Sun

9/12/2010

7:30pm

Classical

‘Old Burying Ground’ CD Release Party

Original work by Evan Chambers

• $10 General Admission
• $5 Student
• $ Free admission with CD or CD purchase

• Evan Chambers, composer/singer
• Midori Koga, piano
• Thomas Lynch, poet
• Keith Taylor, poet

Event Details

“The piece is folk-inspired classical done really really, really right. I hear it as half-way between Rite of Spring and Appalachian Spring.” -Tim Eriksen

Join us to celebrate the CD release of Evan Chambers’ orchestral song-cycle “The Old Burying Ground,” recorded by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kenneth Kiesler. This memorable and moving work features musical settings of centuries-old epitaphs from two New England cemeteries, interspersed with newly commissioned poems by five internationally known poets. In this performance, Chambers and Canadian pianist Midori Koga present selections from “The Old Burying Ground” and other new music, while award-winning poets Thomas Lynch and Keith Taylor read from their work. U of M Director of Orchestras Kenneth Kiesler will make a special guest appearance. A CD signing will follow the performance.

Evan Chambers

Evan Chambers (b.1963) writes music that captures the energy and physicality of folk performance, translating it into the language of contemporary classical idioms. His compositions bear the stamp of his family’s participation in the American folk revival and an early exposure to the edginess and immediacy of community music-making. The result is a new music that honors traditional roots as diverse as Albanian polyphony, Sufi Qawwali music, Sacred Harp singing, Irish dance tunes and American polkas. His works have been described by the Washington Post as “luminous, wistful…undeniably poignant” “with an elegant sense of restrained longing.” Chambers is known for his intense vocal performances of his own works, and is also an avid Irish-traditional fiddler, appearing as a soloist in Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra in 2008. He won first prize in the Cincinnati Symphony Composers’ Competition, and was awarded the Walter Beeler Composition Prize by Ithaca College. His work has been recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the International Luigi Russolo Competition, Vienna Modern Masters, and the American Composers Forum. His works have been performed by the Cincinnati, Kansas City, Spokane, Memphis, New Hampshire, and Albany Symphonies, among others. He serves as Chair of Composition at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where lives with his wife and daughter in an old house next to a cemetery.

Midori Koga

Midori Koga has been featured as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist in music festivals throughout the world, including the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, Mozarteum Sommerakademie Festspiel in Salzburg, Austria, the Al Fresno New Music Festival, the Johannesen International Festival of the Arts in British Columbia, the World Saxophone Congress in Valencia, Spain, and the International Computer Music Festival. Koga is a prize-winner in national competitions including the Concours de Musique du Canada, and the National Graduate Artist Competition at St. Mary's College-Notre Dame. Currently Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Toronto, Koga commissions, performs and records new works with the ensemble Quorum and as a member of the piano duo 2X10.

Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch is the author of three collections of poems and three books of essays. A book of stories, “Apparition & Late Fictions,” and a new collection of poems, “Walking Papers,” will be published in 2010. His work has been the subject of two film documentaries. PBS Frontline’s ‘The Undertaking,’ aired nationwide in 2007, won the 2008 Emmy Award for Arts and Culture Documentary. Cathal Black’s film, “Learning Gravity,” produced for the BBC, was featured at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival and the 6th Traverse City Film Festival in 2009 where Michael Moore awarded it the Michigan Prize. Lynch’s essays, poems and stories have appeared in The Atlantic and Granta, The New York Times and Times of London, The New Yorker and Paris Review and elsewhere. He lives in Milford, Michigan where he has been the funeral director since 1974, and in Moveen, Co. Clare, Ireland where he keeps an ancestral cottage.

Keith Taylor

Poet and writer Keith Taylor coordinates undergraduate creative writing at the University of Michigan and formerly managed Shaman Drum, a leading independent bookstore. He directs the Bear River Writer’s Conference and works as an editorial consultant to Dzanc Books. He has published eleven volumes: collections of poetry and short fiction, edited volumes, and translations. His work has appeared in such publications as Story, The Los Angeles Times, Alternative Press, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, The Iowa Review, Witness, Chicago Tribune, and Hanging Loose. His most recent book, “If the World Becomes So Bright,” was published in 2009 by Wayne State University Press. Recently, he contributed an entry on Ernest Hemingway to “A New Literary History of America” published by Harvard University Press.