Friday Music Series 2016-2017 Archive
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
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.
Spring 2017
Friday, February 3 at 1:15 p.m.
Modern musick
GU Chamber Singers
Prof. Frederick Binkholder, music director
Jesuit Heritage Week
The Georgetown University Chamber Singers under the direction of Prof. Frederick Binkholder will be joined by the acclaimed Baroque period instrument ensemble, Modern Musick in a performance of music composed within the Chiquitos Missions of the Society of Jesus in the 17th and 18th centuries.This Jesuit Heritage Week program features a collection of works edited by Fr. Piotr Nawrot.
*DAHLGREN CHAPEL
FREE
Friday, February 10 at 1:15 p.m.
Third Practice
Founded in 2012, this DC-based professional chamber vocal ensemble bridges the gap between traditional classical and contemporary music through thoughtful and adventurous programming. Third Practice is named after a term for the late style of composer Claudio Monteverdi, in which he is said to have fused elements of the older “first practice” with the contemporary “second practice,” creating a rich new musical language. The ensemble’s artful singing has been praised for “first-rate” musicality (New York Times).
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, February 17 at 1:15 p.m.
Eunbi Kim, piano
Music of Fred Hersch
Acclaimed New York City-based pianist provocateur Eunbi Kim returns to the Friday Music Series after her beautiful, genre-defying performance of “Murakami Music” in 2015. In this solo program, Kim explores hybrid jazz-classical works by eight-time GRAMMY nominated jazz legend Fred Hersch. Displaying her signature emotional mastery with contemporary, new music that is warm and introspective, familiar through its famous classical influences (Tchaikovsky to tango), and dazzling as different musical worlds collide.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, February 24 at 1:15 p.m.
congri ensemble
This program presents acclaimed Cuban composer Pavel Urkiza’s interpretation of classic Cuban songs, performed on period acoustic instruments such as the romantic guitar, the mutto cornet, baroque flutes, and the upright bass. The ensemble includes Afro-Cuban and Mediterranean percussion, illustrating the connection between the Spanish, African, and Creole origins of Cuban music. The musical performance will be accompanied by a visual display of images from the era and narration between songs. Congri is a typical Cuban dish made of black beans and rice, and the origin of the word is from the French “congrès,” meaning a gathering or coming together.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, March 17 at 1:15 p.m.
Nathaniel Braddock, guitar
Musician and composer Nathaniel Braddock tours internationally and performs an array of different musical styles in venues as disparate as underground arts spaces and Lincoln Center. Nathaniel leads the acclaimed Central African soukous group the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, a collaboration between American, Ghanaian, Zambian, and Congolese musicians including the great Samba Mapangala and members of Ghana’s acclaimed Western Diamonds. Nathaniel has performed and recorded with a number of indie rock bands, and also played for years in the Butcher Shop Quartet, performing electric guitar arrangements of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and other 20th century classical works. Braddock leads an eight-piece electric guitar ensemble that plays his original compositions.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, March 24 at 1:15 p.m.
Music of Duke Ellington
Music by Duke Ellington
Luis Hernandez, saxophone
Chris Grasson, piano
Nathan Kawaller, bass
Kevin McDonald, drums
Lena Seikaly, vocals
Since 2003, saxophonist Luis Hernandez has performed with Afrobop Alliance, a Latin jazz group that won a Grammy® for Best Latin Jazz Album of the year and was nominated for two Grammy® awards in 2008 for their recording, “Caribbean Jazz Project/Afrobop Alliance.” In 1996, Luis joined the U.S. Navy Band “Commodores” as tenor saxophonist and featured soloist, and was also a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 2002.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, March 31 at 1:15 p.m.
Edvinas Minkstimas, piano
steffani kitayama, violin
tobias werner, cello
Program includes Brahms’s Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor and Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, along with Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor. A native of Kaunas, Lithuania, pianist Edvinas Minkstimas has performed at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, 6th& I Synagogue, and the Mansion at Strathmore. In July 2011, Minkstimas became Artist-in-Residence of the Embassy Series Festival in Washington D.C.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, April 7 at 1:15 p.m.
Sandbox Percussion
Lauded by The Washington Post as “revitalizing the world of contemporary music” with “jawdropping virtuosity,” Sandbox Percussion has established themselves as a leading proponent in this generation of contemporary percussion chamber music. Brought together by their love of chamber music and the simple joy of playing together, Sandbox Percussion captivates audiences with performances that are both visually and aurally stunning. This program includes the world premiere of a commission by GU Music Program Prof. David Molk.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE
Friday, April 21 at 1:15 p.m.
Josh Quillen and Kendall Williams, steel pan
Josh Quillen has forged a unique identity in the contemporary music world as all-around percussionist, expert steel drum performer (praised as “softly sophisticated” by the New York Times), and composer. A member of the acclaimed ensemble So Percussion since 2006, Josh has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Lincoln Center Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, and dozens of other venues in the United States. An avid educator, Josh is a performer-in-residence at Princeton University with So Percussion, co-director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and director of the New York University Steel Band. Composer and arranger Kendall Williams was born around the Trinidadian culture and adopted the country’s national instrument, the steel pan. He received a Masters of Music Degree in Music Theory & Composition at NYU Steinhardt, where he also actively participated in the NYU Steel band under the leadership of Artist Faculty member Josh Quillen.
McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING
FREE