Department of Music Blog

The next event is at Heinz Chapel on Thursday, November 1 at 7 p.m. Titled “Inside the Music Business,” it features Paul Silverthorn of New Jersey Public Television and Radio. Silverthorn is a former manager for Grover Washington Junior.

For a complete schedule of all the events visit the Jazz Seminar Web site.

Judge Magister Drace looms high atop the… Music Building. Or is it… (more…)

Earlier in the month Albany Records released Siren Songs, a collection of song cycles by Eric Moe. The CD includes his latest song cycle on poems by Bill Kushner, & A Warm Hello From the Alien Ant Farm, as well as two older cycles reissued from a now out-of-print Koch CD, Siren Songs and Sonnets to Orpheus. Moe describes the singing, by Rob Frankenberry, Elizabeth Farnum, and Christine Brandes as “amazing.”

Here are some snap shots from two of our October concerts: Heinz Chapel Choir and the Symphony Orchestra.

As a regular part of Heinz Chapel Choir concerts, director John Goldsmith divides the choir into two or three groups and they perform in the round. This photo shows half the choir in the north-facing transept window. The setting is an important part of the event acoustically as well as visually. (more…)

Mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger and Pianist Jeanne Golan are both established international artists individually and a musical tour de force when they combine their talents, as they will on their upcoming concert for Pitt’s Music on the Edge series. Nessinger and Golan’s passion for the song cycle and commitment to fostering contemporary composition has motivated them to collaborate in commissioning new song cycles from American composers. On Monday, November 5, the two will bring their latest collaboration Innocence Lost: the Berg-Debussy Project to Pitt’s Bellefield Hall Auditorium. The concept of the project was to commission leading American composers to write songs inspired by Berg’s Seven Early Songs and Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis. The duo commissioned 10 composers for the project: Tom Cipullo, Sebastian Currier, David Del Tredici, Lee Hyla, Joe Kerr, Jorge Martin, Pitt’s own Eric Moe, Eleanor Sandresky, Anna Weesner and Daniel Rothman. The Nessinger-Golan duo will perform the Berg and Debussy song cycles along with the newly composed companion pieces on Monday, November 5 at 8 p.m. in Bellefield Hall Auditorium. Tickets purchased in advance through ProArts are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors, Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. Service fees apply. Tickets at the door are $15 and $10. Pitt students are admitted free. (more…)

200 women from six different choirs representing five area universities will descend on the University of Pittsburgh campus for a performance at Bellefield Hall Auditorium. Billed as “Women in Song,” the program will feature the Chatham College Choir, Pappert Women’s Chorale (from Duquesne University), Pitt’s Women’s Choral Ensemble, Seton Hill University’s Women’s Chorale, and from Westminster College, the Women’s Chorus and Chamber Ensemble. (more…)

Connections Coffee presents the progressive and philosophical electro/pop/rock music of SACHEM ORENDA.

Saturday October 20th at 7:30 pm

3495 Bates (corner of semple and bates)

On October 27, Pitt’s Music on the Edge will host the Naumburg award-winning Peabody Trio with renowned singer John Shirley-Quirk in a concert that features music by Zhou Long, Maurizio Kagel, Harold Meltzer, and Thierry De Mey. The trio will feature Shirley-Quirk as narrator in Meltzer’s Sindbad and will lean toward the theatrical for De Mey’s Musique de tables. The Peabody will give their innovative program on Saturday, October 27 at 8 p.m. in Pitt’s Bellefield Hall Auditorium. Tickets purchased in advance through ProArts are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors, Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. Service fees apply. Tickets at the door are $15 and $10. Pitt students are admitted free. (more…)

Roger Zahab and the University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will give a concert as part of the Organ Dedication Concert Series at Epiphany Catholic Church in downtown Pittsburgh. The program will feature Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony) and Max Bruch’s Romanze for viola and orchestra. Ayo Ogunranti, a composer and organist currently in graduate studies at Pitt, will perform the organ part for the Saint-Saëns. Pitt Junior Sarah Albani, a double major in music and biology, will be viola soloist for the Bruch. The orchestra’s brass section will perform Garbrieli’s Cazona X and Ogunranti will perform his own solo organ composition Gbe E ga from his organ suite titled Sound His Praise.

The concert takes place on Friday, October 26 at 8 p.m. at Epiphany Catholic Church and is free to the public. Epiphany Catholic Church is located at 1018 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219-3502 (across from Chatham Center). For more information about how the church and the Organ Dedication Concert Series, please call 412-471-0257 or visit www.epiphanychurch.net. (more…)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007 – Bellefield Hall Auditorium

7:30 Saint-Saens -full orchestra from the beginning
8:50 Gabrieli Canzona X (brass)
9:00 Bruch – Romance for viola and orchestra (including winds as assigned below) (more…)