University, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in music. Bonds studied composition with Florence Price and William Dawson with further work at the Juilliard School with Roy Harris. Bonds was a frequent collaborator with Langston Hughes setting much of his work to music. The program features music from the Bonds collection currently housed in the Leon Robbin Special Collections. American soprano Marlissa Hudson has been described as a “superb lyric coloratura” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). At home both on the operatic and concert stage, Ms. Hudson made her professional debut while a student, performing Summertime from Porgy and Bess with the Baltimore Symphony Pops Orchestra under the baton of Marvin Hamlisch. Marvin Mills is organist at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Kensington, Maryland. He is also music director of the acclaimed National Spiritual Ensemble, and guest artist with the Ritz Chamber Players, based in Jacksonville, Florida.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Read more about the full day including talks at 10:30 a.m. and viewings of the related exhibitions curated by GU Music Professor Anna Celenza in Lauinger Library.
Friday, September 30 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Amy Domingues and Dennis Kane
EAmy Domingues and electronic musician Dennis Kane’s new music collaboration combines viola da gamba, keyboard, guitar, and electronics. Domingues’ diverse music career as a cellist has led her from recording and touring artist with bands including Fugazi, releasing albums of her own cell-driven folk/rock experimental songs as Garland of Hours, and performing as an early music soloist and ensemble member on viola da gamba, a resonant six-stringed bowed instrument popular in the 16th-18th centuries. Multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer Dennis Kane is best known for both his recordings and for his former stints in such notable DC bands as Tone, Eyes of the Killer Robot & Red Spells Red. Kane is also well known within DC’s music community for his work at The Black Cat. Domingues and Kane began collaborating in the fall of 2014 and the resulting album Gut+Voltage: Viola da Gamba and Electronics in Synthesis was released in March 2016 on the Washington, DC label Verses Records.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, October 7 at 1:15 p.m. FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Kaynak Pipers Band of Bulgaria
Kaynak Pipers Band is a kaba gaida or Bulgarian bagpipe ensemble performing traditional folklore from the Rhodope mountain region. The ensemble continues the authentic traditions of kaba gaida performance and folklore. The word “kaynak” means “source” and references the performer’s specific tunes or instrumentals to demonstrate individual skills and that the music comes straight from the soul. Kaba gaida is one of the most distinctive symbols of Bulgarian culture and among the few world instruments to preserve its form, sounds, tunes and traditions almost unchanged from ancient times. It is a low pitched bagpipe with a single drone, wooden chanter, flea hole, goat-skin bag and a tube reed from elder, cane with a tongue, and tight fingering style (each note is played by lifting only one finger).
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, October 14 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Netanel Draiblate, violin
Grace Eun Hae Kim, piano
Violinist Netanel Draiblate is a versatile chamber musician, recording artist, and concertmaster, whose first solo CD, Perspectives, was released by Azica Records. Draiblate’s recent solo engagements include his debut with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and orchestras across four continents. Praised by The Washington Post as a pianist whose playing is “rich with emotional contrasts,” Grace Eun Hae Kim has performed as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia in notable venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Terrace Theater at Kennedy Center, and Taipei National Concert Hall, and has appeared as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra. Both Draiblate and Kim serve on the faculty at Georgetown University’s Music Program.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, October 21 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Eya
Eya is an award-winning vocal ensemble based in Washington, DC specializing in the interpretation of medieval music for women’s voices. “Remarkable… gorgeous… with precise ensemble, a strong sense of presence, and ringing vowels that reverberated to the farthest reaches of the cathedral” (The Washington Post). Eya presents concert programs that interweave diverse repertories of the 12th through 15th centuries, from Hildegard von Bingen to Notre Dame to the flyleaves of early English manuscripts and beyond. Through this lens, these programs seek to tell a story that forges new points of connection between contemporary audiences and medieval repertoire, underlining our common humanity with these early poets and composers.
DAHLGREN CHAPEL
FREE
Friday, October 28 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Modern Musick
The early music ensemble Modern Musick continues its residency in the music program at Georgetown University. Led by Risa Browder (violin) and John Moran (cello), the ensemble focuses on diverse genres and composers from the early modern era, utilizing period instruments and performance practice techniques.The Georgetown University Friday Music Series features acclaimed artists in free concerts at 1:15 p.m. on select Fridays.
DAHLGREN CHAPEL
FREE
Friday, November 11 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Paul Moravec, composer
Georgetown welcomes Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec to the McNeir Hall stage for a multimedia conversation about his latest opera, The Shining, and the creative process behind it. Moravec is the composer of numerous orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic and lyric pieces. His music has earned many distinctions, including the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, November 18 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Brazilian choro with Richard Miller, guitar
Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, guitarist Richard Miller is now on the faculty of Columbia University, while maintaining a busy performance schedule including venues like Merkin Hall in New York City and the Kennedy Center in DC. He currently teaches music theory and ear-training at Columbia University, also continuing to tour with the Brazilian group Choro da Manhã and with the Ukrainian group Gerdan.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, December 2 at 1:15 p.m.
FRIDAY MUSIC SERIES
Annual Holiday Concert
featuring the GU Jazz Ensemble
The Georgetown University Jazz Ensemble, led by Prof. Aaron Broadus, presents a program of classic holiday standards.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Past Performances