Contemporary music with a global cast
The 2017–18 season of the innovative annual performance series MIT Sounding continues to blur the boundaries between contemporary and world music.
Curated by Evan Ziporyn, faculty director of the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), this season of MIT Sounding integrates the avant-garde sounds of ancient instruments and traditional practices with cutting-edge composition and technology to present various visions of a new, evolving music that defies genre.
MIT Sounding is presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology and MIT Music and Theater Arts.
For more information, contact cast@mit.edu
2017-18 MIT Sounding
The Great Clarinet Summit
Friday, May 11, 2018 / 8:00pm
MIT Kresge Auditorium
48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
Watch a video of the performance
This unique event features renowned clarinetists Don Byron, Anat Cohen, Evan Ziporyn, Billy Novick and Eran Egozy along with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble and MIT Wind Ensemble led by Music Director Frederick Harris, Jr. The exciting and eclectic program will include Byron’s Concerto for Clarinet and Wind Ensemble, music for jazz and chamber ensembles featuring the clarinet and a special world premiere of Jamshied Sharifi’s Ornament of the World, a community play-along piece featuring all guest soloists and attending clarinetists of all ages*
*If you are a clarinetist and interested in the community play-along piece, please fill out this form: feel free to email clarinet_summit@mit.edu with any questions.
Read our Student spotlight: Clarinetist Ini Oguntola ‘19
Images: (left to right): Billy Novick. Credit: Denise Maccaferri; Anat Cohen. Credit: Shervin Lainez; Don Byron. Credit: L. Barry Hetherington; Eran Egozy. Credit: Kate Lemmon; Evan Ziporyn. Credit: Andy Ryan.
Suite for Violin and American Gamelan, Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan, At Lou’s Table and the world premiere of By the Numbers
October 12, 2017 / 8:00pm
Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA)
25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA
The ICA and MIT present a centennial celebration of composer Lou Harrison. MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika joins forces with violinist Johnny Gandelsman and pianist Sarah Cahill to present a program of Harrison’s groundbreaking works for gamelan and western instruments, performed on instruments built by the composer and William Colvig and curated by Jody Diamond. The concert will also feature the world premiere of composer and MIT Professor Evan Ziporyn’s By the Numbers, an homage to Harrison for violin and piano.
More information about the concert
Learn more about Johnny Gandelsman and pianist Sarah Cahill.
Image: Composer Lou Harrison playing one of his handmade instruments, 1977.
Stillness Moves
Solo cello workshop performances by Maya Beiser
December 1, 2017: 7:00pm and 9:00pm
December 2, 2017: 6:00pm
MIT Theater Arts Building, W97
345 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA
Cellist Maya Beiser is the Inaugural Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST). The culmination of Beiser’s residency will be a workshop performance of “Three Parts Wisdom,” composed by Glenn Kotche from her album TranceClassical, along with music by Bach and Hildegard Von Bingen.The works are deconstructed and reimagined in a reactive environment where lighting designs by Joshua Higgason of MIT Music & Theater Arts and structural experiments for the body designed by Chromat respond to, and interact with, her music.
Learn more about Maya Beiser.
Image: Maya Beiser performs “Uncovered” during the 2015–6 MIT Sounding Series. Credit: Justin Knight.
Marcus Thompson Faculty Recital
viola & viola d’amore
with Bill Cutter, Elena Ruehr and Evan Ziporyn
February 24, 2018
Pre-show talk with Elena Ruehr / 7:30pm
Concert / 8:00pm
MIT Kresge Auditorium, W16
48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
The 2017-18 Terry and Rick Stone Concert is a Faculty Recital by violist, Marcus Thompson, who was named Institute Professor in June 2015. The evening will include the Boston premiere of the chamber version of Shadow/Light for solo viola and string orchestra, written for Thompson by MIT composer and Lecturer, Elena Ruehr; Vivaldi’s Second Concerto for Viola d’Amore and Strings; Feldman’s Rothko Chapel for soprano, alto, mixed choir, percussion, and solo viola, conducted by Evan Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor and Faculty Director of CAST; and Vaughan Williams’s Flos Campi for solo viola, small wordless chorus, small string orchestra, flute, oboe, bassoon, and harp, conducted by William Cutter, Director of Choral Ensembles.
The program features music for solo viola and viola d’amore, with roots in various contemplative or religious traditions, ancient and modern, through which communities today seek unity and healing. The concert coincides with the anniversary season of Professor Thompson’s recital debut at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on April 4,1968.
Learn more about Marcus Thompson.
Read more about the concert on our blog: A Recital By Violist Marcus Thompson Is A Chance To Reflect On Progress, Both Personal and Political
Boston Musical Intelligencer: Tribute d’Amore
Bay State Banner: Violist’s career forever linked to MLK
All proceeds from the concert will be donated to Artists For Humanity. Founded in 1991, Artists For Humanity’s (AFH) mission is to provide under-resourced urban youth with the keys to self-sufficiency through paid employment in art and design. AFH began with an ambitious and unconventional idea that young people can provide, through their innate talent and vision, marketable creative services to the business community. In 26+ years, AFH has grown to become a leader in youth development and the largest onsite employer of Boston teens, with 250+ youth employed annually in paid apprenticeship in the visual arts and creative industries.